[exogen]

Before reading the background info, I was going to recommend a much simpler fix, but they actually already mention it in there: "Also the mouse cursor size can be changed."

This was going to be my suggestion because it also fixed a similar CPU/GPU related issue many years ago: Apple's own TV.app would have minuscule color handling differences whenever subtitles would show during a movie. This was driving me nuts while showing a moody black & white film for a movie night - every time a subtitle would pop up, the entire scene's black levels would shift slightly (and it wasn't any kind of adaptive/localized brightness or anything like that, it was the actual rendering).

Some online sleuthing revealed it was GPU related (pure GPU video decoding vs. the CPU overlaying subtitles on the screen), and that bumping up the cursor size (even the tiniest amount) in mouse settings would fix it. It worked.

It's barely noticeable, but I actually prefer the slightly bigger mouse cursor now anyway, so it's part of my standard macOS setup.

[Sidnicious]

This issue was related to an old macOS optimization called "detached mode" or FSLP (fullscreen low power). There were related bugs in Chrome and Firefox:

- https://issues.chromium.org/issues/41359717

- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1747999

macOS skipped compositing when only a single fullscreen surface with a black background was being rendered, but there were many ways for that render path to misbehave.

It only ever affected integrated graphics on dual GPU Macs, as far as I can remember.

[dcrazy]

Detached mode still exists on Apple Silicon. If you enabled the Metal HUD in a game it will tell you whether the game is rendering in Detached or Composited mode.

[retroplasma]

Yes, however, a small change of the cursor size doesn't work for me for the Neo lag (idk about the TV app). I have to set it to a size that is significantly bigger, to trigger the fix. (edit: Added that side note to the gist)

[dunham]

Back in the 90's I had a Matrox card that would crash the machine if the hardware cursor changed at the wrong time. I think it was related to VBI, but it's been a while.

Linux resolved this issue, but to work around it on windows, I changed my cursor to an animated dinosaur, which was built into the OS and had the side-effect of disabling the hardware cursor.

[exogen]

Odd, I wonder if it has to do with modern macOS resolution scaling (how there basically is no "native physical resolution" setting anymore). i.e. maybe up to a certain point it's also simply scaling the hardware-rendered cursor, if that's even possible?

[roody15]

I have found this to be true. I manage an organization with around 600 Apple laptops and now when setting them up I always increase the cursor size slightly. No one complains and it does appear to be a smoother experience.

[MontagFTB]

Do you have links to what you found? That solution sounds plausible in this case.

[exogen]

Not sure if this is the exact same one, but here's one thread I found: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6026454?answerId=327318...

The cursor size adjustment is mentioned further down on the page.