Apple - How can I set the display settings using command line

Use screenresolution on newer os versions

 git clone https://github.com/jhford/screenresolution.git
 cd screenresolution
 make dmg
 ./screenresolution set 1920x1080x32@60

csreen did not do any thing for me on os x 10.10.5. These steps worked for me.

To set multi-display resolutions, rotations, mirroring, and positioning via terminal use displayplacer.

Execute displayplacer list to view the possible resolutions for your screen. You'll want to use the ones marked as scaling:on

Then, execute a command similar to this to set the config displayplacer "id:A46D2F5E-487B-CC69-C588-ECFD519016E5 res:1920x1080 scaling:on origin:(0,0) degree:0"

Also available via Homebrew: brew tap jakehilborn/jakehilborn && brew install displayplacer

I have an early 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina Display running OS X 10.8.5 and I've tested cscreen command line utility and it works to change resolution via the command line. You can download the cscreenIntel.dmg from the link provided. In a terminal use cscreen -h to output the internal help information. An example of use: cscreen -d 32 -x 1680 -y 1050

BTW As far as I know Intel based versions of OS X do not include a native executable and why I'm pointing you to a third-party utility.