I used to have some test patterns to check for temporal dithering (will look for it today). It would be nice if we could correlate the presence of temporal dithering to different driver version or GPU iterations.

Maybe we would see something when using a strong magnifying glass and a slow motion camera (mode)? Somewhere I read the temporally dithered pixels' colors may flicker/change at 30 Hz, which is pretty slow.

2 months later

Updating my situation...

I've been using my original Gigabyte G1 Gaming 970 card very happily on my Dell IPS 2407 monitor.

I've tried putting the Gigabyte G1 Gaming 1070 back in my machine (the kids had been using it happily of late), and although it's less 'bad' on my eyes than reported originally, presumably due to driver updates, it's still no good. It leaves me feeling queasy and sorta green round the gills. After I put the 970 back in everything goes back to normal.

Today I've gotten an ASUS Strix 1080 card to trial. My initial tests show it causes the same problems as the 1070 - and leaves me feeling pretty rotten after using it. It's not as bad as some laptops I've tried including my wife's newish Acer/Nvidia 950 system, but it's still not looking very promising. This strongly suggests there's something very different going on in the new Pascal architecture output rendering compared with the previous generation of cards - and these are the first video cards I've found that cause me problems.

Add to that list both sizes of iPad Pro models that had to be sent back to Apple as they too left me feeling 'odd', leaving me on the sorta-OK iPad Air 2/iPhone 6S combo. And, then there's the two new high spec IPS and VA panels I tried and couldn't use, and had to return.

So I'm now resigned to having to give this generation of 10-series Nvidia cards a complete miss (as well as new iPads, and most screens - something that is very difficult to test). For someone in IT and who likes his flight-sims, being stuck on on old CFL backlight screens and last-gen video cards is a very bitter pill to swallow.

I cannot precisely pin down my problem(s). I know PWM can contribute to the effects I experience but there's none active on my screen at high brightness levels (offset in the video card settings). On a problematic screen I had for a time, it had low blue light controls that I tried with no real improvement in symptoms. That same screen had no PWM and very high refresh rates but they didn't help. I've gotten my eyes checked and wear glasses but then I'm OK on some screens and not others, glasses or not so that's seemingly not the root cause. Then there's the 10 series Nvidia cards... that make me wonder - just what is it that they're doing to cause these problems?

Although we can't be sure Nvidia didn't make any deleterious changes between GM204 and GM200, the GTX 980 Ti is similar in performance to the 1070 and is going used for a similar or slightly less price. If you are gaming it's 6 GB of VRAM will handle next-gen console ports and high-res displays much better than the 970.

Yep I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for second hand 908Ti cards, but for the last while they've been rather rare on the second hand market.

AgentX20 - odds are your problem is dithering, or the as-yet-unknown "new compositing issue" that I've been seeing with Intel, Windows 10 Anniversary Edition, and even some nVidia cards.

I discovered that only very high-end 970's work for me. MSI Gaming is fine, but eVGA and Zotac (which are both the shrunken die) are not. The newest generation I can use low-end nVidia cards on is 7x0.

I'm starting to wonder if they didn't do a mid-generation die-change. Both the Zotac and eVGA turn in higher base clocks and are much cheaper than the MSI. It could be that the later Maxwell cards share something in common with the Pascal cards. Thoughts?

So I'm going to buy a used 980 Ti because I'm getting pretty nervous about the future of GPUs for us. I put an ad up and I have being offering me a Galax HOF, two have offered an Asus Strix OC, and one has offered an MSI Lightning Edition. I'm thinking of going for the MSI because it has a higher power envelope than the other cards because it was designed for extreme OC. I have no idea if any of that has a bearing at all but I'm left guessing here.

EDIT: I found a brand new one from a legit source for a good price. Very tempted.

My new GeForce GT 710 is not as good as I initially thought. Looking at the screen for longer periods of time didn't feel as good as with my old Quadro card. I blamed Windows updates for it, and for some days I tried Linux, which has its own still unsolved eye strain reasons. But now after installing Windows 7 SP1 my eyes still didn't relax. So I put my Quadro card back in - much better instantly.

I'd grab an MSI 980. I was even looking at a 780 today and a 980 in a year when the prices drop... I am also very concerned about the future of GPU's for our eyes. 🙁

I've purchased a second hand 980Ti Gigabyte Extreme card. It'll be here early next week and I'll report back.

    AgentX20 Good for you! Here's hoping. I've had many responses to an ad I placed for a used GTX 980 Ti and will probably pick one up this week. If this works out we could be okay for the next couple of years.

      6 days later

      Quick feedback... I'm getting low level but obvious headaches with the 980Ti card, much the same as the 1070 and 1080 cards I've tried.

      I'll revert back to my 970 that should be OK. In the interim I'm going to try removing the Win 10 Anniversary update to see if that helps.

      EDIT: I can't easily rollback Windows as I'm past the 10 day window MS allows you to revert to an earlier build.

        Just an FYI I am not convinced that dithering or PWN is an issue. I have eye strain on my screen with both dithering turned off and 100% brightness to disable PWM. I think they may be red herrings. On the TV front I have had plasma's that cause eye strain and don't and LED TV's that cause eye strain and don't. More and more it is looking like the screen itself may not be the correct thing to focus on (pardon the pun), but the hardware driving the screen is the culprit. Some hardware/driver settings are causing some screens to emit some sort of display that cause eye strain in sensitive people. This is the only explanation that fits in with all my experimental evidence I have gathered.

        I'm similarly perplexed (and hugely frustrated). I cannot for the life of me work out the root cause of my issues. I wear glasses as of a few months back, but that doesn't really change anything re the eye strain bit.

        Recently I've tried and failed with:
        - iPad Pro 9.7 and 12.9
        - Acer 144Hz, Low blue light, Non-PWM IPS screen
        - Samsung VA 34" panel
        - Nvidia 1070, 1080 and 980Ti - trialled on known OK screens (with Win10)
        - Wife's recent 15" Acer laptop

        I'm now utterly stuck on my 10 year old CFL Dell monitors, iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6S, and Nvidia 970 video card - as well as my 2013 Macbook Pro (proving I can use some IPS screens).

        Now I'm going to try to try out Windows 7 and perhaps Windows 10 pre-Anniversary.

        a month later

        AgentX20 Did you measure the in-game frames per second (FPS) for the 1070 card when you were playing? I was just wondering whether that could be a related factor for your symptoms.

          Frame rates were fine, great in fact - the 1070 and the 980ti were generating significantly faster frame rates than my trusty Nvidia 970 card.

          I have a ATI 6950 and an Nvidia 970 that work A-OK on the same screen and in the same PC, that naturally are generating lower frame rates.

          I've tried DVI and Displayport connections to no avail, and the latest drivers etc.

          Note I am aware of PWM and drive the screens at 100% brightness to eliminate PWM using the video card brightness controls to make things usable.

          It's something about how the image is being rendered on the screen by these cards, that at least to me appears to have changed.

          Still maybe I need to look into more detail about minimum and maximum frame rates, and latency in general.

          • Gurm replied to this.

            Yeah, it will be great if there is a version of MSI afterburner for general purpose, not just for gaming.

            AgentX20 Definitely, they changed something. They even changed it mid-generation for the 9x0, since some brand new 970's are no good for me in exactly the same way.

              6 days later

              anyone tried the SLI/crossfire technology for dual graphics cards?

              dev