I'm having a lot of trouble with getting fonts to look clear and unfuzzy on my M1 Pro with a new LG 38WN95C-W 38" 21:9 (3840 x 1600) monitor I just bought. It's driving me nuts. I've tried different picture settings on the monitor, with and without HDR, tried different resolutions, tried every possible value of `defaults -currentHost write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int ${n}` but no dice.

Anyone have any ideas what I can do to resolve?

Machine details below:

   Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: macOS 12.6 (21G115)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 21.6.0
      Boot Volume: Macintosh HD
      Boot Mode: Normal
      Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
      System Integrity Protection: Enabled
      Time since boot: 4:14

Hardware:

    Hardware Overview:

      Model Name: MacBook Pro
      Model Identifier: MacBookPro18,1
      Chip: Apple M1 Pro
      Total Number of Cores: 10 (8 performance and 2 efficiency)
      Memory: 32 GB
      System Firmware Version: 7459.141.1
      OS Loader Version: 7459.141.1

extr

* Is the monitor running in RGB or YPbPr? With M1 Macs some monitors are getting forced into YPbPr mode and fonts look worse because of it. (https://gist.github.com/GetVladimir/c89a26df1806001543bef4c8...)

* Remember to log out and log back in after you set font smoothing to 0. For me, this tweak helped a lot with clarity but I initially didn't think it was working because I didn't know you had to log out.

* In general I've found Macs just suck at DPI scaling. If I'm not mistaken, your monitor is around 109 PPI, which isn't really that high compared to the internal screen (~250ppi), and firmly in the "non-Retina" UI elements zone. Check out these blog posts (https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/, part 2: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/) for more info on how this stuff works.

Imagine my surprise when I found out my 27" 4K screens that look incredibly sharp on Windows at 163ppi are actually in the "bad zone" for Macs, and look bad at native resolution. As a workaround I run them scaled @ 3360 x 1890 and then set my browser to permanent 90% zoom level. Kind of embarrassing that Windows has completely lapped Apple in terms of good sharp UI at flexible scaling levels. I mean you can set Windows DPI scaling down the single % point, it's great.

skydhash

As someone who is dealing with this problem (27" 1440p monitor), I read that macOS renders the whole screen as a whole, instead of having a separate path for text. And there is a threshold PPI before it uses 2x assets. I had to use either a blurred rendering for bigger UI elements or the sharp, but small, representation at the native resolution. BetterDisplay[0] helped by tricking the OS to use the 2x assets at a smaller resolution. Still not as clear as my MBA's screen.

[0]: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay