Has anyone tried using a VNC client (there appears to be various ones that are AVP-compatible) to get extra windows into a Mac?
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Virtual Mac in Vision Pro & work insights
- Thread starter 8KYUP
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Hi guys, still working on a little video. Foveated rendering makes the screen capture videos look very blurry outside of the focus point, when they do not appear that way through Vision Pro. I am working on a better way to capture video that will address that and allow better quality. First day and all. Even so, I hope these images (grabs from video) are useful to some who are interested. Coincidentally, I live at the base of Mount Hood and Mount Hood is one of the stock environments in Vision Pro, so I posted those images for fun
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The other images show Photoshop and Resolve at various resolutions and at full screen in the case of Resolve. I also showed the standard Mac display settings interface showing Vision
Pro as a monitor and with all options expanded there are many more options than I had originally thought. Very cool all around. I'm thoroughly enjoying getting used to this!
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What is the best way to grab video and screenshots from Vision Pro? When I press the screenshot buttons the screenshots like nothing like what I saw in the display.
You can use Xcode for higher resolution captures, and no foveated rendering.
I would love to see a screenshot of the two functioning together, even if a low res screenshot.
I had to pixel out some stuff since this is actual client work that’s not released yet.
But here you have a low res screenshot. Both displays you see are virtual.
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Does the headset need to be connected via the developer usb-dongle? Or can this be done wireless? Do you happen to have a link to a tutorial?
Both pieces of software you’ll need are free so def try.
It works PERFECTLY for me. No lag or anything. And I can hear the audio from my timeline inside the headset when I set audio to NDI out.
Capturing screenshots and video from Apple Vision Pro for 2D viewing | Apple Developer Documentation
Create screenshots and record high-quality video of your visionOS app and its surroundings for app previews.
No dongle required!
I don't get audio output from the AVP when I cast from my Mac. it still outputs from my laptop. not sure if that's a bug.
Casting my mac to it is imo the killer app but the low text quality + fatigue of wearing it, not sure that it's good enough to want to use regularly.
Casting my mac to it is imo the killer app but the low text quality + fatigue of wearing it, not sure that it's good enough to want to use regularly.
Not yet, but perhaps soon:
Apple Engineers Allegedly Able to Use Vision Pro With Two Mac Displays
Apple's new Vision Pro headset can serve as an external display for a Mac, letting you view and control your computer's screen in a visionOS...
www.macrumors.com
Hi guys, what resolutions are you selecting on the Mac side? Have you experimented with alternate resolutions? Interested to know.
Where is the 4k settings for Vision Pro? Can you screengrab the settings I need to change to make this work.
Hi, this isn't a Vision Pro setting. It is a Mac setting. Once you've connected your Mac to Vision Pro, open settings on the Mac through Vision Pro and the select displays. Be sure to tick the box to show all resolutions. You will then see up to 5K. There are screenshots of this in my 2nd post of this thread .
... but is it possible to just have the Mac run at 4K so it can stream that resolution directly, avoiding one of the downsampling steps?
The moment I connected the Magic Keyboard everything changed for me. By far the weakest part of the software experience is typing. I think my next experiment will be trying to get an instance of Coder running on my Windows PC and then access the code server instance on multiple Safari windows with Vision Pro. This is what a lot of people do today with their iPad to access a full development environment.
So far the only way I’ve been able to get work done is through Virtual Display but I would like to see if I can get a Vision Pro only workflow setup. I know it’s not for everyone (like OP) who need desktop exclusive apps like Davinci but I feel like if I can go around doing everything on just a Vision Pro, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad that would be incredible.
Prior to launch I predicted the best feature of AVP would be virtual display but I don’t really like it very much. I find I’m working a lot slower because of the frame rate drop and latency. I’m used to 160hz displays at this point so going back to what is essentially AirPlay frame rate and latency feels like a major step back. Also the one display limit is a major blocker for me because I usually have the editor on one display and my live app in the other. visionOS on the other hand is instant, zero lag (well, some 1.0 bugs here and there but generally everything feels like butter), and supports a ton of windows floating together. The fluidity and experience of native visionOS is a big motivator for me in wanting to find a (mostly) native workflow.
I’ve been using a MacBook all waking hours to do everything for years now and only recently started using my PC to code instead. Not sure why but maybe it’s because the PC feels faster than Apple Silicon (no I’m not trolling) and I like the change after a decade of only using Mac. Prior to Vision Pro I would still use the MacBook as my primary media device at home (besides iPhone) but ever since putting on the Vision Pro I basically haven’t touched my MacBook. Now the resolution of my external displays and MacBook are way better than Vision Pro but maybe the resolution trade off is worth it for the portability and extensibility of the Vision paradigm. It’s all going to depend on work velocity. If I can get 90% of the way there with Vision Pro I might just retire the Mac entirely and keep it around as a backup for when I need a grown up OS.
So far the only way I’ve been able to get work done is through Virtual Display but I would like to see if I can get a Vision Pro only workflow setup. I know it’s not for everyone (like OP) who need desktop exclusive apps like Davinci but I feel like if I can go around doing everything on just a Vision Pro, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad that would be incredible.
Prior to launch I predicted the best feature of AVP would be virtual display but I don’t really like it very much. I find I’m working a lot slower because of the frame rate drop and latency. I’m used to 160hz displays at this point so going back to what is essentially AirPlay frame rate and latency feels like a major step back. Also the one display limit is a major blocker for me because I usually have the editor on one display and my live app in the other. visionOS on the other hand is instant, zero lag (well, some 1.0 bugs here and there but generally everything feels like butter), and supports a ton of windows floating together. The fluidity and experience of native visionOS is a big motivator for me in wanting to find a (mostly) native workflow.
I’ve been using a MacBook all waking hours to do everything for years now and only recently started using my PC to code instead. Not sure why but maybe it’s because the PC feels faster than Apple Silicon (no I’m not trolling) and I like the change after a decade of only using Mac. Prior to Vision Pro I would still use the MacBook as my primary media device at home (besides iPhone) but ever since putting on the Vision Pro I basically haven’t touched my MacBook. Now the resolution of my external displays and MacBook are way better than Vision Pro but maybe the resolution trade off is worth it for the portability and extensibility of the Vision paradigm. It’s all going to depend on work velocity. If I can get 90% of the way there with Vision Pro I might just retire the Mac entirely and keep it around as a backup for when I need a grown up OS.
Here’s another major reason why a native visionOS workflow might end up being better. As I get used to the device I’m finding certain interactions to be faster on visionOS than on iOS or macOS. In particular pressing the back button in Safari. I just look and tap, then I’m back. Is the difference marginal? Yes. But marginal speedups are everything to me. Same reason why I can’t use a high latency 60hz monitor anymore, once you save those milliseconds you can never go back.
Who would have thought moving your eyeballs and tapping your fingers together to click something is faster than moving your finger on a trackpad or hand on an iPad. Incredible really, seems so obvious in hindsight. The only problem is eye tracking is not perfect on websites. E.g on macrumors I have to look just above a forum link to ‘select’ it with my eyeballs and that’s really slowing me down.
Who would have thought moving your eyeballs and tapping your fingers together to click something is faster than moving your finger on a trackpad or hand on an iPad. Incredible really, seems so obvious in hindsight. The only problem is eye tracking is not perfect on websites. E.g on macrumors I have to look just above a forum link to ‘select’ it with my eyeballs and that’s really slowing me down.
So I'm curious about two things.
- Did you end up keeping it?
- According to this thread, there might already be some improvement in screen clarity during virtual display. Have you noticed a difference after software updates?
The problem with the screen resolution is the following and lies in nature of things: you NEVER will get native resolution on the Vision Pro.
1. Because it just works like this: To provide a screen resolution of 4K for instance, internally (and ideally) a texture with 4K is used. But the window is heaviest scaled down because projected into the spatial workspace. So what you see, is not a native resolution, but always a scaled version of the native display resolution.
To see the native resolution, you have to zoom in extremely. Maybe you will see the pixels this way.
2. 4K resolution without compression ( lossless ) will need extreme wireless network bandwidth, which will become a problem very soon and also possibly will introduce latency and lags. So it would be always better to reduce resolution in favour of for speed. This is also better for readability of the virtual displays in most cases.
I have made tests with 4 virtual displays used at ones with 30 to 60 frames per second. All 4 displays had HD (1920 x 1080) resolution. This worked quite good in a fast local network. And the screens were quite readable, even with loads of text. For reducing the network bandwidth, all the 4 display streams had to be compressed with a more or less lossy algorithm.
Meaning: The resolution thingy on the Vision Pro is very relative. Also with Apples implementation. And it actually is not comparable with a static native resolution of an external hardware display. Due to the mechanism on the Vision Pro is working and the internal displays must be synchronised / merged with a virtual projection in 3D space.
ps: My tests on a real device with the Apple virtual display gave mixed feelings. Moving the virtual display in space far away, resulted in extreme bluring. only very close sight actually gave a sharp picture. (Well this also could be a problem with my eyes, but I did not discover this so drastic with my own implementation, using 4 separate virtual HD displays from a MacBook Pro M2 Pro. Unfortunately I had not much time to test it more in depth on a real device while working in the Developer Lab in Munich/Germany. The Lab had a fast local network, so it worked quite good. There may be notable limitations, if one is working mobile with tethered networks, for instance via iPhone hotspot or such …)
1. Because it just works like this: To provide a screen resolution of 4K for instance, internally (and ideally) a texture with 4K is used. But the window is heaviest scaled down because projected into the spatial workspace. So what you see, is not a native resolution, but always a scaled version of the native display resolution.
To see the native resolution, you have to zoom in extremely. Maybe you will see the pixels this way.
2. 4K resolution without compression ( lossless ) will need extreme wireless network bandwidth, which will become a problem very soon and also possibly will introduce latency and lags. So it would be always better to reduce resolution in favour of for speed. This is also better for readability of the virtual displays in most cases.
I have made tests with 4 virtual displays used at ones with 30 to 60 frames per second. All 4 displays had HD (1920 x 1080) resolution. This worked quite good in a fast local network. And the screens were quite readable, even with loads of text. For reducing the network bandwidth, all the 4 display streams had to be compressed with a more or less lossy algorithm.
Meaning: The resolution thingy on the Vision Pro is very relative. Also with Apples implementation. And it actually is not comparable with a static native resolution of an external hardware display. Due to the mechanism on the Vision Pro is working and the internal displays must be synchronised / merged with a virtual projection in 3D space.
ps: My tests on a real device with the Apple virtual display gave mixed feelings. Moving the virtual display in space far away, resulted in extreme bluring. only very close sight actually gave a sharp picture. (Well this also could be a problem with my eyes, but I did not discover this so drastic with my own implementation, using 4 separate virtual HD displays from a MacBook Pro M2 Pro. Unfortunately I had not much time to test it more in depth on a real device while working in the Developer Lab in Munich/Germany. The Lab had a fast local network, so it worked quite good. There may be notable limitations, if one is working mobile with tethered networks, for instance via iPhone hotspot or such …)
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That is all true, but some future Apple Vision Pro could certainly change it.
1) If Apple moved to TWO 12K or 16K displays, it that has enough pixels to better map (even if not perfectly native, which is of course impossible) 4K or 5K displays.
2) If Apple is really cool, a future AVP could literally support plugging in displays (maybe into the battery pod) meaning that the signals wouldn't have to be wireless at all.
While (1) will definitely happen eventually, (2) will almost certainly not happen.