I am finding increasingly, at least on a Windows OS, that even on my good system, new software introduces mild discomfort/strain. Edge browser at least for me is the most comfortable, but if I switch to Chrome it is immediately less comfortable, even though both are based from Chromium.
I'm also a bit of a retro gamer and one example I have found is if I launch Kega Fusion (A Sega Genesis/CD etc emulator from 2010) it is completely comfortable, like looking at paper. When I try any modern FOSS for retro gaming such as Retroarch/MAME, I get symptoms within a few minutes, not as bad as a bad system, just a mild discomfort but enough to prevent full enjoyment of the games. Comparing good to bad software shows a difference in the whites, it is almost as if the newer software has an almost yellow-ness to the whites instead of the milky white from the old software. Perhaps some software-level dithering is being introduced?
AFAIK Retroarch and MAME are open-source, so.. if I compile my own binaries from source, will that provide a strain-free install?
TL;DR: Could we take source code from the latest applications and compile Win binaries using older compile tools (Win7/2010-era) to create comfortable software?
Thankfully most open-sourced applications have detailed changelogs, so if we can find a single piece of software which suddenly introduces strain after a certain version, we may be able to work out what changes may have contributed to the strain.