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by ddalex 968 days ago
I don't understand why modeset causes flicker - fade to black, turn off screen, change resolution, turn on screen, fade to image.
4 comments

"Fade to black, turn off screen, turn on screen, fade to image" is just slower flicker.
True, but that does look nicer than normal-speed flicker?
And slows boot down by a couple of seconds. As long as the firmware sets a native mode, modern OSes can just inherit that rather than performing a modeset and we just ignore the entire problem anyway.
This summer I went into an apple store, and there was this 2019 Intel Mac Pro tower hooked up to the shiny 6k XDR display. I brought up the System Settings, and set the resolution one notch towards "More Space". It faded to black and never came back.
Because most modeset protocols/implementations aren't atomic, so some frames are drawn halfway through setting the mode.

Turning off the screen can take a long time, but it is possible that putting up a "hot black" screen would be better than flicker if you had to do it.

Fancy fade in/out effects this early?