Phil2003

Q: External monitor = blurry fonts

Hi,

 

Im quite satisfied with my first OSX product, a macbook pro 13". But i want to use it mainly with my 27" external Samsung LCD, which is

quite frustrating as the fonts are totaly blurry compared to Win7.

 

Things of interest:

 

Macbook Pro 13" Mid 2012

OSX = Montain Lion 10.8.2

Adapter: Official Apple Adapter mini-dvi -> HDMI

Ext.Monitor resolution: 1920x1080 native

Tried changing the fonts with Tinkertool

Tried changing the font smoothing via System settings and Tinkertool

Tried changing my monitors settings (AV/PC, sharpness, etc)

 

On the macbook everything looks fine.

 

Any hint?

 

Thanks

Phil

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Sep 20, 2012 6:21 AM

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Q: External monitor = blurry fonts

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  • by lunard,

    lunard lunard Aug 18, 2014 2:38 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 2:38 PM in response to Eric Root

    Hello to everyone, I really don't understand if I have a similar problem than yours..but sure, the external monitor works great on the Parallel machine (Win 8.1).

    Here an example how a page differs if I use Safari on the Guest machine (MBP 15 retina late 2013) vs Parallel (Win 8.1)

     

    I tried the script mentioned in this thread, but no way to improve the visualization.

    (the filed TV:Yes has been disappear)

     

    Someone could tel me if this is your same problem?

     

    MBP

    MBP_Retina_low_performance_with_external_displays___Apple_Support_Communities.png

     

    Win 8.1 (Parallel)

    Windows_8_1.png

  • by Redchicken43,

    Redchicken43 Redchicken43 Aug 27, 2014 1:19 PM in response to Phil2003
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 27, 2014 1:19 PM in response to Phil2003

    A couple of days ago I went out and bought a HP Pavillion 23xi to use as a second screen connected to my Late 2012 iMac and was pretty annoyed when I plugged it in as the fonts were pretty badly defined, which brought to me to this forum and was even more frustrated when I saw it seemed to be a common problem. Its connected via HDMI to the Thunderbolt connector.

     

    However, after playing around with the settings on the monitor I found settings called Dynamic Contrast Ratio and another called Custom Scaling which I turned off and its has solved my problem.

     

    The results are now brilliant and the problem has gone away.

     

    I know that this won't solve every bodies issues, but if you have a recent HP monitor then this might solve your problem.

  • by sweejin,

    sweejin sweejin Oct 2, 2014 7:08 AM in response to aron77
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 2, 2014 7:08 AM in response to aron77

    Many thanks aron77!

     

    I just received my new Dell U2413, and was really puzzled as to why the display, images and fonts were all blurry, not sharp and of focussed. I wondered if it was due to the inherent faulty display (which was very unlikely), or the really cheap HDMI cable I had used to connect my Dell U2413 to my CalDigit Thunderbolt Dock, or even the faulty HDMI port on the CalDigit HDMI port itself.

     

    A search online showed it's a problem with nearly all MacBooks connecting to a non-Apple external monitor.

     

    Your link really solved the problem!

  • by cagdasalagoz,

    cagdasalagoz cagdasalagoz Dec 11, 2014 8:29 AM in response to aron77
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 11, 2014 8:29 AM in response to aron77

    Well i am using Yosemite 10.10.1 and there is no Displays folder under the library. I am really confused about where should i put this file... Does any body have the issue for Yosemite?

  • by Atedos,

    Atedos Atedos Dec 17, 2014 2:30 PM in response to cagdasalagoz
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 17, 2014 2:30 PM in response to cagdasalagoz

    cagdasalagoz wrote:

     

    Well i am using Yosemite 10.10.1 and there is no Displays folder under the library. I am really confused about where should i put this file... Does any body have the issue for Yosemite?

    I actually have the same issue on the latest version of OS.

  • by cagdasalagoz,

    cagdasalagoz cagdasalagoz Dec 28, 2014 1:54 PM in response to Phil2003
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 28, 2014 1:54 PM in response to Phil2003

    I have a MBP Retina Late 2014 and a Display Dell U2414H. I connect my MBP via displayport. But i have really bad text quality too. My other pc laptop looks very nice. But MBP doesnt know how to write a 24" display.

  • by Shrizzle,

    Shrizzle Shrizzle Dec 28, 2014 8:46 PM in response to Redchicken43
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Dec 28, 2014 8:46 PM in response to Redchicken43

    Thanks a lot Redchicken43. This helped me with my HP monitor.

  • by cnokes,

    cnokes cnokes Jan 6, 2015 4:16 PM in response to Phil2003
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 6, 2015 4:16 PM in response to Phil2003

    I testify that aron77's answer that refers you to this link (http://www.ireckon.net/2013/03/force-rgb-mode-in-mac-os-x-to-fix-the-picture-qua lity-of-an-external-monitor) is true and works for me.

  • by Jeff Brewer,

    Jeff Brewer Jeff Brewer Mar 27, 2015 5:13 PM in response to cnokes
    Level 1 (85 points)
    Mar 27, 2015 5:13 PM in response to cnokes

    ASUS MX279 monitors. Same issue as everyone else, and no solution yet. Very disappointed as I've spent a lot of money trying to get a nice docking situation up and running.

  • by OceanMon,

    OceanMon OceanMon Apr 6, 2015 1:40 PM in response to james154
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 6, 2015 1:40 PM in response to james154

    James' post worked for me.  I have an HP monitor.

     

    I went to display preferences and turned off underscanning.  Then I went to my monitor and turned off overscanning.  Take your time to explore all options in your monitor.  It is there...

  • by Sahandyman,

    Sahandyman Sahandyman Apr 26, 2015 11:32 AM in response to Phil2003
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 26, 2015 11:32 AM in response to Phil2003

    I also had a similar issue. But I am trying to connect my Macbook pro retina display (late 2012 built; running maverick) to an external monitor and use it as a home desktop (so, I don't need to have the MBP screen on! However I include a solution for that as well!). So, after reading articles after articles, and doing everything possible to my monitor and MBP I was able to fix my issue and now I get amazing resolution and picture quality with my ASUS VS238H-P.

    So these are the things I did:

    Disclaimer: I am not an engineer or a computer geek so what I write here is from a layman terminology, so don't get offended if I'm not completely accurate in my descriptions.

    1. Unlike what have been suggested by many people in this thread, you DON'T need to use/buy any cable other that HDMI. If you already have one of those good, if not, don't waste your money. This works with all any connection your laptop has.

    2a. If you are like me and don't need to have your laptop open (aka. have a mouse/trackpad and keyboard connected to your laptop), Close the lid of the laptop when you connect your external monitor. This action tells the mac that you are solely using your external monitor and that way it adjusts only to the external monitor's aspect ratio and settings.

    2b. If you need to have access to your laptop keyboard/trackpad and want to keep it open, mac OS only gives you the option for "Mirror display". What's annoying about this is that your MBP wants to have it's internal display looking the best at all times, so it stretches/shrinks images and texts accordingly on the other monitor when it adjust it to it's aspect ratio. This is one of many reasons when you connect an external monitor, you get a poor image quality if you choose to optimize the displays for your external monitor. So to fix this issue, go to Display (System Preferences/Displays/Display) and choose "optimized for:" built in display (Ex: in my case, Optimized for: Built-in Retina Display). With this option, your external monitor might have some black edges on the sides (because you are not using it's full aspect ratio) but the texts/images are much more crisp because they don't lose their native aspect ratio (ex:shrink/expand) to fit the external monitors'.

    3. I also suggest turning off the "Use LCD font smoothing when available" (System Preferences/General @bottom of the page). This will give you a better text quality when using external monitors.

    4. Most importantly, check out these links:

    a. http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/107846/how-to-enable-hidpi-mode-on-exte rnal-display-in-os-x-10-9-mavericks

    b. http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/vi9yf/set_your_retina_macbook_pros_resolu tion_to

    All the credit goes to these guys! Long story short, the issue is that when you connect a monitor to your MBP, in Displays you only couple of generic options for "Resolution" which are mainly meant for the internal MBP monitors, most of which aren't even close to what you need to have a good picture/text quality on an external monitor. You can increase the number of available resolutions by pressing Option (aka. alt) and then clicking on scaled in (System Preferences/Displays/Display). This was all great news until I stumbled upon the these articles and discovered HiDPI. This is the setting that your retina display uses and by using the correct resolution in HiDPI mode you can make the quality of your external monitor as good as a retina display (that is if your monitor has the capacity which most newer ones do!). So, follow the Reddit article and download the RDM. Then choose an HiDPI resolution that best suits your monitor (ex: I like bigger icons/texts so I'm using 1280 x 720 HiDPI and am loving it!). This will fix all the issues that you will have with bad image quality.

     

    Good luck.

  • by AileenBai,

    AileenBai AileenBai Apr 27, 2015 12:07 PM in response to Phil2003
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 27, 2015 12:07 PM in response to Phil2003

    Had the same issue here using iMac

     

    I connected two Dell monitors of different models to it and one works perfect while the other having the blurry text.

    Tried the patch-edid.rb solution and everything else I could find but did not quite help.

    One day I disconnected the perfect one and reconnected the other using the same cord it suddenly turned out to be perfect as well. Still no idea what happened but it worked.

  • by SPMacguy,

    SPMacguy SPMacguy May 16, 2015 1:02 PM in response to Sahandyman
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 16, 2015 1:02 PM in response to Sahandyman

    Solution 2 was the key for me - now I have a monitor with font/icon size slightly too big, but great clear letters. Thanks to you and developer of RDM!

  • by Bon0,

    Bon0 Bon0 Jul 7, 2015 7:30 AM in response to Redchicken43
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 7, 2015 7:30 AM in response to Redchicken43

    Thank you a lot for this info. I highly recommend other users also to check their monitor settings that display does not try to scale picture automatically. I believe this is the reason in many situations..

  • by D-ster,

    D-ster D-ster Jul 18, 2015 5:52 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 18, 2015 5:52 PM in response to Eric Root

    Just sent Apple feedback and a link to this thread. It is unbelievable & unacceptable that this is still a problem in July 2015 (OSX Yosemite on a MBP 13" w/ Retina). If I wanted to type command line instructions, I would have stayed with Windows. Looks like I have to go back Windows to use Excel on dual monitors. Bummer.

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