Samsung G95NC 57" - 5120 x 1440 HiDPI

[ainsleyclark]

Hey there,

I've purchased the new Samsung 57" and I'm only seeing the resolutions below. I'm wondering if it's at all possible to achieve HiDPI at 5120x1440 on this monitor? I'm using a Mac Studio M2 Pro.

I've been playing around with the settings for a while but can't seem to get it working.

The virtual screen works wonders but it only outputs at 60hz.

[waydabber]

Hi there - unfortunately not, the max framebuffer width for M2 Pro/Max/Ultra is 7680px (which is translated to 3840px HiDPI). Maybe M3 will help with this. Unfortunately the new 57" Odyssey is not really a good fit for macOS because of this - with 3840x1080 the GUI will look hugely oversized (UI elements will be big).

You can try using the display's built in support to show two separate monitors (this should give you essentially a merged multi monitor setup with two 30" 4K screens), setting each to 2560x1440 HiDPI. Note that M2 Pro/Max has an other issue (HDR bug) which will make HDR unavailable with high refresh rates beyond a certain HiDPI resolution - this should be considered with high resolution + high refresh-rate true HDR (mini-LED, OLED) displays.

[marcinwudarczyk]

Thanks for answering :) @waydabber do you know if BetterDisplay eats a display slot and thus reduces the total number of external display one can connect?

[waydabber]

No, virtual screens do not take up additional native external display slots.

[apurva-rustagi]

@waydabber This was my strategy on the M1 Max I upgraded from:

1. Connect to the monitor using 2 USB-C to HDMI cables
2. Turn on Picture-by-Picture mode on the monitor, so the Mac thinks I'm using two separate 4K displays
3. Run each half at a scaled resolution of 3,008x1,692 (HiDPI, so each display's framebuffer is 6K)
4. System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Turn off "Displays have separate Spaces". This lets windows span across displays

This works fine on the M1 Max (and even the M1 Pro I use for work), though only at 60Hz... and with all the quirks of running two displays instead of one.

I was using the same solution on my new M4 Max until I discovered BetterDisplay! Now I'm mirroring a single virtual display with the 16K framebuffer setting turned on at my preferred 6,016x1,692 HiDPI resolution. So far so good. Haven't tried 120Hz yet due to the stability warning.

@RickyRomero So, with better display are you able to use the monitor as single screen wih 6016*1692 HiDPI resolution?

[RickyRomero]

@RickyRomero So, with better display are you able to use the monitor as single screen wih 6016*1692 HiDPI resolution?

@apurva-rustagi Yes.

[RickyRomero]

@waydabber Unfortunately even the M4 Max's framebuffer looks like it's still capped at 7680 wide. 😔

Tahoe Developer Beta 3 does not raise the framebuffer limits, so it looks like I'll be using BetterDisplay for the foreseeable future...

tahoe@Tahoes-MacBook-Pro ~ % ioreg -lt >~/Desktop/ioreg.txt | grep MaxSrcRectWidth
    | |   |   |   "IOMFBMaxSrcPixels" = {"MaxSrcRectTotal"=35389440,"MaxSrcBufferHeight"=16384,"MaxVideoSrcDownscalingWidth"=9444,"PixelClock"=712000000,"IOMFBCompressionSupport"=1,"IOMFBAsyncRGBCompressionSupport"=1,"MaxSrcRectWidthForPipe"=(5120,0,0,0),"MaxSrcRectHeightForPipe"=(4608,4608,4608,4608),"MaxSrcBufferWidth"=16384,"IOMFBMaxCompressedSizeInBytes"=0,"MaxSrcRectWidth"=7680,"VideoClock"=521064960}
    | |   |   |   "IOMFBMaxSrcPixels" = {"MaxSrcRectTotal"=35389440,"MaxSrcBufferHeight"=16384,"MaxVideoSrcDownscalingWidth"=0,"PixelClock"=0,"IOMFBCompressionSupport"=1,"IOMFBAsyncRGBCompressionSupport"=1,"MaxSrcRectWidthForPipe"=(6720,7680,7680,7680),"MaxSrcRectHeightForPipe"=(4608,4608,4608,4608),"MaxSrcBufferWidth"=16384,"IOMFBMaxCompressedSizeInBytes"=0,"MaxSrcRectWidth"=7680,"VideoClock"=0}
    | |   |   |   "IOMFBMaxSrcPixels" = {"MaxSrcRectTotal"=35389440,"MaxSrcBufferHeight"=16384,"MaxVideoSrcDownscalingWidth"=0,"PixelClock"=0,"IOMFBCompressionSupport"=1,"IOMFBAsyncRGBCompressionSupport"=1,"MaxSrcRectWidthForPipe"=(6720,7680,7680,7680),"MaxSrcRectHeightForPipe"=(4608,4608,4608,4608),"MaxSrcBufferWidth"=16384,"IOMFBMaxCompressedSizeInBytes"=0,"MaxSrcRectWidth"=7680,"VideoClock"=0}
    | |   |   |   "IOMFBMaxSrcPixels" = {"MaxSrcRectTotal"=35389440,"MaxSrcBufferHeight"=16384,"MaxVideoSrcDownscalingWidth"=0,"PixelClock"=0,"IOMFBCompressionSupport"=1,"IOMFBAsyncRGBCompressionSupport"=1,"MaxSrcRectWidthForPipe"=(6720,7680,7680,7680),"MaxSrcRectHeightForPipe"=(4608,4608,4608,4608),"MaxSrcBufferWidth"=16384,"IOMFBMaxCompressedSizeInBytes"=0,"MaxSrcRectWidth"=7680,"VideoClock"=0}
    | |   |   |   "IOMFBMaxSrcPixels" = {"MaxSrcRectTotal"=35389440,"MaxSrcBufferHeight"=16384,"MaxVideoSrcDownscalingWidth"=0,"PixelClock"=0,"IOMFBCompressionSupport"=1,"IOMFBAsyncRGBCompressionSupport"=1,"MaxSrcRectWidthForPipe"=(6720,7680,7680,7680),"MaxSrcRectHeightForPipe"=(4608,4608,4608,4608),"MaxSrcBufferWidth"=16384,"IOMFBMaxCompressedSizeInBytes"=0,"MaxSrcRectWidth"=7680,"VideoClock"=0}

[ainsleyclark]

Thank you for the detailed answer. Shame that this isn't supported on Apple's side for this. I guess I'm stuck with 60hz if I want to keep this monitor.

Do you know if there's any word of virtual displays supporting 120hz? #121

I'm not sure if you know of any registry edits etc to unlock this?

Edit: You mentioned that M3's may unlock this, is this a hard lock on the software or a hardware limitation?

[tbeaty]

Would also very much like to find a way to circumvent the scaling issues with this display and hit 7680x2160px at 120hz on my M2 Studio!

[Johnson145]

Why does using a virtual display allows me using a higher resolution in the first place?

I can use 5120x1440 HiDPI 60Hz on that monitor with a virtual display, but not without?

[lukas085]

Hello,
I've just bought Odyseey 57 and have connected it to my Macbook Pro 14 with M2 Pro CPU. I'm using original HDMI cable Samsung provided with this monitor. I have all resolutions between 7680 and 4096 like in screen. What firmware and exact model you have?

[hugoender]

So I'm guessing this means that the SAMSUNG 49” Odyssey CRG Series Dual QHD (5120x1440) will also have this issue and at it's native resolution will not be smooth?

[waydabber]

The max. HiDPI resolution with a Pro level Apple Silicon chip should be 3840x1080 with this display (as well as with the SAMSUNG 49” Odyssey CRG Series Dual QHD as these chips can't natively serve a framebuffer with higher than 3840px HiDPI (that is 7680 real pixels) horizontally.

I am not really sure why @lukas085 has interim LoDPI resolutions between 3840px and 7680px while @ainsleyclark does not have. These resolutions will be underscaled so won't look that great though. You can try creating the interim resolutions with the app by adding them as custom resolutions as there is no technical reason why they could not be made available (these are within the 7680px framebuffer size limit).