Hello, I have lurked on this forum for a couple years but finally decided to join and post about my issues. I am in the US and 40 years old. I wear glasses with only a small correction for distance.

I have been using computers / phones for decades without issues until I tried out iPhone Xs a couple years ago. It was completely unusable for me and caused nausea and headache within minutes. I attributed it to PWM from the OLED screed and went back to my iPhone 7 which worked great.

Fast forward to last month - I decided to buy a new laptop and found out that all of them were troublesome. I made sure that these laptops did not have PWM, so the issue is likely to be temporal dithering. My symptoms are burning sensation in eyes, trouble focusing afterwards, slight nausea, and general eye discomfort. I can easily spot "snowy" moving pattern on static images, I am guessing that this is a result of temporal dithering.

"Bad" laptops:

  • Macbook Air newest model with M1 chip - this was the worst of all laptops that I tested
  • Lenovo ThinkBook with Intel 1165G7 processor (Windows 10)
  • Asus Zephyrus G14 with AMD Ryzen 4900HS and Nvidia RTX 2060 Max Q (Windows 10 AND Ubuntu are bad)

"Good" computers:

  • Intel Hades Canyon NUC8HV - Ubuntu is good, Windows 10 LTSB is probably good (used sparingly)
  • Lenovo ThinkPad X220 from 2011 - both Windows 7 and Linux (Fedora) are good

I returned the Macbook Air and the ThinkBook, but kept the Asus. At this point, I don't think I can buy any laptop and expect it to work out of the box perfectly for me. With the Asus, I am hoping that at least one of the following combinations will work for me:

  • AMD graphics + Ubuntu (or any other Linux distro)
  • Nvidia graphics + Ubuntu (or any other Linux distro)
  • AMD graphics + Windows 10 (or an older W10 release or even Windows 7)
  • Nvidia graphics + Windows 10 (or an older W10 release or even Windows 7)

My questions:

Is anybody on this forum using the Asus Zephyrus G14 without issues? If so, have you changed any settings to make it work better for you?

I understand the security implications of installing an unsupported OS like Windows 7, but at this point I am desperate for solutions. Any thoughts on "downgrading" Windows in order to alleviate the dithering issues?

Hi there, welcome to the forum. I can totally sympathise with your situation, it sounds like you have a very similar condition to me. I have posted about my journey in this thread which you may have seen if you've been lurking a couple of years!

If you've got the energy to try one more laptop then I'd highly recommend trying this HP Omen laptop with G-Sync (it must be model number ek0005na). Of course you can return it in 14 days if it doesn't work, but once switched into Discrete graphics mode the Nvidia 2070 is wired directly to the display and this alleviated all symptoms of dithering sensitivity for me.

Failing that you could certainly give Windows 7 a bash but I know you'll probably have to hack together some drivers with the newer hardware that you have (Ryzen processors aren't officially supported for example). It'll definitely be possible though, perhaps someone else can chime in on this who has more experience with backwards compatibility.

    Thanks for the response. Yes, I had seen your thread previously and it's comforting to know that I am not alone in my misery 🙂

    I am already past the return period for the Asus, so I am going to keep it and try to make it work. If not, I will pass it on to wife who likes the laptop as well. The really frustrating part is that I am not able to look at the screen long enough to install new OS / drivers etc. comfortably.

    I strongly prefer using Linux, so I am going to try to make it work with Nvidia graphics first. I will update here once I make some progress.

      owmyeyes All the best for getting it to work for you, really hope you can. From my experience the issue with getting laptops to work is that the integrated GPU (in your case the Radeon GPU in the Ryzen) is always the 'Master' output stage.

      So when the Nvidia card is doing the heavy lifting (in games / content creation situations for example), it is still passing the contents of its frame buffer to the Radeon iGPU to be written to the screen. Therefore the Radeon drivers & hardware are the key and, for me at least, the iGPU tends to be the main issue.

      With the Omen laptop above the iGPU can be fully disabled, with the laptop display connected directly to the Nvidia GPU as this is a necessity for Nvidia's G-Sync technology to work. After doing this I feel immediate relief!

      Maybe in Linux there will be additional options for both the Nvidia and Radeon GPUs, looking forward to hearing how you get on. Good luck!

        I have some updates after a couple days of tinkering. All of the following is for Asus Rog Zephyrus G14 laptop.

        1. I did a clean install of Windows LTSC, and did not install any display drivers. Using the Microsoft Basic Visual Display driver, I noticed no issues with temporal dithering. Unfortunately there were too many compromises with this approach including not being able to connect external monitor and losing audio synchronization while watching videos.

        2. So I reluctantly installed the AMD and NVIDIA display drivers. This caused immediate discomfort like the original experience with the default OS. So I can rule out any possible benefit by going from Windows 10 Home to Windows 2019 LTSC.

        3. Next test was to check settings for one driver at a time. I disabled the NVIDIA driver and added some registry values at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Video{2D2A7876-F8BF-11E8-A4F6-848B33DFC0AC}\0000:

        "DP_DisableDither"=dword:00000001
        "Embedded_DisableDither"=dword:00000001
        "HDMI_DisableDither"=dword:00000001
        "TMDS_DisableDither"=dword:00000001
        I also changed DitherAlgo6 from "3" to "0"

        Unfortunately the results were inconclusive. There may have been some improvement but I don't know if it's a placebo effect.

        1. I then installed the Iris app to control brightness and blue light. This definitely helped reduce eyestrain quite a bit. I am using 50% blue light reduction, and 50% brightness reduction and also using the "clear type" fonts. I am fairly certain the font types play a big role in reducing eye strain, and I am going to experiment further with that.

        2. Finally, I found out that the USB-C port on the laptop is connected directly to the NVIDIA graphics and bypasses the AMD processor completely. Note that the HDMI port and the built-in laptop display both HAVE to go through the AMD processor. So I disabled the AMD driver and enabled the NVIDIA driver. Using the USB-C port with my decade old Dell monitor seems to be working quite well.

        I am still frustrated but this seems to be quite promising. I will test this configuration for a couple of days and update here.

        9 months later

        si_edgey I’ve tried about 10 laptops and nothing works. Do you still recommend trying this laptop? I’ve currently got a Asus vivobook PWM free that I’m trying with ditherig. It seems slightly better but still making me nauseous. Is the HP Omen still working for you and aside from disabling the graphics are there any other changes you need to do eg install ditherig/downgrade windows? I am willing to try another laptop but was looking at getting the dell xps based on another post of yours. Which would you recommend me to try? I don’t care how heavy it is etc just want something I can work on!

            JonnyT Hi @JonnyT - I would definitely give the HP Omen a shot in your situation, I know it has worked for a few people now and it is by far the best machine I have used since developing this issue in 2011.

            I ultimately returned mine as for my purposes it was too heavy and loud (there are no power saving options when you're using discrete GFX only you see) but I had 2 glorious weeks of migraine free gaming, working and browsing which was incredible.

            No tweaks were required other than switching to the discrete gfx only. 😀

                si_edgey thank you!

                When you say you can’t use any power saving method- are you still able to reduce brightness of screen as brightness is a bit trigger for me so I need it on a low screen.

                Are you saying it’s the intel drivers that are the problem in terms of dithering and that’s why you are disabling them? In which case why would you not find an AMD laptop for example usable?

                I’m using an asus vivobook atm, my most recent purchase, with ditherig installed it seems usable but it’s only been 2 days and probably placebo! Is there any benefit to disabling the graphics card that appears in device manager so it uses older drivers? It’s intel iris grpahics - if I disable it, graphics still work it seems.

                    JonnyT sorry one more q- I also have a Zenbook Pro 15 OLED (UX535) that I haven’t sent back UStv with discrere nvadia graphics GeForce (not g-sync). Do you think I could have the same success disabling the integrated graphics there or is it specially a g-sync laptop that’s needed? I annoyingly had a ASUS Rog that was g-sync, as well but already sent that back before seeing your posts.

                        JonnyT When you say you can’t use any power saving method- are you still able to reduce brightness of screen as brightness is a bit trigger for me so I need it on a low screen.

                        Yes, you can still reduce brightness. All functions on the laptop work perfectly, it just uses more power by default because the screen is connected directly to the powerful GPU and not the integrated (power saving) GPU.

                        JonnyT Are you saying it’s the intel drivers that are the problem in terms of dithering and that’s why you are disabling them? In which case why would you not find an AMD laptop for example usable?

                        It's not as simple as that sadly, it seems most combinations of Intel / AMD / LED or OLED Panel cause people symptoms.

                        JonnyT I’m using an asus vivobook atm, my most recent purchase, with ditherig installed it seems usable but it’s only been 2 days and probably placebo! Is there any benefit to disabling the graphics card that appears in device manager so it uses older drivers? It’s intel iris grpahics - if I disable it, graphics still work it seems.

                        JonnyT Do you think I could have the same success disabling the integrated graphics there or is it specially a g-sync laptop that’s needed?

                        If it isn't broken, don't fix it…that's the golden rule! If it's working for you then touch nothing. This issue is neurological in nature and everyone's brain is different, hence one solution won't work for everyone.

                        JonnyT Do you think I could have the same success disabling the integrated graphics there or is it specially a g-sync laptop that’s needed?

                        What G-Sync does is give you the option to bypass the integrated (often problematic) graphics entirely and to connect the discrete GPU (often less problematic) directly to the laptop's display. Disabling the Intel graphics doesn't have the same effect, Windows will just use a basic driver for the Intel graphics to be able to output to the display. Hope that makes sense..

                                    si_edgey

                                    Thanks so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to all of this in such detail and helping me understand things a little better.

                                    Right now, things to be working OK on this vivobook with Intel Iris. I did notice that when disabling iris and using the basic microsoft driver that there is less shimmering on a white screen, i.e everything is more still which I prefer and causes less sypmtoms, however for some reason I cant change brightness at all with that driver so its not really sustainable. It is a shame, unless anyone knows a hack or a driver i can download that will give me that stillness . It seems to me that these drivers and resulting movement/dithering seems to be the cause of the problem. Ditherig installed seems to help symptoms, though I can't see much physical change - except on temporal there is significant movement. Fingers crossed this keeps working. If it doesn't then my next step is definitely the Omen or the XPS.

                                      si_edgey

                                      I knew it was too good to be true.

                                      My Asusvivobook is now really stinging my eyes and I feel nauseous.

                                      Would you recommend the HP open over the dell xps 15 then? When you say the HP was noisy - was that just for gaming, or would it be very noisy also for zoom calls etc? I don’t mind about weight but do need something where the fan isn’t crazy loud.

                                      Those that have found the omen helps is it only that model number as they seem out of stock. This one is available but I don’t know if you’d recommend this equally? HP OMEN 15-dh1005na/15-dh1005sa 15.6 Inch Full HD, 144 Hz Gaming Laptop, Intel Core i7-10750H, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6 GB Dedicated) Graphics, Windows 10 Home - Black, Bundle.

                                      Thank again!

                                        9 months later

                                        I am back with an update after 18 months. The Asus Zephyrus G14 mentioned in the OP is still not comfortable for me so I use it only sparingly: no more than 30 minutes / day. I switched to a Samsung Galaxy tab S7 as my primary computing device - it's perfectly comfortable for all-day use. I also upgraded my phone to an iPhone 11 and that is perfectly usable as well.

                                        I am on the hunt for a workable laptop again and am currently testing out two laptops. They both have MUX switch, NVIDIA discrete graphics cards, and screens without PWM according to review sites.

                                        Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X (Model  82V20003US from Costco in USA):

                                        • Windows 11 Home

                                        • AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS (8-Core) Processor

                                        • 14.5" Touchscreen IPS sRGB 3K (3072 x 1920) 120Hz Display

                                        • NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3050, 4GB

                                        MSI GE76 Raider (Model Raider GE76 12UE-456 from Costco in USA):

                                        • Windows 11 Home

                                        • 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H Processor

                                        • 17.3" Thin Bezel IPS FHD (1920 x 1080) 144Hz Display

                                        • NVIDIA® GeForce RTX 3060 Graphics, 6GB

                                        My reasoning for testing these two quite different laptops is to compare the effects of:

                                        • High resolution panel vs low resolution panel

                                        • Glossy panel (Lenovo) v/s matte panel

                                        • 14.5" screen v/s 17" screen (test effect of viewing distance)

                                        • AMD v/s Intel CPU (should not matter in theory since I am going to use discrete graphics)

                                        The Lenovo looked more promising initially so I am doing a deeper test on it first with the following software modifications:

                                        • NVIDIA Control Panel: display mode set to "NVIDIA GPU Only", native resolution and max frame rate (120 Hz), use NVIDIA color settings with 8 bpc output color depth, no scaling, and G-sync enabled for full-screen and windowed mode.

                                        • Registry update to disable dithering (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOGVm1tjsT4), used the "turn off dithering binary key db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,02,00,01,04,f3,00,00,00"

                                        • Windows settings: Night Light on and set to 50%, increased font size to 150%, tuned "ClearType" text, scaling remained at default 200%.

                                        The Lenovo appears to be significantly more comfortable than the Zephyrus G14, but unfortunately my eyes are already strained from doing the initial setup yesterday. I need to let my eyes rest for a day before resuming the evaluation. I will post an update in a few days.

                                        9 days later

                                        I decided to keep the Lenovo and return the MSI Raider. After a lot of testing and settings configuration, I think I have a fairly usable setup now. This is still not as comfortable as my tablet (Samsung Galaxy S7) or phone (iPhone 11), but way better than any new laptop I have used.

                                        I think for me personally, glossy hi-res screen works better because the text looks sharper and I can more easily focus on it. So far I can only use NVIDIA graphics set to 8-bit color mode. The AMD graphics forces 10-bit output which is not comfortable at all. I suspect it's because the panel used in this laptop is 8-bit + FRC.

                                        Thanks to user si_edgey here, I have been using the red color file as my desktop background and can easily see the banding with 8-bit color output but not with 10-bit color output. I am attaching the file in case it's helpful to others

                                        The next step is to try out Linux, either pop_os or MX Linux distro. Even if that does not work out (I strongly prefer using Linux), I am thrilled to have a usable laptop that can at least run Windows 11.

                                        Your mileage with Linux will vary quite a lot. To be honest, I do not at all use Linux regularly because the video drivers on my system are not great. My system is integrated Intel, so my choices are twofold, I can use the modesetting driver, or I can use the x.org driver. Modesetting will work with both Wayland and X11, x.org driver works only with x.org. Neither of them are as good as the Windows driver in terms of rendering and on my system x.org renders better than Wayland (it was the same with the Videocore IV as well, the legacy x.org driver rendered better than the modesetting one for me). Additional complications are the compositors and font rendering settings. It's a shame the Linux desktop is such a problem. I should look into a dock for my steamdeck, but I want a good one not one made by the lowest bidder. It would be interesting to see how the AMD drivers render on my monitor.

                                        There's something odd going on if you're having banding with that red image. It's not a gradient. It's just a uniform shade of red in 8-bit. You should not have banding at all. If you're having banding on an 8-bit image, you're outputting at a colour depth that is lower than 8-bit, or your panel is natively 6-bit.

                                        This is the thread describing the banding with the background (scroll down to an update of post #1): https://ledstrain.org/d/152-temporal-dithering-sensitivity-my-solution.

                                        I am sure that my laptop screen is 8-bit + FRC. The specific color in the image is #c84141 - I am not sure why this behavior occurs since 8-bit monitors should be able to perfectly display any hex color code in theory. Maybe it's something to do with an imperfect coverage of the sRGB gamut. My experience matches that of si_edgey - no issues when there is banding, but I get eye strain when it is displayed without banding.

                                        Thanks for the detailed explanation of potential issues with Linux. I am not optimistic either but will give it a try next month.

                                        9 months later

                                        Here's another update after 9 months. The Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X is still working great with minimal eye strain using the Nvidia RTX 3050 GPU. I am not going to bother to install Linux on this machine. It's highly unlikely that Linux display drivers will be any better than Windows drivers.

                                        I have been experimenting with the display settings to improve my comfort level using the integrated AMD GPU. I was able to use the "Custom Resolution Utility" to force the display EDID to report as 8-bit instead of 10-bit (8 + 2 FRC). This was an attempt to reduce or eliminate the effects of temporal dithering. Unfortunately, I don't think this made any difference and I am giving up on being able to use the AMD GPU. Note that the USB-C display output is connected only to the integrated AMD GPU.

                                        Here is a review of the laptop in case anybody is interested: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Slim-7-Pro-X-laptop-review-The-Asus-VivoBook-14-alternative.697031.0.html

                                        I am able to confirm using HWINFO that the panel used is CSOT T3 MNE507ZA1-1 as listed in the review above.

                                          owmyeyes

                                          Glad it's working for you. So your force NVIDIA on at all times? Also curious what Windows version you use?

                                            I am using Windows 11 Enterprise 22H2. The NVIDIA GPU is on at all times using the following setting:

                                            dev