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Using Apple Studio Display at native resolution
- Thread starter sahajesh
- Start date
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Yes but “too tiny for everyday use” is subjective.
I’ll try it myself in the Apple Store, just realised I can do that.
Yep, you’re right, it’s subjective so definitely something for me to try myself.
Hmm... subjective for a 4k @ 27" display, maybe, but on a 5k display I'm gonna go out on a limb and say "almost unusable". It's not really just the text - its the physical size of icons, scrollbars (if you still use 'em) that you have to hit with the mouse/trackpad. When I tried 'native' res on my 5k iMac it was very, very fiddly.
Even in regular "looks like 2560x1440*"/"best for display" mode, the "double size" UI is pretty compact and doesn't really squander screen space.
Why would you want to use "native" mode?
Remember that the "2560x1440*" figure in Display Settings is deeply misleading for a "retina" mode. Unless you choose a non-integer-scaled* ('may affect performance') or jump through hoops to get a "low res" mode, you're always looking at a native resolution 5k/220ppi image - the only real difference between default and what you call "native" mode is the size of buttons, system fonts and default UI elements. It won't make any difference to how accurately modern apps display content - although it may change your preferred zoom/font size setting. Only ancient, pre-retina (or lazily updated) software gets "pixel doubled" and may look fuzzy in "default" mode (but will probably be unusably small in "native" mode).
* I know they were trying to make things easy, but Apple really dropped the ball on the way they describe their screen modes. "2560x1440" is not 2560 pixels x 1440 pixels, apparently "scaled" now means "anything that is not our chosen default" - and the non-integer scaled modes which do have (mostly minor) issues are lumped in with these.
I don't have ASD, but XDR. It can run 1:1 non-Retina mode (see 6016 x 3384 res below), but this is almost unusable as mentioned above.
Actually "native" here is 3008 x 1692 (2560 x 1440 for ASD) - the picture is still rendered pixel to pixel perfectly, but the UI size is usable.
I tried native 5K on the Apple Store and it was horrendous - the best I can do is the least space or whatever it’s called (highest res you can choose in the scaled section).
Currently I have a 3440x1440 (WQHD) and it’s blurry and I squint to read the screen clearly, hence wanting to use the ASD for a sharper display.
Ideally I’d want a larger screen size but the ProDisplay is way too much.
I don’t understand (I’ll be honest) how Apple did their resolutions so it’s confusing.
I did take my own laptop to plug into the ASD as well and arranged windows.
I think I’d need to use it to see how it works - it may be a sharper version of what I have.
I’ll have a think.
Currently I have a 3440x1440 (WQHD) and it’s blurry and I squint to read the screen clearly, hence wanting to use the ASD for a sharper display.
Ideally I’d want a larger screen size but the ProDisplay is way too much.
I don’t understand (I’ll be honest) how Apple did their resolutions so it’s confusing.
I did take my own laptop to plug into the ASD as well and arranged windows.
I think I’d need to use it to see how it works - it may be a sharper version of what I have.
I’ll have a think.
Apple's way for resolution is pretty easy - 110 ppi for non-Retina screens and 220 ppi (2x more) for Retina (except lates MBPs) - to keep physical size of UI elements the same. These ppi's are best for desktop UI, anything lower or higher is worse.
As I understand you prefer smaller UI elements to Apple's gold standard, so there're not so much options. The only way here to get a normal looking UI is going to screen with approx. 160 ppi and large enough to set interface to non-Retina mode (1x) to prevent non-integer scaling. That could be any 27" 4K screen, actually.
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Split the difference. I run 32” at full native 3840x2160 resolution. My display is not as pretty as an Apple display, but an excellent compromise for the additional screen real estate.
If you don’t like the size of the UI, the looks like 3008x1692 scaled resolution looks very good too. Note on browsers and text heavy apps, I bump the zoom or font size a bit to make things more readable when I lean back in my desk chair.
If you don’t like the size of the UI, the looks like 3008x1692 scaled resolution looks very good too. Note on browsers and text heavy apps, I bump the zoom or font size a bit to make things more readable when I lean back in my desk chair.
I'm old school - the resolution is the resolution and you picked the resolution of the panel and not a variant of that.
The ASD has a 5K panel but the default is something like half that. I guess my confusion comes from pixel density which was never a thing in the old days!
My current screen is UWQHD (3440x1440) and I really want something at least a good as that (resolution wise) but with sharp text.
I guess any kind of Apple display will meet the latter but not the former (based on the reply from @etc above). I've become used to (ultra) widescreen display since COVID and working from home, plus when I do go in the office, they have ultra-wide monitors there as well.
I do get annoyed by blurry text though, so maybe I need to re-adjust my priorities and decide if the Apple monitors are what I want.
The default is "looks like" half that. It uses 2560x1440 "layout pixels", where each layout pixel is rendered with 2x2 actual pixels. That's what retina is all about.
The problem is that Apple didn't build true resolution independence, they only natively support @1x (old-school) and @2x (retina) and fake everything else.
Which wouldn't be half as bad if there were a greater choice of 220ppi retina displays. As it stands there still many old-school 110ppi displays, and a lot of in-between ones.
Yes, that would be because it is confusing - don't blame yourself!
Just to be clear the default (2:1) mode for the ASD takes advantage of the full 5120x2880 resolution of the panel and - unless you are running ancient pre-retina software - everything will be as perfectly sharp as a 5k display can be, and most modern apps are designed for that mode. If you want to go down the rabbit hole of why Apple calls it "looks like 2560x1440" (and they've now dropped the 'looks like' just to make things more confusing) have fun - several people have tried to explain it here - but otherwise be confident that you won't be wasting 3/4 of the pixels on your expensive 5k display.
The various "intermediate" modes give you more options for the system font/control size but the way they are implemented means that they're not quite pixel perfect and place a bit more load on the GPU (if you've got a reasonably powerful, modern Mac that's not usually a problem). They're still much higher definition than the "looks like" resolutions that Apple uses to describe them, though.
If you want to save cash and get a 4k 27" display, its similar but there's a bit of a complication:
In "looks like 1920x1080" mode on 4k, everything is "4k sharp" (not qute as sharp as 5k, but pretty good) but - on a 27" or larger display - system fonts, controls etc. start to occupy rather a lot of screen space. On the other hand "native 4k/1:1/looks like 3840x2160") is not as tiny as native 5k and is just about usable for young eyeballs. So you may end up preferring one of the "intermediate" modes which, again, aren't quite "pixel perfect" and put more load on the GPU. They will still be clearer than your 1440p display, though!
Those issues are real, but certain web/YouTube articles exaggerate the issue and will leave you convinced that a 4k display on a Mac will make your eyes bleed.
I went down the rabbit hole with the help of a couple of ATP podcast episodes and a Talk Show one.
ASD will be with me on Tuesday.
Thanks to all who replied here 👍
ASD will be with me on Tuesday.
Thanks to all who replied here 👍
Why on earth do you want to use native resolution, that will be small as hell. Even 4K native is too small. Native 4K only works on big TV's.
Just use regular resolution of the Apple Studio Display. If that is "too big" for you, you can play around and scale it to a higher resolution. But native 5K is out of the question unless you have an eagle as a pet and it knows how to use a computer.
Just use regular resolution of the Apple Studio Display. If that is "too big" for you, you can play around and scale it to a higher resolution. But native 5K is out of the question unless you have an eagle as a pet and it knows how to use a computer.
Agreed. There's no way I could use it like that for any length of time. Occasionally I'll switch from 2560x1440 mode to 2880x1620 mode. It's good for extra space when needed but things don't get too, too small. But my older eyes prefer the 2560x1440 mode.