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Comment by xwowsersx | Hacker News Reader

I'm having a lot of trouble with getting fonts to look clear and unfuzzy on my M1 Pro with a new LG 38WN95C-W 38" 21:9 (3840 x 1600) monitor I just bought. It's driving me nuts. I've tried different picture settings on the monitor, with and without HDR, tried different resolutions, tried every possible value of `defaults -currentHost write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int ${n}` but no dice.

Anyone have any ideas what I can do to resolve?

Machine details below:

   Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: macOS 12.6 (21G115)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 21.6.0
      Boot Volume: Macintosh HD
      Boot Mode: Normal
      Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
      System Integrity Protection: Enabled
      Time since boot: 4:14

Hardware:

    Hardware Overview:

      Model Name: MacBook Pro
      Model Identifier: MacBookPro18,1
      Chip: Apple M1 Pro
      Total Number of Cores: 10 (8 performance and 2 efficiency)
      Memory: 32 GB
      System Firmware Version: 7459.141.1
      OS Loader Version: 7459.141.1

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Are you sure you're running the monitor at its native resolution and not scaled? And do they provide a display profile that you can load?

Edit: This post would indicate that it's a bug in the interaction between the Mac and the monitor and is not fixed: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/fuzzy-text-with-lg-38wn...

I am pretty sure I'm running it at the native resolution and not scaled, yes. At least, I'm pretty sure:

   > system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType | grep Resolution
             Resolution: 3840 x 1600 (Ultra-wide 4K)

And ah dang, thanks for the link. Someone there mentioned that getting a higher PPI monitor could help and might be the only way to get HiDPI modes. I did notice when I used switchResX for a bit that the HiDPI mode was greyed out and unavailable. Guess I'm going to have to return this monitor :(

BetterDisplay can get you supersampling on <4K monitors. I run a 4K monitor as my main display that did this out of the box with macOS, but I have side 1440p monitors that didn't. This fixed it: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay

Try this https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/comments/sve8jf...

* Is the monitor running in RGB or YPbPr? With M1 Macs some monitors are getting forced into YPbPr mode and fonts look worse because of it. (https://gist.github.com/GetVladimir/c89a26df1806001543bef4c8...)

* Remember to log out and log back in after you set font smoothing to 0. For me, this tweak helped a lot with clarity but I initially didn't think it was working because I didn't know you had to log out.

* In general I've found Macs just suck at DPI scaling. If I'm not mistaken, your monitor is around 109 PPI, which isn't really that high compared to the internal screen (~250ppi), and firmly in the "non-Retina" UI elements zone. Check out these blog posts (https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/, part 2: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/) for more info on how this stuff works.

Imagine my surprise when I found out my 27" 4K screens that look incredibly sharp on Windows at 163ppi are actually in the "bad zone" for Macs, and look bad at native resolution. As a workaround I run them scaled @ 3360 x 1890 and then set my browser to permanent 90% zoom level. Kind of embarrassing that Windows has completely lapped Apple in terms of good sharp UI at flexible scaling levels. I mean you can set Windows DPI scaling down the single % point, it's great.

As someone who is dealing with this problem (27" 1440p monitor), I read that macOS renders the whole screen as a whole, instead of having a separate path for text. And there is a threshold PPI before it uses 2x assets. I had to use either a blurred rendering for bigger UI elements or the sharp, but small, representation at the native resolution. BetterDisplay[0] helped by tricking the OS to use the 2x assets at a smaller resolution. Still not as clear as my MBA's screen.

[0]: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay

> Is the monitor running in RGB or YPbPr?

I am not sure...? How can I find out? Thanks for that gist, I'll look into it after checking whether BetterDisplay resolves my issues as another commenter pointed me to.

> Remember to log out and log back in after you set font smoothing to 0

Hehe yeah. I have actually been operating under the assumption that I needed a full restart, which I have done several times :P (though this isn't so bad since the machine starts pretty dang quick).

> In general I've found Macs just suck at DPI scaling

I'm learning this :( It's very frustrating and disappointing.

Followed along with the video to Force RGB Color on M1 Mac, but seems I already had PixelEncoding set to 0 in com.apple.windowserver.displays.plist

Those posts were helpful, thanks. From their table that lists the various displays[0], it seems like two smaller displays are more likely to work well vs a larger display — 25 - 29 inch rather than the 38" I have.

Are there truly no displays in the 30"+ category that are good for retina?

[0]:https://bjango.com/images/articles/macexternaldisplays/displ...

EDIT: I'm seriously wondering whether I ought to just get the Studio Display. It's $1,599 (or $1,899) which is not that much more than I spent on the LG (~$1,160)

You could also check out the ultrawides from Dell/LG that have 2160 vertical res. They're $1500-$2000 from what I recall and will help with sharper text The PPI will be closer to what a standard 16:9 4k offers, and though won't be as good as the studio display @ 5k, debatable whether that matters at desktop viewing distance.

Personally I won't be upgrading from my 2x 27" 4k displays until

* I can get 2x 27" 4k with 144hz+ at a reasonable price

* I can get an ultrawide that matches the PPI and is just effectively 2x screen space

* 5k+ gets cheaper/commonplace

Thanks a lot. This makes sense. It's really too bad because ultrawide screen was kind of a game changer to me in terms of productivity. I'm not even sure why it's served me so much better than using dual monitors. It does seem I will need to consider going to back to dual screens.

Thanks. So I went out and picked up a Studio Display. It's a big downgrade in terms of size obviously, but text is extremely sharp and colors are great. Beyond that, it's more tidy on my desk with the great stand and I can get rid of my external speakers because the built-in speakers are pretty dang good. We'll see how this feels.

Thanks again for the replies.

Nice, glad to hear you're enjoying it, maybe I'll look into one myself.

I replied in a child comment too, but to put this on the original. BetterDisplay can fix this: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay#fully-scalable-hi...

Thanks so much. I'll give that a try. I tried switchResX and easyres without much luck. Giving this one a try soon

I followed those steps in the link you provided and played around with other resolutions and configurations as well, but still no dice. Everything is so fuzzy, I'm beginning to get a headache :(

I don't know if I have the same display (it is also 21:9, in any case) but one issue I found is when I'm in some "gaming mode", I get ugly font rendering. It looks great if I switch to "user mode", but I don't know exactly what is different.

This is all configured in the display's own settings, not in the OS.

Upgrading to Ventura and resetting resolved the issue for me. I had previously been using the beta version due to this issue. The better display app did not resolve the issue for me, and there are other known issues with external monitors on Ventura that you may encounter.

Oh wow, I was going to ask about this. Thank you!

What do you mean by "reset" exactly? You mean any and all display changes I've made?

I wiped it clean during installation so no previous settings.

The HDPI icon pop ups automatically on ventura in display settings.

I would also change the cable and try a different one if that doesn't work. Sometimes the DP cable end up causing issues with monitor recognition.

Got it, thank you. Unfortunately I'm not in a position to do a clean install at this moment without some interruption to my work, but I'll try that later if I need to.

Upgraded to Ventura, but didn't help display issues unfortunately. I've got a thunderbolt cable that came with the monitor. I've tried that as well as two different HDMI cables. My MBP doesn't have a DP input. Is it worth trying DP with a DP to USB-C adapter? I may have one laying around somewhere.

> Is it worth trying DP with a DP to USB-C adapter?

No. I meant if you have a DP to USB type C cable, you may switch to see if issue resolved.

Try plugging it in and out a few times (yes, it worked for me when it went back to not recognizing).

I have the same mac but a different 4K monitor. Sadly, I don't know any other solution.

Macbook display and scaling handling on external monitors is one of the worst I have experienced by a long margin so know you are not alone.

Switch to Linux, which has actual subpixel AA, unlike macOS and increasingly Windows.

I mainline NixOS, but sometimes switching to Linux is... just not an option unfortunately. It's sad tbh that macOS dropped subpixel AA

How is the monitor connected? USB-C/DisplayPort or HDMI?

I have tried the Thunderbolt cable as well as the HDMI cable (which seems to limit the resolution and refresh rate) that the monitor came with. The Macbook Pro doesn't have a DisplayPort input. The monitor did come with a DP cable. Should I try a DP to USB-C converter? Is there any reason that would work better than TB?

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