Force RGB mode in Mac OS X to fix the picture quality of an external monitor
source link: https://www.mathewinkson.com/2013/03/force-rgb-mode-in-mac-os-x-to-fix-the-picture-quality-of-an-external-monitor/
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
Force RGB mode in Mac OS X to fix the picture quality of an external monitor
Force RGB mode in Mac OS X to fix the picture quality of an external monitor
March 4, 2013 | Technology
I recently bought a MacBook Pro (with ‘Retina’ screen), but when I hooked it up to my Dell U2410 monitor via HDMI cable I was shocked by the poor picture quality. The contrast was all wrong and text was misshapen. No amount of calibration in the monitor or software would fix it.
Short answer: OS X thinks my monitor is a TV, and is using the YCbCr colour space rather than RGB. I had to override an EDID setting to force the RGB colour space, and it is now working correctly.
Long answer: I haven’t owned a Mac for a while and had forgotten how difficult much of the “Apple community” can be when it comes to anything that can’t be adjusted in System Preferences. Googling for problems with external monitors on MacBooks found dozens of threads on official and unofficial Apple forums, all full of people with the same problem. The most common response was to blame the monitor, despite assurances from the stricken users that the monitor worked beautifully in Linux and Windows, even on the same machine under Boot Camp.
“You just haven’t calibrated it!”, “You are just too used to Retina now!”, “You just need to buy a Thunderbolt display!” Apple people also like to solve problems by throwing more money at it. (I realise that owning a Mac makes me an Apple person, too. Hypocritical self-loather?)
My lucky break was reading that the current colour space was “YCbCr” when I was browsing the monitor’s settings menu. I was sure that it was using RGB when hooked up to my PC, so I started searching instead for forcing RGB mode in OS X. It didn’t appear to be available out-of-the-box, but I have had some experience in overriding EDID settings for similar purposes so I searched instead for that.
I found this thread on the EmbDev.net forums. Mr Schwarz, thanks very much. Your thread and script was incredibly helpful and informative. It was written to fix problems connecting an external monitor via DisplayPort, but it fixed my HDMI issue just the same. I’ve summarised the required steps below.
My last word is to wonder what Apple is playing at. It seems that this problem has been reported by a lot of people for a long time, and I expect it would require a fairly simple software update. Do they just not care about those using third-party components, or are they actively attempting to force people on to Thunderbolt displays?
How to force RGB in Mac OS X
These steps have been updated for Mac OS version 10.11, “El Capitan”. See below for differences for previous versions of the system.
- Download the patch-edid.rb script from the forums thread above, or download Andrew Daugherity’s improved patch-edid.rb script from his github page. Put the script in your home directory.
- Disable “rootless” mode, you can follow these instructions: How to modify System Integrity Protection in El Capitan.
- Reboot.
- Connect only the external monitor(s) in question, if you can (I closed my MacBook lid, for example). The script will make override files for any connected monitor.
- Type “ruby patch-edid.rb” in Terminal.
- A new folder will be created in your home directory. Move it into the “/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides” folder. You may have to create the Resources and Overrides folders. If Finder tells you that you are overwriting an existing folder, consider backing it up first.
- Restart your computer. The picture quality should be fixed from this point.
- Re-enable “rootless” mode, the instructions are available on the same guide: How to modify System Integrity Protection in El Capitan.
- Reboot. Enjoy your monitor.
To undo the changes, either delete the folder you had copied to the Overrides folder (if it didn’t already exist) or replace it with the folder you had backed up. You will need to re-enable rootless mode to do this.
Earlier versions of Mac OS X
The process is a little more straightforward. There are two differences to the steps above:
- You do not need to disable/re-enable rootless mode and perform the subsequent reboots.
- The overrides folder location is “/System/Library/Displays/Overrides”.
Updates
I no longer own a Macbook Pro, but if you’re having trouble with any of these steps, please have a look through the comments below (and note that there are multiple pages). Many questions have been answered with helpful tips from others.
Update, 20 Nov 2016: In the comments Marcus has proposed a faster method that doesn’t require SIP to be disabled. Others have had success with it so give it a go if you’re uncomfortable with disabling SIP.
Update, 8 Feb 2016: A comment from nos1609 below, warns about a bootloop that can occur when running other patches (like the pixel-clock patch) simultaneously, and how to get around it.
Update, 23 Nov 2015: According to Peter’s post, you don’t need to disable SIP if you use recovery mode. If others have similar success with this method I’ll update the process.
Update, 3 Oct 2015: I have amended this post to target El Capitan. I have taken the steps from bigmcguire’s process, posted in the comments. Although some are still having issues, it appears to be working for people. Thanks!
Update, 29 May 2015: Mac OS 10.11 El Capitan does things a little differently. You must first disable the new ‘rootless’ mode and then use a different overrides folder: /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides. Rootless can then be re-enabled if desired, as confirmed by nos1609 in the comments below. El Capitan is still in beta, I’ll update this post if the issue is still apparent afterwards.
Update, 26 May 2014: If you have had trouble with limited resolutions being available after the fix, check out Ibrahim’s comments here.
Update, 28 Nov 2013: If the process appears to work but doesn’t seem to make a difference, consider Tom’s comments below. Depending on your monitor an extra tweak may be required.
Update, 13 Nov 2013: Andrew comments below that he has modified the script to add some useful new features, and provides a link to his GitHub for those wishing to use it instead.
Update, 27 Oct 2013: If you’ve applied this fix before, the OS X Mavericks update will overwrite it. I’ve successfully re-applied the fix by following exactly the same steps, and other commenters below have done so, too.
Comments
Comments are no longer supported—please contact me on Mastodon or Twitter.
The following have been migrated from an old site and may have formatting errors.
uentoeuoeu
Mar 4, 2013
Mathew
Mar 4, 2013
Glas Good
Mar 4, 2013
Dimitri
Mar 4, 2013
Gian Marco Cinalli
Mar 5, 2013
daneale
Mar 5, 2013
Mathew
Mar 5, 2013
daneale
Mar 5, 2013
Tamer
Mar 7, 2013
Thanks for the help.. but i rarely use Terminal !!
Could you please paste the code you wrote in the terminal to make sure aim doing it right !
Joe Boyer
Mar 7, 2013
Tamer
Mar 7, 2013
Thanks.. but should i have Ruby installed on my Macbook air (OS Lion) to be able to run this script ?
Thanks in advance.
Adam
Mar 8, 2013
Tamer
Mar 8, 2013
John
Mar 9, 2013
SMELTN
Mar 12, 2013
Matt
Mar 15, 2013
I’m getting this error when typing in “ruby patch-edid.rb” to Terminal:
patch-edid.rb:9: undefined method `[]’ for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
Is it because I do not have Ruby installed?
Change line 7 to look like this:
data=ioreg -l -d0 -r -w0 -c AppleDisplay
Note: I’ve added the -w option and set it an unlimited width. This solves the “patch-edid.rb:9: undefined method `[]‘ for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)” error.
Kevdawg42
Mar 19, 2013
Rob
Mar 19, 2013
Well I’ve the same problem on a ‘12 mini and just checked the monitor settings and “space” is listed as RGB. The very same brand and model monitor are on this ‘11 mini and looks great. So now what? (the latest update has not been done yet however.
Thanks in advance!
jason
Mar 21, 2013
Andrew
Mar 21, 2013
Tamer
Mar 26, 2013
I am back with failure :(
When i type ( ruby patch-edid.rb ) in terminal
i got this message ( -bash: ruby: command not found ) ..
Any clue or help why this happened ?!?
I am starving to make this work.. really appreciate your help.
Regards, Tamer
A minor suggestion: the xml tags in the script on this page are gone, so I’d suggest to escape them, so they are displayed correctly or remove the script altogether. I ended up copying it and pasting into my emacs and only later, when comparing to the existing overrides file that I realized that it was supposed to be an xml and saw the comments suggesting to get it from the forum link :-)
Other than that, thanks so much for this post. I had researched how to get a better resolution with MacBook Pro and had not found any good solution until now.
AJ
Apr 1, 2013
Thank you, worked perfectly. You saved my brand-new mac-mini, I was preparing to take it back tomorrow.
I had the washed-out/too-white color issue, and also the fuzzy-text problem. My new mini was already installed with 10.8.3, so whatever fix is in there did not resolve my issue. Your link and clear explanation did the trick. I’m using the HDMI cable without any adapters, and an LG 1920 x 1080 monitor at 1080p.
“Instant buyer’s remorse” was absolutely the LAST thing I expected upon powering up my new mac mini. Which only got worse upon reading all of the nonsense posted by apple “experts” who have apparently imbibed far too much apple kool-aid over the years. The numerous cheerful suggestions to buy a new Thunderbolt display at $1,000 to solve the problem were particularly unsettling. Thanks for restoring some sanity to the matter!
msc
Apr 8, 2013
ademuk
Apr 9, 2013
Rocky Katz
Apr 9, 2013
Mathew
Apr 9, 2013
in reply to Rocky Katz
david
Apr 15, 2013
twangsta
Apr 21, 2013
azran
Apr 22, 2013
Ross
Apr 26, 2013
Matthew, thank you thank you thank you for digging this up. The blurriness issue was driving me crazy! I should have known something was up when I couldn’t reproduce the issue on my TV, but the colors on my Asus PA248Q seemed just that tiny bit off. This is so much better.
Thanks again. If you ever should find yourself in San Francisco (or me in your neck of the woods), I owe you a lot of beers. (-:
Mathew
Apr 28, 2013
in reply to Andreas Fuchs
Karen H
May 12, 2013
I’ve changed line 7 as suggested above to be “data=ioreg -l -d0 -r -w0 -c AppleDisplay
” but still receive the error:
undefined method `[]’ for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
Any other suggestions?
Nate
May 16, 2013
pyrosever
May 20, 2013
Malikman
May 22, 2013
By home directory I mean your user folder. When you open up Terminal that’s where you are first put, so if you run this script the results are created in that location. Not sure what your level of expertise is with the command line, so check out this if you are unsure: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/introduction-to-the-mac-os-x-command-line
For your other question see my reply to azran on April 22nd. I think it will just generate files for both screens, and you will have to determine which one was created for the external screen and use that.
Philip
May 22, 2013
disiei
May 28, 2013
kuehner
May 29, 2013
Chris
May 31, 2013
James
Jun 5, 2013
Didn’t work for my Samsung monitor, im not sure I put the patch in the right place but O have no idea where to find the home directory, when I run the command in terminal it just says “ruby patch-edid.rb” -bash: “ruby: command not found.
any help would be greatly appreciated!
Zen
Jun 6, 2013
Hello Mathew,
I’ve just bought my first apple product ever (a 13’’ rMBP) and three hours later ended up on your website.
My DELL 2412m has the “smudgyness” issue, aswel. It is connected via HDMI -> DVI. Maybe I should borrow someone’s HDMI -> HDMI cable and see what happens? OS X is fully updated and, if I can trust the color sync utility, both the native and external display are correctly detected as “display” and the color range is RGB. 2412m’s native resolution of 1920x1200 is available and selected.
I still tried the script you posted about, got the override running, but it had no effect.
Also tried forcing font AA, still no change.
I know it’s a software issue since booting in windows makes the external display look as amazing as it should be, but I’ve no idea where to go next with this..
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Alex
Jun 12, 2013
Hi everyone
i have an imac 21.5" and just baught a Dell U2913wm monitor and have the YCbCr issue.
i have followed the steps andreas has given and the terminal has created the new folder correctly but i dont have the Displays folder in my library my OS X is in french but there is not such folder or similar folder in the library folder
thanks in advance for your help
craig
Jun 17, 2013
David
Jun 24, 2013
Thomas
Jun 24, 2013
I ran a MacBook Air Mid 2012 with a Dell u2913wm for a couple of weeks and then switched to my new MacBook Air 2013, which wasn’t able to support the display in the same quality as the previous one.
Your solutions works perfectly. Thanks a lot.
Greetings from Germany
Adrian
Jun 25, 2013
ABE
Jul 12, 2013
Hi! New rMBP 13" - using my Sceptre 32" LCD HDTV as an external monitor - looks horrid: ragged fonts, uneven color.
HOWEVER, before trying the fix, can you tell me if it is related to the fact that the Menu bar starts at a medium gray on the left and varies continuously to a pale blue on the right?
HDMI to HDMI cable (tried 3 - no difference).
I checked the color Space in the profile after I calibrated the HD 709-A color profile in the Displays:Color panel - it said RGB.
It doesn’t seem to make a difference to select the 1080p vs ‘Best for display’ (or any of the scaled ones, except that I get bigger text at 720p).
Thanks for your advice.
When I had this same monitor attached to a Macbook 1,1 running 10.6.8, it was BEAUTIFUL!
I’m afraid I can’t remember precisely what my screen looked like (with regard to the menu bar colour) other than it was bad, washed out.
I’m also not sure if the RGB color profile being selected necessarily means that the Mac is outputting the correct color space.
But considering your monitor was fine on another MacBook, I think it’s worth a try. You can always revert the changes if they make no difference.
Bruno
Jul 26, 2013
stevieoconnell
Aug 1, 2013
Wow, they really didn’t make that easy, did they? I’d tried manually switching the HDMI out monitor to RGB and the colors were fubar.
Thanks for posting this – I’d been searching and searching and was meeting the same palm-to-face reactions of the official forums.
Hat tip to you, and thanks again.
Gilly
Aug 6, 2013
Zakaria
Aug 7, 2013
Smashy
Aug 8, 2013
Mad_Fool
Aug 16, 2013
I just want to say, I almost never leave comments on things like this. But it is very refreshing to see somebody using OS X that isn’t ignorant about the holier-than-thou attitude that Apple exudes.
Thanks for the tip. Fixed my friends U2713H!
Apple made a mistake with this and the attitude their support teams have taken should reflect poorly on them.
ABE
Aug 18, 2013
I just followed the instructions: download patch. Close Macbook Pro lid. Run patch with Ruby using Terminal. Restart. Enjoy
I had a little trouble figuring out how to download the .rb file into my home directory because I right-clicked on the script link - the patch - and was presented with a menu that didn’t seem to include downloading a FILE. However, CS son informed me clicking SAVE A LINK… would download the file.
Then I played with the settings on the monitor (Sceptre 32" LCD TV, HDMI input) until I got a much clearer version of the text than I started with before the patch. Brightness, Contrast, Sharpness.
It is far, far better - thanks.
However, the menu bar still shades from gray on the left end to blue at the right end.
I can live with this, for now, but would appreciate any ideas on the weird shading. I may try one of the adaptors mentioned. If I do, I will report back.
Thanks for doing this thread.
noisymime
Aug 19, 2013
ABE
Aug 20, 2013
This is embarrassing! I just figured out why the menu bar had a color gradient from gray on the left to blue on the right:
some #$%^@ created a TRANSLUCENT menu bar option - over in System preferences for the Desktop (Mt. Lion present to users???) - and the background was not a solid (few desktop pictures are), so the gradient came from the DESKTOP, not the MENU BAR.
Thought I’d put that out there in case anyone else had the same problem - because it isn’t cured by the patch because it CAN’T be cured by the patch.
My Sceptre 32" monitor now looks fine - I unchecked the Translucent Menu bar option. Sheesh.
Nikki
Aug 25, 2013
piersb
Aug 31, 2013
robin
Sep 7, 2013
SteveM
Sep 8, 2013
Jason Hur
Sep 9, 2013
Thanks so much! My MacBook Air 2013 displayed perfect colors (or at least not washed-out) via Mini DisplayPort to HDMI, but when I switched to Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort (to output at 2560x1080 resolution natively) for my LG 29EA93, all the colors looked crap. Now it’s fixed.
I’m just frustrated that Apple didn’t make this an easy option that you can tick on and off in the settings.
Ange
Sep 17, 2013
Rob
Sep 19, 2013
Hadi
Sep 22, 2013
I use a MBP pro 13" late 2011 edition, and recently I bought a HP 22xi Pavillion IPS monitor. Unfortunately, the screen was really fuzzy and the fonts were all wrong, elongated would be the word.
would this patch fix it on the MBP edition that I have?
Thanks!
Dean
Sep 26, 2013
Thanks a lot. This worked for me also. I have a LG m2280a. When I connected it for the first time in a late-2012 mac mini (OSX 10.8.5) with HDMI cable the fonts was really blurry and the image was cutted (the top and bottom was “outside” the screen area).
After follow all the steps of this post the fonts are now totally fine and the image fits perfectly in screen (1080p) using the same HDMI cable. Just 2 considerations about the steps:
-
Probably you will need to use the sudo command to copy the files. Instead of just use cp origin destination, use sudo cp origin destination. System will ask you for password.
-
After restart your computer I opened the System Preferences and in Displays option i changed my resolution to something really small (like 800x600) and then to resolution I wanted (1920x1080). Just after this the image becames OK.
It’s really bad that Apple doesn’t fix this problem. It’s not an HDMI cable problem, or a monitor problem, or even a driver problem. A little hack fix the issue. But, if I want to do hacks to fix this kind of problems I will propably buy a PC and install some kind of Slackware Linux.
But it’s fixed now. Thanks again.
Ivan
Sep 30, 2013
Nico
Oct 8, 2013
Thanks!!! It works on my HP 23XI screen. I was crazy about the blurry picture and found out your webpage!
And I do agree…how crazy is Apple just to sold their 1000eur Thunderbold monitor!!!
Thanks thanks
haukeh
Oct 12, 2013
scott
Oct 19, 2013
I purchased a Gefen DisplayPort Extender over CAT7 only to have it show very weird colors when connected to my Retina MacBook Pro. However, it worked fine when I booted into either BootCamp Windows or switched to my dedicated Ubuntu box, etc. I suspect because OS X kept showing “NTSC” for the display that it “might be the problem.” Finding this page was AMAZING. Like the author said complex Mac issues are hard to get good info on (and I laughably must admit I almost considered throwing $1000 at the problem to get an Apple Cinema Display).
ANYWHO. This worked for me. Wanted to post in case anyone else goes looking for display issues with a DP extender. For me with YCbCr it showed everything as a purple tint.
Kevin
Oct 22, 2013
Neil
Oct 23, 2013
I got this working before I upgraded to OS X Mavericks this morning but now the override seems to have disappeared and Mac System Report is saying my DELL U2711 is “Television: (Yes)”.
I ran the script and it has created the “DisplayVendorID-10ac” folder but I can’t see “/System/Library/Displays/Overrides” in my Library (Library is visible and I have run various “chflags no hidden” commands in Terminal for the folders).
I can see “/System/Library/Displays/Overrides" in Terminal but when I try to copy the folder over in there I get an error (not sure what I’m doing):
rsync -av /Users/[ME]/DisplayVendorID-10ac/* /System//Library/Displays/Overrides/ building file list … done DisplayProductID-a057 rsync: mkstemp “/System/Library/Displays/Overrides/.DisplayProductID-a057.QM32QP” failed: Permission denied (13) sent 757 bytes received 42 bytes 1598.00 bytes/sec total size is 613 speedup is 0.77 rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at /SourceCache/rsync/rsync-42/rsync/main.c(992) [sender=2.6.9]
Hmmmm.
Just upgraded to Mavericks and can confirm that using ‘sudo cp -R DisplayVendorID-xyz /System/Library/Displays/Overrides/’ works. After a restart my 1080p Visio TV looks noticeably better using any resolution. It’s still not as crisp as I would have expected (Gnome and Windows on the same display look crisper), but it’s better.
Thanks for the tip and I 100% agree w/ your observations about the Apple community.
ecf_in_md
Oct 24, 2013
Mattias
Oct 24, 2013
This fix worked for me on Mavericks. If you get Permission denied when moving/copying, remember to add ‘sudo’
sudo mv DisplayVendorID-10ac /System/Library/Displays/Overrides
Patrick
Oct 25, 2013
Philip
Oct 26, 2013
Thank you very much for taking the time to share this solution. I’ve been searching for a solution for over a year with my beautiful monitor gather dust. I thought the only solution was to buy an Apple monitor, which I refused to do.
It’s nice to have my monitor back.
I think I"m going to hold off on Mavericks for a while.
yokken
Oct 26, 2013
Essaimel
Oct 26, 2013
Alex
Oct 30, 2013
Many thanks for this! I applied this fix on a Dell U2413 connected via mini displayport, but the image was extremely blurry and I thought it was applying some incorrect scaling. Turns out I’d set sharpening to zero to improve image quality some time ago and forgotten about it, bumping it back to 50 brought it back to normal. Colours are much improved now.
Also on Mavericks I found that you don’t need to reboot, simply moving or removing the files and power cycling the monitor is enough to enable/disable the fix.
Nick
Nov 2, 2013
eliott
Nov 3, 2013
I am no longer lost in a sea of washed out colors and terrible font rendering.
Fix worked great. Thanks!!
vj
Nov 3, 2013
Noob
Nov 4, 2013
Hi guys,
I’m a noob at this and have the same issue. Can you please tell me how to put the script in the home directory? I can’t seem to figure that part out. Help would be appreciated!
You can simply drag the newly-created folder into the /System/Library/Displays/Overrides folder, or as Mattias wrote in a comment further up you can type the following into the command line, replacing the name of the DisplayVendor-10ac folder with the name of yours:
sudo mv DisplayVendorID-10ac /System/Library/Displays/Overrides
Noob
Nov 4, 2013
Steve
Nov 4, 2013
Matt
Nov 6, 2013
I’m getting an error: patch-edid.rb:11:in ': undefined method
[]’ for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
when running the file, help?
blazo
Nov 7, 2013
Jez
Nov 7, 2013
Badr
Nov 13, 2013
Hey man thank a lot for your for this!
I have been following your instruction, and used data=ioreg -l -d0 -r -w0 -c AppleDisplay
in Terminal.. but I didnt get any massage or confirmation from terminal and I didn’t find and new file either. Help?
Note: I am using snow leopard
Thanks for the howto. I used it to fix my Dell U2413, which worked fine over DVI (using the HDMI to DVI adapter shipped with my Mac Mini) but had this problem with straight HDMI or (mini)DisplayPort. Note that the monitor shows different IDs for each input so you’ll have to re-run the script if you change connections.
Since updating to Mavericks required my to do it again, I took the time to add some features I really wanted to the ruby script:
- Use the monitor name (taken from the EDID data) rather than the generic “Display with forced RGB mode”
- Multiple display support – patch the EDID for all connected displays, rather than just the first one. Obviously you only need to install the override file for the problematic display, not all of them.
It’s available on my GitHub: https://gist.github.com/adaugherity/7435890
Thanks Andrew, I tried to follow your instructions. Not sure if I did it correctly, so please confirm if the below seems correct:
I copied your file and containing folder to the required folder, so that it shows in Finder as follows: System/Library/Displays/Overrides/gist7435890-66c54c17b179809b028b58a2ca7af0b9540d05b6/patch-edid.rb
Then I restarted my computer (Late 2014 Mac Mini, running Yosemite including all updates). I did not really see any changes, as the fonts still appear blurry on the screen (32" LG smart TV, connected with HDMI to HDMI; the TV has no DVI or VGA connections).
In the Display Preferences on my Mac, the resolution is set to “Default for display”, which is 1080p, and in the color tab I see the following profiles: HD 709-A LG TV Calibrated [this one I created before; it shows the richest colors] SD 170M-A Adobe RGB (1998) Generic RGB Profile sRGB IEC1966-2.1
Did I take the right steps? I have no idea what a script is supposed to do; was I also supposed to double-click on it, beside just copying it to the required folder?
And am I looking in the right place, under Display Preferences? As I never saw anything about YcBcR or something in any of the System Preferences, I don’t know if I am trying to apply the right fix here in the first place. Sorry to ask such basic questions. I did read through many of the comments posted here, but I might have missed any clarifications for dummies.
Would be great if you could help me optimise my brand new setup with my Mac Mini and HDTV! Thanks much, Leon
Darin
Nov 14, 2013
Ryan
Nov 14, 2013
This is awesome! Just got a new MBP Retina 15" and using my HP 2509m external display was giving me a headache and I have been searching all over for a solution. When I found yours I was worried about editing system files as I am not super comfortable doing this. But I gave it a shot and this solution worked perfectly! Thank you!
This is my first Apple computer. Their devices are amazing but having switched from Windows I am repeatedly annoyed with the lack of control over some basic functionality OS X.
Badr
Nov 14, 2013
Ryan
Nov 14, 2013
Ross
Nov 15, 2013
Wow! An unbelievable fix. Bought a new mac-mini two weeks ago and have been looking ever since. My display was so blurry, I couldn’t read your copyright, at the bottom of this website. Now, I can read even the smallest text. Everything is crisp and clean. It’s like I have a new mac.
THANK YOU!
And here was I, a 2 week virgin to MacBook where the external display was my only dissapointment thus far; thinking this would give me the same success as everyone else was reporting..but alas, no different before and after for my new MBProRetina (Late2103) displaying over HDMI to my Samsung 32" that displays beautifully for PC.
I ran the script, and the monitor preferences shows as the modified EDID RGB profile, but no visible difference. Is the problem maybe already solved in Mavericks and this is as good as it gets?
Andrzej
Nov 18, 2013
The problem is very much present in the latest Mavericks. I confirm that this fix works with the new 15" Macbook Pro Retina, Mavericks and Dell U2713H over Thunderbolt cable. Without this patch the external monitor was identified as TV and was barely usable.
The fix started working as soon as I copied the created folder to the right place (initially I missed this step, though it’s clearly described above ;) ) and re-connected the monitor.
Thank you very much!
Alex B.
Nov 18, 2013
Matthew C.
Nov 19, 2013
Mork
Nov 20, 2013
Mark
Nov 20, 2013
Brien
Nov 21, 2013
Wow Mathew see what you started! There are a lot of people frustrated right now (and a great many who seem much happier thanks to you and Mr Schwartz). I hope I could be one of those – HDMI vs mini-display-to-DVI into my nice new NEC monitor makes no difference, I don’t think it’s cables, I think it is the way the rMBP works with the 2d, non-internal-only Nvidia card to send its OS environment info to an external display. Here it’s the same, FusionWare emulator makes all the text much sharper, whether in an application or online in windows. But working in the mac apps only – pictures are great but text gets blurry, “astigmatic” to me, seen as someone with an astigmatism but no corrective lens. Zooming with a camera on it, there’s a spillover in the squares of grey or squares missing information. I have a couple more things to try but this fix is bookmarked… the NEC display menu shows many color “spaces” that make a difference, but of course thats all NEC’s hardware. If I like I can use color profiles as a ‘dirty fix’ to this issue, with an optional color setting that will make text more comfortable and throw everything else off! Any time I want I can dumb down the beautiful monitor for office mode (no, not my first choice)
Need to scope out the Mac’s color profiling onboard for color space, just because it is supposed to already be something that in our case could solve the issue.. maybe it’s still not right despite that, and the patch does the job. Got to fully understand this patch and what I am doing before I go doing it (but the text is very straining on the eyes in places, very sloppy and a beautiful monitor is not getting to live its full potential….
Martin
Nov 26, 2013
Florian
Nov 26, 2013
Moose
Nov 26, 2013
claochase
Nov 26, 2013
Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks,
Fras
Nov 27, 2013
Nate Swanson
Sep 11, 2014
in reply to Fras
I used Andrew’s script, which adds the monitor name. However, my monitor name had some garbage characters in it (not sure why), and this actually prevented the override file from being loaded - that is, I rebooted and the problem was still there. Manually editing the DisplayProductID-… file and removing the junk characters from the monitor name fixed the problem and my monitor is now usable. Might be worth mentioning, especially for those with a Phillips Brilliance 27" (272P4) monitor.
Anyways, thanks a bunch to everyone involved here. I’m glad my monitor works. I have no clue why Apple won’t just add a little “Television?” checkbox to their Display settings. It would save hundreds of people time and money. Ugh.
Mathew
Nov 28, 2013
in reply to Tom Switzer
Frank
Jan 12, 2014
in reply to Tom Switzer
Michiel
Feb 21, 2014
in reply to Tom Switzer
Thanks you and thanks Tom! I needed this extra step for my Philips 272P4QPJKEB.
The file generated by the script was a garbled binary file and not a clean plist text file. For people experiencing the same problem: you can check this by opening the generated DisplayProductID-xxx file in a text editor. You should see a readable script. If not, you can modify the patch-edid.rb file on the line that says: monitor_name=[disp[“edid_hex”].match (…) Change it to: monitor_name=“Philips 27 inch” or whatever you would like to see show up in your Display Preferences screen. All fonts are now razor sharp. No more blurry outlines.
Another tip: if you can’t run patch-edid.rb try: chmod +x ./patch-edid.rb This makes the file executable.
Eric
Apr 4, 2014
in reply to Tom Switzer
jd
Feb 4, 2015
in reply to Tom Switzer
Michael McCool
Nov 29, 2013
I have just installed CS6 on my new ‘retina’ display MacBook Pro and unless I upgrade to Adobe CC certain apps like InDesign won’t display sharply.
If I buy a Dell monitor and connect it via HDMI to my MacBook Pro do you think I can get rid of these annoying display issues?
Cheers, Michael.
Michael McCool
Nov 29, 2013
Thanks for writing this up, and thanks to the script authors. I keep seeing this issue on a range of Macs and monitors, but RGB override does the trick.
Is there an Apple forum thread we can pile onto and maybe get this fixed?
David
Dec 7, 2013
Anyone up for walking me through this? I’m using a Macbook Pro (Mavericks) and attaching the HP Pavillion 23xi monitor. I am on GChat and would really appreciate any help. I get confused when it says download the patch - I get a page with code, do I create a file out of that? Then it says move the folder, to the home directory, but I don’t have a folder, just that file.
Thank you…
k.nowak
Dec 7, 2013
Atanas
Dec 8, 2013
thanks for the workout!
It really helped with the blurry text, however after applying the script and restart it no longer shows my native resolution on the list (I have a 29" Philips Brilliance). Biggest option now is 1920x1080 and I need 2560x1080. Any hints how to fix that ?
Thank you !
Roberto
Dec 9, 2013
Hi all!
Late 2013 rMBP here.
I have a korean ips panel ( 27", 2560x1440 ) and i get the blurry text issue. The trick above did not work for me. The strange thing is that if i put side by side 2 Chrome pages, one running in osx and one running in VMWare Fusion linux guest, the Chrome running in VMWare fusion displays perfectly crisp text.
Anybody else has this issue?
Antero
Dec 12, 2013
Roberto Your not alone! With your issue that WM-Ware texts look better running a virtual mode I run a old XP system with much better quality on text then in Mac.Try checking system information, I checked it and it’s pretty clear that Mac OS think I have a super high resolution television, I wish! Check the last line in below text dump compare it with your’s. I will try the suggested fixes.
I hope it will work
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M:
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x8
VRAM (Total): 1024 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0fd5
Revision ID: 0x00a2
ROM Revision: 3688
gMux Version: 3.2.19 [3.2.8]
Displays:
Color LCD:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 2880 X 1800
Retina: Yes
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes
Connection Type: DisplayPort
27EA83:
Resolution: 2560 x 1440 @ 60 Hz
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Display Serial Number:
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Adapter Type: DisplayPort
Adapter Firmware Version: 0,15
Television: Yes
Michael McCool
Dec 12, 2013
Would anybody that has successfully used the EDID override method as mentioned above be able to create ‘an idiot’s guide’ to downloading and running the patch in this forum?
It would be of massive help to myself and i’m sure those other users that are afraid of using Terminal!
I am using a late 2013 retina MBP and have it connected to a Dell U2413 external monitor but the text does not look sharp.
I downloaded the patch and thought I entered the ‘Ruby…’ command properly into Terminal but nothing seemed to happen.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
Thoschi
Dec 12, 2013
Antero
Dec 12, 2013
Guideline for RETINA dummies, ;-)
IMPORTANT I used a HDMI cable at first and got only 1920x1080, I returned it and bought a “Thunderbolt to Displayport” Adapter, the resolution got corrected‹ “I do not know why”( yes I am also a dummie, I probably could have kept the hdmi adapter?). Anyway Great resolution but at this point the text still were blur-ish.
How to confirm resolution and television mode.
- click on Apple icon upper left corner
- click on About this Mac
- click on More info
- click on system Report
- click on Graphics/Displays
- click on Nvidia Geforce
“if you have wrong settings but correct resolution " it will look like below dissregard my comments “NICE” it’s just guidelines to the real dummies to quickly find what is of interest.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M:
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M Type: GPU Bus: PCIe PCIe Lane Width: x8 VRAM (Total): 1024 MB Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de) Device ID: 0x0fd5 Revision ID: 0x00a2 ROM Revision: 3688 gMux Version: 3.2.19 [3.2.8] Displays: Color LCD: Display Type: LCD Resolution: 2880 X 1800 Retina: Yes Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888) Mirror: Off Online: Yes Built-In: Yes Connection Type: DisplayPort 27EA83: Resolution: 2560 x 1440 @ 60 Hz NICE! Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888) Display Serial Number: Main Display: Yes Mirror: Off Online: Yes Rotation: Supported Adapter Type: DisplayPort Adapter Firmware Version: 0,15 Television: Yes NOT SO NICE…..
SO FAR SO GOOD If it looks like below I think you got it right already:
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M:
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x8
VRAM (Total): 1024 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0fd5
Revision ID: 0x00a2
ROM Revision: 3688
gMux Version: 3.2.19 [3.2.8]
Displays:
Color LCD:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 2880 X 1800
Retina: Yes
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes
Connection Type: DisplayPort
Display with forced RGB mode (EDID override): CORRECT
Resolution: 2560 x 1440 @ 60 Hz = YOUR MONITOR MAX RESOLUTION
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Display Serial Number:
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Adapter Type: DisplayPort
Adapter Firmware Version: 0,15
NO TELEVISION NO MORE!
For you users that still have monitor set to TELEVISION. I hope someone soon will make a step by step instruction in the terminal.
thanks
Dec 14, 2013
Gerry
Dec 15, 2013
Hi! Im trying make this works with my monitor LG M2380A, i followed all steps, the paste was created successful but the resolution of monitor keep very bad.
Have something that I can try?
Thank you a lot!
- Sorry my bad english! haha
Clem
Dec 17, 2013
Ernesto
Dec 18, 2013
I’m on a mac Mini and LG 22" TV/Monitor with HDMI conection. When I run the script, I have the following error:
patch-edid.rb:26:in pack': can't convert MatchData into String (TypeError) from patch-edid.rb:26 from patch-edid.rb:24:in
each'
from patch-edid.rb:24
Can anyone help me?
MrSchaeffer
Dec 19, 2013
Kevin
Dec 23, 2013
Hey Kevin… I have the same exact monitor, but don’t really understand the process. Any chance you are willing to give me a quick tutorial/step by step on how this works?
thanks..
Jeff
Dec 23, 2013
Bram WUyts
Dec 27, 2013
Hi, I have tried your solution but i didn’t work although I have a monitor that others seem to have gotten to work.
setup:
- MBP mid 2012
- OS X 10.9.1
- Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter -> HDMI cable
- 2nd display: HP Pavilion 23xi
system graphics info after installing file:
Displays:
Color LCD:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1440 x 900
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes
HP 23xi - forced RGB mode (EDID override):
Resolution: 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Display Serial Number: 3CM3280C94
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
it is still blurry as before…
note: Even though the file got installed, I was not able to do install it with the lid closed because I need that ’enter/return’ button to confirm the command in terminal of course.
Any help is appreciated! Desperately trying to avoid having to buy aspirine after looking at the screen…
Bram WUyts
Dec 27, 2013
David
Dec 27, 2013
in reply to Bram WUyts
Hi there, when i run the script i just get returned to the command line and nothing’s been created.
Get it to run in debug, i get the following…
Exception LoadError' at /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems.rb:1082 - cannot load such file -- rubygems/defaults/operating_system Exception
LoadError’ at /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems.rb:1091 - cannot load such file – rubygems/defaults/ruby
I never used Ruby before, but it looks like something’s up with my Ruby?
Jens Ulv
Dec 31, 2013
Thanks. You made me save money.
My monitor is an HP Pavillion 23xi (very popular here, I see). In case this info could be useful to you, my OS is Mavericks and first attempt didn’t work, so I had to try the second link.
Excuse me but now, I am going to enjoy my brand new monitor.
Henry
Jan 2, 2014
“but I’m no authority” is perfect because the author did not understand much of the problem.
Each display must be sent to a Mac EDID: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_display_identification_data) or a DisplayID (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayID) and when they do not then OS X can not come up with the correct data.
So if something does not work is not the responsibility of Apple but just displays!!!
Going to modify the system files is not a solution when you just use the button [Detect Displays] (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5019?viewlocale=en_US) to obtain useful data to the GPU. It would always be better to use the Mini DisplayPort output port and a DisplayPort input.
I have not read all the posts, but I hope that others have already pointed out the absurdity of this procedure … or the “limits” of some monitors!
You’re right that Apple has no responsibility to fix the shortcomings of third-party hardware. I could have bought a mini DisplayPort cable as you’ve suggested, but this was a free and immediate way to maintain the experience that I was accustomed to under Windows (and Linux) with the same cable and monitor.
I disagree that the process is absurd, though. It’s not the ‘Apple Way’ to do things, but it’s a very simple software mod that produces the desired outcome. The [Detect Displays] button does not fix the problem (at least not for me). I shared Mr Schwarz’s script since it worked perfectly for me, but readers are free to ignore it if they’d prefer to buy the according-to-Hoyle hardware and not delve into the command line.
Thanks for taking the time to respond, I do see your point. And I’m glad you like my tagline!
Mike
Jan 3, 2014
Simon
Jan 7, 2014
Just wanted to give you a giant thanks for this. For three years I’ve been trying to get my macbook to play nicely with my HP monitor; fonts were totally unreadable, because the monitor was detecting a TV signal and turned on its (annoyingly unmodifiable) TV filters. This happened with HDMI and DisplayPort connections, and I ended up having to use VGA, which obviously resulted in a blurry display. I was on the verge of buying a new monitor, just to fix this problem.
I just ran the script you link to, and now DisplayPort and HDMI work perfectly. Massive thanks to you, and to the author of the script!
Maren
Jan 8, 2014
sgreszcz
Jan 8, 2014
Thank you sooooo much for your assistance. I just opened my new Dell u2913WM and couldn’t believe how crappy it looked compared to my “old” Lenovo Monitor. I did some digging and someone suggested to turn sharpening down to “0” when in yPbPr mode but it still didn’t look OK.
This fixed the problem, and although it is not a Retina Display, text is pleasant to look at in web browsers and mail.app.
Cheers!!! (And thanks to the original script author, and the guy who forked/served it up).
proxop
Jan 8, 2014
It worked beautifully on my LG27EA28R monitor. I’m connected via HDMI 1.4 to my 13" retina macbook. Granted the picture and fonts aren’t as crisp as on retina, but much better than on tv-like display. Thanks!
Now my only issue is the ‘hatched’ pattern in the lower part of the screen. Any solutions?
Ehlwitz
Jan 9, 2014
I was close to get sick by the ugly ultra-sharpness of my new 21:9 Ultrawide Philips 298X4 (2560 x 1080) which was also detected as TV device. Thanks to your instructions I can now work with my monitor without getting eye-pain.
Thanks very much!
By the way: If you are too lazy to read exactly where to put the files then you should not wonder: It does not work putting the override in your home library, or somewhere else… headdesk
Enrico Caruso
Jan 10, 2014
Raini
Jan 11, 2014
debra
Jan 11, 2014
When I run the script, I have the following error:
patch-edid.rb:26:in pack’: can’t convert MatchData into String (TypeError) from patch-edid.rb:26 from patch-edid.rb:24:in
each’
from patch-edid.rb:24
Can anyone help me? I have no idea what to do!! Thank you in advance!
Debra
FIX: can’t convert MatchData into String (TypeError)
Change line 26 (add .to_s behind the closing curved bracket): monitor_name=[disp[“edid_hex”].match(/000000fc00(.?)0a/){|m|m[1]}].pack(“H”) monitor_name=[disp[“edid_hex”].match(/000000fc00(.?)0a/){|m|m[1]}.to_s].pack(“H”)
.to_s means convert to string, so it does just what the error told us todo.
Peter
Jan 12, 2014
Hey Guys,
Thank you very much for the solution, seems to work for a lot of people! Unfortunately I have the same Problem as Ernesto and debra.
When I run the script, I have the following error:
patch-edid.rb:26:in pack': can't convert MatchData into String (TypeError) from patch-edid.rb:26 from patch-edid.rb:24:in
each'
from patch-edid.rb:24
I run a MBAir, Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5, HDMI-cable, HP Pavillon 23xi.
Can anyone help?! After searching the Internet now for several hours I am still clueless…
Thanks a lot in advance!
Peter
Crystle
Jan 12, 2014
same as Peter, I get patch-edid.rb:26:in pack’: can’t convert MatchData into String (TypeError) from patch-edid.rb:26 from patch-edid.rb:24:in
each’
from patch-edid.rb:24
Fred
Jan 13, 2014
simon
Jan 15, 2014
Awesome, that rocks, thanks!
Simon
Galileo
Jan 17, 2014
John Brown
Jan 17, 2014
Kyle
Jan 17, 2014
I ran the script and it worked great for about 30 minutes. After that, I couldn’t reproduce the results.
Here is my situation, it’s a bit complicated: I am running a video switch (iogear gcs1782) and I have a minidisplayport to dual link dvi adapter to connect to the switch. On the other port of the switch I have my desktop. Up until earlier tonight, if I wanted to switch from desktop to mbp (late 2013 model) it would give me a snowy screen. Sometimes it just wouldn’t turn on at all.
After applying the script, the monitor was fixed, and when I switched between desktop and mac, the monitor never had any snow again. Then about 30 minutes later, the snow returned.
Any suggestions? This has been driving me insane because I put so much into getting the setup that should have theoretically worked.
Pam
Jan 19, 2014
I have followed instructions explicitly and here is screen shot of the (LoadError)
Last login: Sun Jan 19 00:23:36 on console
Pamz-BIG-iMac:~ pam$ ruby patch-edid.rb
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/universal-darwin13/rbconfig.rb:212: warning: Insecure world writable dir /Library/Application Support/GoodSync in PATH, mode 040777
ruby: No such file or directory – patch-edid.rb (LoadError)
Pamz-BIG-iMac:~ pam$
Any suggestions to help me out? Running on iMac 27 to Samsung SyncMaster 27" T240-HD via HDMI
rainer spaeni
Jan 19, 2014
in reply to Pam
Zak
Jan 21, 2014
mukki2013
Jan 21, 2014
Scott
Jan 23, 2014
Wanted to add my success story and thanks for this thread as well. I was able to fix the display output of a Mac Mini (OS X 10.8.5) on a 29" AOC (has virtually no Apple support) using the link you cited. So far, everything is working as expected.
This article (and link) saved me from from returning a monitor I wasn’t sure I could get working. Again, many thanks.
Yiftipon
Jan 24, 2014
Hey guys,
I’m using the Dell U2312HM monitor connected with Display Port to Mini Display port to my MBPr 13", Mavericks.
I tried the script, did the whole procedure, in System Preferences > Displays the display name is “DELL U2312HM - forced RGB…” still the fonts look quite horrible :(
I tried it with DVI - HDMI cable before with same results and with a MBPr 15" with the same result.
Anyone has an idea how to solve this problem? Thanks!
@Yiftipon sorry to hear it didn’t work
maybe this helps?
You can force OS X to use LCD font smoothing on all displays with this Terminal command: defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2
And to restore the default: defaults -currentHost delete -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing
found it here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1390034&page=1
maybe that helps?
gara manda
Jan 26, 2014
Cloudmoose
Jan 29, 2014
Worked for me on 15 inch late 2011 Macbook pro (10.9.1) connected via DP to 29 inch LG 29EA93 (2560 x 1080).
Not mentioned in the guide but implied… The first time I tried it didn’t work. Folder got cleared from overrides when I rebooted.
Did it again, this time changing permissions on the folder/file to root:wheel instead of my user and it worked.
ekougs
Jan 29, 2014
kjloch
Jan 30, 2014
Has anyone seen issues after patching with their display intermittently going black for a few seconds, then returning to normal?
I’ve got a Dell S2440L connected to a rMBP that does this every so often. I’ve reseated cables, replaced the HDMI cable, everything and can’t seem to replicate the issue consistently or perform any kind of fix.
I’m now testing it with a Windows desktop in the same configuration and seeing no issues.with it.
John Brown
Jan 30, 2014
in reply to kjloch
Yes. I have the Dell S2440L and experience the same problem. The problem is the driver for Intel HD 4000 graphics. It has problems with HDMI to HDMI. Some people use a Thunderbolt –> HDMI adapter and it works. Other people like me use minidisplayport –> VGA and it works. Mine used to go black for a few seconds until I switched to VGA.
Windows has the updated driver from Intel but Mac OS X does not (yet). The same problem occurs in Linux.
Many people are complaining about this on Intel’s and Apple’s websites. I hope they will release a driver update to solve the problem.
Thank you! This worked for me, and was relatively easy considering I’d never used Terminal before.
You’re right about the general Apple ‘answers’ that simply gave up after identifying the problem is an OSX update.
Just have to figure out how to underscan the image now without losing any crispness.
Stephanie
Feb 1, 2014
Stephanie
Feb 1, 2014
Stephanie
Feb 1, 2014
Figured this out – I’m sure I missed something everyone else saw or knows, but just in case anyone else is stuck, here’s what’s up – I found two library paths, Macintosh HD>Users>[username]>Library and Macintosh HD>System>Library. Displays/Overrides is in the System>Library path.
Unfortunately I can’t report success, my Samsung T27C350EW did look sharper, but the image is still shifted about 10 cm offscreen.
Martin K.
Feb 3, 2014
Chris
Feb 4, 2014
Chad
Feb 5, 2014
Ayhan
Feb 5, 2014
Bynne
Feb 6, 2014
rob
Feb 6, 2014
oh man what a difference! it worked for me (the original method). Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013. On a HP monitor.
thank you so much!
Elliot
Feb 7, 2014
BoBo
Feb 7, 2014
ludwig70
Feb 8, 2014
Mathew, Andrew and Tom thank you very much!! This ‚fixed’ my monitor problem too!! My setup is a bit different than with the rest of you, but the solution also works for me. I have the 27” Philips 272C4QPJKAB/00 monitor at 2560x1440. It’s the consumer version of the Philips 272P4QPJKEB. I wanted to use the monitor as a second monitor to my late 2013 27” iMac that runs OSX Mavericks. The cable I use is a „mini-displayport to displayport version”. That resulted in very distorted text display as with the rest of you. So I was very glad to find this forum/thread in a consumers-review on the site of a Dutch supplier.
A few insights on the problems I encountered while fixing the problem (hopefully this will help people with the same monitor on a Mac):
I downloaded Andrew’s enhanced version of the script through Github and extracted patch-edid.rb from the .tar file. I placed in /root (I thought /home was the same as the root) and tried to run it. That didn’t work (although I logged on as administrator). But when I executed it in /users/username it worked. I was a bit scared it wouldn’t, because I can’t ‚close the lid’ on my iMac as MBO owners can. No problem there though. Remember you have to place the resulting folder in your root: system/library/displays/overrides instead of the user/home.
Restarting my Imac twice resulted in a much better text quality (and in settings the „TV” line disapeared). BUT I had to fine tune my monitor on the monitor itself to have normal text quality. Turning the „Smart Image” to „Movie” and turning OFF Smarttext (and Smartkolor; I have Smartcontrast turned on) did the rest of the job.
I also followed the tip of Tom Switzer (thanks) who has the professional version of the monitor (272P4QPJKEB), but encountered the problem that I couldn’t view/edit the file that the patch-edid.rb produced (file format ineditable). I bought an hex-editor that was able to open and edit the file. It resulted in a byte bigger file that (seemed to have) added a unicode-8 flag. Now I was able to edit it with text-editor. And I could remove the ??? characters in the file name. With me the patch seemed to work without it too. But at least it looks nicer without the ??? characters in the monitor name (showing up in systeminfo).
Thanks again!! It prevented me from returning the monitor as useless for my iMac. Now I have an AWESOME double 27" desktop space (2 times 2560x1440).
larry
Feb 8, 2014
[email protected]
Feb 9, 2014
jm9k
Feb 11, 2014
Alidarium
Feb 14, 2014
Thx all of you! I fixed my AOC i2353Fh and now it works correctly with rMBP 13" (2012) through HDMI cabel.
I used Mr Schwarz script. At first after reboot nothing happend. I had to reset my monitor to “default”, after that I saw effect of the script.
Max
Feb 15, 2014
Tia
Feb 15, 2014
I experience trouble following step 4 in the guideline
I can’t find the System/Library/Displays/Overrides folder. I just bought a mac mini and a HP 27 inch monitor. I found out the library is hidden, but when I finally found it, I still couldn’t find displays or overrides.
Can anyone help me out?
breadfairy
Feb 17, 2014
Olivier
Feb 17, 2014
jb
Feb 18, 2014
it worked using andrews new script..for some reason it didn’t work with the original..
i just recently switched from PC and was getting really ticked off with the pixelated text..
thank you so much!!!
Can’t seem to make the script work with a Philips Ultrawide Screen 298P4 model… everything seems to work. The folder gets created and I move in the override folder.. same pixelated fonts with not constrat on the screen… ugly as hell..
Anyone has a thought ? Thanks..
ludwig70
Feb 21, 2014
@Bernard,
- What shows up when you look at the systeminfo/Video information on your macbook (through Apple/About this Mac/More Info/System Information)? Is the “TV” flag still showing up there, or is it gone?
- With me (I have a 27” Philips 272C4QPJKAB/00 monitor at 2560×1440 as second display on my iMac 27) the text looked still blurry after running the script and putting it in the right place UNTIL I turned OFF smarttext in the OSD menu on my Philips monitor (resetting the monitor through OSD-menu also did the job). Hopefully this helps…
PS. Dit you take a look at this (Tom has a Philips monitor too): Update, 28 Nov 2013: If the process appears to work but doesn’t seem to make a difference, consider Tom’s comments below. Depending on your monitor an extra tweak may be required.
sophiet
Feb 25, 2014
I still have problem with the patch… and an Asus PA279Q.
patch-edid.rb:11:in ': undefined method
[]’ for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
Damo
Mar 1, 2014
edwin
Mar 1, 2014
Hi guys,
i’ve followed the steps exactly but the display still looks fuzzy. restarted my MBP twice and the results look the same. i’m using a Dell S2340Lc. Any advice?
The override appears to have been registered when I go to Apple/About this mac/More info/“Graphics/display’’ as i see “Display with forced RGB mode (EDID override)”
i am using a 2010 13” MBP, OS 10.6.8.
Appreciate any help!
JohnE
Mar 2, 2014
Nisei
Mar 2, 2014
Nick Mowinski
Mar 3, 2014
Has anyone had any success forcing an actual TV into RGB mode over HDMI?
My 2008 Mac Pro and Bravia 40D3000 connects via VGA, however the time will come when I go 1080p, and I’ll be forced to go digital and be unable to avoid the RGB issue anymore. I have a DVI-HDMI cable that I never used due to this years ago.
I tried this last year, the, however I suspect that the EDID info is incorrect and is ignored, nothing changed on boot. Just tried today again in a spare moment, and now the script doesn’t create anything at all, no idea what has changed to cause this. That said I’m no worse off, having never had any success.
Darren Seetoh
Mar 3, 2014
Its works on me. Simply GREAT!!! 2011 Macbook Pro + DELL S2340L 23" Monitor. All this is done with connection using VGA cable + Mini display Port to VGA convertor.
Thank you very much to all the originators. :)
Adam
Mar 3, 2014
I did this fix and it works perfectly for smoothing the text on my Toshiba 24" TV, however the max scaled resolution that I can now output is only 1360 x 768 so I’m wondering if there’s a way that I can get this back to full 1080p resolution like I had before.
I’m using a 2012 iMac by the way.
Mac User
Mar 9, 2014
Courtney
Mar 9, 2014
Benoît-Marie
Mar 15, 2014
Hello !
I have a little problem : patch-edid.rb:11:in ': undefined method
[]’ for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
Do you have any solution ?
Thanks
lolanose
Mar 17, 2014
Amit
Mar 18, 2014
unusimba
Mar 19, 2014
apple did shit work here with the thunderbolt - mini display port! mr apple, why no bug correction with system update?
I have also some minor bugs with my screen - when MacBook Pro goes to sleep, external screen, display this message: “invalid mode” but everything else seems to work correctly. Obviously there is something that does not work 100% ok, but I can’t figure out what is this “invalid mode” message about… I mean where in the system to look for the info about what’s wrong.
Any ideas guys? Thanks so much
Andrea
Mar 20, 2014
Amit
Mar 21, 2014
Falk
Mar 27, 2014
Rob Franz
Mar 27, 2014
Les
Mar 28, 2014
Phil. T
Mar 30, 2014
kai gwee
Apr 1, 2014
fernando
Apr 2, 2014
i can’t run the script on maverick.
i get “command not found”
help!
maiky
Apr 5, 2014
you make my day!
works perfect for a DELL3014 on a new MacPro
first i had some issue with the terminal. nothing happend after typing “ruby patch-edid.br”.
i checked the user - set the Administrator again on read+write.
i verfiy disk permisson - repair disk permisson
i restart - and the the terminal line works.
put the new folder into the library like above in the description.
restart the mac - runs perfect.
thank you for sharing this!
btw. the DELL support has in germany not nearly an idea what the problem is!
fernando
Apr 5, 2014
fernando
Apr 5, 2014
so i dugg around other override profiles and found one that works. now i got 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 900x1600, 50 and 60 hz and pal and ntsc
i used the data from DisplayVendorID-4d10
hope that helps someone. for me i was having a hard time playing games on my tv with the interlaced image.
Joanna
Apr 7, 2014
One important thing if you have a Samsung SyncMaster monitor!
- Using the Samsung remote press the ‘source’ button
- Now press the ‘Tools’ button
- Highlight ‘Edit Name’ and press the ‘OK/Accept’ button
- Move the selected input to HDMI and press the ‘OK/Accept’ button again.
- Move the selection to ‘PC’ and again OK your selection.
After that, in order to fix any color issues press the Menu button from your remote and in the Picture Tab go down to Picture Options and change to these settings: *Colour Tone : Normal *HDMI Black Level : Normal
That did it for me! Hope it was helpful. Thank you!
Unbelievable! Thanks, skylife88 - I wish I’d seen your comment 3 hours ago. That was exactly it - I’d swapped the HDMI inputs around on my SyncMaster, and relabelled them accordingly. My rMBP is now plugged into a splitter, and the input was labelled HD STB (which is its primary use). I thought it was only a label, and not also a function setting! The STB and PS3 which are also plugged into that splitter work just fine with its name set to “PC”, so now I can breathe a sigh of enormous relief.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou :)
tommy
Apr 9, 2014
Sundeep
Apr 10, 2014
Shawn
Apr 11, 2014
Thank you so much!!!
Works perfectly on a Dell U2414H connected to an 21.5" iMac (mid-2011).
sandergovaers
Apr 20, 2014
Andrew
Apr 21, 2014
Dear Sandergovaers
I just control clicked and chose download. Choose “Go” “Home” from menu bar and drop the file from the downloads into this. Then “Go”, “Utilities” and open “Terminal” and type “ruby patch-edid.rb”
Thanks i reckon. Hadn’t had any problem with Asus and LG monitors, just this HP Pavilion 23xi. Patch worked brilliantly. Had to switch to lower resolution and back again after restart. I have a 2013 MacBook Pro.
Thanks again.
Daniel
Apr 22, 2014
Phil T.
Apr 22, 2014
Hey there, I applied this script using a dell u2312hm when using mini display port to display port adapter on a haswell retina macbook pro. The monitor gets the rgb signal but the fonts still look fuzzy. It’s like if one letter is sharp and the next isn’t. Sometimes I even see like some reddish or bluish shadow around some letters. especially when the same letters are following each other like : ll or tt. When I zoom in and the font gets bigger, the shadows go away.
The same thing happens when using a mini display port to dvi adapter.
I have put the terminal command to AppleSmoothing -int 2 .
Could it be the monitor?? The monitor was fine under mavericks connected to my old 2008 macbook pro with dvi cable.
I just ordered a viewsonic vp-2770 and im afraid to have the same result on such a quality monitor.
Dan Gordon
Apr 25, 2014
in reply to Phil T.
Dode
Apr 22, 2014
Dode
Apr 22, 2014
Jim
Apr 23, 2014
Saved my life….and my eyes from tumbling out of my head…
Not what I expected to have to do with a brand new MacPro after unboxing…
nicola
Apr 23, 2014
mukki2013
Apr 24, 2014
nrsphrt
Apr 26, 2014
Michael
Apr 27, 2014
Thanks for the Hack, however I have a new problem that might be easy to fix. I have TWO Dell U2414H monitors, connected to my 2012 mac mini. One is connected with the supplied mini display port to display port cable, and the other monitor is connected with an hdmi cable.
I got the second monitor later and was using the fist one quite happily with your hack. When I connected the second monitor and selected the profile for the Dell U2414H that was made for my first monitor I got no results. I then disconnected my first monitor and did the hack, I rebooted and my second monitor looked great! Only my first monitor looked bad again… So I disconnected the second monitor and ran the hack on the first monitor, I rebooted and my first monitor was fine, but my second monitor was bad again! I then ran the hack with both monitors turned on, I saw in the terminal window that the hack detects 2 monitors, i removed the old color profiles and put the new one in the display folder, in the folder there are 2 color profiles, but only one shows up in the settings window.. I now have one nice and one not so nice monitor and Im really bummed out :-( Does anyone know how to get it working on both monitors at the same time?
Oke here is an update, I could not get my second monitor to be less yellowish of warm if you will. I contacted Amazon.de and they replaced it with a new one. Too bad that this monitor had the same problem. For the record all the U2414H’s I had (including the good one) where Rev 00. So I contacted Amazon.de again and I returned the monitors and got 2 Samsung S24C750 monitors instead. When connected they both registered as TV’s but the hack on this page quickly fixed that, I connected both monitors and they were both on during the hack. Needless to say the Dells were crap and the Samsung’s are great. There are no H IPS but the are MVA, I think there better, their black levels are amazing, its almost like watching an OLED display. I can recommend the Samsung monitors to anyone.
So if your having a DELL U2414H that has a yellow glow to it, return that thing and get a different brand. :)
happy
Apr 29, 2014
Calumbas
Apr 30, 2014
Guys, sorry if you have already gone through this, but I still can’t make the images on my brand new Dell U2713HM look sharp at all.
Before doing the “override”, there were several resolution options, but the max resolution available read “1080p”; now that the Display Preferences show “DELL U2713HM - forced RGB mode (EDID) Override”, there are only 3 resolutions available:
- 1920 x 1080
- 1600 x 900
- 1360 x 768
Even after the override, all these options look horrible (blurry); feels similar to when I use Airplay do project images from the computer on my AppleTV (and consequently to my FlatScreen TV). Seems as if the issue is more connected to the resolution than with RGB color…
Do you guys have any suggestions? What do I have to do to use my DELL Display at max capacity (2560 x 1440) with my MacBook Pro?
Thanks a lot!
Tom
Apr 30, 2014
@calumbas: I’ve the same problem with the exact same monitor (dell U2713HM) ;-(
Please help us! Thanks
gasperzi
May 4, 2014
skimon
May 5, 2014
£ÐУЯ
May 5, 2014
John Barker
May 5, 2014
Calumbas
May 20, 2014
in reply to John Barker
John, just got a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable and finally got full resolution (2560x1440) at my monitor!
What a difference!
Thanks a lot! Problem solved!
Sagit
May 8, 2014
Hi All, I tried the hack, and it did not work! I have an MBP 13 inch, I use a connection thunderbolt (instead of mini dislay port) to VGA. Here is the output of the file in the overrides directory:
DisplayProductName ASUS MS246 - forced RGB mode (EDID override) IODisplayEDID AP///////wAEafckAQEBARMUAQMKNB14JjWFplZImiQSUFS/7wDRwLMAqUCV AAEBgYCBQHFPAjqAGHE4LUBYLEUA3QwRAAAeAAAA/wBBNUxNSVowMzk3NTkK AAAA/QA3Sx5VEwAKICAgICAgAAAA/ABBU1VTIE1TMjQ2CiAgAHw=
DisplayVendorID 1129 DisplayProductID 9463
Does this look OK? I still see blurry text, and when I use parallels, the letters are crystal clear.
Sagit
May 8, 2014
Tom
May 8, 2014
@calumbas
I finally get my resolution thanks these files: -> http://embdev.net/topic/284710
I get the file present in the zip file and change the name of the file “DisplayProductID-a092″ to the filename generated by the script above.
Everything working well now !
Finally get the expected 2560×1440 resolution on my U2713HM on MacBook Pro late 2013 with this cable: Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter. -> http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB571Z/A/mini-displayport-to-dual-link-dvi-adapter Hope it helps someone ;-)
Ivan
May 12, 2014
Hi Friends,
I’m not certain this fix is what I need, but I’m not a programmer and will need someone to counsel me and if it is necessary, walk me thru it. I’m a designer, and getting the clearest onscreen image out of the equipment I have is important.
I have a brand spanking new 13" MBPr running 10.9.2, with an external HP 23bw IPS HD 1920x1080 LED display. I’m seeing what I would consider a blurry image on the larger remote display. Text for sure is noticeably out of focus. I realize it won’t ever be as crisp as the Retina display, but I was hoping that it would be clear enough to get my work done on. It really isn’t very good currently.
The monitor is currently connected directly HDMI to HDMI port using the HP cable. I also tried connecting with a Rocketfish TB Mini to HDMI adapter, and see no difference. Is there something else I should try?
Thanks in advance! Ivan
lizamae1
May 12, 2014
LG29EA93
May 14, 2014
Christian
May 16, 2014
Hello everybdy, i’m trying to run the script (ruby patch-edid.rb) and i get this answer
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.
0/universal-darwin13/rbconfig.rb:212: warning: Insecure world writable
dir /usr/local in PATH, mode 040777
patch-edid.rb:11:in ': undefined method
[]’ for nil:NilClass
(NoMethodError)
Any help on this issue?
Thanks in advance
I have a MBP 13 early 2013 retina running 10.9.3
Michael
May 17, 2014
I’ve find this thread through this http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1699375
Where was a question:
“I have MacBook Air 13” 2012, OSX Mavericks 10.9.1 and just got a Dell U2414H monitor. Settings in OSD are: RGB color, Mac Gamma, sRGB color preset and in OSX Dell U2414H color profile. It is connected with mDP to DP cable, works good and image appears good, but it is recognized as HDTV by the OS. This annoys me and I am not sure if the OS sends full (0-255) or limited (16-235) RGB."
I’ve the the same situation: hakintosh with OS X 10.9.2 and dell U2414H monitor. In OSD menu it shows RGB signal and in OS X information about this monitor: 32-bit Color (ARGB8888).
I have applied this fix, no error when it was run, but it’s still 32-bit Color (ARGB8888), and I don’t see any changes.
How to understand that this fix worked or it has been applied.
Thanks.
Keto
May 20, 2014
this was the only thing that worked for my MacBook Pro retina late 2013 and external HP LP2475w with HDMI. Thanks very much.
Ibrahim
May 26, 2014
First of all, Thanks for sharing this. It really worked after 2 years of searching and struggling. You are guys just awesome.
Secondly, I had to face a problem that was mentioned by some others in the comments but no clear cut solution has been provided. I guess.
Here it is:
When I pasted the file in the " Overrides " folder. It didn’t replace any folder. Just beeing added to the bunch of folders. What happened is: Colors were perfectly corrected. But, Resolution choices were narrowed to: ( 1080 - 1600900 - 1360768 ) ONLY and scaling has disappeared and the maximum resolution I can get is 1360 * 768 other wise the scale will outfit the screen ( larger).
Here what I did, thanks to people who mentioned that but indirectly.
1- I deleted the file I generated and pasted from the folder “Overrides”. 2- I went to the file I generated in the " Home directory " and rename it by a name of one of the files present already in the “Overrides” folder. In my case it was this " DisplayVendorID-4d10 “. 3- I pasted the generated and renamed file to the folder " Overrides " again, then it asked to replace I clicked OK ( N.B I backed up that folder present already to the desktop in case something happened). 4- Then, restarted the monitor and it worked.
Regards Ibrahim
thebenkahn
Jan 22, 2018
in reply to Ibrahim
doudou
May 26, 2014
Brian
May 27, 2014
After running through the process and rebooting I’ve got a garbled screen (see pic in the link):
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/ZXrT6U4wd0XJMBcP6eZ3zuvLk_RpAvHhfS_tOkg7sibT=w816-h612-no
I can get back to normal by restoring the original folder I backed up from /System/Library/Displays/Overrides. Anyone else ever seen anything like this? I’m using a pretty new monitor (the LG 34UM95 21:9 3440x1440). My understanding was that the script should extract the existing profile and just override to force RGB. Time for some more EDID research I guess.
chris
May 28, 2014
Christian
Jun 4, 2014
Hello Please anyone can help me???
i’m trying to run the script (ruby patch-edid.rb) and i get this answer
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.
0/universal-darwin13/rbconfig.rb:212: warning: Insecure world writable
dir /usr/local in PATH, mode 040777
patch-edid.rb:11:in ’: undefined method
[]‘ for nil:NilClass
(NoMethodError)
I don’t know what to do, and absolutely no idea what could be the problem
I have a MBP 13 early 2013 retina running 10.9.3
Roger
Jun 5, 2014
andiros
Jun 7, 2014
well this didn’t work for me. I applied the script (i used the improved one which generates monitors name in the file) and put it at the correct folder. I rebooted and it is still fuzzy. And the colour file itself though is used since my screen now has a title of DELL U3014 - Forced RGB mode (edid override). It has to do with the 10.9.3 update. I tried to go back to a 10.9.2 version with TimeMachine but the restore failed twice. So i restored tru a SuperDuper backup to my 10.9.3 version which has this problem unfortunately.
Anybody any ideas here ?
Martin
Jun 12, 2014
Hello everyone,
this is my first post and sorry for my English.
I bought the Dell U2414H and hooked it up with my MacBook Pro Mid 2009. It has the Nvidia GeForce 9400M inside. In near future the display will be connected with a 2012 Mac mini with the Intel HD4000 inside.
My question is: how do I recognize that my setup suffers under the problem that is discussed here? By now, I can give you following details.
On the monitor side:
- I own the revision A00
- I use the original Display Port to Mini Display Port cable
- When I first connected the monitor with my MacBook Pro the Display Port Mode 1.2 was automatically disabled
- The Dell OSD menu tells me that the monitor is running with RGB input format, Mac Gamma and sRGB mode
- For my eyes, everything looks fine
On the MacBook side:
- I runs OS X 10.8.5
- “About this Mac > Monitor” tells me that I’m using “Monitor: Dell U2414H”
- “About this Mac > System > Grafik/Monitor” tells me “TV: Yes”
- “System Preferences > Monitor > Colours > Open Profile” tells me “Colour Room: RGB”
Thank you very very much in advance, Martin
nos1609
Jun 12, 2014
Francis
Jun 13, 2014
Alex Yamil
Jun 16, 2014
Aristoteles
Jun 18, 2014
[email protected]
Jun 20, 2014
Andre
Jul 3, 2014
in reply to johnnydough
yokken
Jun 25, 2014
Steve Olson
Oct 7, 2014
in reply to yokken
Per
Jun 27, 2014
Has anyone gotten this fix to work with 10.9.3 and Dell U2414H? Everything in settings looks as it should after applying the fix, however the picture is still fussy after reboot. Just tried with Windows laptop to make sure I wasn’t just picky, but nope - sharpness using Windows is 10x better than OS X.
Anyone?
Andre
Jul 3, 2014
Etienne Pralong
Jul 4, 2014
JB
Jul 7, 2014
JB
Jul 7, 2014
ni.
Jul 12, 2014
Has anybody used this script on the new LG 34UM95 Monitor. I use it with a GTX680 graphic card and despite adding the generated “DisplayVendorID-4c2d” folder it keeps showing up as a TV with horrible fonts.
My script looks like this:
DisplayProductName Display with forced RGB mode (EDID override) IODisplayEDID AP///////wBMLYELV0hLMA4YAQOAPSN4Il+xoldPoigPUFS/74BxT4EAgcCB gJUAqcCzANEABHQAMPJwWoCwWIoAYFkhAAAeAAAA/QAYSx5aHgAKICAgICAg AAAA/ABVMjhENTkwCiAgICAgAAAA/wBIVFBGNDAwODU3CiAgABM=
DisplayVendorID 19501 DisplayProductID 2945
ni.
Jul 12, 2014
ni.
Jul 13, 2014
Pat
Jul 14, 2014
I have a late model 2013 Mac Pro with the D300 GPUs and an LG 27EA83 monitor. I am unable to run the monitor in native 2560x1440 resolution. My selections are limited to 1080p at best. I have tried the script here, but the monitor then distorts with lots of ghosting and the resolution remains at 1080p. Using a min displayport to displayport cable. Worked great with late model Mac Mini. I also tried switching display port cables and no change.
I have also tried using Apples $99.00 Displayport adapter with dual link DVi cable. Monitor comes on at boot, and it appears to be in the native 2560x1440 when the apple logo first shows on the gray background, and then the monitor goes dark.
I have also tried StitchresX and it allows me to select 2560x1440, but the fonts are so fuzzy as to be painful in reading.
Much thanks to anyone who might be able to assist with any ideas.
Vimal Kaul
Jul 18, 2014
ni.
Jul 18, 2014
hamishirving
Aug 8, 2014
in reply to ni.
Hi Ni,
Did you find a solution for your LG 34UM95? Mine has just arrived, I installed the override correctly (displays the override in System Prefs) but now it wont display at full resolution, it is locked to 1920x1080.
What cables are you using? I’m stuck on Thunderbolt to HDMI until a Thunderbolt cable arrives in the post. Even with the override, the text looks blurry and the colours are wrong, I’m running it off a late 2012 rMBP. Also, I cant access the Sharpness level like you mentioned (it’s greyed out in settings?).
andy
Jul 19, 2014
christian
Jul 22, 2014
i contacted apple support about this. they passed it to the engineers who said - this is how it works. “anti aliasing was on application level” ignoring the fact that it wasn’t looking correct in the finder level.
so there is no solution beyond switching to windows.
christian
Jul 22, 2014
Alex
Jul 22, 2014
areapower
Jul 23, 2014
misa_
Jul 25, 2014
I probably have the most stupid question but, it 7 pages are too long to see if someone else asked same question. Anyway, I am using late ‘13 MBP with retina display and DELL P2414H. I’ve connected it via HDMI from MBP to DVI into monitor.
Question 1 : As I can see here, it is okay to use this cable as hdmi to hdmi too ?
Question 2 : I am still stuck at downloading this script, since I am new to OS X i really hardly understand how to use those scripts. I see there is a zip file for one type of monitor but I am not sure what to do with textual script that is given and it should work for all monitors. Where to copy that text ? If it is text editor, how to name it? Should I place it in folder and zip it and copy to home folder ?
If anyone can be so kind and tell me how to do this step by step ?
Thank you very much! Misa_
misa_
Jul 25, 2014
UPDATE:
I probably succeeded to instal this script, but I do not see changes. The picture is not even close to my retina display on MBP. I would appreciate any thoughts. Thanks
Garzas
Jul 28, 2014
Hi There. Need some help
I forced my IMac to RGB and was pretty good. Now I just bought a HP LP2480zx monitor with Color Calibration Solution. Through a AJA T TAP no chance to calibrate but using thunderbolt adaptor I tried to calibrate but the program always crash. I calibrate this monitor by a laptop and worked fine.
- Do I need to worry about the color trough AJA? Is well calibrated?
- Should the monitor keep my last calibration?
- Is there any chance to calibrate through AJA?
- Any bad experience with HP Calibration solution? Thank you all
mo
Jul 29, 2014
Hi there! i am a new MAC user and i am struggling in general with the whole operating system.. now i have bought 2 new BENQ screens however text is blurry as all of you have been facing. i downloaded the patch however i am not able to create this override file! in terminal when i write “ruby patch-edid.rb” i get the load error. therefore i really would appreciate if someone can help me
thanks in advance
abi
Aug 5, 2014
Many thanks got it working finally!
2 hours trying to figure out that the system folder is here. install tinkertool app unhide system foders. go to finder click GO after file,edit,view,go in the task bar now click COMPUTER or shift ,command , C find the system folder here!
Peter
Aug 5, 2014
_Susanin_
Aug 6, 2014
Kroos
Aug 12, 2014
Hey guys
I used MacBook Pro retina display 15’ and my external monitor is LG 29EA93. I have exactly the same problem and when I tried to follow the step I was kinda stuck even on the first step, where do u actually download the script ?
Worked great for me, thanx!
I have a MacBook Air connected with a minidisplay to display port cable from StarTech to a LG 2560x1080 pixel 29EA93 Monitor. After connecting the colors looked awful and fonts looked liked they were made with LEGO bricks.
Now the colors are so bright I have to wear sunglasses but that doesn’t matter I ’m very happy.
This is a much better advice that the Dutch Apple helpdesk gave me (as always: clean instal).
Very bad that I have to make such changes to the OS myself and Apple doesn’t solved this problem in almost 9 months…
Thanks again for this great article!
kroos
Aug 13, 2014
in reply to Quin Lausberg
Nick
Aug 18, 2014
Bjorn
Aug 22, 2014
Dembo
Aug 22, 2014
Thank you so much for the detailed explanation - I was ready to send an Acer K272HULbmiidp (using the complete model number to make this page easier to find) back after it gave me a horrible grainy picture via HDMI or DIsplayPort when connected to a 2013 Retina MacbookPro with discrete NVIDIA graphics.
Generating the RGB override via the Ruby script took 1min and the Acer looks as expected - ready for calibration/profiling. Once again two thumbs up!
JW
Aug 26, 2014
Roger
Sep 12, 2014
Kitty Bessie
Sep 16, 2014
Conrad Rodas
Sep 16, 2014
Thank you for your file. Unfortunately it didn’t work for me.
I have a MacPro (new model) with Thunderbolt to HDMI and a Dell 2711. This setup worked with 10.9 Mavericks. I had to press “Alt” while pressing “scaled” in preferences in order to get 2556x1440 as an option. As soon as I upgraded to 10.10 (currently on 10.10.3 beta) the resolution went away and the highest I can reach is 1920x1080.
I downloaded all 3 scrips, even the alternative. I put the Ruby file in my home folder, run the script, create the new folder with the new text file with I name DisplayProductID-a055, restart my computer and nothing. I still only see 1920x1080 as my highest resolution possible. I am putting it in the correct folder System<Library<Displays<Overrides
What can I be doing wrong?
Please please help!
Thank,
Teryl Boothe
Sep 23, 2014
Pissed Mac User
Sep 23, 2014
John
Sep 25, 2014
The patch-edid Ruby script worked perfectly for me and my dual Dell 2413 monitors. Because I have a new (spring 2014) MacBook Pro (with retina display), I have one monitor connected via HDMI and the other via Thunderbolt / Display port. The problem affected only the monitor connected via HDMI.
I played the swap game trying to isolate the problem (swapped cables, swapped monitors, swapped MacBooks) … eventually proving that it ONLY occurs with a Dell U2413 monitor connected via HDMI to a new MacBook running Mavericks. The problem does not occur with a) an old MacBook, or b) connection via Display Port, or c) using a Dell U2410 monitor.
Thanks again!
–John
Nazar M
Sep 26, 2014
Jordan Harrop
Sep 27, 2014
Hello,
Does anyone know how to force RGB on an iMac. I have an HP DreamColor Monitor, but unlike a laptop, I can not seem to shut off the main monitor to the iMac for the override to work.
Thanks, Jordan
Griff
Sep 30, 2014
John
Sep 30, 2014
I hit the same problem again today with a brand new-out-of-the-box Mac Mini running OS X Server 10.9.5 and a Dell U2413 connected via HDMI. I ran patch-edit, moved the DisplayProductID to the Override folder, rebooted and presto chango! Thanks again Andrew!
(I also submitted this problem and the fix to Apple, asking them to fix it in the OS so that we don’t have to patch every machine …)
–John
Nisse
Oct 2, 2014
Dave
Oct 3, 2014
Colin
Oct 5, 2014
Thank you very much! I used Andrew’s modified script and proceeded through all the steps while my MacBook’s lid was closed. After the fix was applied, I re-opened my lid and the external screen momentarily flashed black signifying the MacBook’s connection.
When I checked the color space on the monitor’s control panel it was RGB. I didn’t have to do a restart, but I assume that’s because the display’s override files were reloaded when the lid was opened.
For reference, I used this on a Dell S2340L (HDMI) and a MacBook Pro Mid 2012 running OSX 10.10 Public Beta 4.
Teryl Boothe
Oct 6, 2014
Danilo
Oct 9, 2014
Gaurav Varshney
Oct 10, 2014
Nick Mowinski
Oct 11, 2014
Danilo, I’ve had the same issue with a TV (Bravia 40D3000, see page 5), however I suspect, that unless it’s an actual monitor the chances of getting the correct EDID is slim to none. Nobody here seems to have success here beyond dedicated PC monitors.
I’ve essentially given up, but Google this issue occasionally in the faint hope that Apple get their finger out of their collective arse and fix this.
Sadly, this is still the number one hit when I search.
Brady
Oct 16, 2014
Mocha Gromurph
Oct 17, 2014
psbrubaker
Oct 17, 2014
thohow
Oct 17, 2014
SL
Oct 19, 2014
ludwig70
Oct 21, 2014
Philipp
Oct 23, 2014
reiiz
Oct 25, 2014
Caleb Liau
Oct 27, 2014
Pat
Oct 29, 2014
Yas
Oct 29, 2014
Patch was working fine until the yosemite update. Tried process again and did not work. Any ideas as to what I can do? Screen looks terrible. Not crisp at all. The screen I’m using is a Dell U2413.
Any help will be very much appreciated.
Dembo
Oct 29, 2014
As expected I lost the RGB on an Acer K272HULbmiidp connected via HDMI when I moved from Mavericks to Yosemite. Re-ran the Ruby script (the improved version that correctly names the display), put the folder into the right folder as instructed, rebooted and… it work like charm.
I really find it quite embarrassing for Apple that you have to jump through so many hoops to get things up and running but at least it is working as expected.
_Susanin_
Nov 5, 2014
Eduardo
Nov 11, 2014
Nick Mowinski
Nov 11, 2014
Eduardo
Nov 11, 2014
I never got it to work sadly so can’t help you much more, but off the top of my head, make sure your running at the native res, ensure that display contrast in accessibility is set to normal, play with your font smoothing settings etc.
Glad you got the RGB issue nailed though. :-)
Francesco
Nov 11, 2014
Francesco
Nov 12, 2014
Francesco
Nov 12, 2014
Eduardo
Nov 12, 2014
Eduardo
Nov 12, 2014
No, not at all - don’t erase all the folders! In my case, there was already a folder with the name the script created with another file on it. I just moved that file to my desktop and replaced with the new one, keeping the folder. Today I found out that it must be a balance between your display AND the mac configs. I spent some time adjusting the display configurations (white balance, blur, etc, etc) and now the image is perfect!
It is worth giving it a try!
jarnail
Nov 13, 2014
John Hightower
Nov 14, 2014
i tried it. Macbook pro mid 2010 with samsung 32" monitor.
What it did was wipe out the speakers in the monitor. Now i have no sound and an annoying 2" square box with a speaker diagram with an X through it migrating around the screen.
No difference to screen appearance I can detect. I can’t find the display folder or the override folder.
John Hightower
Nov 15, 2014
Update - of sorts: This morning I have sound back, I’m not aware of changing anything. I did finally manage to find the systems library and overrides folder and get the new display folder pushed in there. The sound was still out after doing that, but it has returned this am. The display is noted as being forced RGB, I don’t really notice much improvement. I have continued to mess with the color display calibration and I’m getting closer to a tolerable color mix.
First thing this morning the screen started flashing. Every few seconds it would flash. I rebooted and it’s been fine since.
Pedro Ferreira
Nov 15, 2014
I have the PHILIPS 298P4 monitor and i can’t find a way to use the full resolution of the display, i’ve tried these steps, but had no success.
ps: i’m using the HDMI cable, but i’ve already ordered an Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable that i’m waiting to arrive and test it.
Anyone could help me to achieve 2560x1080 on my monitor, please?
MBP 13" Retina late 2012 / running Yosemite 10.10 Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB
Adam
Nov 17, 2014
hello, i have a problem i downloaded the patch, i have it on my desktop, and then when i go to terminal, and type: ruby patch-edid.rb and hit enter, this is what i get :/
Last login: Sun Nov 16 14:30:16 on ttys000 MacBook-Pro-uzivatela-Adam:~ Winstead$ ruby patch-edid.rb ruby: No such file or directory – patch-edid.rb (LoadError) MacBook-Pro-uzivatela-Adam:~ Winstead$
im very new to mac, i dont know what to do, i have it on my desktop but it says no such file or directory, so i dotn know what to do,
i would much appreciate for any kind of advice! ty everyone
Hello, I recently bought a DELL 2713HM to use on my MacBookPro 2011 (Yosemite 10.10.1) connected through a Mini Display to Display cable. The problem is that the colours are off, washed out. The best color profile I have found is ‘Apple RGB’, although it’s still not right.
I downloaded and run the ruby script and placed the files in the /System/Library/Displays/Overrides, and rebooted by these new profiles that appeared (Dell U2713HM EDID override) are just as bad as the original.
Is there a way to fix this? Has anyone got the same problem?
Ethan
Nov 19, 2014
Chris
Nov 19, 2014
I’ve tried running this script, but no folder is created. When running it in verbose mode, I get these errors.
Exception LoadError' at /Users/MyUser/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p598/lib/ruby/site_ruby/2.0.0/rubygems.rb:1216 - cannot load such file -- rubygems/defaults/operating_system Exception
LoadError’ at /Users/MyUser/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p598/lib/ruby/site_ruby/2.0.0/rubygems.rb:1225 - cannot load such file – rubygems/defaults/ruby
I’ve got both of those gems installed though, so I’m not sure why I get that.
Phil
Nov 20, 2014
tapp
Nov 26, 2014
It didn’t work for me on a late 2012 iMac 27" with a Pavilion 23xi. OS X version is 10.10.1. It creates me a 1920x1080@60Hz mode, but I still get the same results. In case it’s a different issue, what I find is that the desktop size for the secondary monitor seems to be the same as for the 27" display, so I only see part of the desktop (I have to underscan the secondary screen to be able to see the menubar and the dock).
I’ve ordered a thunderbolt to DVI converter, and I hope it fixes the issue, otherwise, I’ll return the monitor.
Paddy Bauer
Nov 26, 2014
tapp
Nov 26, 2014
in reply to Paddy Bauer
Paddy Bauer
Nov 26, 2014
Nick Y
Dec 10, 2014
in reply to Paddy Bauer
Mid-2014 15" rMBP hooked to Dell U2415 using the mini-displayport to displayport cable that came with the monitor.
Used Andrew’s modified script. Restarted laptop and the monitor.
No dice. Text is still blurry.
It does show in the window’s title bar that RGB mode is being forced though: http://cl.ly/image/1k0t101K232V
Display setting screenshot: http://cl.ly/image/3M3o0b2u0m2s
Connection Type did change from TV to DisplayPort: http://cl.ly/image/0i403k3g442w
Larry
Dec 4, 2014
john doe
Dec 5, 2014
Nick Y
Dec 10, 2014
Ben
Dec 16, 2014
Juan
Dec 18, 2014
Thank you very much!
It worked for me.
Macbook Pro 15’ Late 2013 running Yosemite 10.10.1 Acer B276HUL
Similar setup here too, and worked perfectly to smooth over the jagged fonts.
Late 2013 mbp, OS X 10.10.1, Acer K272HUL 2560x1440 27"
Charles
Jan 2, 2015
Haldor422
Jan 7, 2015
Trevor
Jan 8, 2015
Unbelievable. I can’t believe this worked. 2013 rMBP with DP connected Acer B276JUL at 2560 x 1440 running Yosemite.
Again, I can’t thank you all enough. This has made such a difference.
JK
Jan 9, 2015
Jim A.
Jan 11, 2015
Daniel Gordon
Jan 18, 2015
in reply to Jim A.
Ken
Jan 13, 2015
Joshua C.
Jan 13, 2015
Someone made a video on youtube using the (almost) same instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdd9MZIZBKs
Hope this helps.
bigbaum
Jan 15, 2015
neond
Jan 18, 2015
Thanks, this is an awesome feature! works on Yosemite with Mac Mini.
The only problem with it is that for me is that I cant choose the refresh rate 24hz (hertz) in the Mac Display Menu any longer, I could do that before the “fix”. The only choices are 60hz, 60hz (probably i, interlaced) and 50hz, and that means that it will not do 24p any more and therefore it will not automatically change refresh rate in media apps like XBMC,Kodi and Plex HT. Any help..? if someone could fix it with a 24hz option it would be awesome. I had choices of 60, 50, 30, 25 and 24hz before and now I only have 60, 60 and 50hz.
neond
Jan 19, 2015
ph0togeek
Jan 20, 2015
This helped a lot with an HP Pavilion 27xi 1920 x 1080 LED monitor connected to a MacBookPro 13". It went from horrible to bearable. I think the rest of the problem is related to the pixels being quite spread out on this monitor, which is fairly low-res for 27 inch.
Thank you!
Philipp
Jan 26, 2015
Here is a little comparasion between Windows 8 and OS X Yosemite on DELL U2412M. This is AFTER forcing the RGB mode. As you can tell, fonts are still blurry, compared to windows.
http://cl.ly/image/0Y1H3r0v021C/Font-Rendering-Comparasion.png
Chris
Feb 1, 2015
new to mac and have maybe a dumb question. In the overrides folder I have a bunch of other folders titled “DisplayVendorID -xxxx”. Are they supposed to be there? This process is not working for me at all.
Thanks!
@Chris: it is normal that you see all kinds of “DisplayVendorID -xxxx”. Copying the new folder into the folder System/Library/Displays/Overrides/ and restarting the MacBook should do it.
@Leon: 1. Download the file ‘patch-edid.rb’ and put it into your home directory.
2. Run the patch by opening Terminal and typing in Terminal the following:
ruby patch-edid.rb
After doing that you'll see a new folder in your home directory.
3. Go to System/Library/Displays/Overrides/ and make a back-up
of the folder 'DisplayVendorID-4dd9' if it exists, i.e. back-up the folder you are going to overwrite.
4. Copy the new folder from your home directory to System/Library/Displays/Overrides/.
5. Restart your laptop.
Hope you will have more succes now.
Philipp
Feb 1, 2015
I was about to send my new Acer K272HUL back because the main reason I bought it was the 1440 lines in resolution and then I founf this post and it worked: Thanks a lot to all the people involved finding the cause and writing the fixes! I ended up using Andews ruby script mentioned in his comment above: https://www.mathewinkson.com/2013/03/force-rgb-mode-in-mac-os-x-to-fix-the-picture-quality-of-an-external-monitor/#comment-9463
My configuration: Yosemite 10.10.2 on a MacBook Air Mid-2012 with Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024MB connected with a Mini Display Port to DP cable. I bought both of these, both work finally. I only bought the more expensive one because originally I thought the cable might be the reason for my limit in resolution:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0094WTC2C?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B002XVYZ82?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00
Original problem: From the Display settings I could select 2048x1152 and it would display the content on my big screen with black borders at 2560x1440 (told by the monitor menu –> info). Switching to 2560x1440 in the mac settings would result in a totally broken image: Mainly black, some heavily distorted parts of the screen on the left third of the monitor.
Followed the instructions exactly as described and it works like a charm: 2560x1440 @ 60Hz now!
Hi Philip, glad this worked out so well for you! I am trying to improve my own brand new setup with my Mac Mini and HDTV. Not sure if I did it correctly, so please confirm if the below seems correct:
I copied Andrew’s file and containing folder to the required folder, so that it shows in Finder as follows: System/Library/Displays/Overrides/gist7435890-66c54c17b179809b028b58a2ca7af0b9540d05b6/patch-edid.rb
Then I restarted my computer (Late 2014 Mac Mini, running Yosemite including all updates). I did not really see any changes, as the fonts still appear blurry on the screen (32" LG smart TV, connected with HDMI to HDMI; the TV has no DVI or VGA connections).
In the Display Preferences on my Mac, the resolution is set to “Default for display”, which is 1080p, and in the color tab I see the following profiles: HD 709-A LG TV Calibrated [this one I created before; it shows the richest colors] SD 170M-A Adobe RGB (1998) Generic RGB Profile sRGB IEC1966-2.1
Did I take the right steps? I have no idea what a script is supposed to do; was I also supposed to double-click on the script file, beside just copying it to the required folder?
And am I looking in the right place, under Display Preferences? As I never saw anything about YcBcR or something in any of the System Preferences, I don’t know if I am trying to apply the right fix here in the first place. Sorry to ask such basic questions. I did read through many of the comments posted here, but I might have missed any clarifications for dummies.
Thanks much, Leon
clem
Feb 4, 2015
Thanks so much! This worked like a charm on my mid 2011 11" MacBook Air and brand new HP 25xi monitor.
So glad I found this post and didn’t try to buy new expensive cables as suggested on forums for nothing!
More details if it can help anyone: resolution 1920*1080@60Hz, plugged from Mini Display Port to HDMI with a $7 Mini Display Port to HDMI adapter + HDMI cable.
Leon
Feb 4, 2015
Hi all,
So, I am wondering if the blurry fonts on my LG 32" HDTV, connected by HDMI-HDMI to my Mac Mini (late 2014), are caused by the same problem you are all dealing with here…
Please could anyone review whether I correctly followed the instructions of Matthew’s post and Andrew’s comment? I am an absolute dummy in this department, so I probably skipped some step that to others seems too obvious to mention. This is what I did:
I copied Andrew’s file and containing folder (see his post above) to the required folder, so that it shows in Finder as follows: System/Library/Displays/Overrides/gist7435890-66c54c17b179809b028b58a2ca7af0b9540d05b6/patch-edid.rb
Then I restarted my computer (Late 2014 Mac Mini, running Yosemite including all updates). I did not really see any changes, as the fonts still appear blurry on the screen (32″ LG smart TV, connected with HDMI to HDMI; the TV has no DVI or VGA connections).
In the Display Preferences on my Mac, the resolution is set to “Default for display”, which is 1080p, and in the color tab I see the following profiles:
HD 709-A LG TV Calibrated [this one I created before; it shows the richest colors] SD 170M-A Adobe RGB (1998) Generic RGB Profile sRGB IEC1966-2.1
Did I take the right steps? I have no idea what a script is supposed to do; was I also supposed to double-click on the script file, beside just copying it to the required folder?
And am I looking in the right place, under Display Preferences? As I never saw anything about YcBcR or something in any of the System Preferences, I don’t know if I am trying to apply the right fix here in the first place.
Thanks much for any suggestions! Leon
Hi Leon,
See my reaction on Chris above, I put my reaction there by accident. Hope this helps you.
Stefan
Feb 4, 2015
I was glad to see that this trick worked, but I see that the colors on my Macbook Air are now wrong. After overriding the folder with the old back-up folder and restarting, nothing has changed.
Does anyone know how to solve this?
Hi Guys,
I used this fix before when connecting my K272HUL to my MBP Retina and it worked perfectly. Now I have the monitor connected to my iMac Retina. Has anyone used the fix with success? I wasn’t sure if it would work since I can’t have only the external monitor working to “force” the override. Cheers.
Leon
Feb 8, 2015
Hi all,
Could anyone tell me whether the blurry fonts on my LG TV might be due to the colors problem you all are discussing here? I am not sure about this myself, since the following profiles are all listed in my Mac Mini’s (late 2014) display preferences when connected with HDMI to my HDTV:
HD 709-A LG TV Calibrated [this one I created; it shows the richest colors] SD 170M-A Adobe RGB (1998) Generic RGB Profile sRGB IEC1966-2.1
My question: can anyone tell me what is missing from these profiles that should be there for the fonts on my display to appear sharper? And so, should I go through the procedure described here to fix this supposed colors problem?
Thanks! Leon
Ela
Feb 9, 2015
AlamoPS
Feb 12, 2015
There is a way to revert this modify?
Because I bought another Monitor and now RGB is crashing my display.
Jose
Feb 25, 2015
neond
Feb 26, 2015
neond
Feb 26, 2015
Matthew
Mar 5, 2015
pete
Mar 5, 2015
Aaron
Mar 6, 2015
David
Mar 6, 2015
Nick Mowinski
Mar 6, 2015
I had the same problem with Yosemite and a Bravia TV.
Previously I had managed to get SwitchresX to force the correct res, right up to Mavericks, however Yosemite does something that negates even this, the best I could get was pillar boxing like yourself, so I gave up in the end and rolled back to Mavericks after fighting with it for two nights, very frustrating.
Matt
Mar 7, 2015
How can you see what color space OS X is outputting? It says Television:Yes. But in pixeldepth: 32-bits color (ARGB8888). And on the monitor menu: input color formst: RGB.
Does this mean my Dell monitor doesn’t have this problem?
Abdusalam
Mar 17, 2015
Hi Mathew,
I follow the steps but after restarting the my Mac mini there s no changes happen !! My device is Mac mini with Yosemite 10.10.2 connected to ViewSonic VX922.
Please is there any think that can I do ?
Gunnar
Mar 19, 2015
lin lcat
Apr 13, 2015
hey man
Insecure world writable dir /usr/local in PATH, mode 040777 patch-edid.rb:9: undefined method `[]’ for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
how can i fix this error??
Sebastian
Apr 16, 2015
mikequery
Apr 21, 2015
Kent
Apr 21, 2015
mikequery
Apr 21, 2015
Oh cool someone from the apple forums helped me, this worked:
Choose Go to Folder from the Finder’s Go menu and paste /System/Library/Displays/Overrides into the dialog box.
The trick seems to have worked, though I can’t tell if the quality is still a little off, or if it’s just hard swapping between retina and non-retina? I’ve got a headache and I can’t tell if it’s because of this…
jeremy
Apr 27, 2015
I tried what you wrote but it didn’t work for me… I’m using a Macbook Pro from 2012 with Yosemite. When i connect with HDMI my laptop with my screen (HP 2311x), my Macbook see the screen (it recognizes it) but the inverse is not true…
Thanks a lot for your help, i’m a little deperate ^^"
dave
May 6, 2015
Ivan
May 14, 2015
Hi Mathew,
I came today with my new laptop home and was loosing my mind over this problem. Now works like a charm with Andrew’s script. I’m so very grateful to both of you.
Alexey
May 16, 2015
Igor
May 17, 2015
Alexis V
May 19, 2015
Rob
May 26, 2015
AM
May 29, 2015
vizyweb
May 29, 2015
The short story: I now have my MacBook Pro running my new Acer K272HUL 27" running at 2560x1440 pixels and it is sweet!
The longer story: I have a Macbook Pro (Mid 2012 model) manufactured in 2015 (got it in an emergency for $800 its only a few months old and they are around $1,300 Australian Dollars and I bought an Acer K272HUL 27" display to get me by until I get my new iMac Retina 27" (I get it early June 2015 really can’t wait) as my iMac 27" Mid 2009 27" decided it would die a week or so before I was going to update anyway and I wanted to use the Macbook Pro with the Acer at full resolution 2560x1440 in the meantime, well tried everything all the hints tips suggestions I called a local Apple dealer and called Apple support who put me on to this site.
The solution was as follows:
First be fore you try anything you need one of these its called a Mini-DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort Cable http://shopap.lenovo.com/au/en/itemdetails/0B47091/460/67FB3393C9474D4EBB539D3DC944B8CE
I tried a Mini-DisplayPort-to-DVI and a Mini-DisplayPort-to-HDMI They both only gave me 1920x1080 resolution which is not right.
You will only get this wroking correctly if you get the Mini-DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort Cable
You have to use the Mini-DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort Cable they should only cost you around $10-$20 Australian dollars mine is 2mtrs and cost me $9.00 Australian dollars
How to force RGB in Mac OS X
- Download the patch-edid.rb script here: http://www.vizyweb.com.au/git-files/gist-patch-edid.rb.tar-3.gz and extract it in to your home directory, If you don’t know where your home folder is use these instructions: In your home folder, there are folders for your desktop files, downloads, pictures, documents, movies, music, and for any public files. To open your Home folder, click the desktop to make sure you’re in the Finder, then choose Go > Home.
2.Connect only the external monitor(s) in question (I closed my MacBook lid, for example). The script will make override files for any connected monitor.
-
Type “ruby patch-edid.rb” in Terminal.
-
A new folder will be created in your home directory. Move it into the “/System/Library/Displays/Overrides” folder. If finder tells you that you are overwriting an existing folder, consider backing it up first. Restart your computer, enjoy your monitor.
To undo the changes, either delete the folder you had copied to the Overrides folder (if it didn’t already exist) or replace it with the folder you had backed up.
Hope this helps some people as I wasted more than 7 hours on this issue before I resolved it.
You have to use the Mini-DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort Cable they should only cost you around $10-$20 Australian dollars mine is 2mtrs and cost me $9.00 Australian dollars
soppadoppa
Jun 5, 2015
Scott
Jun 10, 2015
Colin
Jun 11, 2015
Stefano
Jun 14, 2015
Hi guys,
I’m having the same blurry text rendering issue on my new NEC EA274WMi. Connected to windows machine it’s perfectly sharp. Connected to a macbook pro retina late 2012 OS X Yosemite all texts are blurry.
I used the patch mentioned in this post but it doesn’t work. Once installed it forces me to use a lower resolution than the native 2560 x 1440, making everything more blurry.
Already tried with hdmi/DVI/displayport cables, disabling the lcd font smoothing and reducing the transparency in System Preferences.
Who can give me some suggestions? Thanks in advance.
HotJoint
Jun 18, 2015
Erik
Jun 19, 2015
nos1609
Jun 22, 2015
I don’t run OS X anymore so I can’t test myself, but according to this post the folder has moved: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/os-x-el-capitan-working-not-working-apps.1890772/page-4#post-21435739
Would you let me know if “/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides” works, and if so I’ll update the post.
Otherwise, I don’t know. I’m hearing that the new ‘rootless’ feature of El Capitan is causing people issues in other ways, maybe it’s just a beta problem.
Wyatt H
Jun 25, 2015
Martin Crossley
Jun 27, 2015
Paul M.
Jun 29, 2015
Ted Power
Jul 10, 2015
gabriel
Jul 12, 2015
MJ
Jul 22, 2015
[email protected]
Jul 24, 2015
Loby
Jul 26, 2015
Question: Have a DELL U2414H and an Apple Thunderbolt Monitor.
I want to run both monitors at the same time. If I run the script, will it effect the Thunderbolt Monitor as well or just change the settings on the DELL U2414H monitor?
I am using a mac mini 2012. I can use the extra Thunderbolt out on the monitor to daisy chain the monitors and the DELL looks ok, but would rather use the port instead for a thunderbolt hard drive. I would like to attach the DELL to the HDMI port of the mac mini and not have the OS X see it as a T.V. Anyone else try to do this? Will it work and not cause a problem with the thunderbolt monitor?
Those with a mac mini 2012 question: also, I can use the thunderbolt hard drive to daisy chain the DELL monitor and get the system to see it as a monitor and not a T.V. But due to the lesser graphics card in the mac mini 2012 it works but system is pushing it. If I hook up the DELL instead to the HDMI port, does it lessen the work on the graphics card since the system was designed to have a secondary monitor or T.V. on the HDMI port instead of daisy chaining the Thunderbolt port to carry two monitors?
Thanks and appreciate the help. I hope this method will make my second monitor look better!!!
sclyeah
Aug 10, 2015
Roberto Verde
Aug 13, 2015
Alexander Kohr
Aug 26, 2015
eve
Aug 26, 2015
Danny S
Aug 30, 2015
marcoam
Sep 2, 2015
Hi: I just bought this Screen ACER K272 HULA and i have the same issue. Connected DVI-DVI I have no issues but max. resolution is FHD, when i try to connect mDP - DP all i get is a No signal error… I have a Mac Pro mid 2010 with this wire
http://www.startech.com/Cables/Audio-Video/Display… DisplayPort-Adapter-Cable-Male-to-Male~MDP2DPMM6
I tried to force RGB but still with no luck and no signal income. I also tried to change DP setting but i have not any DP setting in my menu, so I cant do it.
Please help. What can i do?
Sia
Sep 7, 2015
I followed all the steps and I think everything worked correctly. The script ran, It said “found display ‘SyncMaster’: vendorid 19501, productid 639, EDID:” and then I placed the folder in the Overrides folder. I checked the generated file for weird characters but found none. However, I’m not able to see any significant improvements.
Computer : MBP Mid-2014, 15 retina. Os:Yosemite Monitor:Samsung 226bw
Any ideas?
C
Sep 22, 2015
C S
Sep 22, 2015
Irfan
Sep 23, 2015
Valued Customer
Sep 24, 2015
ale
Sep 26, 2015
Jao
Oct 1, 2015
0x62ash
Oct 1, 2015
bigmcguire
Oct 1, 2015
in reply to 0x62ash
The exact steps I took (to simplify):
- Re run the script to generate the folder to copy to ovverrides.
- You’ll notice override in a new location: /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides and you can’t paste anything to it.
- Boot into recovery (pressing Command+R repeatedly as Mac reboots).
- Go to Utilities –> Terminal and type: csrutil disable. — Reboot.
- Now copy the new file created to /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides overriding the one already there.
- (See 7). Reboot. Text is sharp again!
- Boot into recovery (press Command+R repeatedly as Mac reboots).
- Go to Utilities –> Terminal and type: csrutil enable. — Reboot.
You now have Rootless and sharp text!
roccomyman
Oct 2, 2015
Tom NJ
Oct 4, 2015
I couldn’t hate Apple any more for doing this every time they do an OS upgrade.
I’ve been following all the instructions and for me I can’t generated the override folder while in El Capitan. So I’m going to restore to Yosemite and see if I can copy to folder to an external drive. Restore to El Capitan and try again.
Like tomeek I too have a Dell U2410 and shouldn’t have to suffer like this every time Apple does and update!
Ishan
Oct 4, 2015
Dembo
Oct 5, 2015
David
Oct 5, 2015
will this affect ability to use a custom color profile created by a screen color calibration tool such as x-rite colormunki or Spyder?
Thank you
Dembo
Oct 6, 2015
in reply to Justin Lee
Karl
Oct 7, 2015
Unfortunately it does not work for me:
patch-edid.rb:9:in scan': invalid byte sequence in UTF-8 (ArgumentError) from patch-edid.rb:9:in
'
I got an 5K Retina iMac. Please help! The colors on my Philips TV make me crazy!!
Karl
Oct 7, 2015
I came across this solution because I found this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5931799?tstart=0 This is excatly my problem.
Now I see, that the problem described here is different, because it is there right after you connect the display - not after 20 minutes.
But somehow it must be connected, because after 20 minutes, the colors switch…
Andrew B
Oct 7, 2015
Jorge
Oct 8, 2015
scan': invalid byte sequence in UTF-8 (ArgumentError) from patch-edid.rb:9:in
'
Andreas
Oct 8, 2015
Ken
Oct 9, 2015
Thank you so much for the post, I followed the steps and it worked for my MacBook Pro Retina with El Capitan, with my monitor samsung S27D850T. However, after applied the RGB mode, it says now at 59Hz instead of original 60Hz. Can this be changed or forced to 60Hz?
Cheers.
Zipped
Oct 10, 2015
jay-d
Oct 10, 2015
star840
Oct 12, 2015
yyovkov
Oct 13, 2015
bnsblue
Oct 13, 2015
Ash
Oct 14, 2015
I didn’t try this fix when running Yosmite but I did when running El Capitan and it doesn’t work.
I changed the name of the monitor as suggested and that enabled me to see the new profile in the display settings but choosing the new file did not have any effects on the screen so I’m still dealing with blurry fonts and wonky colors.
After looking around and googling, this problem seems to be isolated to Philips monitors. I can’t test the theory but..the fix supposedly worked on Philips when running Yosmite but once installing El Capitán it doesn’t work anymore.
It would be amazing if you could find a solution to the problem. :/
Justin Lee
Oct 16, 2015
I have OSX Yosemity 10.10.5
I can’t seem to move the ruby file (unzipped) to the Home directory. There is an error. Also, In the Recover mode the csrutil disable command doesn’t work at all for me either :(
terngz
Oct 16, 2015
Sebastian
Oct 23, 2015
I had been using Yosemite with this override trick flawlessly… until El Capital came. Then things went awful again, and with “things” I mean colors, shapes, blurry fonts, etc. So I came back here to see if there was a new trick for this new OS or something, and voilà! I followed the same steps stated above, i.e.: 0.- Disconnect all displays but the one is giving you problems. In my case, I use mac mini with an AOC Q2963PM 29" 2560x1080 as primary display and a Samsung S23B370 1920x1080 as secondary display. Since the problem is with AOC, I unplugged the S23. 1.- Download the improved script https://gist.github.com/adaugherity/7435890 || Put it on home directory. (For newbies: where is home folder? Is the one it has a “house” icon, and it is named with the user name you created when the first OS was installed on your machine) 2.- Reboot to disable SIP. See http://www.macworld.com/article/2986118/security/how-to-modify-system-integrity-protection-in-el-capitan.html Go down to “Follow these steps to disable SIP” section. If you use a wireless keyboard, the “Command+R” combo does’t work. I had to plug an USB Keyboard just to make it work. 3.- Reboot again 4.- Run the improved script you downloaded in step 1. 5.- Copy the folder created by the script (in my case it was “DisplayVendorID-5e3”) into the “/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides” folder. 6.- Reboot 7.- Notice everything is back to normal again. Enjoy the view. 8.- Reboot again to enable SIP. Just in case.
That’s all. I really hope it works for you too.
Nick
Oct 23, 2015
This works amazingly on my Dynex HD tv!
Thank you for this!
Peter
Oct 27, 2015
Kimball
Oct 27, 2015
Agustín
Oct 28, 2015
chenli zhou
Oct 28, 2015
help me i doan all step but there is no different before i forcing to rgb
here is my final create file :
DisplayProductName BenQ EW2440L - forced RGB mode (EDID override) IODisplayEDID AP///////wAJ0Th5RVQAAAwZAQOANR54JjClpFVTnycNUFSla4DRwIHAgQCB gKnAswABAQEBAjqAGHE4LUBYLEUAEyohAAAeAAAA/wBUM0YwMTc1MlNMMAog AAAA/QAyTB5TEQAKICAgICAgAAAA/ABCZW5RIEVXMjQ0MEwKALQ=
DisplayVendorID 2513 DisplayProductID 31032
and put it in right /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides,and no old file to replaced btw
Matthis
Oct 30, 2015
ludwig70
Oct 31, 2015
gea
Nov 1, 2015
Philipp
Nov 2, 2015
Hi, for anyone still having problems AFTER going through the whole process: I came across a fix by user jkgeyti on github that worked perfectly for me:
“I just realised what the problem was for me. I hope this will be useful for others.
Opening the produced config file in nano showed the device name has a bunch of “unsupported” characters Philips 272P4^@^@^@�^@^WL^Oc^^^@ - forced RGB mode (EDID override). I replaced it with Philips 272P4 - forced RGB mode (EDID override), saved, unplugged and reseated the hdmi cable, and success!
Maybe it was worth adding a line to the script that strips all non-alphanumeric characters from the display name?”
mk77
Nov 4, 2015
I have a Macbook Pro Unibody with Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB and I’m trying to have the correct resolution display on my LG 29um57-p Ultrawide 21:9 monitor. Unfortunately the fix isn’t working as it only shows Resolution Scaled options:
1920 x 1080 1600 x 900 1280 x 720
Any ideas how to add the maximum 2560 x 1080?
Nick Mowinski
Nov 4, 2015
in reply to mk77
sam
Nov 7, 2015
hi, i did the thing ,everything went well.. but my text only got problem…. its text clarity is not as good as in boot camped windows 8.1 …
Please help me..
SeeSaw
Nov 12, 2015
Hi all,
I run the script and no folder is created (no error message). I’ve seen comments of a couple of people in the script link with the same problem and no reply. Any way you can help?
Ruens
Nov 13, 2015
Steve Mullen
Nov 19, 2015
BACK AT THE FIRST POST: “When I hooked it up to my Dell U2410 monitor via HDMI cable I was shocked by the poor picture quality. The contrast was all wrong and text was misshapen. No amount of calibration in the monitor or software would fix it. OS X thinks my monitor is a TV, and is using the YCbCr colour space rather than RGB. I had to override an EDID setting to force the RGB colour space, and it is now working correctly.”
-
What determines why a monitor IDs themselves as a TVs while another monitor ID themselves as a RGB monitors?
-
My 3840x2160 RGB monitor supports audio via HDMI. My laptop HDMI works to a TV, but no audio goes to my monitor. My first thought, does the fact it correctly sees it as an RGB monitor mean it assumes monitor does not have audio? The monitor does show-up under Sound Output as HDMI, but no audio goes to the monitor. Anyway to OSX that the monitor does accept audio?
-
Same problem, but with the monitor connected by Thunderbolt/Displayport 1.2. I assue DP supports at least 2 channels of audio, but no audio flows to the monitor.
-
Somehow OSX 10.9.5 thinks my 3840x2160 RGB monitor has a resolution of 6400x????. So the QT Player fits a 3840x2160 video into the center quarter of the screen. I can manually make it go Full Screen, but is there some way to tell OSX the correct resolution?
Peter
Nov 20, 2015
There’s no need to disable SIP on “El Capitan”. Just download the script and run it. Then boot into recovery mode (Command+R) and start Terminal from the Utilities menu. Your root drive will be mounted under /Volumes/Macintosh HD in writeable mode without SIP. Just copy the file generated by the script to the right folder. In my case it was the following:
mkdir /Volumes/ Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-4c2d cp DisplayProductID-902 /Volumes/ Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-4c2d
and reboot.
Realized my drive wouldn’t mount by default because it’s a FileVault volume. First, look for the “Logical Volume” number, grabbing it from the last entry with the following command. It’s a long string of hex numbers with some hyphens. (Not “Logical Volume Family” or “Physical Volume”, but “Logical Volume”)
diskutil coreStorage list
Then, unlock it:
diskutil coreStorage unlock
which should also mount it. (If it doesn’t, try diskutil mount ). Then, make sure you’re using the full paths, i.e., “/Volumes//System/…” and not “/System/…” (Matt, that’s why you were getting read-only errors: you were referring to the Recovery Volume paths.
Andy Pickler
Feb 11, 2016
in reply to Peter
Matthias
Nov 28, 2015
I just wanted to let you know that Peter’s comment concerning SIP is correct. If you are in the recovery mode you can do the move or copy operation without any problem. No need to disable SIP and re-anable it later. A possible complication is FileVault. If FileVault is enabled you have to unlock the System disk. Instructions for that can be found in Rich Troutons blog entry https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/using-the-command-line-to-unlock-or-decrypt-your-filevault-2-encrypted-boot-drive/.
Thanks to everybody that contributed to solve the problem.
Matthias
frustrated
Nov 30, 2015
guthram
Dec 1, 2015
Hi all. I have tried Petes recommendation however I am at a standstill. When I restart in recovery mode, I cannot access or see the Macintosh HD. I only see the recovery partition. Is there a command or something to change to be able to do so? I am new to MACs and have spent a great deal of time on this, and have searched til I am blue. Some help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. JC
Also, I am using a dual monitor setup. I see two different files created by the Ruby Script. Do I need to move both of them? And which override folder do I place them in? I am getting weary looking at the blurry text. Thanks again.
guthram
Dec 1, 2015
MoB
Dec 6, 2015
Robin
Dec 7, 2015
[email protected]
Dec 9, 2015
raj
Dec 9, 2015
Hello there. I have made severalattempts and the image quality is still nowhere near how it shows on windows via virtualbox.
Using: macmini end 2012 Screen: ASUS VX248 24''
Does anyone have any tips?
Jana Wurdel
Dec 13, 2015
Hello! I am so frustrated. I did it once before El Captain… I got El Capitain now, and i am back to the pink/green philips screen every couple of minutes.
I tried it again, but it doesn’t work this time. Here is whats not working:
Type “ruby patch-edid.rb” in Terminal. - causes:
ruby: No such file or directory – patch-edid.rb (LoadError)
so i can’t find a new folder. :-(
Besides i am not sure about the script writing thing. how to do it with my macbook.
Please, anyone can help me?
Thank you, Jana
Kevin
Dec 21, 2015
Serkan
Dec 30, 2015
I confirm this solution worked for my setup: late 2013 mbp retina with El Capitan + U2715H connected via hdmi. Now my monitor shows the input as RGB and there is a significant improvement in image quality. Although it is now ok quality I am not sure if it is still as good as connecting my windows pc though. Maybe I should play with font smoothing.
Btw, I did not try Peter’s method because I did not see it until I complete the fix :) Maybe you can put an information about that up in the instructions.
Thanks a lot!
Serkan
Dec 30, 2015
Jered
Dec 30, 2015
Dmitry Smirnov
Dec 31, 2015
Anton
Jan 7, 2016
Charley
Jan 7, 2016
Unbelievable how much this changes the clarity! Thank you so much, I would’ve never figured this out.
Monitor: HP 27xw Display
regards!
Hi Charley. Did you used thunderbolt to vga or thunderbolt to HDMI
Thank you
ablondal
Jan 10, 2016
Camila
Jan 18, 2016
BC
Jan 24, 2016
Dan
Jan 25, 2016
Lucida
Jan 29, 2016
JTL
Feb 5, 2016
nos1609
Feb 7, 2016
If anybody is planning using this patch in combination with pixel-clock patch one has to keep in mind, that prior using pixel-clock there is the need to remove any previous RGB patches. So every custom folder added to Overrides directory should be removed, then apply the pixel-clock patch, and finally the patch-ede one.
Otherwise, you’ll face a bootloop like this one https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/11856987/12868039/b7be90a4-cd0e-11e5-9ef6-9ee97c671bf4.jpg
PS Confirmed working on mac mini 2012 MD388 with two dell u2913wm over HDMI and USB with freed up thunderbolt port for any other use at their full res on El Capitan 10.11.4 Beta 2 (15E33e), so the code of improved script remains still up to date. Many thanks!
SniCel
Feb 9, 2016
Chad Garber
May 7, 2016
in reply to SniCel
Benedikt D.
Feb 10, 2016
Thanks a lot for solution! It works great for my MBP 15’’ retina connected to DELL U2412M via apple Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter.
Kath
Feb 19, 2016
in reply to Павлухин Иван
Peter
Feb 29, 2016
Jimmy
Mar 9, 2016
John Garrick
Mar 10, 2016
Dex
Apr 18, 2016
in reply to John Garrick
Luke
Mar 11, 2016
I have an early 2011 Macbook Pro 15" running Mavericks connected to a LG 23MP47HQ-P IPS monitor. It is connected through a thunderbolt to HDMI adapter and is being recognized as a TV. I’ve run the patch multiple times with no success. I’ve gone into the Display Vendor ID file and the LG monitor is being recognized and has the correct name in the code. I’ve also tried to edit the display name in the patch file (as per Michiel’s comment) before running the terminal command but this causes an error in the execution and doesn’t create a new folder.
Would anyone have any other ideas of what might solve my issue. Did I buy a monitor that this patch just will not work on?
Thanks!
Maximne
Mar 16, 2016
ME
Mar 17, 2016
Executed the procedure as explained but was not successful with my setup. Using a MBpro with HDMI-HDMI on a BENQ GL2450H. Override is working correctly but the font is still blurry. Looks like I have to switch to DVI as a lot of people saying this works better for them.
Anyway, thanks for your efforts working on this patch.
Cheers, Markus
Robert Geranio
Mar 31, 2016
Robert Geranio
Mar 31, 2016
agron
Apr 9, 2016
I have a Dell S2415H connected to a 13" Retina Macbook Pro (Early 2016) running El Capitan 10.11.4. I did the following steps to fix the blurry text which was driving me crazy:
- Put the macbook in Clamshell mode
- Run the ‘Force RGB’ patch
- Set Display Profile to ‘Color LCD’
- Reset the monitor’s settings to default.
- run this command on terminal ‘defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 3’ and reboot the macbook.
Thanks for the font smoothing trick. The font smoothing trick looked promising until I noticed that the apple menu, finder etc (apple related) were fine but other applications like firefox, intellij idea were all too bold. Is there a way to keep the apple related with font smotthing 3 and other applications to a lesser value like 2 or something?
At the rate my 1080p Lenovo displays, I think I am going to go blind in few days
Hola Balart
Apr 16, 2016
Heiko
Apr 17, 2016
This didn’t work for me, when i run the script i get this message:
patch-edid.rb:9:in scan': invalid byte sequence in UTF-8 (ArgumentError) from patch-edid.rb:9:in
'
How can i fix this?
Nichlas
Apr 23, 2016
Is these the right settings? http://abload.de/img/screenshot2016-04-23ac2sfy.png
Thank you very much :-)
Best regards Nichlas
Jason Taylor
May 1, 2016
I applied the fix to my monitor (AOC) - It didn’t seem to work (all steps completed and understood). I tried the remove/reconnect suggestion, that didn’t help. However, I then went into the monitor settings and performed a reset - bingo!
Jason.
SFo
May 4, 2016
Dean Ward
May 26, 2016
Yung Chun Pang
Jun 2, 2016
admin
Aug 29, 2016
in reply to Yung Chun Pang
I have an Asus VN279QLB and also having the exact same problem as described above.
Tried the patch and it appears to have worked, but no change in the display.
I’ve used HDMI with many other monitors fine, so very confused.
visvadw
Jun 10, 2016
Enie
Jun 17, 2016
This problem still exists under macOS Sierra. Also the patch still works.
Thanks for your patch!
hugh
Jul 4, 2016
sportsnapper
Jul 14, 2016
in reply to hugh
Scott
Jul 4, 2016
bradmacpro
Jul 12, 2016
Jennifer
Jul 16, 2016
Thea
Jul 19, 2016
Adam Schoales
Jul 28, 2016
in reply to Thea
Raoni
Jul 20, 2016
coffee
Jul 22, 2016
So this used to work PERFECTLY for me, but now since updating to the latest version of OS X (10.11.6) it seems to not be working fully. System information doesn’t show it as being a TV anymore: http://schoal.es/1lh6R
But in the display preference pane it’s still only giving me TV resolution: http://schoal.es/101KN
I even recently bought a Mini Display Port to Mini Display Port cable to try and fix the problem.
This is so absurdly frustrating, and I don’t know who’s to blame - Apple or Dell - but I am ready to pull my hair out (and sell this monitor for one that works reliably).
Chase
Jul 29, 2016
benjamin
Aug 25, 2016
Francisco
Aug 31, 2016
Bryan Dutton
Sep 15, 2016
Jaime
Sep 18, 2016
snoogly
Sep 19, 2016
Freddy
Sep 21, 2016
MBP Mid-2012 non-retina, hooked up with Dell U2414H. GeForce 650M. Closed lid, therefore running on the 650M and not the built in graphics.
Im not sure if my screen shows weird colours. Would it be easy to notice? Should text look weird too, you say. My screen is found as a TV by OS X, and when I had El Capitanthius “trick” removed the shown as aTV-problem, but I cant say if the colours, graphics etc looks different.
Now using Sierra (not preview), it seems like the settings have been restored and my screen is found as A TV again. Did or did it not work to do this trick in Sierra, and what is the benefit if the screen shows, from what I cat tell, the right colours?
How to tell if things are OK or not, and could it be fixed even in Sierra?
Jon Kurz
Sep 22, 2016
erlendsp
Sep 23, 2016
Vicky
Sep 24, 2016
Clint
Sep 27, 2016
What I got. Maybe help somebody . Mac mini 2012,Osx 10.10.5 // display PIONEER KURO PRO 110FD. I can options on TV ,control input signal . you can see from manual \Pioneer KURO .
Problem not in MAC or TV ( monitor) problem in cable. HDMI send YCbCr colour space . Check different HDMI cable like 1.2 1.4 2.0 My all HDMI pick from Mac YCbCr colour space . and now DP (thanderbolt) to HDMI : My old chip from Ebay DP to HDMI send RGB signal. I got brand new DP to HDMI from eBay and this cable send on the same system YCbCr colour space . I have control option on my Pioneer KURO and can see what signal arrived in my tv. From KURO manual : • If you select “Auto”, an attempt will be made to identify the type of digital video signals when digital video signals are received. This is option for input signal: 
Auto (default) Automatically identifies input digital video signals/////////////////////////////any cable you never know Color-1 Digital Component Video signals (4:2:2) locked/////////////////////////////////////HDMI-HDMI, new DP-HDMI Color-2 Digital Component Video signals (4:4:4)locked///////////////////////////////////////HDMI-HDMI, new DP-HDMI Color-3 Digital RGB signals (16 to 235) locked////////////////////////////////////////Old DP to HDMI Color-4 Digital RGB signals (0 to 255) locked///////////////////////////////////// Old DP to HDMI cable 4K*2K HD TV To HDMI Adapter Cable 6ft 1.8m Mini DisplayPort DP Thunderbolt Cord This is DP -HDMI cable new one send YCbCr colour space:
Just got on eBay i1display pro . I need collared my Mac mini with Pioneer KURO for good gamma and color./. Problem any color space RGB orYCbCr from Mac to TV has bed gamma , I check on this web site : http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gamma_calibration.php My gamma show on this web site : 10%-1.8 25%-1.6 48%-1.1
I hope i1display pro is going to fix this . I just wait my package .
Karthik
Oct 3, 2016
Mike
Oct 8, 2016
Hi - I sent these instructions to someone and they had a little trouble. For step 6, I’d suggest clarifying that they may have to create the Resources and Overrides folders. There is an Overrides directory under a slightly different path that seems to be confusing. Path has to be exact and I think is overlooked sometimes due to the presence of a similar path.
Also, for being able to close your laptop without it turning off, (as suggested in step 4), there is a free package called SetResX by Paul Griffin (thanks!) that can help accomplish this. Sometimes hosted on some spammy websites though, so be careful.
These steps work though.
Piter
Oct 13, 2016
Jordan
Oct 17, 2016
I upgraded to Sierra before remembering I had to do this hack to get my old Mac mini to work well with an external display. So glad this page still exists!
Here are the steps I had to follow, since I don’t have a Recovery Partition on this computer, and Internet Recovery uses a very old version of OS X that doesn’t have the csrutil utility.
- Download Sierra installer again.
- Follow the steps on Apple’s site to make a bootable USB drive.
- Reboot and hold down Option and then select the USB drive.
- Wait forever for it to boot.
- Use the Terminal to run csrutil disable.
- Follow the steps above.
- Rejoice in my white windows actually being white instead of gray!!!!
- Try to remember to re-enable SIP.
David
Oct 29, 2016
in reply to Scott McIntyre
Thanks Scott, I tried to do the same steps in Sierra but I have a issue with ruby
davids-MacBook-Pro:~ disiei$ ruby patch-edid.rb ruby: No such file or directory – patch-edid.rb (LoadError)
My ruby version davids-MacBook-Pro:~ disiei$ ruby -v ruby 2.0.0p648 (2015-12-16 revision 53162) [universal.x86_64-darwin16]
Thnaks in advance !!
David
Andrzej
Nov 8, 2016
I run the script mentioned on this website following the instructions above and it worked without problems on Sierra 10.12.1. I copied the RAW script (RAW button in the upper right corner of the frame with script text, pasted it to nano, saved, and run. No need to worry about the built in display, it is omitted by the script).
I can easily confirm the effect with my Dell U2515H, which actually displays the input mode.
I did the hack to improve font rendering, which is very nice on retina, but not on the external display. Unfortunately, I cannot really see a difference - I guess I would need to have a side by side comparison. That said, the screen look fine to me now.
Andrzej , Im completely non technical. Can you walk me through the steps to accomplish this is Sierra. I have the new late. 2016 MacBook Pro connected to a DELL U2913WM with a USB C to HDMI cable. It looks terrible. I’ve been using my 2012 MacBook Pro with this monitor using mini display port with no issues.
I don’t understand any of the terminal and script/ruby instructions. e.g. I copied the RAW script (RAW button in the upper right corner of the frame with script text, pasted it to nano, saved, and run
Fredrik
Nov 8, 2016
Scott Denowh
Nov 8, 2016
Erik Thomas
Nov 9, 2016
Thanks so much for your article. I am running Sierra on a mid-2015 Macbook Pro 15" Retina (OSX 10.12.1), with a brand new (2016 model) Samsung 4K UHDTV to work as a monitor. It’s a curved 49" TV so yeah, it’s huge, but I’m replacing two old monitors with the one for simplicity.
I am a ruby developer and had no trouble following your directions and they worked perfectly, though I still had to play with the TV advanced picture settings before the fonts looked like they should. For some reason the “Movie” preset made the fonts look best by a significantly visible margin.
But it’s awesome! Your script saved me from returning the TV!
Thanks again!
SAMSUNG - forced RGB mode (EDID override): Resolution: 3840 x 2160 @ 30 Hz Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888) Main Display: Yes Mirror: Off Online: Yes Rotation: Supported Automatically Adjust Brightness: No
Marcus
Nov 18, 2016
Thanks a bunch for the guide! Saved me from needlessly returning my MacBook, the HDMI Adapter, or my TV.
I have a few recommendations to speed up the process, which saves one boot to recovery and you never have to actually disable the System Integrity Protection (SIP), thus never really leaving the system potentially vulnerable.
1.) Start by running the .rb script.
It only generates a couple of files in your user’s directory and does not require any special rights to read the current monitor / tv configuration. (TV must be connected).
2.) Boot to into the recovery system (Cmd+R during boot).
All your files are accessible here and you have write permissions to the “Overrides” folder. Your system disk is just not mounted to / but to /Volumes/ (e.g. “/Volumes/Macintosh HD/”)
3.) Open a terminal and copy the DisplayVendor-directory. Remember that every path is now prefixed by “/Volumes/Macintosh HD/”.
E.g. I had the Ruby script in a folder “EDID-Fix” on my desktop. -bash-3.2# cp -r /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/marcus/Desktop/EDID-Fix/DisplayVendorID-* /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/
4.) Reboot to your system
Hope you find that useful.
Cheers, Marcus
Hi Marcus,
Could you break this down into even simpler steps if possible. I have a Mac Pro (2013) running Yosemite that I am trying to connect up to an external Full HD monitor but the colours and contrast are terrible.
I am trying to follow your instructions but even “Start by running the .rb script” is not easily understood by someone with no programing knowledge at all. Do you just double click on it or something more? The same goes for the other steps.
It would be really great to be able to give this a go so I don’t have to return the monitor but struggling to understand the steps right now.
Many thanks,
Simon
Marcus’ instructions do work. But in Step (2), after you boot into Recovery mode, you have to use the “Disk Utility” to mount the MacintoshHD volume.
I was confused why I only had “OS\ X\ Base\ System” under “/Volumes” but reading http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/236206/backup-files-from-terminal-in-recovery-mode clarified that I need to mount the additional disk.
Calvin Deboer
Mar 14, 2017
in reply to Marcus
Marcus, thanks for laying this out. Just got a brand new (3 days old) MBP 13 with Sierra. Have some fuzziness on the external monitors. Tried your script out, got all the files generated. However, even in the Recovery System I get a “read-only” error on the “/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/” folder. Furthermore, the “/Volumes/” folder doesn’t contain “/Macintosh HD/” it contains something that sounds similar (like, OS HD Mac…). That folder is empty (or un-traversable). Does one need to manually mount that section of the Hard Disk ?
I copied the DisplayVendorID directories onto a USB and loaded that USB up in recovery mode and tried to copy over to the Overrides folder but that gave me a permission denied as well.
I’ve combed through all the posts on here and can’t seem to find the answer. Any ideas? Sounds like I may need to disable SIP after all perhaps ?
Shane Bell
Sep 13, 2018
in reply to Marcus
rayzormusic
Apr 18, 2020
in reply to Marcus
Thank you Marcus! This is the solution, and we just experienced the purple screen on our new (out of the box) MAC Mini - but only once it upgraded from Catalina 10.15.4 to 10.15.5
You are a life saver!
Mrityunjoy
Aug 30, 2022
in reply to Marcus
THAI LAM
Dec 1, 2016
Mike Tovino
Dec 3, 2016
inspiral
Dec 5, 2016
I’ve executed everything written in this guide, except closing the lid of my MBP, and text is still blurry on the external monitor. Is this lid closing that important during the process?
Thanks!
kdrydn
Dec 5, 2016
Hi all,
i have macbook pro 13 early 2015 and lg 24mp88hv-s display. i wanna use my macbook with external display but text und pictures is blurry when I connect via hdmi port it to an external monitor. I tried patch edid and switchrex but still same problem. Can anyone help me ?
Thanks.
Mukesh Dangi
Dec 10, 2016
in reply to kdrydn
John Crighton
Dec 7, 2016
Hello!
Will this procedure override the color space for any external display? I have an external LG monitor to which I intend to apply this fix so it forces full RGB… But I also occasionally connect my macbook to my living room TV, which do not require full RGB.
Will this fix be applied specifically to the display connected during the procedure, or it will override the color space for all external displays?
Thanks in advance for your work!
diman87
Dec 19, 2016
in reply to Flávio Wolff
ianphey
Dec 9, 2016
michelle
Dec 18, 2016
Just had the same issues with a new macbook 12’ retina, bur having read that an HDMI to DVI cable could sort out the problem, thought I’d try that first, so we could use the machine with tv’s as well.
£4.99 later, and armed with a gold plated HDMI to DVI cable from amazon, worked like a charm..Perfect image, rgb ouput, no problems.
diman87
Dec 19, 2016
Hey I have a hackintosh with macOS Sierra 10.12.2 (I fixed the problem with my macbook) but now I use my hackintosh when I need to work in desktop (house) with a Ultrawide Dell U2913WM connected via DisplayPort to Mini-Dp that comes with the monitor. But is detected as Television, I can use the same process to fix the problem?
Here the system information: http://i.imgur.com/1YcpH5S.png
You can see that said:
Television: Yes
Julie
Dec 28, 2016
Ben
Jan 2, 2017
Allan
Jan 9, 2017
Scott Vrooman
Jan 13, 2017
The script and instructions ran fine for me and I see the new profile in my display settings. However, my fonts look about the same :(
I’m on OS X 10.12.2, did I miss something? :)
Arwid
Jan 19, 2017
Yaro
Jan 20, 2017
maledramaqueen
Jan 22, 2017
in reply to Yaro
maledramaqueen
Jan 22, 2017
flummoxer
Feb 23, 2017
Thanks, worked perfectly with 2016 macbook pro and hdmi cable from the apple adapter to dell u2410. only difference, the destination folder already existed ( same name as that created in my home directory ), so I added the generated file to that folder.
for the person wondering how to undo this, just remove the file you added and reboot.
Gordy
Mar 8, 2017
Brendan
Mar 10, 2017
I just wanted to say thanks for this post. It worked for me and I was surprised at how good it felt to have a decent image on my external monitor, instead of the degraded, blocky mess I was starting to become used to.
FWIW - I initially couldn’t run csrutil in recovery mode as it wasn’t found. This was because I was running the OS (Yosemite) my Macbook had originally been supplied with. I upgraded to Sierra and after that I was able to run csrutil in recovery mode. From that point on everything went extremely smoothly.
Mattoo
Mar 12, 2017
Just ran it with success on a Mid 2013 MBA 11" running OS X Sierra note that I first made sure that Ruby was up and running (just type ruby -v in the terminal and check you get an answer) and that I used the shorter version proposed by marcus : http://www.mathewinkson.com/2013/03/force-rgb-mode-in-mac-os-x-to-fix-the-picture-quality-of-an-external-monitor/#comment-15886
thanks to all for your advices, please keep this post alive for a long time (even though you’ve turned to the dark windows side) cause we use it at each OS X major update…
Good to get confirmation, thanks. Post won’t be going anywhere, I’m glad it’s helping some people.
Ha, dark side :) The last time I was brand loyal was Sega vs Nintendo! Tools for the job IMO. iOS is a great phone OS, Linux is a great server OS, but everything apart from Windows frustrates me on the desktop these days.
bisk89
Mar 16, 2017
Lee
Mar 28, 2017
You are a god. Thank you for fixing my monitor!
AOC q2963pm for mac
At first I thought it didnt work a few times. The final straw that fixed everything was closing my monitor lid and making it overwrite.
That was what did the trick!
Thank you!
Matt Brennan
Apr 11, 2017
I tried Marcus’ method, but needed a few extra steps because my hard drive is encrypted. In terminal, I had to run > diskutil coreStorage list
To get the list of drives. Then picking the final encrypted one in the list, I found the UUID and ran
> diskutil coreStorage unlockVolume
That told me it was mounted as /dev/disk17. Finally, I had to run
> mount -uw /dev/disk17
to make the volume writable.
ale
Apr 13, 2017
EOL
Apr 14, 2017
Tried on macbook pro retina with macOS Sierra 10.12.4: copied generated override file to /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides, didn’t notice any changes.
Fonts are still blurry. Color scheme also not the best, I can see where shade under window ends (which is not noticeable on retina) Display Philips 234E5, connected via HDMI.
Vito
Apr 21, 2017
rgumennyi
Apr 29, 2017
Your post saved me lots of cash.
Thank you mattewinkson.
Since you’ve helped so many people as I can see in the comments, Maybe next go for president?
Brad
May 10, 2017
Ulf
May 11, 2017
Alex B
May 12, 2017
TheKj
May 20, 2017
Ben
Jun 12, 2017
or
Jul 6, 2017
Robert
Jul 19, 2017
I have a monitor (LG flatron W2353S 24 inches), a Macbook Pro (Late 2011) Model A1278, and a VGA displayport adapter.
The issue is that when I connect my MacBook to my monitor it detects the monitor as a 47" TV.
The cable works and I can use my 1920x1080 native resolution, but it displays wrong. There’s a black large line on the left (like 2 centimeters) and on the right you can see that it’s missing a part of the screen.
I got and very old VGA cable that works well, but i don’t know what’s the difference between that cabel and the other ones the i’ve got, I’ve checked them and got the same amount of pins, the same voltaje and everyt data in the cable is almost the same (except one number that i guess is the serial number)
Please, if anybody got an idea, i will be glad.
Thanks.
Nick
Aug 9, 2017
Liudas
Sep 3, 2017
Tried out the 2 workarounds - a) Forcing RGB by adding an additional folder to /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides. b) running “defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing 2” command
That did not help with my macbook pro 10.11.6 and external hp lp2475w connected via Hmdi to Hdmi cabling.
HOWEVER after i ran “auto scan” setting on the external monitor , the monitor restarted, and afterdwards the fonts were tottaly smooth . Fantastic!
mrpijey
Sep 7, 2017
Aleksi
Sep 13, 2017
aki009
Sep 19, 2017
Ricardo
Sep 27, 2017
Joe R
Sep 28, 2017
Joe R
Oct 2, 2017
Martin
Oct 5, 2017
WOW Thank you so much !
For the case you are using a encrypted FileVault Drive:
do the steps of Marcus until the terminal. There you are not able to find your main drive.
with the command: “diskutil coreStorage list” you can list all drives. Search for the one where (Revertible : YES most time its the last entry). Then copy the name of it with this pattern XXXXXXXX-XXXX-… etc. to the clipboard (cmd+v).
With the command “diskutil coreStorage unlockVolume XXXXXX-XXXX …” you can then mount the Volume with your user password. After this step continue with the manual of Marcus.
Best regards, Martin
jreezee
Oct 6, 2017
Barrett
Oct 9, 2017
Graham Hurst
Nov 1, 2017
Kat Cory
Nov 5, 2017
Freddie
Nov 6, 2017
Hm. Not sure if my Dell U2414H is performing worse, but I have some weird settings going on in the system preferences for the screen; There 60hz (NTSC) is selected, but the screen is 60hz from what I know. But I live in northern europé, and I think we use 50hz!
I have used the script earlier, and then I think 50hz was set to standard. (on earlier mac os version).
But…I suddenly cant find the info in the system telling me it seen as a TV, where is that located? Also, the airplay did show me some info about “Tv” before, but now its gone. What has changed in High Sierra and what to make things work?
Thanks. =)
Dusted
Nov 22, 2017
BMugs
Nov 29, 2017
Hi All, the ruby patch worked great with my macbook pro 15 inch 2016 and sierra. I have a dell monitor. However, I upgraded to “high sierra” and have been unsuccessful at getting it to work. Anyone have directions or a patch to make it work?
Thanks!
Jaime Austria
Dec 8, 2017
Dan
Jan 9, 2018
paul w
Jan 14, 2018
Hans
Jan 18, 2018
in reply to Eran Goldin
Cheers a bunch! just connected up a Philips 24’ tv as monitor for my mac mini. Had used the EDID before but didn’t seem to work anymore since High Sierra. Accidentally found the Overrides folder in the resources folder within Displays. Placed the file in there and wehey!!! we have lift off!
Thanks for this fix and thanks to everyone who is keeping this site alive with all the recent input, brilliant!
taser_this
Jan 25, 2018
Hi, this might be a helpful suggestion. This worked for me with a MacBook Pro Retina 13" 2014 with OSX Sierra 10.12.6. My monitor is an LG 27EA83R. It was washed out but otherwise had proper resolution with a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable.
I disabled SIP, downloaded the Andrew Daugherity’s improved patch-edid.rb script.
Used external keyboard and mouse on my closed MacBook Pro.
Ran the script. It created a folder with a single file. Rather than move the entire folder and replace the one that existed (one existed on my MacBook Pro with many override files,) I simply copied the single file into the existing folder. This retained all other overrides.
If I want to reverse, I can remove the single file. I copied the file to the folder instead of moving it, so I’d have a copy and know the name of the file to remove.
I reenabled SIP.
Hope this helps.
jtnix
Feb 1, 2018
I tried the recommended linked github patch-edid.rb script from TFA, but it emphatically does not work whatsoever for my ViewSonic VX 2770 on Mac OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan on both my iMac 27" Retina Desktop using Thunderbolt 2 to HDMI cable nor my 2010 Mac Mini using a pure HDMI cable.
However, I finally found this modified script here https://embdev.net/topic/284710#3027030 that works perfectly and preserves the expected resolutions, yay!
Before buying a new cable, please try the modified script from the link above (or use one of the subsequent patched scripts in that forum topic for various other monitors.)
Good luck!
kxae
Feb 26, 2018
Chris H
Mar 1, 2018
Dimitri
Mar 2, 2018
omarojo
Mar 14, 2018
OMG !!.. it worked in my Macbook Pro Mid-2014 (Nvidia 750M) in macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 (just the location of the system folder is: “/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides”
Using the LG 27UD88 4k monitor Which I was about to throw down the stairs. Thank you.. !! I did the steps from the tutorial.. didnt bother in looking into “Marcus” method.
Karthik
Mar 24, 2018
Vipin Mohan
Oct 14, 2018
in reply to Karthik
Mark N
Mar 24, 2018
Andres Borda
Mar 28, 2018
Cody Jones
Apr 5, 2018
Marcos
May 5, 2018
bstelljes
May 13, 2018
For the ones, that have upgraded to APFS with file vault and can’t mount in recovery mode. The steps are bit different than before.
- diskutil apfs list (It should be the drive with role ’no specific role’ )
- diskutil apfs unlockVolume ‘VolumeUUID’
- Enter passphrase of your user account
- Your drive will be mounted at /Volumes/
Unfortunately, the fix didn’t work for me this time on high sierra. Patch worked fine for previous version of mac os.
Kevin Killion
May 22, 2018
Matt
May 24, 2018
Abhinav Parihar
May 30, 2018
in reply to Matt
JT
Jun 1, 2018
I’ve tried it all - nothing works with a FHD monitor, regardless of running the patch or using every cable under the sun. Looks fine when connected to a PC, but Mac? Hell no. After endless research, turns out there’s a known issue with getting any sort of text quality and accurate colours on an extended monitor if you (like me) are running High Sierra v10.13.4 on a Macbook Pro (retina, 15 inch, late 2013).
I give up. At least until Apple addresses and fixes the problem. Whenever that will be.
theanorak
Jun 27, 2018
Hugo
Jul 26, 2018
Hi guys, I’ve tried everything on this, nothing is working.
Two options
1/ I’m expecting too much from a 1080p screen (it’s the Dell U2414H)
2/ nothing is fixing the problem The script worked in the sense that the screen is now in forced RGB mode (EDID override) but the text doesn’t look any better.
I’ve taken some screenshots, the difference seems huge (I expected only a small difference) and it’s only text that seems to be off.
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated
Steve
Aug 7, 2018
I was struggling with this on High Sierra and that the new Macbooks are formatted APFS. However with the method below I got it to work on a 2018 15" Macbook Pro running High Sierra 10.13.6.
If you have 2 Macs this is easily solved booting the Mac you want to fix into Target Disk Mode and using the another Mac to move the files.
Mac 1 = The machine I want to fix Mac 2 = The machine I used to move files
This is what I did.
- On Mac 1, I downloaded the script and popped it in a folder on my desktop.
- Ran the script (with the monitor connected) and that created a file in that folder.
- You should now have a folder called DisplayVendorID-* (* will be different for different monitors e.g. mine was DisplayVendorID-1e6d) with a text file in it, mine was called DisplayProductID-76db.
- Navigate to /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides and see if you have a folder with the same DisplayVendorID-* as you just created. If you don’t that’s fine, go to the next step. If you do, like I did, take a look inside the folder and backup the DisplayProductID-* file that you’re going to replace.
- Shut down Mac 1
- I booted Mac 1 up in Target Disk Mode (holding T when starting up)
- Connected it to Mac 2
- Moved the file created on the desktop of Mac 1 to the /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-* folder on Mac 1 (I replaced the DisplayProductID-76db already there)
- Disconnect the Macs
- Reboot Mac 1 and connect monitor if disconnected. It should be fixed
I hope that helps someone!
Anders
Aug 9, 2018
Hi all!
I think this is my problem with my Mac Air Mid 2013.
I have disabled csrutil
I’m logged in as root
I’ve tried a lot of different guides and patch-did.rb files and none of them spitting out anything…
different errors like this one:
patch-edid.rb:11:in match': invalid byte sequence in UTF-8 (ArgumentError) from patch-edid.rb:11:in
match'
from patch-edid.rb:11:in `'
I’ve not edited any patch files… As I understand it should work when downloaded and no editing needed.. or am I wrong?
I’m running High Sierra 10.13.6
I’m trying to connect it to my Philips 46" Flat-TV.
Is there anyone here that can point me in a right direction…?
Thanks!!
Thank you so much!
Had the same problem with a new MacBook Pro 2018 15’’ and an LG 34UC97-S Followed Steves introduction: http://www.mathewinkson.com/2013/03/force-rgb-mode-in-mac-os-x-to-fix-the-picture-quality-of-an-external-monitor#comment-16073 Everything works now as expected.
The funny thing: I did not need this override for my lg monitor until now with this new MacBook from 2018. I tried fresh macOS installations on all my 3 MacBooks. One from Late 2013 and one from 2017 MacBook Pro 13’’. On the older ones everything works fine without override. Very strange… Its a shame to Apple that they do not have a fix for this. It took be probably 5 hours to find a solution but every other “normal” person without hacking experience hasn’t a chance to fix this.
Elegante Uni
Sep 1, 2018
Can anyone get this to work on 10.13.6? I have an HP 1080p (think it’s the 25er) series. From what I can tell this script or the modified one does NOT work on 10.13.6.
If anyone can point to a solution I’d be grateful. Thanks
Marco Cestra
Sep 8, 2018
It works like a charm on a MacBook Pro 13 (MPXU2T/A) connected to a Dell U2913WM monitor via hdmi.
run the script and generate the file -> rootless mode disabled -> file copied into Overrides folder -> macbook restarted and OK!
Thanks to everyone ;)
elfcake
Sep 25, 2018
in reply to Marco Cestra
After Mojave messed it up again, this saved me once again. (Marcus’ shortcut cost me a lot more time then just doing the original rootless way though)
Thanks a bunch!
Further to my first comment. I need to point out that at first this did not work at all. For some oddball reason, the moment I chose “dot by dot” for the aspect ration I noticed that adjustments to sharpness and color have no effect. This tells me that the computer is driving the display with a pure RGB signal as it should behave this way. A little surprised about sharpness failing to adjust but I think this is due to the “dot by dot” aspect ratio setting.
With respect to color calibration I am still able to drive the TV’s RGB values independently.
By the way, all these controls that I am referencing above are from the TV’s menu itself.
I am still investigating this interesting RGB option but one thing is for sure …
Please check your aspect ratio settings if it’s a TV that you are testing this on.
tibs
Oct 31, 2018
Marek
Nov 9, 2018
Kevin Killion
Nov 14, 2018
xtrap225
Nov 18, 2018
i wanted to say that i think it was an hdmi switch i put in between and not the update to Mojave that knocked one monitor back to YUV, since the other (same model) was still RGB. To fix the issue i booted to Mojave USB that i created and copied the files over after remounting the internal hd as RW mode.
so i had run the ruby script in regular mode first, just to be clear.
just in case that helps anyone else.
Hamish
Dec 5, 2018
Brian
Dec 15, 2018
Dear Brian,
The following instructions may be helpful for you.
-
Press Cmd + R, then, restart your MacBook Pro.
-
After that, go to Utility -> Terminal, type: csrutil disable reboot. Then, your macbook will be restarted again.
-
Download “patch-edid.rb” from https://gist.github.com/adaugherity/7435890.
-
Move “patch-edid.rb” to Downloads folder.
-
Use Terminal App and type the following commands cd Downloads ruby patch-edid.rb
-
Now, you may find a folder named “DisplayVendorID-1xxx”
-
Move that folder to /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides replacing the old display vendor id.
-
Unplug your displayport cable and plug again.
-
Job Done! Enjoy it!
sickbwoi
Dec 26, 2018
Hey Guys,
I am also struggling with these issues. Mojave 10.14.2 + Samsung LCD Monitor.
Main problem is that there is no “Displays” folder in “Library” anymore, so I cant override old prefs to fix it.
Anyone found a solution to this?
jack mehoff
Dec 27, 2018
Mathew
Jan 6, 2019
in reply to jack mehoff
Rudlo
Jan 16, 2019
Charles Kelser
Jan 25, 2019
Thanks for your article.
I just upgraded from 10.13.5 to 10.13.6 and got the issue.
Andreas on embdev is the man !
THANK YOU !!!
Troy
Feb 1, 2019
Attempted this with a Late 2012 iMac (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB) running High Sierra (10.13.6) connected to Samsung CHG90 (49" Super Ultra-Wide 3840x1080).
Not only did I get “acid” screen, but it stretched my screen something terrible, and disabled “3840x1080” in both Mac’s native display settings and in SwitchResX settings.
I understand its a lower resolution monitor, but seriously…my eyes hurt typing this ughhh
Davide
Feb 6, 2019
Lee
Mar 15, 2019
Dani
Mar 31, 2019
Graeme Reed
Apr 8, 2019
Display: ACER B276HUL OS: Mojave Computer: Macbook Pro 2017 (DP to USB-C adapter)
Marcus’ shortcut works like charm and the image quality was highly improved. Really easy method and amazing results. Unbelievable that we still need to do this nowadays.
Thank you very much guys!
MM_Techie
Jun 13, 2019
All Hail King Mathew, All Hail King Marcus
Thank you so much for providing this info! If anyone lands on this page with hopes of getting their Mac Pro Cheesegrater (5,1) up and running on Mojave with Radeon RX 560 or RX 580 Metal Compatible graphics cards, I had to alter Marcus’ script a little to get it to work. “cp -r” command gave me an “Illegal action” error, while “cp -a” worked immediately.
-bash-3.2# cp -a /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/username/Desktop/EDID-Fix/DisplayVendorID-* /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/
Please note the “" in front of every spacebar Marcus puts into his script. You’ll need to do it to for every spacebar you might have in your finder path.
For High Sierra, it works just as advertised.
yome
Sep 6, 2019
On macOS Catalina it’s not possible to copy generated DisplayVendorID-* folder to /System since it’s read only.
I managed to copy it using recovery mode:
- Mount drive via DiskUtil
- Copy with Terminal
tero
May 11, 2020
in reply to Anže Rehar
Grace Yu
Oct 13, 2019
Andreas Li
Oct 20, 2019
Uros
Oct 24, 2019
By the WWW...
Nov 5, 2019
in reply to Uros
Chris R
Dec 5, 2019
Here are the convoluted steps I used to get this working on Catalina, may be useful for anyone who needs more concise instructions.
Disable System Integrity Protection
- Restart computer.
- Hold ‘Cmd + R’ until you see the progress bar beneath the Apple logo.
- Select and enter the password for your user account when prompted to access Utilities.
- Open Terminal from the Utilities tab.
- Type: csrutil disable (Use ‘csrutil enable’ to reenable following completion of all steps).
- Restart your computer.
Using The Patch File
- Download and extract the patch file.
- Open Terminal.
- Type: ruby (patch file directory) Note: You can drag the patch file into Terminal instead of typing out the file directory.
- Press Enter.
A new folder will be created in your home directory by the name of ‘DisplayVendorID-#’. I’m not sure whether the ID number is variable, ‘#’ should be replaced by the actual digits that follow.
Mounting Read-Only Partition And Deleting System Files
- Open Finder and select ‘Go > Go to Folder… > /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/‘
- Drag the ‘DisplayVendorID-#’ folder that coincides with the folder generated in your home directory to the Desktop, to create a backup.
- Open Terminal.
- Type: sudo mount -uw /
- Enter Password.
- Type: rm -rf /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-#
Confirm that the specified ‘DisplayVendorID-#’ folder has been deleted from /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/
Copying Folder Generated In Home Directory
- Open Terminal.
- Type: cp -R /Users/YOUR_USER/DisplayVendorID-# /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/
Confirm that the folder was successfully copied under /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/
Restart your computer.
d
Dec 7, 2019
Ruben Schulze-Fröhlich
Dec 17, 2019
Hey Everyone,
thanks for this post, i hoped to fix my problems with the LG 38WK95C-W, but it did not change anything. The monitor is still listed as a tv and the text is still very blurry.
Is there anything else i can try?
Thank you very much
Greetings Ruben
Travis Griggs
Dec 28, 2019
JT
May 17, 2020
in reply to Travis Griggs
This is absolutely pathetic. I and many others had a fiasco with my MacBook Pro graphic board failing and Apple denying there was a problem for a disgusting amount of time even though there were massive Apple discussion threads (with very rude, dismissive moderators) filled with customers all having the same problem until there was a class action lawsuit and Apple finally was forced to issue a recall program after wasting countless days and even weeks of their customer’s time who were attempting to troubleshoot a problem because Apple was gaslighting them.
I had my logic board (with the faulty graphic chip) finally replaced by their very late recall program after losing a lot of my uncompensated time and money. Then it failed again and they replaced it again after once again having me lose uncompensated time and money. Then it failed again and I told the Apple support guy they needed to give me a newer MacBook Pro that didn’t have the flaw. Apple support assured me it was “most definitely” fixed and promised if it failed again they’d then replace my MacBook Pro with a different model. I saw in the discussion threads that it wouldn’t work because they never really fixed the flaw and were replacing it with the same problem and just hoping their customers would give up and buy a new model. I told support this and they lied that the issue was truly fixed. It wasn’t. They lied.
That time it worked for a few years and failed with the exact, same flaw at just about the time it surfaced after I initially bought it. I didn’t even want a new Mac at that point and didn’t want to deal with countless hours or days on the phone begging them to do the right thing by me.
I was disgusted by Apple’e hostile behavior towards their paying customers and left the platform for Windows. Now after all these years stupid me decided to give Apple one last shot with the 16 inch MacBook Pro. I try to get Applecare plus for it and their sites says my brand new machine isn’t eligible. After two days of phone calls with Apple support I find out it’s a problem on their end and I should try again next week. Not off to a great start.
Next I plug in the same 4K display that works perfectly with great, sharp text with my almost 6 year old Windows 10 laptop (it just works). On this much newer, expensive MacBook Pro I struggle to get the same resolution without having to buy a third party hack and the text is still blurry. And now I’m spending my time digging through threads like these to see how I can “hack” my Mac to do something that my old Windows laptop does by simply plugging in the display and choosing the resolution I want.
Then I look on Apple threads and Apple users are condescendingly acting like this is somehow the fault of the users and the displays even thought they work flawlessly with Windows 10.
I’ve yet to actually get anything productive done and still messing around just to get basics going to use a 4k display properly without blurry text. Of course, in Apple’s infinite loop wisdom they saw fit to not include an industry standard HDMI port on this MacBook Pro so I had to not only spend more money on an adapter, I also had to shop around to find a compatible one with 4K and then one that worked with 4K at 60hz.
I’m very much regretting going back to Mac. I used to love Macs compared to Windows because they were much less hassle. The only reason I went back to trying Apple again is I prefer the operating system over Windows 10 in certain respects.
I’m really hoping this “hack” works but more than that I’m hoping that Mac users get back to their roots of being DEMANDING of better quality like they used to be a long time ago. Why are Mac users putting up with this time wasting nonsense?
I’m already on the edge of returning this MacBook Pro and getting a Windows machine and I’ve only had it for a few days now.
Kevin Lien
Apr 12, 2020
I went through all these steps, and was able to successfully replace the Override folder with the new one from the rb script. However, after restarting my computer it seems it didn’t fix my resolution.
I’m running Catalina 10.15.4, to a Samsung JG56 WQHD monitor.
Any suggestions?
gpee
Apr 14, 2020
Izabel
Apr 15, 2020
This worked for me a few months ago for my MacBook Pro and Dell U2713H
I think there was an update a few weeks ago and it broke again, the fixed option is still there in the monitor settings, it just doesn’t do anything anymore.
I’ve gone through the process again, however now I am unable to copy the fixed file to the Overrides folder, I’ve disabled SIP but I keep getting a permissions error when I try copy or when I try using sudo to copy it in terminal.
Has anyone else had this happen? It’s quite frustrating that it was working and it’s broke again :/
Hello! I am also encountering the same issue.
After performing these steps: 4. Type: sudo mount -uw / 5. Enter Password. 6. Type: rm -rf /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-#
I only get:
/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-#: Permission denied (I do replace the # with the actual numbers).
Please help!
fpaula
May 25, 2020
Scott S.
Jul 6, 2020
Joe K
Jul 24, 2020
This worked…
For macOS Sierra, Version 10.12.6 with External Monitor Lenovo Q24i-10
One note: When I used the cp -r method (that Marcus laid out), it didn’t work for me for some reason.
Instead, I had to use the cp -R method (for me: cp-R r /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/____/Desktop/DisplayVendorID-* /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/
Not sure if it was the same for others.
Joseph
Jul 24, 2020
Follow the original instructions for running the script:
-
Download the patch-edid.rb script from the forums thread above, or download Andrew Daugherity’s improved patch-edid.rb script from his github page. Put the script in your home directory.
-
Connect only the external monitor(s) in question, if you can (I closed my MacBook lid, for example). The script will make override files for any connected monitor.
-
Open Terminal, Type “ruby patch-edid.rb” in Terminal (By default, you will be in your home directory when opening up Terminal). " That’s how you run the script to get the folders that you need.
Johnny
Nov 14, 2020
Jader
Nov 14, 2020
Hi all,
After update to Big Sur, there are some extra steps on “Marcus proposed method” that need to be done. So here is my upgraded version of his steps.
1.) Start by running the .rb script.
It only generates a couple of files in your user’s directory and does not require any special rights to read the current monitor / tv configuration. (TV must be connected).
2.) Be sure that FileVault is disabled. You find it in Preferences->Security and Privacy.
3.) Boot to into the recovery system (Cmd+R during boot).
All your files are accessible here and you have write permissions to the “Overrides” folder. Your system disk is just not mounted to / but to /Volumes/ (e.g. “/Volumes/Macintosh HD/”)
If you cannot see some of this mounted folders, open the Disk Utility app and mount them, then close Disk Utility and open the terminal again.
4.) Remount the Machintosh HD volume in read-wirte mode -bash-3.2# mount -u -w /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD
5.) Open a terminal and copy the DisplayVendor-directory. Remember that every path is now prefixed by “/Volumes/Macintosh HD/”.
E.g. I had the Ruby script in a folder “EDID-Fix” on my desktop. -bash-3.2# cp -r /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/marcus/Desktop/EDID-Fix/DisplayVendorID-* /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/
6.) Create a new blessed snapshot of the Machintosh HD volume -bash-3.2# bless –folder /Volumes/Machintosh\ HD/System/Library/CoreServices –bootefi –create-snapshot
7.) Disable authenticated-root on crsutil -bash-3.2# csrutil authenticated-root disable
8.) Reboot to your system
Cheers, Jader
Federico E Carpi
Nov 14, 2020
Ahhh! it works!!!
From here: https://gist.github.com/ejdyksen/8302862#gistcomment-3526456
For Big Sur, the process is a bit different, since step 2 doesn’t work. The solution is creating the folder /Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides and using that instead of /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides
drknickel
Nov 16, 2020
Actually, for me the process with Big Sur is super easy now.
-
Download the patch-edid.rb script from the forums thread above, or download Andrew Daugherity’s improved patch-edid.rb script from his github page. Put the script in your home directory.
-
Connect only the external monitor(s) in question, if you can (I closed my MacBook lid, for example). The script will make override files for any connected monitor.
-
Type “ruby patch-edid.rb” in Terminal.
-
Copy the new folder to /Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides <- You have to create these folders, Display and all the rest did not exist.
-
Reboot and you are done.
-
Check if the Display is listed as EDID override in the system information section.
Whole process takes only 5 minutes now :)
mountainmanjoe
Nov 16, 2020
2019 16" MBP user here with a Dell U2711. I gave up on trying to hack things. I just bought a USB-C to DisplayPort Adapter for 20 bucks and the monitor works perfectly at 2560x1440 RGB with digital sound.
And I don’t have to worry about future OS updates breaking things.
I took your advice and got myself an ALogic USB-C to Display Port adaptor after BigSur broke my Dell U2713H again!
And happy to report works straight away, checked the colour profile and it is now set to RGB, had to swap back and forth juuuust to check it was fixed, which it is :)
Fingers crossed this hardware fix is a long term fix, I was starting to get very sick of having to fix it every update!
Running: MacBook Pro 13" 2018 with Dell u2713H and the Alogic USB-C to Display Port adaptor
techiegaldk
Nov 28, 2020
Comzee
Dec 9, 2020
Just tested this myself with a Macbook Air m1. Same result. I have been using this script for years on my intel MACs, and worked fine.
It appears the script needs to be updated for M1 macs. Who knows if the original author ever will tho. At this point, can just put up a big middle finger to Apple for excluding such a simple option from their display settings, “display full range” vs “limited range” UGH, so dumb.
Peter Chabot
Dec 25, 2020
in reply to Comzee
Ben
Dec 9, 2020
Gino Pilotino
Feb 5, 2021
to be more detailed, I have an external AOC Q27P1B 27" monitor.
I’ve right now tried the patch on a Mac Mini with High SIERRA 10.13.6 too, which uses an ASUS monitor connected via HDMI which suffers here and then of this color box issue on finder windows and it seems better looking right now.
So two positives report.
Gino Pilotino
Feb 5, 2021
David
Apr 23, 2021
okfunk
May 18, 2021
For Big Sur this worked for me:
- sudo cp -R /System/Library/Displays /Library/
- sudo cp -r ~/DisplayVendorID-4c2d /Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-4c2d
I was almost desperate when I found this and it worked
MikeM
Oct 30, 2021
MikeM
Oct 30, 2021
Recommend
About Joyk
Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK