Pro-motion for M1 Max Macbook Pro stuttering

I'm using the iPhone 14 Pro Max. I get some micro-stuttering, but rarely. Definitely not as much as the M1 MBP.

Some things I've found out after doing some testing on the M1 MBP regarding the micro stuttering when switching spaces:

• If you do the mouse gesture swipe to switch a space, and allow the desktop to focus first, then move the mouse a bit (small pea side circles is fine), then finally do the mouse gesture swipe to switch a space in any direction again, it appears to perform the animation completely smoothly each time. I tried this doing this numerous times in a row, and there weren't any issues. Obviously this isn't an ideal way to do as this is quite slow to do all the steps.
• It seems if you use the mouse gesture to continually switch a space going in one direction only, the micro stuttering is a bit less aggressive. Once you stop going in one direction, you have to wait for the animation to end, let display focus, before continually swiping in the opposite direction. You can also use CTRL+<arrow keys left/right> for this.
• The biggest cause of the micro stuttering seems to be when using the mouse gestures swipes to go from side to side in opposite directions quickly (left mouse gesture then right mouse gesture swipes and vice versa). I'm not sure why, but I think maybe it is because ProMotion doesn't recognize what FPS it should be at during the swipe to swipe gestures in opposite directions when not letting the display get in focus from the animation. It would be nice to have it so it's smooth 100% of the time which should be accomplished by letting users have the ability to set the refresh rate of the display to 120 Hz instead of variable 120, at least when plugged in.

The best solution I've found is to use enable the use of CTRL+<num 1-4>. Using those keys to switch spaces makes each animation have the same speed and focuses on the space quicker without any micro stutters from the testing on my MBP. You may be able to assign more keys for more spaces, but I am not sure, I didn't look into it.

Using the mouse pad to perform the gesture swipes to switch spaces doesn't keep the display at 120 Hz refresh during the animation and causes micro-stutter/jitter which is unpleasing to look at.

Happy to see that this is likely not a Device specific issue, rather a ProMotion software issue. I wasn't sure if I was just too sensitive to the jitters, but it's very difficult especially when using it right next to a 120hz monitor. Really wish Apple would allow the "Pro" users to lock refresh rates to 120 at the expense of battery!!

Surprisingly, a lot of the Mac OS native apps seem to be struggling with these jitters during my time using the M1 16in MacBook Pro.

• iMessages has a huge issue when i'm scrolling through texts. When I drag the app to my monitor, the issue disappears.
• Safari seems to be locked to less than 60 fps and I have had continuous issues with micro jitters.

I also want to share that the while inconvenient, temporary work arounds suggested by skhatri15 have been successfully replicated with identical results on my machine. Posting in hopes of getting this issue more traction.

I have the same exact issue on my MBP 16" M1, you are definitely not alone. I have been searching for posts related to this exact issue since I purchased the laptop about a month ago and I did not find many.

I've done safe boot ups, reinstalled MacOS, restarted the system and searched everywhere online. No solutions have been found, only workarounds such as turning off animations to just fade in/out. However, that gets rid of all animations, and I don't want to do that.

I can also verify that this does not occur on an external high refresh rate monitor as you've pointed out. Nice to know this isn't exactly a core system performance issue, but more of a ProMotion technology issue. This gives the appearance as if the laptop is laggy/slow, but it's the ProMotion that seems to be throttling down the variable refresh rate that is causing that illusion of slow/lag/jitter/microstutter during animations (especially using Spaces).

I am very sensitive to micro stutters and it is extremely annoying every time I encounter this, which is basically every time I try to use Spaces to switch my desktop workspace.

An option to be able to adjust our variable refresh rates, or set a constant refresh rate would fix this; let the users decide if they want to take the performance hit or not.

I've had this issue since day one of purchasing this laptop since 1 month ago, however the frequency of the jitter/stutter on the animations (most notably on the switching desktops using Spaces) has been a lot worse after updating to Ventura.

I'm disappointed in the ProMotion technology in the MacBook Pros.

I hope this gets resolved soon as this is very silly that such a high performance machine is providing an illusion of slowness when it really isn't slow at all, especially from a company that is known for its eye candy on all its devices.

You should see how bad it is on M2 iPads and iPhone 14 PM - games are completely unplayable thanks entirely to ProMotion. Totally new devices look and run worse than an iPhone 11/12 (or any other device with a non-variable refresh rate screen).

It's beyond ridiculous and despite the issue being mentioned in quite literally hundreds of comments on various places online, despite it having popped up all the way back in iOS/iPadOS 16, they still haven't fixed it.

It's a bug that literally breaks the devices completely for people who buy them for gaming (like I and others I know do).

EDIT: Oh, and another thing - they're deleting threads and comments mentioning it, I had two threads asking about it deleted outright. So much for Apple championing "free speech", "privacy" etc.

I experienced the same issue shortly after turning on "Low Power Mode" in System Settings (MacOS Venture 13.0). The effect was immediately reversed when I turned it back off.

Setting the Energy Mode so it's always High Power fixed the ProMotion stutters for me. Thanks!

Update: it only fixed the issue on my laptop but not on my external display. It still stutters like crazy even on 60hz refresh rate.

I can confirm this occurs exactly as described on the brand new 14" M2 Macbook Pro. Pretty much the same specs as you, though I have 64gb of Ram. Very frustrating.