[Eyestrain] My personal experience and findings.

[boomlegshot]

Just a simple fast report I decided to write of my experience, perhaps it will help readers cross-reference their situations.

My symptoms:
When trying new monitors, I get eyestrain (the eyes start tiring and drying out, compounding effect each day getting more tired from using display), noticed it's less in games and more in static content like browsers where pixels render "pure whites" on text and such.

It feels like the white beams the eyes, feels uncomfortable to look at relative to other shades. I've noticed other people report a similar experience when searching but it's not always so easy to pinpoint.

Conditions I have:
Short sighted, astigmatism, muscle tension in neck and spine from acid reflux that worsens vision and focus. Possible sensitivity to flicker (noticed hospital lights flicker while others didn't, PWM on phones and other LEDS flickering, slow blur reduction modes on some monitors immediately feel like my eyes are pulling high G's in a fighter jet or like high pressure in sinking submarine).

Things I've tried:
-TN, IPS, VA panels.
-All kinds of coatings, glossy, strong matte, weak matte.
-Different sizes and pixel density. 27" 1440p, 22-25" 1080p.
-60hz, 144hz, 165hz, 200hz, 240hz refresh rates.
-Below 100% SRGB color gamut & 100%+ red phosphor color gamut panels.
-Made sure it's DC dimming and no PWM.
-Low blue light modes and all presets including SRGB and clamp tools.
-Tweaking gamma and RGB in OSD and NVIDIA settings for hours to make more comfortable on each monitor.
-Brightness and contrast setting changes.
-Ambient lighting in room, so that the screen is not too bright relative to surroundings.
-HDMI cables and Displayport, Limited dynamic range 16-235 & full dynamic range 0-255.

(NOTE: All tests above were focused on LCD monitors for budget constraint reasons)

1 Single success:
When I got an Acer XV272U RV with (AUO M270DAN08.R) panel, I plugged it in and it was just as uncomfortable as any other monitor I had tried, forced me to lower contrast to 30% and brightness to 0, still was bad.

Suddenly when I randomly tweaked SIGNAL > Changed RGB values: Blue -10, Green -5, Kept Red same & Lowered gamma setting from 2.2 to 2.0 in OSD, it immediately became comfortable, to the point where I could increase brightness and contrast again and it wasn't bothering my eyes.

It became as comfortable as my old driver (22" 60hz TN, Philips 223V)

Unfortunately I didn't keep it because it felt slow for me, but I never was able to replicate this again with 2 next monitors I tried or the previous ones since I mess with those settings on all.

Conclusion:
With everything I tried, what worked for me was tweaking signal, RGB values and gamma in OSD.

Why did it work? No clue to be honest.
I only lazily asked an AI at some point explaining all of this, it suggested "dithering algorithm", that I somehow changed how pixels rendered pure whites and my sensitive eyes perceived less flickering. (Seems to make sense but not sure, I don't have a good clue how dithering works)

Anyway, It's such a rabbit hole as Chief suggests figuring this out because so many factors intervene.
I hope this is useful to someone and GL, hope you find your solution.

-Boomlegshot

[kyube]

Conditions I have:
muscle tension in neck and spine from acid reflux that worsens vision and focus.
--snippd flicker talk--

I strongly suggest you consider other health-related factors.
Incorporating some neck exercises into your monthly routine would do wonders as well.

1 Single success:
When I got an Acer XV272U RV with (AUO M270DAN08.R) panel, I plugged it in and it was just as uncomfortable as any other monitor I had tried, forced me to lower contrast to 30% and brightness to 0, still was bad.

Suddenly when I randomly tweaked SIGNAL > Changed RGB values: Blue -10, Green -5, Kept Red same & Lowered gamma setting from 2.2 to 2.0 in OSD, it immediately became comfortable, to the point where I could increase brightness and contrast again and it wasn't bothering my eyes.

It became as comfortable as my old driver (22" 60hz TN, Philips 223V)

Unfortunately I didn't keep it because it felt slow for me, but I never was able to replicate this again with 2 next monitors I tried or the previous ones since I mess with those settings on all.

Interesting observation.
How did you come across the exact panel model?
This & this site, maybe?
What made you try those specific settings?
Did you try them 1 by 1? Maybe it's only a single setting which gives you comfort.

Dithering algorithms can definitely contribute to eye comfort.

[boomlegshot]

I strongly suggest you consider other health-related factors.
Incorporating some neck exercises into your monthly routine would do wonders as well.

Interesting observation.
How did you come across the exact panel model?
This & this site, maybe?
What made you try those specific settings?
Did you try them 1 by 1? Maybe it's only a single setting which gives you comfort.

Dithering algorithms can definitely contribute to eye comfort.

Good suggestion with neck exercises, could strengthen muscles and help them relax too

For the panel model I checked the Service Menu myself:


What's weird to me is that according to Panelook it's QD backlight https://www.panelook.com/M270DAN08.R_AU ... 58106.html but when I had enabled blur reduction, this is what UFO looked like:


Is that how QD backlight should look like? I'm not even sure, looks a bit like phosphor decay.

As for trying those settings, a lot of monitors are shipped with mediocre calibration on most profiles except dedicated SRGB, gamma feels off, things look to dim or color temperature, so I'm sitting there for hours messing with settings trying to get things to look how I think it looks right as well as comfortable for the eyes obviously. (Don't have calibration tool)

It was specifically changing the settings like I said in that order. I noticed improvement from changing specifically to that RGB configuration but not until I also lowered gamma that I saw how differently plain white (255,255,255) started rendering, switching gamma actually influenced it too, noticeably giving it a slightly yellower tone.

I went back and forth to check and it really made a difference for how my eyes felt, I was sitting happily using the monitor afterwards, except it was a bit slow for fast paced games pixel response wise.

Further attempts on other displays trying to replicate this would fail given panel difference and factory settings.