The issue of blurry game screens due to the notch on MacBooks has been reported for about two years and remains unresolved.
While there weren't many games available for macOS in the past, the environment for playing games has been improving in recent years, with major titles like '
Your Mac Game Is Probably Rendering Blurry – Random Thoughts
https://www.colincornaby.me/2025/08/your-mac-game-is-probably-rendering-blurry/
The MacBook series, starting with the MacBook Pro equipped with the M1 chip released in 2021, has a hidden area (notch) around the webcam at the top of the screen.
When viewing an app full-screen, the left and right sides of the notch are blacked out to prevent the notch from getting in the way. For this reason, when viewing full-screen on a MacBook, the display must be drawn at a full-screen resolution that is shorter vertically than the screen resolution. For example, the MacBook Pro's resolution is 3456 x 2234 pixels, but the resolution available for full-screen display is 3456 x 2160 pixels.
Many games use 3456 x 2234 pixels as the default resolution, as it is at the top of the system resolution list. However, because the displayable area is 3456 x 2160 pixels, there is a discrepancy between the drawing resolution and the display resolution, resulting in a blurred screen. The image below is a portion of a screenshot from 'Shadow of the Tomb Raider.' The upper right corner is the default setting of 3456 x 2234 pixels, while the lower left corner was manually drawn at 3456 x 2160 pixels. You can see that the upper right corner is blurry overall.
The same issue occurs in other games, such as the space exploration game No Man's Sky, which also has a default resolution of 3456x2234 pixels.
The default resolution for the puzzle game 'Riven' was also 3456 x 2234 pixels.
Some games may be able to resolve the issue. Cyberpunk 2077's default resolution is 1728x1080 pixels, which is half the full-screen resolution in both width and height. You can also change the settings to play at 3456x2160 pixels.
Colin Cornaby , who reported the issue, has asked Apple to 'add details about resolution to the game developer guidelines ,' 'add output resolution examples to Apple's official game porting samples,' and 'add new APIs for games.' Cornaby reported the issue to Apple in September 2023, but it has not yet been resolved.
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