Adam Kos The new 14" and 16" MacBook Pros are getting rave reviews around the world. It is also for good reason. They have top performance, impressive battery life, returned the most used ports, and have a great mini-LED display with ProMotion technology. But it looks like you won't be able to use it fully even in native applications yet.
One of the big surprises at the presentation of the new MacBook Pros with M1 chips was the support for ProMotion technology, which can adaptively refresh the display frequency up to 120 Hz. It works the same as on iPad Pro and iPhone 13 Pro. Unfortunately, the availability of the ProMotion function in applications on macOS is currently sporadic and quite incomplete. The problem is not running at 120 Hz (in the case of games and titles created on Metal), but adaptively changing this frequency.
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The issue of ProMotion
The user will recognize the adaptive refresh rate of the display mainly in the form of smooth scrolling of the content that ProMotion can provide, in connection with the extension of battery life. And the word "can" is essential here. There was already confusion surrounding the situation with ProMotion in the case of the iPhone 13 Pro, when Apple had to issue a support document for developers on how they should proceed to deal with this technology. However, it's even more complicated here, and Apple has yet to publish any documentation for developers of third-party titles.
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Vratislav Holub The new MacBook Pro displays can display content at up to 120Hz, so everything you do at this refresh rate looks smoother. However, ProMotion adjusts this frequency adaptively if you just watch the web, movies or play games. In the first case, 120 Hz is used when scrolling, if you are not doing anything on the website, the frequency is at the lowest limit, namely 24 Hz. This has an effect on endurance because the higher the frequency, the more energy it needs. Of course, games then run at full 120 Hz, so they also "eat" more. Adaptive changes do not make sense here.
Even Apple doesn't have ProMotion for all its apps
As you can for example see in thread Google Chrome forums, where Chromium developers deal with the use of the MacBook Pro display and their ProMotion technology, they simply do not know where and how to actually start with optimization. The sad part is that Apple itself may not know this. Not all of its native applications already support ProMotion, such as its Safari. Twitter user Moshen Chan shared a post on the network in which he demonstrates smooth scrolling in Chrome running on virtualized Windows at 120Hz on a new MacBook Pro. At the same time, Safari showed a stable 60 fps.
Native Safari still 60fps and not 120Hz ProMotion in new MacBook Pro. But you get smooth 120Hz scrolling with x86 emulated Chrome running under virtualized Windows 11. 🤷🏻♂️ pic.twitter.com/cCq9mU2jO5
— Moshen Chan (@paranoidroid) October 29, 2021
But the situation is not as tragic as it might seem. The new MacBook Pros have just gone on sale, and ProMotion technology is brand new to the macOS world. So it is certain that Apple will come up with an update that will address all these ailments. After all, it is in his best interest to get the most out of this news and also "sell" it accordingly. If you already know of a third-party app that supports ProMotion, please let us know its name in the comments.
