Hi all, I'm opening this topic for Google Chrome specifically, but my issue is general like for many on this forum. I'm struggling to find "good" hardware - laptops, PCs, tablets, phones that don't cause eye strain or even motion sickness. I used to have 0 issues prior to, say, 2011/2012, but since that time it's getting worse and worse and I know it's not me as old hardware I still have is still perfectly OK for me. Unlike a lot of people on this forum I am rather confident the source of these issues are various forms of flickering, interestingly I don't believe the usual suspect of PWM is the source of any of this, although of course it is certainly better to avoid PWM, especially with lower frequencies. On the contrary, speaking of PWM, I read some forum posts claiming that some monitors have non-PWM brightness control implemented so bad that it may actually cause current fluctuations that result in a more serious low frequency flicker, worse than anything that PWM may create. My symptoms are probably better than many other people as I've been able to get used to majority of the new gear finally (after some research and testing), but every second of using it I realize it is not OK and not comfortable, it's just acceptable. In this particular instance I have a question about Google Chrome. I used it for a short time longer time ago and never touched ever since (I'm on FF) until now in order to try out Google Stadia. The browser is terrible, causing eye strain and motion sickness. I am quite certain it is caused by temporal dithering, but I don't remember it from before so it had to be introduced in the meantime, probably several years back. My questions to the forum users are following: 1/ Are you experiencing the same - no issue in Firefox while you get eye strain with Chrome? 2/ Are you aware of any method to turn this dithering "feature" off in Chrome? 3/ If you do experience the same, can you support this in the following Chrome Help community thread and, more importantly, the bug report to Chromium devs? https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/87823703?hl=en # https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1157382 Any help, support or comment is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

machala Chrome or any other browser does not dither. I've tested it with my capture card / software. Your problem is more likely being caused your gpu / monitor dithering the colours chrome uses. However, unless you can figure out how to change the colour scheme in chrome there is isn't much you can do about it.

Hi, definitely not, I'm 100% sure of what I said. Firefox on the same OS, same PC, same screen is causing zero issues (just like all other applications) while I get eye strain after several minutes with Chrome. Additionally, see this: They turned dithering on in Chrome in order to solve color banding back in 2015: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=41756 You can even see someone complaining about eye strain in the middle of this bug chain - that they started to experience eye strain after they enabled this. The user was totally ignored, see for yourself under the link above. However, dithering was still not fuctioning on GPU-accelerated setups, which they "fixed" under this bug in 2017: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=731693 I hope this makes it clear. And of course, the best proof for me is what I see with my own eyes... I was looking into it further, perhaps the only way would be to compile Chromium yourself with dithering disabled, but it's a lengthy process... I understand what you're trying to say: that it's the graphics card/monitor mysteriously dithering differently in basically every application on the PC and differently in Chrome. But I do not believe this is likely... plus see the bug reports above, Chrome (Chromium) is using dithering very officially...

wow..... this explains a lot for high browsing usage eyestrain. would be great to find a solution

machala https://ledstrain.org/d/895-gpu-dithering I used this methodology to test Chrome and found no dithering from Chrome itself. Best of luck in solving your problem.

Seagull Hi again, thanks a lot! 2 questions if I may: what Chrome version did you test this with? Can you describe your setup please? OS, GPU, driver versions? It is possible that both of us are right - and there are setups and conditions under which Chrome does not use dithering - which could lead to an alternate solution for me.

Quad43 Have you ever used Firefox for browsing? If not, can you do that and see if it makes things better for you? Please keep in mind that the issue is not with Chrome, but with its Chromium rendering core - core that is used by many other browsers, including MS Edge. I'm not using Apple products, I'm on Windows and Linux (BTW I have the issue with Chrome on both systems, no difference), but as far as I know Safari is using dithering as well. Firefox is the only browser I know of that should not be using dithering.

machala HI there, Have you tried the latest MS Edge browser? Interestingly I get strain from Firefox/Chrome/Chromium but Chromium Edge is comfortable for me. FWIW, I have trouble with modern media players and emulators too. Kodi causes eyestrain (despite dithering being switched off in settings), retro emulators (e.g. Retroarch) cause discomfort compared to a 2010 emulator (Kega Fusion) which is like looking at paper.

Seagull I'm beginning to feel that a more fruitful line of investigation for this particular issue is to compare the frame of a "good" application versus a "bad" application, to see what exactly is different. I mean, while there (probably) isn't any motion going on. I still feel optical illusion type tricks are possible. Unfortunately I haven't had time to work on VideoDiff as of recent. Contributions welcome.

I have experienced eye strain with Chrome and Firefox in the past on a known safe system. Launch Chrome and the strain starts, quit it and all is good. I've seen the same thing with version 4 of the flight simulator called Prepar3d. Strangely, and it's a good thing, the new MS Edge browser has been safe so far.

JTL As I explore here , the slightest of changes in colour shade can have a significant effect on how a GPU, and in all probability, how a monitor dithers. I used to have problems like this, where a software update would cause me eyestrain, till I switched to a GPU which does not dither. I'm sorry, I don't see the value here in investigating further. Every time I have investigated a piece of software for dithering, or other unseen the motion, the outcome has always been nothing. I have only ever seen GPUs dither. Honestly, I am getting tired of repeating it. If people want to ignore it, they are free to do so, but its one of the few opinions here backed up by testing which didn't relying upon human perception.

Google Chrome Temporal Dithering

Quad43

Super interesting. Reading this site on FF all good. Opened up Chrome and browsed regular page/sites, bam. Within a minute or two. I'm definitely less inclined to use FF due to speed but based off this I may have to. Great discovery machala! I hope we can get it resolved.

Lauda89

Maybe it's a problem related to the font?
I am reading your post with Chrome and firefox with zoom 110% (my daily use) and the font is really different.

Do you have problems with Chrome even when you watch a youtube video on full screen?

Gurm

If you install older Chrome (v68 works for me) you'll see that it is better. Eyestrain started for me with Chrome v69. Problem is v68 is out of support now. 🙁

machala

Thanks to all for their comments, seems that I am finally not alone having the issue with this browser. It is important that if you experience this you star or better even comment on that bug report I linked earlier, a Google account should be enough to log into that system:

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1157382

This increases our chances of Chromium devs looking into this, so far there's been basically zero activity.

I also opened a Google support case for this pointing them to the bug report, it's been even escalated to higher levels of support (at least they claim so), but no real outcome there so far.

In the meantime I was trying to get accustomed to the problem and see if I can get used to it: played on Stadia for several hours on Dec 23, felt like it could finally be OK at first, but by the end of the day and the next day I paid the price: terrible headache, feelings of nausea etc., partially ruined my Christmas... Chrome is unusable for me if this does not get resolved, that's for sure.

Additionally, I have some news, but it's not looking good. I spent half of my yesterday setting up and compiling my own Chrome from sources on Linux trying to disable both of the dithering options the bugs I linked earlier speak about. And I was successful in the end: my chrome build is showing obvious color banding in various tests (unlike the official build), so I apparently achieved the dithering removal. But the effect of this custom build on my eyes is just the same. Therefore it must be some different form of dithering or it is indeed the color profile handling of Chrome doing this (so @Seagull might have been right, my apologies sir for doubting what you said). I am at a loss. I will follow @Gurm 's advice of trying out Chrome v68 if I can find it somewhere to see if it is OK so that I am able to point Google in the right direction as my original assumption was apparently wrong. There was color management implemented in Chrome some 1-2 years back so that could be it, too. But even at the very beginning of discovering this issue (some 3-4 weeks back) I was testing various options available under the force-color-profile flag to no avail.

@Lauda89 It definitely has nothing to do with fonts as staring at pictures and playing games on Stadia causes the issue as well.

Seagull

machala

Lets take a step back:

Are you only using chrome for Stadia, how is it for normal web browsing?

What's your GPU and monitor, or laptop? Do you have a list of hardware you've tried and had problems with?

machala

@Seagull The truth is I don't use Chrome at all as every minute of using it makes me feel sick. 🙂
But yes, I need to use it only for Stadia, however, as I write in the initial post (I believe) it's even normal browsing causing exactly the same effect. I can "detect" the problem within seconds of using the browser, right after opening it.

PC 1: NVidia 660, Acer TN monitor (would need to search the model)
PC 2: NVidia 1060-6G, iiyama AMVA monitor
Laptops: various models with i5-5500 Pro, i7-9750H and hybrid graphics - integrated + Nvidia T1000 (the same issue no matter to which graphics I switch), and older laptop with an i5 from 2011. Most of them with both Windows and Linux installed (mostly Ubuntu). All causing exactly the same issue.

None of the systems above are perfect for me, but they are quite OK, I can use all of them for many hours without any issue whatsoever. And apart from Firefox I'm using dozens of applications and it's only Chrome where I have the problem. That's why I dropped your idea of colors being the issue. Dozens of applications - no problem, and Chrome having such a drastic effect within minutes? Weird indeed.

Seagull

machala

Both your 660 and 1060 use temporal dithering. All the external GPUs I have tested used temporal dithering, but I have actually tested several 660s and a 1060 so I am as certain I can be that yours are dithering [it gets more complex than that, but I don't want to overburden you].

You might want to try using intel integrated if either of your desktops has that. By default, intel integrated uses spatial dithering only (ie it doesn't move or flicker), and this can be reliably turned off using software available here. Also, avoid using VGA cables whilst experimenting as RF noise will affect the signal and what you see on the monitor.

I would strongly recommend you get your own capture card so you can test these things for yourself. I found that simply relying upon my own experience of pain and discomfort was not sufficient to diagnose things. I once thought that only my 660 did not dither and that all other cards did, as the 660 was generally comfortable and other cards (intel integrated for example) caused immediate pain. I discovered after testing with my capture card that the 660 did dither, and the intel integrated did not. Best explanation I could come up with was that the monitor I using needed dithering to be comfortable, monitors use dithering too, so perhaps the superposition of two dithering algorithms made it work. Now I have since found monitors which are comfortable with intel integrated graphics (and its lack of dithering), and I no longer get random pieces of software giving me eyestrain. With the 660 I found: steam; sharepoint on chrome; office 365; and visual studio 2020, caused pain - all of which I can use fine now.

If you get the black magic card I can talk you through using it, and send you my analysis software. Be wary of buying any capture card marketed to gamers though, these will use compression and screw up the analysis.

As for why Chrome, I really couldn't say. All I can do is re-iterate the testing I have done.
gtx 660 + other external GPUs -> temporal dithering on everything in windows -> temporal dithering on chrome,
Intel integrated -> no temporal dithering on windows-> no temporal dithering on chrome.

KM

I think it makes sense that in the end it's the graphics card causing this. The browsers seem to request a certain display mode or perhaps "color correction" for their windows, and the GPU driver just responds and decides to employ temporal dithering at will. On the video cable only, so not detectable by the running OS (e.g. screenshots). Perhaps influenced by driver color settings and connected monitor, too, in a way that's not easily predictable. Looking at Seagull's findings in his capture card tests, this could be an explanation.
The Chrome browser's own dithering might be static dithering, so potentially harmless. In their bug report thread they don't say it clearly.

JTL

Seagull All the external GPUs I have tested used temporal dithering

It's not properly published yet, but here's some test results of some AMD GPUs under Linux you may find interesting.

https://github.com/ledstrain/wiki.ledstrain.org/pull/22/files#diff-a10179b563cdf170bb9b2c7e5567fe49357a9f0f8fd434f4fecb9f171a426c66

optix

machala

1) I'm experiencing exactly the same on a otherwise safe system. Firefox is ok.
2) Unforunately not
3) WIll do.

Seagull

JTL

That is interesting, both the gaming and professional AMD cards I tested dithered on windows. I wonder if Linux users are trusted to set their own dithering settings.

JTL

Seagull I haven't done any Windows development in quite a while, but it might be theoretically possible for a third-party utility to emulate the register changes performed by the Linux driver. There might be some caveats to this, but I'll document that later.

machala

So some news from my end:

Google support is unwilling to do anything with my request and keeps sending me to Chrome support that just does not exist
Chromium bug report: no update there. Again, please star the bug or comment there if you see the issue as well:
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1157382
@Gurm Thanks a lot for your comment, I am able to confirm your findings, Chrome v68 probably still isn't as good as Firefox (but it's really hard to tell), but definitely the issue started with v69.

So the next course of action is clear: try to figure out what was changed in v69 and see if it's a feature or a setting that can be disabled (either directly within Chrome or by a setting for compiling Chromium - the same thing I did with dithering).

@Seagull I am not ignoring your advice, but I do not believe the theory with the GPU being the cause is true here, at least this is the last thing I'd check - for me the issue exists on all systems I have. Additonally I am able to completely disable temporal dithering in NVidia linux drivers. On the contrary I am aware that there are differences between GPUs and even drivers in terms of their lightness on one's eyes so I am not entirely dropping this.

Quad43

Any solutions to this?

asus389

I'm curious if this was ever resolved? I am noticing the same thing on current versions of Chrome (and Chrome based browsers). Also in Firefox versions >88 (with the new UI) I started having the same issue as with Safari >14. Safari 13 is fine and Firefox 78ESR is fine. Is there something that changed in the web rendering world in the past couple years that could have brought this out?

machala

asus389 Hello, yes, I know about the FF and have EXACTLY the same issue. I even opened a bug report with Mozilla, but tracking down what version it started with was rather hard for me. Perhaps we could get in touch and work on this together? The mozilla devs seemed open to tracking the issue down and this may actually be our gateway to understanding what this really is all about!!

This is all very weird and something is certainly going on here, more and more applications are using the same troubling rendering… MS Teams, RealVNC client, GeforceNow client… it's terrible…

ban

I have used Firefox for a lot of time mostly because of the way it renders fonts. The fonts in Chrome look too thin for me and that has to do something with ClearType not being used I think. If you open a page in Chrome and Firefox and compare you will most likely see a difference in font rendering. Lately I've switched to Edge because they've enhanced font rendering and seems to use the ClearType from Windows (I've enabled in flags for "Enhance text contrast"). I like features like image of the day, vertical tabs with no caption bar, font rendering… but slowly it seems to get bloated.

Sunspark

I use FF with dark reader and a dark theme.

machala

Sunspark Yes, it helps, I actually use dark themes everywhere I can now, but it's not the real solution…

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