JTL I think you might have some issues given intel GPU dithering and how the Dasung makes it visible. but I believe this is the right cable.

Aaaaarghhhhh, really? I wish my eyes were not so strained and I could go thru all the dithering-related posts on this site...I glanced on a thread where you, if I recall, show that for Nvidia cards it is possible to switch dithering off. Is that a feature only of a limited number of cards? Or not all computers use dithering? I use shared facilities and hence shared PCs. In my previous job I checked and all the monitors which I could tolerate were connected to PCs with non-Intel graphic cards. Coincidence?

Thanks on the cable. Maybe it is not a bad idea to hear what Dasung has to comment on the likelihood of dithering...are not those our potential saviors? I trust they are among the few to be interested in hearing about our pain, not certainly Google or Intel.

  • JTL replied to this.

      AGI .I glanced on a thread where you, if I recall, show that for Nvidia cards it is possible to switch dithering off. Is that a feature only of a limited number of cards?

      It has no effect in some 9xx and all 10xx cards.

      To be honest with you. I'm not sure if the dithering option under Linux ever did anything since I remember using older Nvidia cards just fine under Windows without needing to change anything.

      AGI I checked and all the monitors which I could tolerate were connected to PCs with non-Intel graphic cards. Coincidence?

      Not a coincidence.

          Jerry I want to get a yotaphone 3, but a yotaphone 2 in good condition is also fine. Yotaphone is available on Ebay.

          Thanks. After what happened between me and Android two weeks ago I am skeptic about being able to use the AMOLED side (which may also be employing PWM), so I do not see the point of investing 800 bucks for half phone :-(
          Unfortunately Yotaphone 2 was on sale for USD 100 a couple of months ago and is now out of stock. That I would have considered buying at that price.
          I hope someone will soon come up with a full e-ink phone at a reasonable price.

              AGI yeah, agree. 800 bucks is a high price. I will just use the e-ink side of the phone.

                  Gurm i think it's like 'dither-rig' i.e. the thing you use to control your dithering

                    Laptops probably used dithering for many years? Why is it suddenly a problem and only on new models for some people?

                    • JTL replied to this.

                      ryans Laptops probably used dithering for many years? Why is it suddenly a problem and only on new models for some people?

                      s/probably/did

                      Beat's me.

                        ryans No.

                        Did you manage to compile igfxtweak?

                          reaganry is it easy to install? I can try, but it seems different than yotaphone.

                              7 days later

                              Jerry i think they just run as a bluetooth peripheral. should be easy.

                                a month later

                                maybe because LED's have faster and more abrupt response times than CCFL's

                                • JTL replied to this.
                                • Riva likes this.

                                  Alyosha2001 context?

                                  The backlight has ZERO to do with the dithering (unless it's an OLED), the dithering is a product of the panel and/or video card.

                                      JTL yes, you are right. I confused it. The context was „Laptops probably used dithering for many years? Why is it suddenly a problem and only on new models for some people?”

                                      • JTL replied to this.
                                          2 months later

                                          AGI Did you ever get an answer to your resolution question? I recall that the only LED backlit laptop I used before this was a 2011 MBP 17" antiglare and run in a reduced resolution as I just wanted things larger. I never used it in native resolution. I don't have it anymore but recently tried a 15" version on native resolution and got terrible strain.

                                          • AGI replied to this.

                                              Lowering the resolution did not solve eye strain for me on desktops. Except when the low resolution was the result of using a generic video driver (Windows: "Standard VGA", Linux: "VESA"). Keep in mind that some (most?) modern graphics cards always output the display's native resolution by default, doing all the upscaling themselves instead of letting the desktop monitor handle it. They completely bypass the desktop monitor's scaling function this way. I am not sure how this is usually done in laptops.

                                              hpst Nope, sorry. I was suggested on this forum that reducing the resolution may have an effect on temporal dithering and should not affect PWM, so I would tentatively rule the latter out. But I have not gone farther than that. Inquiring at manufacturers and electronics shop did not lead anywhere. I would definitely call it lack of interest, in most cases both lack of interest and knowledge. If you find something out, please let us know!

                                                3 months later

                                                Hi All,

                                                I have been having this led strain problems for quite sometime. The following combination seems to give a usable display (for me) on Lenovo laptops running Manjaro Linux KDE. I have done other modifications such as Xorg configurations, so this might be a cumulative effect, but this last modification gave significant improvement. So, this might of help to someone, even if they have other laptops or Linux distributions:

                                                1. If you have discrete graphics, disable it and use only integrated, by selecting UMA only graphics in the BIOS. (This probably is not mandatory. Did this only to eliminate potential problems with hybrid graphics, non-intel drivers also doing modesetting etc.)

                                                2. Pass the video option to the grub command line. For example: video=eDP1:1920x1080-16

                                                  Format is: dislpay:resolution-bpp

                                                  display value can be obtained by doing xrandr

                                                  The default bpp seems to be 32. 24 did not seem to reduce the strain. 16 does reduce the strain. Some monitors are truly 8-bpp, in which case this value could probably be 24. The test image at https://cdn.avsforum.com/d/de/525x525px-LL-defb4132_vbattach85246.gif at the site https://www.avsforum.com/forum/166-lcd-flat-panel-displays/874438-test-your-lcd-panel-s-dithering-technique-pictures-included.html seems to give some good guidance on this aspect

                                                  For testing this, you could press 'e' at the initial grub screen, add video=eDP1:1920x1080-16 in the arguments (typically after quiet).

                                                  For permanent, add video=eDP1:1920x1080-16 to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT and do "update-grub" (or equivalent in your distribution).

                                                Some pointers related to the video option:
                                                https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1743535
                                                https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/kernel_mode_setting
                                                http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/faqs/boot-options.html

                                                From my limited understanding, it seems that Linux KMS is setting the bpp to 32 which causes dithering.

                                                Please post your feedback, positive or otherwise.

                                                Thank you.

                                                Ravi

                                                  ravipra Ravi what Lenovo laptops are you using and do you know what panels are in them? Manufacturer/IPS vs TN/PWM etc?

                                                  I have a 2014 X1 Carbon with Intel 4400 graphics, an LG 1080 IPS panel in it with no PWM and it strains me as well as any other panel I have put in it regardless of specs. It has KDE Neon installed right now. Are these changes made in the etc/default/grub file? Could you be more specific as to exactly what to put where? I am not great at linux. I have edited the above file before as some people have suggested trying dithering and driver entires there but nothing was helpful and mostly broke things.

                                                    dev