Moving from CRT to Eizo FG2421 [EIZO's strobed monitor]

[spacediver]

did the link I sent u work, for driver?

[rapt0r]

Well I'm back!
Long story short got called away on family business back in mid Jan, won't I bore yall with the details though

Anyways I'm now an owner of a FG2421 as of yesterday
Seems like I got a good unit made in Japan November 14th 2013, I did just a few weeks ago have a Benq 2420Z (v2 firmware) but sent it back due to the poor colors and well, it couldn't display the color black at all which being a long-time CRT owner it was just no use to me. So still getting acquainted with my Eizo, had a bout 4 hours using it yesterday and about the same today so far.

My FgG2421 does have the slight right hand side color gradient but it is so subtle and unnoticeable it doesn't bother me at all, no crosshatching that I can see yet but not really had a close up scan over it yet. So far so good, this will be the first monitor I have bought and going to keep since 2004!!!

One thing which I just simply cannot workout is why I seem to be getting a headache after using this Eizo for a few hours? I changed it to User1, so no turbo strobing effect and I turned the brightness down to 50-40. There is no PWM until you go below 20 correct? Completely baffled as with the Benq 2420Z it was a joy to use with absolutely zero eye fatigue.

Great to see the forum is getting much busier now and I'm going read every article that has the FG2421 mentioned in it!

[Vega]

Nope, no eye fatigue here on my 3x Eizo setup. Although, I use Turbo240 exclusively. Once you get used to the black levels and contrast on this monitor in conjunction with 240 mode, hard to go back to anything else.

[rapt0r]

Hey Vega, well the slight headache I had on Monday night has now turned into a week long migraine, the first migraine I've ever had in my life. After going to bed Monday evening my eyes were strobing in my head onto my eyelids and it felt like my optic nerves were pulsating through my head down the back of my spine, also felt quite ill and nausea, pain in my shoulders all week. Really cannot understand whats going on, I look at a crappy Relisys and Dell 15 inch 60hz monitors I've got laying around from and no eye strain at all yet as soon as I even glance at my Eizo it's like instant headache and eye strobing/aching.

Really quite gutted as it's an amazing screen/CRT replacement and I've got until tomorrow to decide if I'm going to return it.

Question for you
Turning the gamma up i.e. from 2.0 - 2.2 - 2.4 in the monitor menu/Screen Manager makes the picture go darker? is this normal?
Turning gamma up in the Nvidia CP makes the picture brighter so is kinda the opposite of what I expected.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Consider the color spectrum: Blue light issue
Another suggestion is the color spectrum. Excess blue light. The Eizo FG2421 might need to be recalibrated to a warmer color. Try Color Temperature 5000 or 6500, so the screen looks more orange, and see how it helps your eyestrain.

Sometimes PWM is a red herring: It is not always the cause of eyestrain/headache.
Also try reducing to a brightness 20% or less, especially since your headache may not be caused by PWM, and you might even get less eyestrain going below 20% (the advice not to go below 20% is sometimes a red herring because only about half of alleged-PWM eyestrain is really truly PWM eyestrain). The BENQ has a low-blue-light mode, while the EIZO requires you to dial-down the color temperature to get the rough equivalent. Also, even at 0% brightness, the EIZO is already extremely bright, so using brightness 50% may still be much too bright.

There are many causes of eyestrain/headaches/vision issues
What you are describing is a very serious issue, and you should discontinue using the problem monitor right away. There are many things that can cause vision/headache/eyestrain problems:
-- PWM
-- Motion blur (headaches from motion blur actually exist!)
-- Brightness
-- Blue light
-- Contrast (too dazzling)
-- Ghosting/Motion Artifacts
-- Excess vision coverage (e.g. covers too much vision)
-- Focussing/distance (e.g. too close)
-- Ambient lighting difference with monitor (e.g. monitor too bright relative to surroundings)

It is very hard to troubleshoot a specific human's sensitivity to a display for eyestrain/vision/headache/health issues. 8% of people are color-blind, while a percentage has "motion-blindness" (google that), yet others are more sensitive to flicker, some are photosensitive (headache from brightness), while a few others are more sensitive to a specific issue. I've heard of strain from EVERY SINGLE FACTOR above. This is why the LightBoost FAQ has "Why Does LightBoost Have LESS Eyestrain?" as well as "Why Does LightBoost Have MORE Eyestrain?", as hundreds of reports go in both directions.

Lots of people get headaches from PWM/flicker but not from anything else. But that doesn't always happen. Some people never get headaches from flicker but gets instant headaches from motion blur.

We've noticed newer TN 120Hz+ monitors unexpectedly seems to have less eyestrain/headache reports
The BENQ gaming monitors albiet TN (and often poor color quality) among the most eye-friendly monitors at the moment because you've got a huge number of modes that you can tweak to escape from eyestrain (PWM-free mode, blur-free strobe mode, low-blue-light mode, high refresh rate, etc). Very few reports of eyestrain from recent BENQ gaming monitors since it's fairly easy to adjust the monitor to avoid a specific cause of your eyestrain.

Discontinue use of monitor immediately if a model gives you unexpected eyestrain/headaches
Do not continue using a monitor that exacerbates eyestrain (with no settings/options/adjustments left to eliminate it). Discontinue it immediately and return it. Eizo FG2421 actually reduces eyestrain for a lot of people, but it has attributes (e.g. high contrast and brightness) that actually exacerbates eyestrain.

[spacediver]

Question for you
Turning the gamma up i.e. from 2.0 - 2.2 - 2.4 in the monitor menu/Screen Manager makes the picture go darker? is this normal?
Turning gamma up in the Nvidia CP makes the picture brighter so is kinda the opposite of what I expected.

Yes this is normal - a higher gamma curve indicates a slower initial acceleration of luminance as a function of input signal, so higher gamma values = darker image. See this image which should help explain the concept:

http://www.normankoren.com/Gamma_lum.gif

The Nvidia "gamma" control is not true "gamma" - if anything, it's inversely related to real gamma. I'm not sure what actual mathematical function it applies to the LUT.

[rapt0r]

Cheers for that info Spacediver and Chief, unfortunately it is now packed up ready for collection by Amazon, sadly.

The first thing I did when I got it was change the color temperature to 5000k as it is extremely blue, also change the brightness to 30, contrast to 45 and gamma at 2.2.

I did only use it Monday and then Tuesday for a very short amount of time before lending it to a good friend for a few nights to see what he thought of it. He didn't suffer a headache but did notice that whilst the blacks are no doubt a huge improvement over the Benq, he did say he still had a hard time playing Eve and had to move his head around just to see different parts of the screen, due to the gamma-shift no doubt. I did have a very quick 10 minute play on Far Cry 3 just before packing it up and as that game starts out in the dark I also saw the same problem finding it hard to see all of the screen without having to move around a bit. It also appears that the right-edge bleed problem had gotton worse over the course of the week as it was now much more noticeable and quite off-putting, which is a shame.

Putting my headache aside, which I can't really knock it for as that is a personal issue, it really is a great monitor but I also think even without the headache the gamma-shift and right-side edge bleed would have gotten the best of me and it would be going back regardless. Really genuinely gutted but also in a way kind of excited that we are now finally approaching monitors that are qualified to replace a CRT. When I played Grid 2 on Monday it was simply stunning, the Eizos motion-blur, or lack of, is far far superior to the Benq which left white ghosting trails.

So the search for the holy grail continues, can't say I'm particularly excited about the ROG Swift but when it does finally hit the shelves I will be getting one just to see if all the hype about it being a superior TN panel is true. You never know, Eizo may also release another monitor later this year with further improvements over the FG2421.

[Waddo]

well people who use the google glass have been known to have massive migraines too because people are not used to looking in corners for long periods of time, you may just need to exercise your eye balls...krill oil, antioxidants(colour pigments), rebounding and moving your eyes around alot does the trick...even helps people stop using glasses...