MonitorControl is an app to control the brightness and volume of your external display like it was a native Apple display (via the native Apple keys showing the native OSD).

The new 4.0.0 version was recently released and has a huge amount of new features compared to previous versions (even though v3.x.x was alerady a feature packed release). App development was supercharged recently - if you did not try MonitorControl or you last tried version 2 or 3 (the latter was released this September), check it out!

Some new stuff among other things:

- Complete overhaul of the menu UI with Big Sur/Monterey Control Center style sliders. - New combined hw-sw brightness algorithm that is closer then ever to the Apple native feeling. - Smooth brightness transitions. - A lot of customization options and tweakable DDC settings for advanced users. - Fully supports virtual displays (DisplayLink, Sidecar etc) and non-hardware dimming. - Custom keyboard shortcuts (+ of course native Apple keys) - Brightness syncing from the built-in display - Compatibility with BetterDummy https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDummy

+ all the improvements of v3 (Apple Silicon support etc).

The app is free and open source. :)

Hi, I tested the Screen Sharing scenario with BetterDummy running on an Intel headless Mac Mini 2018 running Big Sur. Works splendidly, all resolutions are available and resolution change works on-the fly through Screen Sharing!

According to my tests the app seems to provide headless macs with a HiDPI virtual display with customizable resolution (tested via Screen Sharing, resolution switch on the fly worked, all resolutions are available without any real display connected - should work with VNC as well, but I did not test that).

I tested this as part of testing the app on Intel and Big Sur (BetterDummy worked fine on this Intel config with an integrated Intel UHD630 so headless Mac Mini 2018 users should be fine).

I can confirm this, I had now the chance to test it as well. My findings:

- Works just fine on an Intel Mac (tested one with Intel UHD 630). - Works well with Big Sur (tested on an Intel Mac). - Does seem to provide headless macs with a HiDPI virtual display with customizable resolution (tested via Screen Sharing, resolution switch on the fly worked, all resolutions are available without any real display connected - should work with VNC as well, but I did not test that).

Amazing, thanks for the report! Did not have a chance to test it on Intel but I did compile the app to be Intel and Big Sur+ compatible and the APIs used by the app should be available on these platforms as well.

Thank you! I now have it working just fine to access my two headless minis. Small vote of thanks via open collective sent too.

Wow, thanks! :)

Immersed apparently uses the same technique as BetterDummy to create virtual displays. I don't know if without a subscription BetterDummy created additional virtual displays show up in Immersed (as I have Elite), but for sure, BetterDummy created displays show up in Immersed.

Thats awesome. Thanks for trying it out.

It is actually a software alternative for a hardware fix to a software annoyance lol. :)

Hey, I have a Quest 2, I'll try this one out myself as well. :) Thanks for the idea!

SwitchResX I think is different. It is superior in a way that it creates additional display modes which macOS then can use as a native resolutions on Intel. On M1 the problem is that it can only create scaled resolutions and even at that cannot create HiDPI resolutions if the display reports itself as sub-4K. This is due to an inherent limitation in the M1 driver implemented by Apple, not the fault of the SwitchResX developer. I was a SwitchResX user for many years on Intel macs and was dumbstruck when after replacing my Intel macs with M1 I found out that I cannot use my displays as I used to.

BetterDummy simply navigates around the whole problem by creating Virtual Displays that are mirrored to the main display. This is in one regard inferior, since this is inherently a workaround but on the other hand can work on-the-fly and all possible resolutions are instantly available and accessible via System Preferences/Displays.

thx!

I don't think displayplacer is intended to create a virtual display, it seems to be a CLI to manipulate display modes and mirroring for existing display so these seem to be two different things entirely. I might be wrong of course.

I agree. But the problem the OP had was forcing a video mode. The virtual display was a means to that end. I think displayplacer solves that problem more directly.