4K Monitor Support in OS X 10.9.3 - Testing Thread

[GuitarGuy77]

Same here.

I have an Samsung U28D590 28" 4K display that supports 60Hz at max resolution of 3840x2160. The Samsung U28D590 is the first available 4K display to support 4K resolutions on DisplayPort at 60Hz in Single Stream Transport (SST) mode. Therefore it should just work and in OS X 10.9.2 as well as 10.9.3 it does indeed just work.

I'm running the Samsung U28D590 on a Core i7 3930K / ASUS P9X79 Deluxe with GTX 670 and OS X 10.9.3. I also have two ASUS 27" 1920x1080 monitors on the DVI and HDMI ports respectively, although, I also had an additional monitor on the other DVI port briefly.

So there are no issues or oddities that I am aware of with this setup and it works very well.

The only odd thing is that the scaled option menu looks like what gabrieljsmith1 posted not what TonyMac posted. That is to say that there is no graphic image under the scaled options only numerical options. It works the same way though.

Yeah - for me the default "1080x1920" setting works the best. Fonts are large but everything is in "retina" very sharp. Love this thing - its eye candy big time. Had it for awhile but still can't get over how nice it looks -it's a fargen nice monitor!

You have to think as well a bunch of apple computer and phone guts are samsung - (ssd's, ram, monitor panels...etc). Apple has an intimate relationship with samsung. At the end of the day apple uses quality venders, and samsung IMO is up there in quality. I wish I had a samsung SATA ssd in this beast! So far everything samsung I ever purchased has been solid (several phones, a couple 55" LCD TVs, washer dryer, mac book pro has samsung pci-e SSD - and its the best! So far this monitor has been a knock out -especially for the price! No I don't work for samsung - just had good experiences with all the smashing products so far.

 

[GuitarGuy77]

I would give it a go yep. I've not used it myself though so can not confirm if it will do the job or not. I think a few people have used it successfully though.

Have Mac Pro 6,1 running great - let me know if you have questions.

 

[mendozal]

It is quite frustrating to see how many people struggle with 60 Hz in MST (DisplayPort 1.2) mode with 4K monitors, especially the UP2414Q, even with 10.9.3, which supposedly addresses this very issue. It is even stranger that a handful amount of people did manage to get theirs work in 60 Hz with their hackinstoshes. For these few the main trick was to try 10.9.3 with a MacPro6,1 SMBios, but for others (myself included) this didn't work out.

In my case, if I use the MacPro6,1 SMBios my UP2414Q monitor is not even recognized by OS X in MST mode. When I change to iMac14,2 SMBios, though, the monitor gets recognized in MST mode, but the display is still stuck in 30Hz refresh rate. I couldn't get any custom mode work with SwitchResX either.

I'd really have no problem getting my hands dirty with some kext plist hacking or something similar, only I have no idea where to start digging. I've already tried different combination of monitors, graphics cards (GTX 660/770) and drivers (Nvidia Web Driver/Apple's built-in one), SMBios'es, re-installs, etc, to no avail.

Same thing here. UP2414Q and GTX 770. When I change SMBIOS to MacPro6,1 the display does not get recognized in MST mode.

A second 1080p display attached to HDMI port does.

 

[mendozal]

Have Mac Pro 6,1 running great - let me know if you have questions.

Do you have a 4K 60Hz display working with that definition?

 

[Octavean]

Yeah - for me the default "1080x1920" setting works the best. Fonts are large but everything is in "retina" very sharp. Love this thing - its eye candy big time. Had it for awhile but still can't get over how nice it looks -it's a fargen nice monitor!

You have to think as well a bunch of apple computer and phone guts are samsung - (ssd's, ram, monitor panels...etc). Apple has an intimate relationship with samsung. At the end of the day apple uses quality venders, and samsung IMO is up there in quality. I wish I had a samsung SATA ssd in this beast! So far everything samsung I ever purchased has been solid (several phones, a couple 55" LCD TVs, washer dryer, mac book pro has samsung pci-e SSD - and its the best! So far this monitor has been a knock out -especially for the price! No I don't work for samsung - just had good experiences with all the smashing products so far.

Depending on the task I am OK with native 3840x2160 all the way to 1920x1080 HiDPI. But I agree, the Samsung U28D590 looks great. I see from your screenshot that 30Hz doesn't have a disabled drop down box whereas on my system 60Hz is locked in. What if any options do you have (31Hz or something odd like that or does it drop down to 24Hz)?


I'm using a Mac Pro 6,1 definition as are you but a Core i7 3930K LGA2011 platform is hardware very much akin to a true Mac Pro 6,1 based system. Whereas Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge or Haswell based system are very different from a Mac Pro 6,1 based system.

 

[onmybikedrunk]

I have a Mac Pro 6,1 SMBIOS and a GTX Titan Black. I have two monitors, one of which is a Dell UP2414Q. MST works if I try forcing it under the monitor's display settings, but still is only showing 30Hz under OS X. I tried SwitchResX to see the available profiles and under the 4K resolutions only 30Hz was showing up. I was really hoping that this would be the release that got my Dell working on OS X at the full 60Hz. I previously owned a Cylinder Pro and returned it due to it not being so impressive for the price (I could go into that later) and I ran the Dell at 4K 60Hz there and it was phenomenal. I'm not down with TN panels, I just can't switch. I'm of course, running the Nvidia Web Drivers.

Has anyone found which kext controls the way OS X handles MST?

 

[Octavean]

Personally I expect that MST 4K monitors will eventually stop being manufactured since this approach always seemed like a cobbled together hacked solution. IGZO and IPS panels may be superior in many ways but I believe the newer UHD scaler seen in the Samsung U28D590 and other future UHD scalers are the only reasonable way to go moving forward (rather then requiring two).

 

[jweisbin]

I don't see that occasional flickering that you speak of in 10.9.3. Maybe its a driver issue or a settings issue. I'd suggest trying some different setting in your monitors menu system and be sure game mode is off.

I left the machine on over the weekend, came in this morning and no more flickering. Weird. I'm going to try another DP cable just in case, apparently some are not really certified for DP 1.2, but mine (gold plated "Cable Matters" 10 feet long) said it was.

On a related note, many users who had three monitors working under 10.9.2 now can get only two working:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6224241
I personally saw this happen on a brand new Mac Pro with two 30" Cinema Displays (the older DVI kind) and one TV attached to HDMI. After the update one of the 30" monitors would not appear. Had to revert to 10.9.2

 

[pixu]

This is a kind reply I got from SwitchResX developer regarding the issue:

> I tried to create custom 4k@60hz
> resolutions with SwitchResX - they either show up invalid, or don't
> work at all. Does switchres sniff the available resolutions directly
> from the monitor or..?

SwitchResX saves new timing definitions in a System file. MacOS X is responsible for reading the settings file and activating the resolution corresponding to the entered parameters. If MacOS X doesn't enable it, SwitchResX marks the defined resolution as probably invalid (for whatever reason MacOS X decides not to enable it - the OS doesn't give any feedback)

> Have you got any idea what would be needed to get 4k@60hz? Firmware or
> driver issue? I guess the problem arises mainly with non-apple
> hardware (which I possess). Under Win8.1 the 4k@60hz works fine.

It's probably a driver issue. The OS sends the resolution to the driver, and this one activates it (or not). A new driver may solve it...

 

[GuitarGuy77]

Do you have a 4K 60Hz display working with that definition?

Hi - Sadly I can not try cause my video card does not have a display port out : (

One day i hope to get a GTX 760. Right now I can't justify upgrading the GTX 650 cause the 30Hz looks and feels just fine. Sure that the 60Hz will look and feel better tho. As soon as I upgrade will post results.