4K TV connected to Mac Pro (late 2013) - Refresh rates differ from PS4 to MP

Hello,

I am currently trying to understand why my PS4 is able to get my TV to switch to 1920x1080/60p while my late 2013 Mac Pro, connected to my TV via the MP's HDMI port (HDMI/DVI port is used on the TV's end) can not.

I have done some research on the subject and have found that MP's only display in 4096*2160/24p which would explain such a behavior (source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202856)

What I don't understand is why my MP is limited in such a way that, to my humble understanding, my PS4 (also plugged via HDMI/STB or in HDMI/DVI) is not ?

Also, after learning about this limitation, I am left wondering whether or not a MiniDisplay to HDMI adaptor to make use of my MP's Thunderbolt ports would do the trick. It seems to me that this would bypass the problem of my MP's HDMI port's limitation (should the problem be specific to that port only, which seems to be the case here given what my PS4 can do).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks !

By the way, my TV is a Samsung UN55H8550F and I'm running Mac OS Yosemite 10.10.3 (latest).

Philippe

You have it backwards. Therefore, I don't really know what your real question is.

The limitation is not on your MP. The limitation is on the PS4.
The maximum or highest resolution output the PS4 is capable of is 1080p.

The MP does not have that limitation.
There is nothing on the page you linked to that says a MP is "limited" to a 4096x2160 ouput.
It is stating that the Macs listed are capable of outputting a resolution that is 4 times higher than the PS4.

And as such, those Macs support the native resolution of your 4k TV while the PS4 does not.

edit:
Refresh rate is another matter and that has to do with the state of video cards, cables, HDMI, displayport and 4k at this time.
The refresh rates listed there are the max refresh rates for HDMI 1.4, which is what you have on the MP.
If you lower the resolution output from your Mac down to 1080p, then I would bet you could get a 60hz refresh rate.
HDMI 2.0 (which is required for 60hz output at 4k) had not been finalized at the time the current MP was introduced and is only now finally being put into TV sets.
There did not even exist any video cards that supported HDMI 2.0 until a year after the MP was released.
The only way to get 60hz at 4k ouput from the MP is going to be by using the mutistream transport - if the TV supports it.
Displayport still has not been upgraded to the point where it will support 60hz at 4k on a single cable, although, they're working on it.

Thank you for your quick reply !

I'm sorry for not making myself clearer. My problem is that I am trying to run games on my Mac Pro and, for some reason, my TV won't go to 1920*1080/60p like it does with my PS4 even when I set the resolution lower than 1920*1080.

I fail to understand how my TV can go to 1920*1080/60p when I'm playing games on my PS4 but can not do so when I play games on my Mac Pro (even at low resolutions).

From your response, I understand that it is my MP's support of 4K resolutions that causes my TV to switch to 4096*2160/24p while the lack of such capabilities on my PS4 makes my TV stick to 1920*1080/60p instead.

Things actually make way more sense this way, thanks again ! I still, however, fail to understand what needs to be done to force my TV to stick to 1920*1080/60p no matter what so that I may enjoy gaming without such punishing input lag. Changing my games' resolution settings doesn't solve this issue as my TV is still refreshing 24 times per second.

Thank you once again for your help ! Your post was really useful !

Ok so I solved my problem just now by downloading the QuickRes application for Mac OS X. It costs $5 but works super well.

However, people might want to go to feedback.apple.com to write about this issue since the functionality provided by QuickRes was present in OS X prior to OS X Lion.

Thank you once again for helping me out.

Philippe

I wasn't sure I was understanding your problem correctly but was about to suggest a solution by trying SwitchResX, but it's much more expensive but works well in my experience, and didn't know about QuickRes:
SwitchResX for Mac | MacUpdate

Thanks a lot

Sorry, had to head off to work this morning. Glad you have it sorted though. I didn't have much else to add except what you found.

Not much selection of refresh rates in OS X. All my Macs default to 60hz on all of my monitors and TVs at 1080p.

Unless one of my Panny plasmas die, I won't be upgrading to a 4k until they come down in price a little more and have more 4k content available.

No problem ! Thanks for helping me out in the first place !

All the best !