Can I use BetterDisplay exclusively on an external monitor without changing the built-in display settings?

[pawelwitek34]

Hello!

I've been using BetterDisplay Pro and it works really well on my external 34-inch, 1440p monitor. However, I've noticed that the settings for my built-in screen have also changed—the resolution has been significantly reduced, and I don't have the option for interface scaling.

I would like BetterDisplay to modify the settings of the external monitor as it has been doing, but I want the built-in laptop screen settings to remain default, with the original resolution and all the options I had before.

How can I achieve this?

My computer is a 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 (Sonoma).

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My currently resolution:

I want see this option for my built-in display (Full res & UI scaling)

[waydabber]

Yes, you should turn off configuration editing and flexible scaling for the built-in display.

But with flexible scaling enabled for the internal display your resolution options were not reduced but increased (previously you had 5 options, now you have over 20 + you can use the app slider for flexible scaling). But it might be that I misunderstand the issue.

[pawelwitek34]

Hey thanks for the quick reply!

I meant that the resolution was reduced (not the number of possible resolutions to choose from). The default resolution of the built-in screen on my laptop is 3024x1890 (if I remember correctly), while now it is set to 1512x982. If I change it to 3024x1890 the whole interface is very small - and I have no option to choose scaling. At the very beginning, before I installed BetterDisplay my built-in monitor had the max resolution but the interface was the correct size (I had the scaling options available, which I wrote about above).

What I care about is that BetterDisplay does not change anything in the settings of the built-in monitor (what was there at the beginning was ok), but only manages the external monitor.

My currently settings of screens (external display is unplugged now):

I can't see this option (I had them earlier):

[waydabber]

The default resolution for the 14" MBP is 1512x982 (that is the 2x HiDPI scaled variant of the native panel resolution 3024x1964 with perfect pixel mapping). The 3024x1890 resolution you mentioned is the "notchless" (16:10) variant of the native resolution (with reduced vertical size) and is not listed normally at all. The native (LoDPI) resolution is not offered for the MBP (in the factory state) among the 5 default resolution buckets as that would result in very small UI elements.

[waydabber]

(note: https://talk.tidbits.com/t/default-resolutions-of-14-16-inch-macbook-pros/22279)

[jinxxxxxi]

Hello, I also encountered this problem. When I turned on betterdisplay, small pixel-like squares appeared on the screen of my macbook. How can I eliminate these pixel-like squares?

[waydabber]

Can you post me a screenshot about the pixel-like squares? I am not sure what this is or how to visualize the problem.

Thank you! :)

[jinxxxxxi]

Thank you for your reply. As shown in the photo above, you can see some blurry pixel blocks. I tried to uninstall betterdisplay yesterday, but it didn't seem to be able to solve it. I'm not sure what caused it now. Maybe you know why? Thanks

[waydabber]

Is this a screenshot or a photo? If photo, do you see this effect on screenshots made by macOS? I don't think BetterDisplay creates this issue but not sure what exactly this is. Does it happen with different colors as well?