What does HackerNews think of BetterDisplay?

It wasn't actually that bad at the time. Check what version of macOS that old MacBook has been updated to. Apple nerfed macOS when they introduced Retina displays so that it only does gray pixel anti-aliasing when earlier they did subpixel RGB anti-aliasing.

I just got Better Display[0] which works great for driving non-retina-density monitors with HiDPI resolutions that do anti-aliasing better.

[0] https://betterdisplay.pro/buy

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

Totally unrelated, but since we are talking about QOL tools on macOS, i thoroughly recommend BetterDisplay[0]

It enables reting scaling functionality on any external monitor, regardless of the resolution or the Apple compatibility.

It's great for 2k monitors that are totally hiDPI but are not deemed enough by Apple, and even for FHD secondarh displays that don't need that much display real state so you can use that real state to scale everything nicely.

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

OS X not only uses a lame hack to scale, it completely muddles the issue by introducing the concept of "HiDPI" UI elements. Somehow I can set my 4K monitor to use "native resolution" at 3840 x 2160, and yet the UI and fonts look fuzzy! Absolutely terrible, and a complete embarrassment for Apple imo since they are supposedly the UI kings. You only don't notice the issue because you're using a 27" 5k display, which has been "blessed" by Apple as the "correct" DPI to match native screens. For those of us with 4k screens (95% of the market), I guess we're just supposed to enjoy a subpar experience. Even X11 looks better.

For me, I only closed the book on the issue after finding BetterDisplay [0]. Basically a 3rd party program that gives you complete control over resolution, display density, and a ton of other options on MacOS. It has a trial mode but it is well well worth the money. With that + the CLI tweak to set font smoothing to 0, the 4K experience on MacOS looks decent. You can even decrease the effective scale of the native screen past "More Space", so those of us with good eyes can actually take advantage of the screen real estate.

Also, if you're curious to explore this issue beyond my subjective thoughts here, these [1] [2] blog posts do a great job diving into what is so bad about MacOS scaling, why 4K 27" or 32" screens end up looking bad, and why 5K 27" look okay.

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

[1] https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/

[2] https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/

When was this? Did you try Ubuntu 18.04 or later lts? Curious what was wrong with Wayland/Gnome and fonts.

I generally replace the monospace/console font - but i do that on MacOS and windows too.

Tbh I find the lack of decent (tiled) wm (as well as broken display on "low-res" (1440p/QHD) external displays) on MacOS much more frustrating. I make do with yabai, but the hoops one needs to jump through and the resulting fragile setup isn't great.

Hm, now i came across this - so maybe there's a decent fix for that too?

https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/apple_m1_drivers/

https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay

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

BetterDisplay can get you supersampling on <4K monitors. I run a 4K monitor as my main display that did this out of the box with macOS, but I have side 1440p monitors that didn't. This fixed it: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay

> I also tried 14” 4K and 1440p panels but - on account of the way scaling and font rendering works in MacOS - they’re a big step down

You can probably fix this with BetterDisplay (formerly known as BetterDummy?). I used it with my 3440x1440 monitor. https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay