new monitors causing eye strain , how is that possible ?

[x1xz0]

I’m trying to understand why I had severe eye strain with some monitors, while older ones are not causing any problem..

Positive vibes :

For years I’ve used a 34" Dell ultrawide 144 Hz, and I’ve never had any eye strain issues with it.
I can work and game for hours without discomfort. Same with my laptop (different sorts of laptops old acer/old dell latitudes/new dell laptop and phone (galaxy s3,iphone 6s,iphone 11,iphone 14 pro max) — no problem at all.
I also do have 2x 27 inch dell u2415 - no problem with them.
In the past i've had some older 27 inch dell monitors with thick panel , don't remember the model - they were producing good amount of heat - no problem with them too , eyes were feeling comfortable.
+ to all that i have built another setup for my wife with 34 inch lg monitor and two 24.5 dell monitors - i have no issues looking at them.

Broken eye vibes

Now , i've decided to start playing cs2 very great idea while getting close to 40 years understood that my 34 inch screen is not so good for competative playing , 144 hz is one thing but the screen is simply too big for cs2.
So i've decided to go with :

Alienware AW2524HF (Fast IPS, up to 500 Hz) for competitive gaming. With that monitor, I started experiencing burning eyes, dryness, and strong light sensitivity within 5–15 minutes, even on the desktop. The discomfort would persist for a while even after turning it off. I tried lowering brightness, changing refresh rate, disabling enhancements, adjusting room lighting — nothing really solved it.

I returned that monitor and switched to a XL2566X+ , which feels better than the Alienware, but I’m still more sensitive than I used to be on my old 34" Dell.

I've tried so many things , reducing hz/disabling dyac and other sharpness features/went through several guides/callibration/setting up proper light source and etc. - nothing helps , while with my34 inch screen i can sit in the darkness and my eyes are chilling...

Question

Now i'm thinking what's next.. i have few days left to test benq zowie, but i think i won't keep it, should i go with OLED? or any ideas , i took this TN panel because of lots of positive feedback from people who were writting about eye strain with IPS panel , but now i'm bit confused , Dell 500 hz ips panel was melting my eyes, benq zowie tn panel is also melting my eyes but more gently

by the way, months ago we've purchased a TV TCL 75Q10B - it was also badly affecting my eyes.

I have no issues with my sight, doing checkups at the doc. all good.. it just that some panels are killing me , and dissapointing..

any ideas on this story ?

many thanks in advance !

[Chief Blur Buster]

Now i'm thinking what's next.. i have few days left to test benq zowie, but i think i won't keep it, should i go with OLED? or any ideas , i took this TN panel because of lots of positive feedback from people who were writting about eye strain with IPS panel , but now i'm bit confused , Dell 500 hz ips panel was melting my eyes, benq zowie tn panel is also melting my eyes but more gently

It's hard to say at this juncture so I'd say 50-50 that OLED will solve things for you versus worsen things.

Was any of the displays you tried "quantum dot"?
- If you had eyestrain with them, try the WOLEDs
- If you did not have eyestrain with them, try the WOLEDs and QD-OLEDs

The current cream of the crop is a dual-mode 540Hz/720Hz OLED panel. That's definitely the one I'd recommend you try since you had no eyestrain with an iPhone 14 Pro Max OLED, which is a 120 Hz OLED.

Also try adjusting room lighting (bias lighting behind the LCD) since the environment can amplify/reduce eyestrain.

[x1xz0]

Now i'm thinking what's next.. i have few days left to test benq zowie, but i think i won't keep it, should i go with OLED? or any ideas , i took this TN panel because of lots of positive feedback from people who were writting about eye strain with IPS panel , but now i'm bit confused , Dell 500 hz ips panel was melting my eyes, benq zowie tn panel is also melting my eyes but more gently

It's hard to say at this juncture so I'd say 50-50 that OLED will solve things for you versus worsen things.

Was any of the displays you tried "quantum dot"?
- If you had eyestrain with them, try the WOLEDs
- If you did not have eyestrain with them, try the WOLEDs and QD-OLEDs

The current cream of the crop is a dual-mode 540Hz/720Hz OLED panel. That's definitely the one I'd recommend you try since you had no eyestrain with an iPhone 14 Pro Max OLED, which is a 120 Hz OLED.

Also try adjusting room lighting (bias lighting behind the LCD) since the environment can amplify/reduce eyestrain.

Thanks for the reply, really appreciate it.

None of the monitors I mentioned were Quantum Dot as far as I know. The Alienware AW2524HF is Fast IPS (no QD), and the BenQ XL2566X+ is TN. My older Dell ultrawide 34” and the Dell U2415 units are also standard IPS, not QD.

However, the TCL 75Q10B TV we bought is actually a QLED (so Quantum Dot LCD), and interestingly that one also caused noticeable eye discomfort for me.

So maybe there is something about the spectral characteristics of certain backlights that my eyes just don’t tolerate well.

What confuses me is that I have zero issues with:
• older IPS panels
• laptops (various generations)
• and even my iPhone 14 Pro Max OLED (120 Hz)

But high refresh gaming monitors (500 Hz Fast IPS and now 360–540 Hz TN) seem to trigger discomfort much faster, even with low brightness and proper room lighting - using benq light bar.

based on your suggestion about woled , considering this ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG or similar , would liketo have at least 360hz
ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDP - better


ASUS ROG SWIFT PG27AQWP-W- overkill i think
LG UltraGear 27GX790B - would be overkill for me too

[Chief Blur Buster]

and proper room lighting - using benq light bar.

Have you confirmed whether your BenQ light bar is PWM-free? Many RGB lights are PWM, and create eyestrain instead of the monitor.
Make sure you vary your room lighting, just to be safe.

ASUS ROG SWIFT PG27AQWP-W- overkill i think
LG UltraGear 27GX790B - would be overkill for me too

Not necessarily, see www.blurbusters.com/120vs480 ... It will benefit your 2D computer use.

Also, 200fps at 720Hz has less lag than 200fps at 360Hz.
Higher MaxHz lowers the lag of low frame rates.

If you're saving money, get any cheap 240 Hz WOLED and try it out first. You can get one for under $500 if you're in the states, or getting a refurb. For example, the AOC 240 Hz WOLED is under $400 new on Amazon USA.
AOC 240 Hz WOLED - Amazon Affiliated Link - 2.5% goes to Blur Busters

It may not be the absolute best-ever OLED, and may not help your competitive scores as much as 720 Hz OLED, but it is LG's 240 Hz WOLED panel, and a good one to "try out" if you're financially conscious.

[x1xz0]

in regards to the light bar , i didnt check it but im using it with my 34 inch dell display and there is no issue , so if i xtest dell monitor to benq zowie , under same env conditions, im getting eye strain , think should be good to confirm that its not the bar , but thanks for idea - it makes sense, any source of led light could be contributing to the problem, unfortunately in this case its not applicable

thanks for the hint about hz+fps in regards to lag of frame rates - good to know.

i will do some research on the woled panels you mentioned but probably gonna pick between

480hz lg 27GX790A-B.AEU
or
480hz asus ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDP

both are woled and for reasonable price , im based in europe so unfortunately dont have luxury of great hw prices which you guys in us have

[kyube]

It's interesting that you aren't able to use the XL2566X+.
Have you considered that it might be panel coating related? TN's to have a severe matte coating, which can affect eye comfort.
I suggest trying cheaper panels first, such as the AOC Q25G4SR.

[BOBBIGUY]

Hi, I’m kind of happy I found this because omg I have been having EXACTLY these issues you describe, with persisting eye strain and headache and it’s super super frustrating since it’s really stopping me from getting better in video games: After about 1 hour, my head and eyes feel just completely drained it’s insane.
I do wear glasses and even got my eyes tested again but they are fine, apart from a slight strabismus if I get tired. Working in that though…
But even before developing that, I had this issue from monitors.
I use the AOC 24g4x and it’s TERRIBLE, it’s the only way I can describe it.
Spend hours searching through the internet multiple days and everybody seems to have a different opinion.I also had an old VA panel from aoc from like 2016 or so with 144hz. It gave eye strain but less and I heard people saying va solved eye strain for them. But VA has a lot of weaknesses and I can’t confirm it.
One interesting thing: My phone broke a while ago, and now, it might also be because of the phone cpu having issues or something, but now it has a cheap screen and not the original 120hz iphone oled screen which caused me ZERO issues. But the new non-oled repair screen does, altough less than the monitor from my pc, maybe also because the pc monitor is bigger. I also would say that the game I play (hunt showdown) is quicker to cause strain compared to other things for some reason, it’s like multiplicative to the already present issues the monitor has/ causes. but I experienced it with a lot of different games….
I searched for oleds and was considering the same options basically, I wanted a matte woled since I heard people complaining about the glossyness giving them issues with qd oleds and I think WOLED have less blue light. or is the matte coating worse for eyes ?

@Chief Blurbuster why do you consider tandem oleds the best right now? (I mean it’s the newest tech, but do you mean in terms of headache and eye strain as well??) What do you know about the aoc24g4x?
Have people been finding solutions to these strain and headache issues? There is a long post reddit from someone, but reddit tends to be unreliable. I asked there from someone with a long reddit post called “Ultimate guide to choose your monitor against eye strain and keep a healthy eye”
and he recommended me the AOC 25G3ZM. But it sounded like he himself never even tried oled lol.
But I mean it feel weird buying another cheap (va) aoc monitor to solve the eye strain issues I have with an (ips) cheap aoc monitor. In this forum, someone said he gets less eye strain with the 25g3zm but still doe after a couple of hours…

I don’t even know much about monitors and I have been looking in posts in blurbusters for a long time to just solve this issue ones and for all, would literally be a bit live changing xD

If you don’t mind, please post an update on wheter OLED solved it for you or if you ever solve it, would be very very interesting since I have like pretty much the same issues!!!!! It’s also hard to determine what causes it since the internet builds bubbles and there are A LOT of different factors that can cause it, but people then tend to settle on one thing , like “pwm is the problem” or “only va is good” or whatever and it creates a statistical bias.
So usually I search for the issue and solutions and stop researching being even more clueless after an hour.

[kyube]

There's no "ultimate guide".
It's all about trial & error.
Start with standard YAG phosphor LCDs (e.g.: majority of FHD TN/VA/IPS +200Hz LCD models, AOC Q24G2A & some 27" QHD 120-165hz models)
Your specific model is a KSF/PFS (wide color gamut) LCD.
OLED isn't a solution you should exhaust until you try a couple of LCDs.
Your eye-strain can be anything: ranging from light flicker (single-pulse or multi-pulse PWM), panel coating to motion visual 'artifacts' (sample & hold blur, low sample rate,...)

I strongly suggest that you ignore the comments on reddit, as I've seen 99% ignorance purported on there in those subreddits.

[x1xz0]

It's interesting that you aren't able to use the XL2566X+.
Have you considered that it might be panel coating related? TN's to have a severe matte coating, which can affect eye comfort.
I suggest trying cheaper panels first, such as the AOC Q25G4SR.

hmm, don't want to go the way with cheap ips panels.. i've tried dell already..

new development - interesting part, amazon sent me 2 XL2566X+ - instead of 1 , so they messed up with delivery , anyways , 1 i need to sent back , before sending it back i decided why just not to give a shot and try it - just took out the monitor hooked on the stander and powered on - and guess what , its somehow better than previous one - so same model, same tn panel , same settings - but my eyes are immediately not straining anymore - wtf

checked their manufacturing dates
one 2025 april
2nd 2025 july

too early to get excited, gonna test it for today/tomorrow

[BOBBIGUY]

There's no "ultimate guide".
It's all about trial & error.
Start with standard YAG phosphor LCDs (e.g.: majority of FHD TN/VA/IPS +200Hz LCD models, AOC Q24G2A & some 27" QHD 120-165hz models)
Your specific model is a KSF/PFS (wide color gamut) LCD.
OLED isn't a solution you should exhaust until you try a couple of LCDs.
Your eye-strain can be anything: ranging from light flicker (single-pulse or multi-pulse PWM), panel coating to motion visual 'artifacts' (sample & hold blur, low sample rate,...)

I strongly suggest that you ignore the comments on reddit, as I've seen 99% ignorance purported on there in those subreddits.

Thanks for your reply! But now I'm wondering, how does a YAG phosphor LCD panel differ? (I'll look into that right away.)
And why would that help?
Oh, that reminds me, I've read something about this phosphor or backlight thing in this forum before. So, with QHD above 165 Hz, e.g., 240 Hz, there is less non-KSF, i.e., YAG LCDs?
Are there any YAG phosphor LCDs that you can recommend (200 Hz+) that I could try to cover different aspects and test? When you say panel coating, I understand what you mean, but how can I tell if my problems are caused by PWM and which monitor has less/more PWM (sorry if I'm misunderstanding, I'm really not well informed about this). Is PWM also related to the GPU? The terms you mention under motion blur, would a monitor with less motion blur be more suitable? Isn't that also related to the FPS?
Last question: Why wouldn't you exhaust OLED? Aren't there different OLEDs I could test?
I really don't know where to start, to be honest.
Questions upon questions... xD

Thanks a lot though, if you can answer some of them, much appreciated, but I will definitely start to try some stuff now.
Should I just start by trying some 200hz yag monitors (and ideally sending them back after 14 days and only keep one if they solve my problem). Or would one want to try determine the extent of pwm/ blur in the current system and monitor I’m running?