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OLED, Not for Me

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Re: OLED, Not for Me

#211

Post by DiabloD3 »

c0nsumer wrote: post #208
DiabloD3 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which applications? Are they ones using non-native text rendering? Chrome, for example, do not use Core Text. Chrome (and all Electron apps) are habitual offenders for bad text rendering on all OSes, not just OSX.

Numbers.app, Autodesk Fusion, Adobe Illustrator, and Terminal.app were the first places I noticed it. And in Fusion and Illustrator it's not text that's the issue but lines/graphics. And high contrast edges in photos in Apple Photos looked wonky.

Oof, at least two of those apps should not do that. I wonder how Fusion and Illustrator do lines, because last time I touched Illustrator (CS6 era), its line drawing was pretty good.

I'd like to see screenshots of these showing off the weirdness, if you don't mind.

Re: OLED, Not for Me

#212

Post by c0nsumer »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #211
c0nsumer wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Numbers.app, Autodesk Fusion, Adobe Illustrator, and Terminal.app were the first places I noticed it. And in Fusion and Illustrator it's not text that's the issue but lines/graphics. And high contrast edges in photos in Apple Photos looked wonky.

Oof, at least two of those apps should not do that. I wonder how Fusion and Illustrator do lines, because last time I touched Illustrator (CS6 era), its line drawing was pretty good. I'd like to see screenshots of these showing off the weirdness, if you don't mind.

I would send them, but I've already returned the OLED to Costco. Sorry. :\

On the upside, I should have a shiny new U3225QE IPS LCD later this week.

(I just sidestepped the problem.)

EDIT: I should add that the screenshot in my post of a cell from a spreadsheet was Numbers.app.

Re: OLED, Not for Me

#214

Post by DiabloD3 »

c0nsumer wrote: post #212
DiabloD3 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof, at least two of those apps should not do that. I wonder how Fusion and Illustrator do lines, because last time I touched Illustrator (CS6 era), its line drawing was pretty good. I'd like to see screenshots of these showing off the weirdness, if you don't mind.

I would send them, but I've already returned the OLED to Costco. Sorry. :\ On the upside, I should have a shiny new U3225QE IPS LCD later this week. (I just sidestepped the problem.) EDIT: I should add that the screenshot in my post of a cell from a spreadsheet was Numbers.app.

I did mean screenshot, not photo.

I wanted to see what it looked like on my 24" 1080p IPS monitors (two Dell U2414H IPS, and a rebranded LG FastIPS from Monoprice). I don't own a Mac, so I can't replicate it.

Re: OLED, Not for Me

#215

Post by c0nsumer »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #214
c0nsumer wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would send them, but I've already returned the OLED to Costco. Sorry. :\ On the upside, I should have a shiny new U3225QE IPS LCD later this week. (I just sidestepped the problem.) EDIT: I should add that the screenshot in my post of a cell from a spreadsheet was Numbers.app.

I did mean screenshot, not photo. I wanted to see what it looked like on my 24" 1080p IPS monitors (two Dell U2414H IPS, and a rebranded LG FastIPS from Monoprice). I don't own a Mac, so I can't replicate it.

Ahh, here you go then: https://nuxx.net/images/screenshots_for_DiabloD3.zip

Re: OLED, Not for Me

#216

Post by c0nsumer »

seec wrote: post #202
c0nsumer wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually had a 5K iMac that I sold when I got the Mac mini. As I was deciding on the display I looked at doing that, but I wasn't super keen on the unfinished look. And IIRC it was going to cost about $250 in parts at the time. I was able to get the ASUS for about $700 and sell the iMac for ~$300. So it was really only about $150 more to not DIY it and have a more finished final package. It is a really neat looking…

It has gotten a bit cheaper, a lot easier and somewhat better lately. But I agree that it does not make that much sense because you end up with a product that has many flaws and is a bit annoying to use. The main factor is being able to sell the iMac for that relatively high price. I can't figure out why they are still so expensive because most of the early 5K models are kind of useless nowadays (on low end version,…

The person who bought mine was a family friend who wanted a large display for her kid to do 3D printing stuff. Since he was just going to be running a slicer and some basic modeling stuff, it seemed perfect. I got a bit of cash, he got a computer with a good display, and it was a general win all around.

Re: OLED, Not for Me

#217

Post by seec »

c0nsumer wrote: post #216
seec wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has gotten a bit cheaper, a lot easier and somewhat better lately. But I agree that it does not make that much sense because you end up with a product that has many flaws and is a bit annoying to use. The main factor is being able to sell the iMac for that relatively high price. I can't figure out why they are still so expensive because most of the early 5K models are kind of useless nowadays (on low end version,…

The person who bought mine was a family friend who wanted a large display for her kid to do 3D printing stuff. Since he was just going to be running a slicer and some basic modeling stuff, it seemed perfect. I got a bit of cash, he got a computer with a good display, and it was a general win all around.

Ah yes for those use cases it makes perfect sense.

Apple excuse for stopping the big iMacs was that when you bundle up the display with the compute it makes it hard to upgrade and the whole thing become useless. But in reality it just looks like some bad "reasoning" to force people to spend more on a less elegant solution that probably won't get upgraded that much.

At least an old school 5K iMac can have some secondary use case, like you demonstrated or even just to watch movies, do some light document editing and such. And you can convert them to displays if you really want, but that should have been a built-in functionnality in the first place.

I guess this is why they still commend a relatively high-price, a good large display still has many uses even if the compute is weak.

The studio display is kinda useless outside of Mac use, so even though it's great quality its really not a good deal.

I really hope Apple finally release another big iMac because I won't get another Mac Mini or a Mac Studio. I like macOS (less so nowadays) but the whole point of the Mac was the integrated hardware for base/mid-range power. Their small desktop boxes that cannot take any upgrades are really pointless as a desktop because you end up with cable galore and not much space saved. This is so stupidly inelegant, I can feel Jobs rolling in his grave. They added front accessible ports, so that's something I guess, but come on, they stink of greed and profit maximisation at all costs...

Re: OLED, Not for Me

#218

Post by DiabloD3 »

c0nsumer wrote: post #215
DiabloD3 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did mean screenshot, not photo. I wanted to see what it looked like on my 24" 1080p IPS monitors (two Dell U2414H IPS, and a rebranded LG FastIPS from Monoprice). I don't own a Mac, so I can't replicate it.

Ahh, here you go then: https://nuxx.net/images/screenshots_for_DiabloD3.zip

Huh.

All of those share similar traits: the lines are excessively soft in many cases. They're rendered in linear space and then baked to the target gamma ramp, instead of being rendered in sigmoidal space (or some other psudeo-sharpening/pixel-aligning w/o sharpening methodology).

The font in Numbers is extremely misrendered, that's soft even for Core Text standards. Its as if it had absolutely no hinting applied, instead of the kind they use that approximates Freetype's "light" hinting.

The Terminal.app one is okay, but not amazing, as you can see slight misshapen stems, such as in the M for Makefile.

So, I'm not sure the monitor was at fault, but given the "clear and sharp" nature of OLEDs, it certainly magnified the effect.

Re: OLED, Not for Me

#219

Post by c0nsumer »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #218
c0nsumer wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, here you go then: https://nuxx.net/images/screenshots_for_DiabloD3.zip

Huh. All of those share similar traits: the lines are excessively soft in many cases. They're rendered in linear space and then baked to the target gamma ramp, instead of being rendered in sigmoidal space (or some other psudeo-sharpening/pixel-aligning w/o sharpening methodology). The font in Numbers is extremely misrendered, that's soft even for Core Text standards. Its as if it had absolutely no hinting applied, in…

Yeah, and I'm not terribly interested in getting into the details of how everything renders... I just want a display that works and doesn't make my eyes feel funny.

The PA27JCV (which I don't expect to have back from warranty repair for 3+ weeks) looked fine, and I'm now at day 5 of using the U3223QE and it's fine. So this is my solution to the problem I guess.

Re: OLED, Not for Me

#220

Post by DiabloD3 »

c0nsumer wrote: post #219
DiabloD3 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. All of those share similar traits: the lines are excessively soft in many cases. They're rendered in linear space and then baked to the target gamma ramp, instead of being rendered in sigmoidal space (or some other psudeo-sharpening/pixel-aligning w/o sharpening methodology). The font in Numbers is extremely misrendered, that's soft even for Core Text standards. Its as if it had absolutely no hinting applied, in…

Yeah, and I'm not terribly interested in getting into the details of how everything renders... I just want a display that works and doesn't make my eyes feel funny. The PA27JCV (which I don't expect to have back from warranty repair for 3+ weeks) looked fine, and I'm now at day 5 of using the U3223QE and it's fine. So this is my solution to the problem I guess.

Unfortunately, that might be your only solution.

From what I can tell from photos of your new monitor's pixels, it has a polarizer that is of similar taste of my Dell U2414Hs, just much newer. It aims for natural reproduction, which means pixels aren't sharply defined from neighbors, and subpixels blend together.

I prefer monitors like these, so I can't really argue with your choice. Sadly, due to a lot of younger kids being raised on phones (which have exceptionally sharp screens), modern high end screens keep being pushed towards sharper and clear to a fault.

Apple refuses to adjust rendering, since Apple's own taste in screens prefers natural over sharp. Even their OLEDs clearly have a film on them to hide the subpixel misalignment; the side effect of this is their brightness and contrast is lower, but eye fatigue is also lower.

Unfortunately, this is why I won't take OSX seriously: I bought a MBPr many years ago, I really tried to like OSX, I tried to understand why people like it, but it ultimately is a death by a thousand cuts, and entirely Apple's fault.

That MBPr ran OSX for a year, then Windows 10 a bit, and then Linux until it died. The text rendering was only fatigue-free on Windows and Linux, OSX had always been too fuzzy, especially with dark themes.

If you're not willing to break up with Apple, yeah, you're stuck just buying Apple-friendly monitors. A lot of OLEDs are just too clear and sharp and I don't disagree with you on sending it back.

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