Mac mini M1 blurry text on Dell U4919DW

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Mac mini M1 blurry text on Dell U4919DW

I have a Mac mini M1 connected to a Dell U4919DW ultra wide monitor via a new Maxonar USB-C to DP1.4 cable, which can support up to 8K@60Hz.

On my Mac mini, in System Settings > Displays, the only resolutions available that result in text that is a comfortable, reasonable size (ie. 4608x1296, 4096x1152, and 3840x1080) are all 'low resolution' and produce horrible blurry text. The only 'HiDPI' options available make text nice & sharp but comically large (ie. 3008x846, 2560x720, 2304x647, etc.., down to 800x600). I've tried different cables but same result, eg. USB-C to USB-C and also HDMI. After a few hours reading through various forums on the subject of blurry text on mac mini, I tried 3rd party software "BetterDisplay", which fixes the problem by mirroring to a virtual display (whatever that means). From my layman's perspective this is a workaround to resolve a common compatibility issue. Surely a clever software engineer at Apple can build a driver (or whatever is needed) to fix it so all non-retina 1440p and 1080p monitors are compatible with Mac mini's, even if not perfect compared with retina?

Mac mini

Posted on Oct 1, 2024 8:01 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 1, 2024 8:11 AM in response to MH7171

What happens to your resolution when you connect two DP1.4 cables from the Mac mini to the Dell display. Are there configuration settings on the Dell display itself, or in the macOS Settings > Display panel that would grant you 8K resolution with dual DP 1.4 connections?

Or, using this 8K capable Belkin HDMI cable, do you achieve 8K on the Dell without any USB-C cabling?

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Answer 2

Oct 1, 2024 7:41 PM in response to MH7171

MH7171 wrote:

I tried that but same end result of blurry text. It also defeats the purpose of having one large screen by in effect splitting it into two 27" monitors.

Is the monitor capable of

Accepting two 2560x1440 signals and simultaneously displaying both, with
One signal displayed on the left half of the screen, and
The other signal displayed on the right half of the screen

The answer to that might be in the manual (linked above). (I didn't take time to read through it.)

If so, you could try running two cables from the Mac, setting the resolution of each of the displays to 2560x1440 (low resolution), running the displays in extended desktop mode, and arranging the displays on the Mac to match the arrangement of the halves of the screen.

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Answer 3

MH7171 Author

Level 1

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Oct 1, 2024 8:26 AM in response to VikingOSX

I tried that but same end result of blurry text. It also defeats the purpose of having one large screen by in effect splitting it into two 27" monitors.

The good quality high res cable was just to ensure the cable wasn't the cause. Testing it on an old Windows PC resulted in nice clear text, as did testing with an HDMI cable.

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Answer 4

Oct 1, 2024 8:24 AM in response to MH7171

I now noticed that you are using an M1 mini and that may be your limiting factor for achieving 8K on that Dell display. I believe an M2 Mac mini Pro might do the job… but have no way of knowing for certain as I only use a 32-in LG 4K Ultrafine non-glare display with mine.

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Answer 5

Oct 1, 2024 7:29 PM in response to MH7171

The Dell UltraSharp U4919DW monitor (manual here) is a 5120x1440 pixel monitor with a diagonal measurement of 49". That works out to about 108.5 PPI – the same pixel density as on a 27" 2560x1440 display.

This thing is essentially two 27" 2560x1440 displays joined side by side. You need to run this monitor in the native 5120x1440 mode (without any Retina scaling) just to get normal-sized text of low resolution quality. It doesn't have enough pixel density to gain the sharpness advantages of a 27" 5120x2880 monitor or even a 27" 3840x2160 one.

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Answer 6

MH7171 Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 1, 2024 8:19 PM in response to Servant of Cats

On any Windows PC I can simply plug in the monitor and it looks good. The monitor's native resolution 5120x1440 (or 2x 2560x1440) is too small for me, so when working from home on PC laptop I set screen resolution to 125% (ie. 3840x1080) which makes text etc.. a comfortable size and everything is sharp & clear. To do the same with the Mac mini, the only standard option available is to select 3840x1080 low resolution (or 1920x1080 'low resolution' if viewing 2 screens side by side, eg Mac mini on one side and PC on the other), which produces blurry text. Installing "BetterDisplay" seems to trick the Mac into supporting HiDPI and produces sharp & clear text - so why can't Mac Mini do the same out of the box? (That's a rhetorical question)

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