Over the last few days, I’ve been poking around trying to figure out what is going on with variable refresh rates on macOS Sequoia. And I have come across something interesting. In previous versions of macOS, Sonoma for example, variable refresh rates would be available throughout the operating system. So no matter what you were doing, you would benefit from having a refresh rate that fit the situation. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Sequoia. I’ve observed the following:
- Simply being in the Finder which for those of you who are on the Windows side of the fence is the macOS version of Windows Explorer, won’t trigger variable refresh rate support.
- Being in a full screen video on YouTube on Safari will trigger variable refresh rate support.
- Being in a full screen Microsoft RDP session will trigger variable refresh rate support.
- Not all applications seem to support variable refresh rates when in full screen mode. For example, my copy of Microsoft Office 2019 doesn’t seem to trigger variable refresh rate support. I need to update it to the latest version as it is end of life, so if I can get around to doing so in the next few days, I’ll retest this scenario.
- When variable refresh rate isn’t supported, my display is locked at 144 Hz.
In case you’re wondering how I can tell that it’s working, I turned on the FPS counter on the monitor so that it would report what refresh rate that it was getting from the computer.
Thus this implies that what Apple has done is made a conscious decision to alter how variable refresh rate support works in certain scenarios within macOS on external monitors. I say that because everything that I have written above is somewhat consistent with how I understand Apple’s version of variable refresh rate support which is called ProMotion works. Let me go into the weeds a bit on that.
The way ProMotion works on a MacBook Pro with its built in screen for example is that when the MacBook Pro is performing tasks that don’t require a high refresh rate, such as reading a static webpage or viewing a photo, the refresh rate can be scaled down to conserve battery life. However, when engaging in activities that benefit from a high refresh rate, such as gaming or watching videos, ProMotion ramps up to provide the best possible experience. Or it can vary on the fly to provide the best possible experience. What I am observing is that there’s no attempt to scale back performance in scenarios that don’t require a high refresh rate. As a result, you’re locked in to 144 Hz or whatever the max refresh monitor of your monitor happens to be. Which makes sense as you’re typically using an external monitor while your laptop is plugged in, or you’re using a desktop. Thus there’s no battery life to persevere.
Why they have done this? I have no definitive idea. While you can make an argument that this is a regression, I don’t think that’s the case. I am thinking that that this is a “refinement” of sorts by Apple. It would be nice if Apple came out with a support document that explains this behaviour in greater detail than this one that I found that simply provides a top level overview of variable refresh rates, or as they call it “adaptive sync”. But that’s not the type of company that Apple is and I’ve given up expecting them to do something different a long time ago. Regardless, I consider this to be a closed issue and I will move on with my life unless Apple changes this behaviour again. Which in turn forces me to write about this again.
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This entry was posted on November 7, 2024 at 8:31 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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An Update To My Variable Refresh Rate Issues With macOS Sequoia… This Might Be By Design
Over the last few days, I’ve been poking around trying to figure out what is going on with variable refresh rates on macOS Sequoia. And I have come across something interesting. In previous versions of macOS, Sonoma for example, variable refresh rates would be available throughout the operating system. So no matter what you were doing, you would benefit from having a refresh rate that fit the situation. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Sequoia. I’ve observed the following:
In case you’re wondering how I can tell that it’s working, I turned on the FPS counter on the monitor so that it would report what refresh rate that it was getting from the computer.
Thus this implies that what Apple has done is made a conscious decision to alter how variable refresh rate support works in certain scenarios within macOS on external monitors. I say that because everything that I have written above is somewhat consistent with how I understand Apple’s version of variable refresh rate support which is called ProMotion works. Let me go into the weeds a bit on that.
The way ProMotion works on a MacBook Pro with its built in screen for example is that when the MacBook Pro is performing tasks that don’t require a high refresh rate, such as reading a static webpage or viewing a photo, the refresh rate can be scaled down to conserve battery life. However, when engaging in activities that benefit from a high refresh rate, such as gaming or watching videos, ProMotion ramps up to provide the best possible experience. Or it can vary on the fly to provide the best possible experience. What I am observing is that there’s no attempt to scale back performance in scenarios that don’t require a high refresh rate. As a result, you’re locked in to 144 Hz or whatever the max refresh monitor of your monitor happens to be. Which makes sense as you’re typically using an external monitor while your laptop is plugged in, or you’re using a desktop. Thus there’s no battery life to persevere.
Why they have done this? I have no definitive idea. While you can make an argument that this is a regression, I don’t think that’s the case. I am thinking that that this is a “refinement” of sorts by Apple. It would be nice if Apple came out with a support document that explains this behaviour in greater detail than this one that I found that simply provides a top level overview of variable refresh rates, or as they call it “adaptive sync”. But that’s not the type of company that Apple is and I’ve given up expecting them to do something different a long time ago. Regardless, I consider this to be a closed issue and I will move on with my life unless Apple changes this behaviour again. Which in turn forces me to write about this again.
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This entry was posted on November 7, 2024 at 8:31 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.