Mac Screen Tearing on Mac

[Whitelisted]

I had an older Mac mini up until last week and I played 70 hours of Stardew without any issues. I recently upgraded to a new MacBook Air, but now Stardew is experiencing tons of screen tearing seemingly out of nowhere. V-Sync is on, I've changed the resolution, fullscreen, windowed, borderless, nothing works. It seems to fix itself after a while, but then just starts doing it again randomly. Anyone having this problem too or know how to fix it?

 

[NextXander]

Maybe try changing the zoom level to something other than 100% (like 95% or 105%, for example)

 

[Agile]

I had the same problem and my zoom level is below 100 I’m fairly certain.

 

[myvalq]

Hi! Just adding another data point. I’m on a new MacBook Air (M4) running macOS Tahoe (v26.0.1) and I’m seeing significant screen tearing too. I’m running the game on the built-in laptop screen (no external monitor).

• Happens in fullscreen and windowed modes
• V-sync on or off makes no difference
• Tearing is visible during movement (camera panning, walking, etc.)

Is there a known workaround or setting that helps? Thanks!

 

[Lew Zealand]

The internal screen refresh rate on a M1-M4 Mac laptop is 120 Hz but Stardew always seems to run at 60 fps (60 Hz) no matter what. You could try lowering the Mac's refresh to 60 Hz while gaming, that might help:

Apple Menu
System Settings
Displays
Refresh Rate

Try 60 and 59.94 and see if any do the VSync properly.

When you're done playing change it back to ProMotion (120 Hz) for a smoother experience.

 

[myvalq]

Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately on a MacBook Air (M4) the built-in display is fixed at 60 Hz (no ProMotion), and in System Settings -> Displays there’s no Refresh Rate dropdown. Still seeing the tearing on the internal screen.

 

[AnimalFarm]

I'm also having excessive stuttering on a MacBook Air M4.

• Present on internal screen windowed, maximized, or full screen. at any scaling setting and native resolution.
• Present on external screen connected with USB C to DisplayPort windowed, maximized, or full screen at any scaling setting and native resolution (4k).
• Present with VSYNC on or off.
• Present on MacOS Tahoe 26.1
• You can get rid of it temporarily by switching between modes i.e. full screen, windowed, or resizing the window. This fixes it temporarily (seconds to minutes) before it starts stuttering again.
• There are ample resources (RAM/GPU/CPU) available when the issue occurs.
• I am using SMAPI with SDV Expanded and six other QOL mods but I have confirmed the issue also happens in a new vanilla installation without SMAPI.