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I am using my LG UltraWide 34" display (34WL500-B) plugged into a 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro (Coffee Lake 2.6GHz Core i7 9750H with 16GB memory) from work.

Here is the product page for the display.

I use VSCode & tmux extensively up to and beyond 8hrs a day, the text resolution is atrocious. No smoothing or anti aliasing and that's the default resolution offered up by the MacBook.

I don't do image or video work at most architectural diagrams using lucidchart. 75% of my work is text based

The real issue is the blurred quality of the text in VSCode & Chrome, the second part of this is that the MacBook Pro doesn't handle the refresh rate or additional resolutions offered by the monitor when scaling is selected (it gets much worse).

I have high quality, finely ground, coated and stabilised zeiss lenses in my glasses and I have a current prescription. I doubt that they are an issue as the MacBook Pro's builtin screen, is comfortable and clear even at a distance.

My other laptops don't cause this issue, these being an Asus C302 with the latest version of ChromeOS, a Dell Precision 5510 running Windows 10 Pro, and a Xiaomi MI Notebook Pro running Ubuntu 20.04 / KDE 19. Clear, antialiased, smoothed text.

This is really bothersome as work obviously has to be done on the work supplied laptop and the uncomfortable nature of the text, is making it really unpleasant to use the external monitor.

The actual question.

What would the specification of an eGPU be to resolve this issue, bearing in mind it will be purchased by me and I'd like to ensure its compatible with my other kit.

kumowoon1025
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Ourjamie
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    I know at least for VS Code, it doesn't use Core Text for rendering the text for its main document view, so the system-wide font smoothing would have no effect. It does have advanced configuration options that control this, but it sounds like the problem is more fundamental than that. Just to make sure, when you compare your other laptops, you are comparing the image/font rendering quality when they are outputting to the same LG display, right? How are you converting to the HDMI necessary for your display? – kumowoon1025 May 30 '20 at 11:53
  • I agree with @kumowoon1025 re: the HDMI connection. If you’re not using an active adapter to properly convert the signals, you’re bound to have issues. For whatever reason Mac video drivers a much, much less tolerant that Windows or Linux – Allan May 30 '20 at 13:23
  • Thanks both for that advice, there is nothing to indicate that the usbc/thunderbolt to hdmi is active so I'll assume it isn't. I guess my usecase is at the bottom of the priority chain now-a-days, crisp clear text, rather than fast refreshes and high fps's – Ourjamie May 30 '20 at 16:10

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