Blur Busters Forums

My case in brief

Hi everybody, I post here today because it seem that everytime I try to go outside of my current 2010-2020 tech bubble, I get eye pain. This is very unsettling because if I use my current devices, I can spend 12+ hours in front of monitors and screens and as soon as I try to update something to a more modern device, suddenly I get eye pain in at most 30 minutes.

Clearly something has change in the technology, but I am baffle as to what and more importantly, how to avoid this. So far my guess is:

• More modern monitors are brighter, with my old monitors, my eye might be too used to more faint monitors.
• Something change in the coating of the monitors
• According to Gemini I would have "severe sensitivity to Temporal Light Modulation (TLM)" specifically sensitivy to"low-frequency PWM flicker and high-frequency temporal dithering"

## My answers to The Blur Buster questionnaire
1. Have you tried orange-tinted sunglasses (designed for computer use)?

• Doesn't seem to do a difference.

2. Have you tried a glossy monitor? (e.g. Apple). If you never get eyestrain from Apple screens, laptops or ipads, then a major clue you have antiglare-text-related eyestrain. You can go OLED as most are glossy, too.

• Not a whole lot of Apple product in my environment, but I did look over the shoulder of somebody with a portable mac for 30 minutes and I didn't seem to have a lot of troubles. In fact I was suprise that my eyes weren't going in overdrive like they usually do with modern monitors.

3. Have you ever tried motion blur reduction with framerate=Hz (VSYNC ON or low-lag clone)?

• Not sure I understand this one, but considering that framerate wasn't an issue on the old one, pretty sure that's not it. And my kvm switch stop the refresh at 60hz anyway. So even if I take a 144 hz monitor, I will get slow to 60 hz. As far as I can tell in games, Vsync do not seem to do anything to my eyes

4. Have you tried viewing from further away, like 4 feet away?
You can get a bigger screen to compensate, such as a new high-hz 4K 120Hz television. They are fantastic computer monitors when selected properly, since you need bigger for a far viewing distance.

• My setup next to a window make this pretty hard to do and haven't invest yet in a big enough monitor to try it. With the monitors I tried and hurt my eyes, my first reflexes was to go away distance seem to help.

5. Have you tried going sideways and trying OLED? OLED is always glossy.

• OLED are still pricey, so not yet. Went to some friends house and look movies on their OLED, some would not give me eyestrain other would. As a general rule it seem that high-end OLED seem to not give me eyestrain while low-end one seem to. Not sure why? Generally TV seem to be okay for me but I did encounter some that gave me eyestrain.

6. Do you ever get eyestrain with modern VR headsets? (Big clue to help you with a monitor recommendation)

• Did try a commercial event with an HTC VR, (they couldn't tell me the exact model), I had for 20 minute and it was ok while I had it on my head, but I had eyepain for 6 hours after it.

7. Do you ever get eyestrain with DLP projectors? (Another clue)

• Not sure what DLP projectors are, but no problem in the movie theater, IMAX and projector in general.

8. Others comments :

• Did try with a more recent TN monitor and even while putting the brightness at 0, I had pain looking at it. Yet when I closed it, no eyepain.
• Did went to see an optometrist to rule out any potential thing from my eyes. My light myopia hasn't change in 20 years and there is no trace of any special disease. As far as she could tell I was ok for someboby of my age.

My case not in brief
So everything start during the pandemic when I couldn't go work to the office as much as before and try to upgrade my current monitor to a bigger one. I immediately started to have eye pain on the new monitor. At first I though it was only this model and send it back to try another one. And then had the same trouble with the new model. At the office they decide to change my monitors with new ones, try it for one afternoon, I had involuntary eyes movements for 6 days after it. I had to ask them to put back the old monitors. Long story short, here what I know work, don't work and the educated guess in-between :

What works

• ASUS VX279Q (2012 IPS) (Home monitor 1)
• Dell U2417H (2016 IPS) (Home monitor 2) (Seem that is a matte finish)
• Lenovo ideapad 310 (2015 HD LCD) (My laptop)
• Dell P2213 (2013 TN) (I have two of those at my job)
• Acer X183H (2010 TN)
• LG Q70 phone
• Kindle fire HD 10 11th generation (2021)

What didn't works

• BenQ GL2780 (2022 TN) (Still got that one if I need to test something)
• Dell S3422DWG (2022 VA)
• Dell G3223D (2022 Fast IPS)
• Dell S3221QS (2021 VA)
• Phillips 241B8QJEB (2022 IPS) (That one was particularly bad. Used it only for one afternoon and had involuntary eye twitching for 6 day after stopping the use)
• Samsung LU28R550UQNXZA (2022 IPS) (Also a really bad one, had headaches pretty quickly while looking at it.)
• Samsung A54 phone (2023 AMOLED)

(Totally sorry Dell, really did hope that those monitor would fit me...)

What seem to work but didn't had the time to do a long test

• The Samsung S90C TV (2023 Woled). I saw a 2 hours long movie on it in a living room setting and I had no eyestrain after.
• Macbook monitor (not sure the year), look at it for 20 minutes, seem to not strain my eyes despites the fact it seem brighter than what I am used to.

Why it matters to me
First I am a gamer and gaming is a way to be with my friend during the week since we live at one hour of transport, it allow us to shave us 2 hour in an evening that we want to do something together.

Second, my job is being a data analyst, so basically not being able to look at a monitor mean I can no longer earn a living. And let's say I don't have the profile to get the kind of jobs that are outside...

Just had to refuse an offer by an ex colleague for a job that paid 10k$ more because I couldn't be sure they could give me a monitor that would be ok for me eyes and I couldn't even tell them what I need.

And of course, even if my old tech is still working for me right now, I am at a breakage away to be in trouble.


Any idea?

The question is, what change in the technology happened that has such an impact for me?

And any idea if those specific products might be useful for somebody like me?

• An Apple clone monitor like a Kuycon or BenQ MA270U?
• I have seen people say on this forum that an OLED TV used as a monitor could help?
• The RLCD eazeye monitor?
• An e-ink monitor like the Bigme?
• An Eizo monitor?

I am in Canada so not everything that is in the US is available to me, or at least available at an affordable price.

The coming black friday is a good occasion to buy something.

Eyenuv wrote: ↑

24 Nov 2025, 11:23

What didn't works

• BenQ GL2780 (2022 TN) (Still got that one if I need to test something)
• Dell S3422DWG (2022 VA)
• Dell G3223D (2022 Fast IPS)
• Dell S3221QS (2021 VA)
• Phillips 241B8QJEB (2022 IPS) (That one was particularly bad. Used it only for one afternoon and had involuntary eye twitching for 6 day after stopping the use)
• Samsung LU28R550UQNXZA (2022 IPS) (Also a really bad one, had headaches pretty quickly while looking at it.)
• Samsung A54 phone (2023 AMOLED)

The question is, what change in the technology happened that has such an impact for me?

And any idea if those specific products might be useful for somebody like me?

• An Apple clone monitor like a Kuycon or BenQ MA270U?
• I have seen people say on this forum that an OLED TV used as a monitor could help?
• The RLCD eazeye monitor?
• An e-ink monitor like the Bigme?
• An Eizo monitor?

I suggest reading through this subforum & check the replies I've given to a few users around here.
My assumption is that your eye strain might be linked to the new wide color gamut WLED backlights present in majority of modern displays.
I suggest experimenting with YAG phosphor WLED & QD WLED backlight displays, such as:
AOC Q24G2A
LG 27GS75Q (assuming they haven't swapped their panels)
MSI MAG 274QRF-QD
MSI G274QPF-QD
Gigabyte M27Q2 QD
MSI MAG 274QPF X30MV (should be QD backlight, unknown if it exhibits light flicker due to PWM dimming)
MSI MAG 274UPDF E16M (QD, seemingly no PWM)
MSI MPG 274URF QD
BENQ EX3210U
& other panels.

The 1080p space is relatively free of wide color gamut WLED backlights up to the 360Hz mark (with a few exceptions)
Panels such as the PG259QN (& other G-SYNC module panels), XL2546X+, XL2566X+, XL2586X(+) might be of interest as a high refresh rate, non-WCG option.

OLED desktop displays have a distinct small scan-out related flicker (referred to by the Chinese community as “TFT reset”), which you might want to avoid if you want to remove any possibility of flicker occurring.

I suggest against eInk & rLCD unless they're cheap. They cannot replace a good LCD display.
=<60Hz refresh rate is also a eye strain concern due to the high MPRT target...

Wow despite all my research so far, the type of color from the wide color gamut of the WLED backlight wasn't even on my radar!

Which one should I try first in your opinion that would help narrow the problem, and ideally be the most affordable since I am not sure about the return policy available to me?

And thank you alot for the suggestion!

And yes the e-ink and RLCD are more desperate solutions. In an ideal world I would like a new LCD.

Eyenuv wrote: ↑

24 Nov 2025, 16:16

Wow despite all my research so far, the type of color from the wide color gamut of the WLED backlight wasn't even on my radar!

On the other hand, the white color isn't that shabby if you do lots of Microsoft Offce. Purer whites are admittedly fairly comfortable to stare at, as long as the text fringing isn't a problem (turn off ClearType or use the new ClearType-compatible OLED pixel structures).

WOLED are good for hybrid uses -- office and gaming. They don't burn in as fast as non-W OLED displays, and RTINGs recently observed that the best OLEDs can last longer than some cheap LCDs (LCD Degradation factor written by RTINGs) in terms of time elapsed until distrating stuff appears.

And they did observe newer modern WOLEDs tend to take longer before they start showing faint burn in. Whereas some cheap shoddily-made LCDs gets backlight nonuniformities, unevent LED edgelight wear, and splotching. So alas, wear and tear affects both, but at this moment in the QDOLED (nice gamuts) vs WOLED (great hybrid use), the WOLED tends to have the "less burn in" trophy for now, on average. This could change rapidly with further OLED progress as all the OLED makers try to improve things.

Obviously, YMMV with OLEDs, and different people have less or more eyestrain with OLED than LCD. Everybody with a sensitivity responds differently to different screens - it varies a lot between individuals.

Gemini is saying that many people that have eye sensitive issue has liked the LG UltraGear 27GR95QE-B (WOLED) and there is a certified open box that seem available.

Not sure I can wholly trust Gemini on that subject, but he seem to have access to sources I haven't find yet and this seem to be in line with your suggestions also.

He also suggest to try the ASUS ROG Swift PG32UCDP that has a one year newer panel. But still quite pricey...

I'll look at what is on sale on the black friday and the returns policies. My aim is to at least try one model during the blackfriday.

I'll also try a new pair of orange glasses, my last tests were like 4 years ago. Just saw a model on amazon that I could use to drive at night to lower the LED blinding of the other cars. My blue eyes seems to be more influence by the LED of cars than my friends. Guess it goes in the territory with eye sensitivity.


Another question, is the KVM switch an issue with it's 60hz. Guess so given the subtitle of this site! Let's say it is pretty useful to be able to switch between my work computer and my home one with only one button. Should I get used to switch manually behind the desk the computer feeding the monitor?

Your post says you didn't have problem with certain kinds of OLEDs.

- I would say that it was the PWM-OLEDs (multipulse per Hz at full squarewave, which I sometimes call "RTZ PWM") that caused problem.
- This is unlike the fully DC-dimmed OLEDs (with only one partial sub-1ms pulse per Hz for pixel-refresh purpose).

All 240Hz+ OLEDs are the fully DC-dimmed OLEDs without PWM dimming.

The specific OLEDs that hit your eyestrain was probably the multipulse-per-Hz PWM OLEDs. Those are common on mobile-phone AMOLEDs (iPhone, Android) which has dramatically worse flicker (at dimmer settings)

None of the 240Hz+ desktop OLEDs use full "square-wave PWM" for dimming, and many people with OLED eyestrain from smartphones (due to RTZ PWM), find they can tolerate 240Hz+ desktop OLED displays.

So hopefully a new OLED may help your situation; there is no guarantee -- but your post did indicate the detail.

Chief Blur Buster wrote: ↑

24 Nov 2025, 19:17

None of the 240Hz+ desktop OLEDs use full "square-wave PWM" for dimming, and many people with OLED eyestrain from smartphones (due to RTZ PWM), find they can tolerate 240Hz+ desktop OLED displays.

So hopefully a new OLED may help your situation; there is no guarantee -- but your post did indicate the detail.

Thank you for the precision!

And yes I am perfectly aware that there is sadly no guarantee on that topic. I am just glad and thankful I can have your input on that topic!

Thank you again! I just posted this morning and I already have an idea of what to try!

Hello, I tested in the last 6 years many panels.
My safe monitor is the Asus MX259, AH IPS, LG Philips panel. I used in the past as external monitor for my laptop, but in 2020 I wasn't able to use again with my pc. I'm sure that some OS updates on Win 10 and new TD in the GPU triggered bad reactions.
I use it now as monitor for media streaming with an android TV device and it's perfect.

BenQ EX2780q 2k 27": IPS this one was the panel it triggers my 1st symptoms (nausea and migraine)
HP X27i (classic Wled) IPS 2k 27" Au Optronics 8bit+Hi FRC, it's good but I need a safe hardware (1660super, or 2080 super )
Asus VG27AQ classic Wled, IPS 2k 27" true 8bit Au Optronics but very high brightness, and at 0% it's bad. (Intense eye strain, no migraine)
Asus TUF VG27A3QA QD panel, 2k 27" Need more time to understand if it's good or not, probably not, it has wide gamut (125% sRGB) I'll check it with my personal spectrometer.
Hp Omen 27q (LG panel). IPS 2k 27" 8-bit + Hi FRC. In many forums this monitor is the gold standard, but I had eyestrain on it. I tested with my spectrometer and I found 3 spikes of red so it's A KSF phosphor panel, very bad for my eyes.
LG 27gr75q (LG panel) IPS 2k 27" true 8 bit.
That's good but not excellent. I didn't tested it with my spectrometer to analyze the panel.
AOC CQ32G4VE, VA 2k 32", it has a semi glossy film on it and it's incredibly good. I tested it 2 months ago, but I didn't remember bad reactions. Obviously not perfect.
coming soon... Asus VG258QM TN. I'd like to test a TN1080p panel .

The hunt is hard, but my target is to counter migraine and eyestrain with the right panel and the good OS and GPU combination.

This forum is so helpful and I spent much time to read old topics.
TY Chief Blur Buster and Kyube !
Best regards

Hi Aquila, I hope you will also find something for you!

I am looking at your list and, unless I missed it, I see no Woled there. Have you tried a Woled monitor?

Eyenuv wrote: ↑

24 Nov 2025, 16:16

Which one should I try first in your opinion that would help narrow the problem, and ideally be the most affordable since I am not sure about the return policy available to me?

I don't know your region to be able to give you a concrete recommendation...
Perhaps scouting the used market for a 27' QHD 165Hz option.

If you're in NA:
https://www.bestbuy.com/product/lg-ultr ... JJ8VPZHP4L

If you're in EU:
https://geizhals.de/lg-ultragear-27gs75 ... 69878.html

The LG 27GS75Q should be YAG phosphor, as per moreleTV's review.

AS for the OLED discussion, here's how the waveforms look like: viewtopic.php?t=15074#p119870