MacBook Pro M4 support of 5K displays (LG, maybe Studio display)

It happened that I have both LG 5K and Studio Display.

However, I did not see what you described. (By the way, this is user's support forum - Apple will not read your comment/request ...etc. here.)

The only thing I can think of - LG website still has the support page for its 5K monitor.

I did go into LG website and noticed "firmware" update for LG 5K monitor.

It might worth to explore that route.

Apple Studio Display will update its firmware automatically (in the background).

Best

morired216 wrote:

1. Just got a new MacBook Pro, 16" with M4 Pro chip, hooked it up to my LG 5K, and it just doesn't pop like it did when connected to the 2019 MBP 16" I am replacing. I had noticed the resolutions that I've normally used for the 5K are no longer available. Reported to Apple, but I think I have found the root cause.

Looking at Settings->General->System Report->Resolution shows the resolution as 6400 x 3600, some weird 6K that is not at all what the display supports...so I believe the Mac then proceeds to scale to the resolutions I can choose, and all look bad since the starting point is just bad. Nothing is an increment of what the display supports.

On the 2019 model, it shows 6720 x 3780, (Dunno why it's not 5120x2880...but it looks great!) Also does not show some of the Mac-specific features like auto brightness...I think it just isn't finding the right driver for this specific display.

Just as background …

If you are in a Retina mode, I believe the "Resolution" you will see in System Report / System Information is that of the internal drawing canvas.

I'm guessing that your 2019 MBP was running the LG 5K display in Retina "like 3360x1890" mode, with an internal drawing canvas that had a resolution of 6720x3780 pixels. My M1 Max Mac Studio offers this mode as one of the choices for a 27" 4K display (though things in this mode are so small as to cause eye strain).

Your 16" M4 Pro MBP presumably is running in Retina "like 3200x1800" mode, given that the drawing canvas has 6400x3600 pixels. I don't see this choice on my system unless I go into Display Settings, tell the control panel to display resolutions as a list, then tell it to display all resolutions.

A 32" Apple 6K Pro Display XDR has a native resolution of 6016x3384 pixels – and Retina "like 3308x1692" mode would result in a drawing canvas with exactly 6016x3384 pixels.