3440 x 1440 blurry on MacBook Pro

… same experience on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15", Late 2013) 10.10.2 (14C109).

I tried

1) Another Thunderbolt Cable

2) Connecting via HDMI, etc.

3) Playing around with the sharpening options in OS X

The display always prompted something like: "A daisy-chain configuration and native solution may not be available depending on PC performance, interface or graphic card." In spite of this error message, the MacBook showed the native resolution of 3440x1440.

Nothing helped, and I had to send it back because of an awful blurry appearance (Especially by reading PDF-Files).

Sorry for not being able to provide a solution.

Same here. Brand new LG 34UC97. Windows 7 looks GORGEOUS at 3440x1440, but my late-2013 15" Retina MacBook Pro looks blurry, even though System Information says the display is 3440x1440. I'm using the Thunderbolt connection.

The MacBook's internal resolution seems to be rendering to something that's not 3440x1440 (maybe it's always 2880x1440?), then it's scaled to 3440x1440 for display, creating ugliness and general unhappiness amongst its "Pro" (I didn't buy a MacBook Amateur) users. 3440x1440 has fewer pixels than 2880x1440, so it's not a graphics memory size problem.

Come ON, Apple!!!!

I've noticed System Information lies when connecting via VNC as well:

With my VNC client set to 1:1 (no scaling), and the Mac resolution set to "Default for Display", System Information says the resolution is 2880 x 1800 when it's transmitting 1440 x 900 to my VNC viewer.

With my VNC client set to 1:1 (no scaling), and the Mac resolution set to "Scaled / More Space" (the max res I can get in control panel), System Information says the resolution is 2880 x 1800 when it's transmitting 1920 x 1200 to my VNC viewer.

Well now I have to take back most of what I said above! I just looked at the screen with a high-res pinstripe (alternating black and white lines at the pixel level), and the resolution absolutely is 3440 x 1440. The lines are perfectly sharp and crisp - impossible if there was any scaling.

So I guess the question is why do the FONTS look so crumbly? Maybe it's because the R, G, and B subpixels are arranged differently than Apple's font smoothing algorithm expects?

Hi,

I deal with very similar issues. I have Samsung S24C650PL 1080p (connected with HDMI), which I bought one year ago. I used it a lot with Windows without any issues. Last week I bought my first Macbook Pro Retina and since than it is a pain.

• All fonts are significantly more blurred than with Windows.
• Especially scanned PDFs are horrible, very difficult to read, much worse than the rest of the system.

What is, however, really weird, if I move the Preview app with the PDF from the internal display to the external, it shows the right and sharp image for cca one second before it becomes blurred. So it is obviously software-related issue.

I tried:

• Deactivate "Use LCD font smoothing when available" --> no effect at all
• Deactivate "Smooth text and line art" --> no effect
• Use any possible settings in "Displays" --> no effect
• Call the Apple support and talk with them for 40+ minutes --> no effect and no help

What is even more weird, if I use Parallels with Windows, it is okay! Even in the small window and not in fullscreen, the Windows show everything just as they should - crisp and sharp lines and fonts.

The unique "workaround" I found is related to PDFs and their readability.

• Install Acrobat Adobe, which uses obviously a different rendering engine than Preview app. (However, I don`t like the app.)
• Install Foxit Reader for Windows under Wine (even that is much better than Preview app.)

I am pretty frustrated with these issues, because I thought Apple cares a little bit, but it is simply not true.

And I can`t understand why MacBook Pro Retina can`t render the fonts at least so well as a cheap notebook for 200+ euros. 😟

yeah, exactly same problem here.

macbook pro : 2.8 i7 16gb, m370X 2048MB

mac is 2 months old, display is 2 weeks old. Really annoying !! Getting slowly tired of apple's issues, the whole point of getting a mac is to avoid headache

Guys, I have an LG UC98 and it's the same issue connecting by Thunderbolt and by HDMI is the same... Late 2013 Macbook Pro with nvidia graphics. Any solution???