Temporal Dithering Sensitivity - My Solution
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ShivaWind Looking at that YouTube video has me confused. Only the GPU should be doing dithering, not any OS kernel. Those e-ink displays attach via USB so should bypass any Intel graphics. Right?
I spoke to someone to developed the AMD Amulet Kext and Android Developers at Google and they both say they do not think the operating system kernel does any dithering at all (and this makes sense). The GPU does.
JTL
the patterns seen in the video, diagonally moving dots of 3 to 5 pixel diameter or writhing Celtic knots of 6 to 7 pixel width is pretty much universal. It is what I see on my computer if I do not take steps to disable dithering. I have tried every manufacturer of video card including matrox on Linux and windows 7-10. the pattern that is actively moving when dithering is enabled (dots and Celtic knots) is still present when dithering is disabled, but it is static and does not move unless you pass the mouse pointer over it. if you toggle dithering on and off it moves and stops moving on cue. this is independent of driver and video card manufacturer so long as there is a method to disable dithering in the driver. I can see the same pattern I see on my own machine in videos people have uploaded to Utube. the flicker shadow that follows mouse movement on my own machine can also be seen in the mouse movement of users who have recorded their own desktop. it extend in a triangle of maybe 30 degrees with apex at the mouse pointer extending down and to the right but not necessarily along the diagonal.
I know this is not a product of the eink because:
1: it can be toggled by toggling dithering in the driver
2: the pattern seen on my machine is also seen when watching recorded video of other users desktops (mac,Linux, and windows) but the dynamic interference follows the mouse of the user in the video.
3: it can be recorded. the recorded pattern in the video signal can be viewed in slow motion or stopped.
the eink display forces 32bit color into a variable 16 shades of gray. I am assuming that this "binning" makes the subtle color differences that are used to temporally approximate a color that cannot natively be displayed by the lcd panel visible by making the difference in the colors more extreme than they would be on an lcd. the slow refresh rate helps to make this even more visible.
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I spoke with the developer of igfxtweak. His thoughts:
Intel for some reasons disables dithering on <8 bit screens, but enabled it on 8 bit. This seems opposite of what dithering is designed for: https://communities.intel.com/message/428034. However this does not explain why I don't see banding on a laptop screen that I suspect is 6bit.
The reason we can see dithering on the e-ink displays is likely because the display represents itself as having 8 bit panel. This means Intel will use diterthing.
Data sheets about Intel GPUs here: https://github.com/olvaffe/gpu-docs
igfxtweak tool does support external monitors, I don't know about ditherig.
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ryans Intel for some reasons disables dithering on <8 bit screens, but enabled it on 8 bit. This seems opposite of what dithering is designed for: https://communities.intel.com/message/428034. However this does not explain why I don't see banding on a laptop screen that I suspect is 6bit.
Laptops are 6-bit and have dithering by the GPU?
ryans The reason we can see dithering on the e-ink displays is likely because the display represents itself as having 8 bit panel. This means Intel will use diterthing.
Yes. Well I've never seen an external display that represents itself as being under 8-bit.
ryans Data sheets about Intel GPUs here: https://github.com/olvaffe/gpu-docs
I think I've already posted some data sheet PDF's a while back?
ryans igfxtweak tool does support external monitors, I don't know about ditherig.
igfxtweak supports it by the multiple "pipelines" as seen in the datasheet (one pipeline per GPU output connector).
Why do we call it ditherig and not dithering.exe? Someone made a typo once and it stuck? lol.
No promises but I might have something similar for AMD graphics under Windows/OSX/Linux in the future. I've been busy but be rest assured I'm still working on it 
Do you guys mean if I buy an ONYX BOOX Max2 I may end up with a thousand bucks less in my pockets and another gadget I am not able to use?