Text loses sharpness at higher resolutions

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4 points

Text loses sharpness at higher resolutions

Hello!

I am new to the MacOS (14.5). I just bought a MacBook 14 PRO M2.

The usual resolutions that you can find in the list for the display, make things q bit big for my taste. However, if I choose any resolution that you find in the extended list (Displays > Show resolutions as list > Show all resolutions), the text loses a lot of sharpness. I have taken 2 screenshots of Finder, and zoomed in (probably the scales are not the same, but the difference is fairly obvious):

1800 x 1169 (defaults list)

2048 x 1330 (extended list)

As you can see, in the first screenshot I can zoom in much more before I lose sharpness.

Is there any way to fix this? Or, at least, an explanation for why this is happening?

P.S.: It happens the same at the native resolution of the screen, which seems a bit weird.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.5

Posted on May 17, 2024 6:47 AM

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Answer 1

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bodo007 Author

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4 points

May 20, 2024 5:14 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I managed to find out what is happening, but I don't think there is a solution.

The issue is the same as what is happening to external displays connected to Macs. There are some resolutions called 'HiDPI'. And it's the same for the built-in display. Every other resolution between 'More space' and native (included) is not going to be HiDPI.

So, I guess the only way to avoid losing sharpness is sticking to one of the default resolutions, the ones shown in your screenshot.

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Answer 2

May 20, 2024 7:19 AM in response to bodo007

on older macOS there was a way to hack some settings to get to think it was a HiDPI display, which opened up additional options like 'larger text'. It sounds like that does not work any more.

Readers have suggested BetterDisplay (available on GitHub, free) having some improvements that could work for this issue in modern MacOS.

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Answer 3

May 17, 2024 9:02 AM in response to bodo007

ProMotion is NOT related to fuzziness, it's just another thing I noticed and commented on.

Please select the highest or native resolution in the 'show all resolutions' list and see if any scaled options are shown once you do that.

posting a screenshot would be helpful

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Answer 4

May 17, 2024 8:29 AM in response to bodo007

the way you are expected to use that and any other very high resolution display is to choose native resolution for the display. this will allow all graphics (including stuff like what you posted, which IS a graphic) to be shown at full native relation of the display, and not go pixelated/fuzzy on you.

to get readable TEXT (and this applies ONLY to TEXT) you choose one of the Scaled options to go larger/smaller:

...

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Answer 5

bodo007 Author

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4 points

May 20, 2024 7:25 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Well, I used 2 apps like that, this is actually how I found out that the other resolutions are not considered HiDPI.

However, I’m a noob, and I really didn’t see any way of tweaking it such that the other resolutions are HiDPI. And if it’s just a matter of scaling, then it makes sense that only resolutions lower than a certain threshold will have the required DPI for macOS.

No idea, on Windows this issue doesn’t exist.

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Answer 6

May 17, 2024 8:45 AM in response to bodo007

do you get scaled choices when you enable "show all resolutions". ??

... also ProMotion refresh rate allows the refresh rate to 'float'. Refresh rate may go higher when needed, but it can also go much LOWER, which some users report causes eyestrain. Fixed 60 Hz recommended in most cases.

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Answer 7

bodo007 Author

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4 points

May 17, 2024 8:50 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

No, I don't get the kind of options you show in the screenshot. I just inferred it from the warning that I get. By clicking on 'Show all resolutions' I just get more resolution options.

As for the refresh rate, I always keep it in ProMotion, so it wouldn't make sense to misbehave for another resolution. Indeed, I tried to manually keep it at 60 Hz now, and the text still gets fuzzy if I increase the resolution.

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Answer 8

bodo007 Author

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4 points

May 17, 2024 9:15 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Nope, the list just gets extended.

And this is how text looks around the OS:

Still fuzzy. Although, I would say it looks better than any resolution in between native and default. But not as good as default.

And I understand that a lot of people are having similar issues, but with external displays.

Anyway, I don't understand why this would be happening. Especially in Finder or other Apple apps.

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Answer 9

May 17, 2024 11:22 AM in response to bodo007

We need to have a side discussion about why that gets grainy.

When you make a screenshot, formerly resizable text is converted entirely to a picture-of-text, and is no longer a distinct scaleable object that will maintain its crisp edges. When you Zoom in on a picture, the further you zoom in, the grainier the edges of everything will be shown on screen, because more information is simply not present in the picture to smooth out the defects.

If you zoom in on a PDF, the TEXT in that document is generally maintained as a TEXT object, and remains scaleable at very high zoom levels.

So it's not really surprising that your screenshots get grainy when zoomed in.

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Answer 10

bodo007 Author

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4 points

May 17, 2024 11:21 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

No, I know that. I am not a moron. I was trying to showcase what's happening. My problem is not with the graininess of the screenshot.

On my screen the text looks off when I go to higher resolutions. And then I had this idea of taking a screenshot to see. And in the first one that I posted, You can see that in the default resolution the screenshot is zoomed even further than the second one, and it still doesn't look grainy. Which is exactly what I wanted to capture.

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Answer 11

May 20, 2024 8:05 AM in response to bodo007

If you can live with the grainy-ness for awhile, until you get more familiar with your Mac, you may want to revisit this later.

from BetterDisplay GitHub web site:

MacOS scaling, HiDPI, LoDPI explanation

.

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Answer 12

May 30, 2024 3:27 PM in response to bodo007

Since Sonoma 14.5 I am missing the 1800 x 1169 resolution in the list for 14" Pro M3 and nobody is talking about. I want it back. I am now using 2048x1330, which is kind of nice, but not as sharp and the notch still sucks..

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Answer 13

bodo007 Author

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4 points

May 17, 2024 8:35 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I don't see such an option in my version of OS. However, I get a performance warning about scaling resolutions, so, by default, it might be what you are talking about?

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Text loses sharpness at higher resolutions

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