@Luki I don't think there is a single LED monitor out there that is "truly" flicker free. It seems there is always at least a small ripple flicker, only sometimes it's hard to measure. And no one knows if such small flicker could cause eye strain. I know that my TV can cause symptoms when I go down in brightness so that suddenly there's stronger 20-30 kHz flicker. Which contradicts theories that anything above 3.000 Hz is considered "safe". I think those theories are wrong. And I think the assumption that small or let's say super tiny flicker is automatically safe is not solid either. Think about it. We tried so many displays but sometimes we have no clue why we can't use them. What they all do have in common, apart from mostly having a White LED backlight, is at least small ripple flicker.

But alright, this is the temporal dithering thread. So what I am not sure about yet but what I have observed is that my Sony's feature "Reality Creation" seems to stabilize the picture. It almost looks like it could cancel out temporal dithering to some extent. Might be worth to have a look into that as you have a Sony, too. My impression is that it makes some output that's not so comfortable to look at more usable. The picture certainly looks more stable. If I set it to manual control and move the slider all the way to the right (which is not a recommendation to have a pretty picture) some pixels or areas here and there start to visibly flicker (meaning low frequency). Maybe it's temporal dithering being revealed? Happens on the PS4. It does not happen when pausing a Video or when I use VNC (on the TV).

    KM Well it's a possibility but then I would belive TVs would flicker more then monitors for sure. I don't have any stuff to check this manually (apart from testufo) but my fs2434 was in all reviews described as flicker free even at 1 brightness. Monitors are made for full day sitting/work whiles TVs are made for normal-casual people who sit in front of it much less. Only sony does "flicker free TVs but even on those rtings said they measure some flicker at low level backlight and it may be this that can bother.
    The other diference between watching on TV itself is the picture mode while on all I have processing turned off when im using PC i have to ofc use GAME mode but on TV itself you cant put game mode on. Still a mistery why on this sony limited doesnt cause pain with PC..

    Reality creation yes I know that well I have tried it in a movie it does the job well at making the soap opera effect and adds smoothness BUT it also adds a lot of flicker which I have tested also rtings say about this too and in my case I couldnt watch a movie with this...

    Last evening I had to turn on light in my room and noticed after a while that my eyes were little watery/tired after around 2 hour watching.. so refclections add some to the strain too in my case. I usually use light behind me for movies/evening but this time I have used the one in the mid.
    And all monitors I have tested had 3h coating matte finish while TVs are glossy or semi-glossy like my XE9005.

    I have also read that higher constant ratio apart from making the picture more pretty 🙂 also makes our eyes to focus more and it can add to eye strain (another factor). That try out with much lower contrast on assetto corsa wasnt a coincidence I think and as I said all monitors I have used have 1000:1 contrast ratio and TVs way higher.. Also monitors I have tried dont support HDR while all TVs do..

    I think it can also be just all those couple of things/factors which adds to eye strain + the age that give a results as I described and the result may vary depending on the display which is being used. Movies and TV is quite easy on the eyes and older / easier on the eyes/head games are fine for me but newer ones with smaller UI/more blur/more complicated graphisc etc harder for eyes +all those little factors which leads to eye strain and my eyes / head says NO.

    Might be that XE9005 is just the best from all those TVs I had to return... ATM just thinking that I would have to try out 43 monitor and lift it up as the only solution cause I had too many TVs without success.

    • KM replied to this.

        Luki99 I would believe TVs would flicker more then monitors for sure

        Overall they certainly do, as most of them use PWM. But even the Sonys do flicker on all brightness levels. Sites like Rtings don't test the flicker very thoroughly. They just look for obvious, strong flicker, which for Sony TVs happens to occur on the lower end of the brightness range. Sometimes they claim a device is flicker-free and yet they post oscilloscope pictures that show existing flicker (when the line is not perfectly flat). The same goes for Notebookcheck. But even a flat line doesn't mean there's no flicker. You'd need more sophisticated measurement to reveal small fluctuations. So we can't ever rule backlight flicker out, sadly. In your case the problems are probably pixel-related though, as you have input devices that work for you.

        Reality creation yes I know that well I have tried it in a movie it does the job well at making the soap opera effect and adds smoothness

        Maybe Sony changed the naming scheme of their modes at some point, but it seems you confuse that mode with "Smoothness", which does add soap opera effect by creating additional frames. Reality Creation does not do that. It analyzes the picture and tries to make it appear as if it had a higher resolution. Which in effect it does. It probably only makes sense if you have an input of less than 1:1 4K.

        HDR

        I disabled HDR on purpose. It makes the TV's backlight run at full brightness, and who knows if input devices like PS4 employ even more dithering when they see the display is HDR-compatible.

        RGB

        We do know that some GPUs/drivers deactivate temporal dithering when in limited RGB mode. But it seems that does not happen universally and can also happen the other way around (full RGB triggering the dithering). It seems multiple factors play a role, probably even info stuff the connected display digitally reports back to the PC, so maybe that's what happened to your setups.

            KM I won't argue about the PWM because I don't have my own stuff to test it but in my experience monitors are WAY better in terms of being eye-friendly. I still remember that three years ago after playing for less then 1 hour on PS4 on my new 4K Panasonic TV (PWM 240hz) next day I still felt eye horrible strain and headache and I saw strangly while driving car to work in the morning... And in comparison on any monitor I Never had any symptoms with any content/device.

            Reality creation yes I was wrong and thought you mean Smoothness sorry english is my secondary so propably that's it. I have used/tested reality creation too on couple of values but it didn't add or make any symphoms less in my experience. For me I prefered the more original picture then with this ON.

            As for the RGB - maybe but that still strange that on monitors same device I always get full rgb and no problems while on TVs only limited works (at least for XE9005). When I had 55 OLED at first I just watched TV for 2 days and 1 movie and it was fine and I have felt completely normal. Then I have connected PC and set up FULL RGB straight on TV and PC and run a you tube stream and had no eye strain on oled at all but I had this strange headache at the back of my head/top after about 15mins of usage. I still wonder if limited would work same way (or better) then on XE9005 🙂 cause watching just a "normal" TV (which normally I do very rarely) was a whole new experience then anything I saw.

              A small update... I was able to grab my first 4K Panasonic TV from my family and I have tested it for around 5-6 hours on Saturday. I have set up RGB Limited and noticed the headache at the back/top of my TV was not present at all! I was still sick for around 3 days (headache in front between eyes/forehead) but im sure that's because of PWM at 240hz which all Panas TVs are using (except OLEDs). And those symphoms from PWM as usual were slowly growing per hours while the pain from RGB full at the back/top has shown up at 15 mins of usage on all TVs always.
              Too bad I didnt know this when I had that OLED cause first two days if I remember correctly I had no symphoms on it (but just watched TV without connecting PC) and the pain started at third day when I have connected PC and set up RGB Full...

              Hi all, just back with an update - I have been using Windows 10 v2004 since May now with graphics drivers enabled on my Dell XPS 15 9560 and have been largely without any issues whatsoever. Happy days.

              I'm still using Ditherig.exe v1.11 (not tried any other version), Intel driver 21.20.16.4475 and Nvidia driver 26.21.14.4614.

              I did have a period where I started getting headaches again, and I noticed that dithering was periodically being enabled at seemingly random intervals, but probably because some request was made to the graphics drivers. I realised this was happening because my desktop background (colour #c84141) shows banding when everything is set up correctly, and no banding when my display is problematic for me - I took pictures of what I mean:

              1. Perfect setup - Background has Banding

              1. Bad Setup - No Banding

              Here's the desktop for you if you'd like to try it:

              So I am checking my desktop from time to time, and if there is no banding then I have created a shortcut which restarts explorer, and this fixes the issue. To do this:

              1. Right click on the desktop and go to New -> Shortcut
              2. In the box that appears, copy and paste this:
                C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c taskkill.exe /f /im explorer.exe && start explorer.exe
              3. Save the shortcut and run it whenever you need to

              Hope that helps you out, I can honestly say that this setup has changed my life. 🚀

                si_edgey Thanks for the update! Is there any chance you could post your laptop BIOS/VBIOS version at the top? I wouldn't normally suggest downgrading the BIOS but if anybody else decides to try your laptop model and has issues it could be another thing to try before returning.

                I have retired my old W7 tower and am now using a Ivy Bridge-era laptop which was handed down to me. It's on W8.1, HD4000 graphics, sadly only a dual core/four threads CPU but I have upgraded it to 16GB RAM and SSD and it is now keeping up with modern software nicely. MS Edge for me is still the most comfortable browser to use.

                I am still having real problems with new hardware however my personal setup is good for another 2/3 years at least. 🙂

                    diop Is there any chance you could post your laptop BIOS/VBIOS version at the top?

                    Sure thing - here's my full system profile for anyone that might be interested:

                    diop MS Edge for me is still the most comfortable browser to use.

                    Should mention - I'm on Edge too, definitely feels the best. Thanks for the recommendation on that one.

                    diop I am still having real problems with new hardware however my personal setup is good for another 2/3 years at least. 🙂

                    Glad to hear you have at least one working setup. I'm quite relieved that even though my CPU demands are quite high, the 7th Generation i7 still holds its own. Tempted to buy a backup motherboard in case this one ever fails..

                    • glvn replied to this.
                            4 days later

                            Today I found a reproducible way to confirm ditherig 1.11 functioning correctly on Intel HD Graphics 6000 with an external monitor as opposed to a laptop panel.

                            I have various images for calibration, and some of them are gradients. I've been testing out a displayport to HDMI adapter to my old monitor that is 6-bit+FRC (temporal dithering) in the panel itself because HD streaming movies on Prime requires both Windows 10 and HDCP which means HDMI or DVI.

                            It appears that on the Windows drivers for Broadwell that I use, when the HDMI cable is set for YCbCr w/ IT Content off (I have not tested if the combo of both is required or just one or the other, will have to test this out later on) dithering is actually DISABLED by default in the Intel drivers and ditherig is not needed. I checked this in Windows 10, as well with the drivers it loads on a clean install, and it has the same behaviour so this is not an artifact of the older branch and build of the drivers I use on Windows 7.

                            Steps to reproduce: Load up a nice big greyscale gradient image in YCbCr w/ IT Content off. What you should see: evenly spaced banding in the gradient (this is correct for this mode). Load up ditherig 1.11. What you should see: no change (it starts with dithering off).. now, if you select spatial, the greyscale gradient will turn smooth, etc. If you select temporal, you will actually see moving ripples on the image because both the monitor and the card are creating an interference pattern by doing the same thing at the same time.

                            Unfortunately it is not possible to shut off temporal dithering in the hardware of the monitor itself through a method currently known to me. It is probably possible using a factory service mode of some kind but it's good to know that this method of connection + setting is confirmed to not have dithering on by default and if one gets a display that is a true 8 bit or 10 bit panel with a good backlight, then eyestrain past that point should be from other sources.

                              si_edgey This wallpaper can't be used for me on my external monitor as the monitor itself that uses FRC smooths out the banding because the whole image is the same colour. You need a gradient image to be truly certain as per my writeup right before this.

                                  Sunspark This wallpaper can't be used for me on my external monitor as the monitor itself that uses FRC smooths out the banding because the whole image is the same colour.

                                  To be honest, I'm unsure of the logic behind the banding on this background! I'm guessing that theAll I know is that it's a good test on my machine.

                                  Sunspark That's interesting, glad you've found a solution that works for you. When you mention 'YCbCr w/ IT Content off' - are these settings you find in one of the Intel settings applications that come with your driver? There's something similar in the Nvidia control panel when you have an HDMI cable plugged in.

                                  Also, if you're able to share some of your test gradients here that could be helpful to someone. 😃

                                      8 days later

                                      Hi guys,

                                      I've had headache and migraine problems for a few years when using my work PC. I suspected the monitor at first and bought 4 different of them. I tried LED, LCD, Anti flickering and even a 500$ Monitor 240hz and all that stuff.

                                      I noted that my plasma TV gave me no trouble for over 7 years. I also use an imac 2014 mostly plugged via HDMI on my TV and i have no problem at all. On day, I decided to plug my PC on the TV and the headaches were back in minutes. So i figured it was something in the PC.

                                      Then I found this page here. I installed Ditherig.exe but all the options are greyed Out. Does it only works with Intel GPU ? I read above that a lot of people have GTX and they found a way to make it work. I am very novice with PC so I dont understand 90% of the replies. What is the problem here ? Can you explain what I should do like I am your grand ma please ? I will send 1 Bitcoins to whoever fix my headaches. I am desperate!! Just kidding, but please help me!!

                                      RTX2060
                                      Threadripper 1950x
                                      32g RAM

                                        steevenb15 Does it only works with Intel GPU

                                        Yes

                                        steevenb15 I read above that a lot of people have GTX and they found a way to make it work.

                                        I believe those are people with laptops, where the NVIDIA GPU "renders" the image and sends it to the Intel GPU to be displayed. Different from desktop setups.

                                            steevenb15 Your story is very familiar to a lot of people here I'm sure - including myself. You're not alone! It sounds like you also suffer from something like temporal dithering sensitivity. In basic terms, temporal dithering is where your graphics card is using a flickering technique to display more colours, and it causes a lot of people headaches and migraines.

                                            Because you're using an Nvidia graphics card, ditherig will not work (it's only for Intel graphics cards so is ideal for a lot of laptops). For your system, you can you can have a play around with the colour output settings in Nvidia Control Panel. It'll look a bit like this:

                                            Select NVIDIA colour settings, and then try different combinations until (hopefully) something feels comfortable. There is no magic answer to your problem as not only every monitor and graphics card is different, but also every person. It's an extremely hard thing to diagnose.

                                            But I'd try switching to 'Limited' output range first. It can take a few days for your brain to 'reset' and get used to the new settings so don't change lots of things constantly or you'll never work it out. 😀

                                            You can also try switching to a very old Nvidia card to test (I use t a GTX770 successfully), and also the version of Windows you are running is important - do Windows Key + R and type winver to determine which version you are on. Version 1511 and version 2004 seem to work well for some (including me).

                                            Hope that helps a little and good luck - report back if you find a solution please.

                                                What could be the solution for the mac users?

                                                  si_edgey Thank for the help. It was already set at limited. So I'll try Full range for a week but i don't think it will help. Will let you know if it does.

                                                  I already use ver 2004

                                                  Maybe I will try an old GTX770 but I do 3D rendering so I need a powerful GPU 🙁

                                                      Tom220 There is none currently. We did get our hands on a kernel injection KEXT which is supposed to disable temporal dithering on a Mac but it's going to require some serious programming to make it work for everyone. Best thing to do right now is avoid modern Apple computers altogether sadly.

                                                      steevenb15 Try Full Range and see what happens - you should noticed improved colour depth anyway so it's worth a try. There are also other colour formats to try - have a look at the post from @Seagull where he investigates different settings, very interesting but not conclusive for every card I'm afraid.

                                                      Trial and error, and patience, is what's required in this game.

                                                          I have a problem lately... I know im prone to some sort of temporal dithering. I was testing some TVs which were bad for me. Last time my TV which I Have from 2017 got an update and after it at around 40mins of movie watching I have felt pan in the back of my head and later at night pain between eyes. I have tried it one more time but it ws same I knew it's unusable for me because of the update I have read they changed someting in the backlight so I have decided to not use the TV at all.
                                                          After 2 day rest from screens I was at my PC and after like 1,5 hour I have felt pain at the back/top of my head the eyes were fine I mean they were white I didn;t feel they are tired or anything but that back head pain is there... I had that similar head pain sometimes with couple of TVs+my blu ray for example but that PC never has made me any problems well maybe once or two I had little headache at back for very short time.
                                                          I try now to limit the time on PC as much I can (but I have some remote work) but I feel the back.top of my head some days it's gone best if Im outside some days it's stronger.

                                                          I have read that it's in most cases tension headache and eye strain can lead to that but it's strange cause this machine never gave me problems. Maybe my neck/head/shoulders muscles tightnen somewhere much from those tryouts? or nerve receptors in the brain strained? Massages/heat works but I also excercise from couple years some neck/shoulders excercises too I do daily.

                                                          Did you had similar situations that from trying out bad screens you had symphoms on good ones too and a LONG break maybe is needed?

                                                          Nothing has changed in thePC I think , W7 without updates, same drivers, cables etc. One thing that I have tried (but AFTER the pain has occured) is reinstall my Nvidia GPU drivers to also remove all other monitors/TVs I have tried but it's my old same driver from CD - 382.05 and in the past I have reinstalled it but it had no impact.
                                                          Only thing what has changed is because my son wanted I have installed Fortnite on it and maybe it installs some new DIrectX or other stuff like microsoft libraries I don;t know could this cause any changes you think?
                                                          Other than that hm... I have changed monitor height/angle couple of times but besides it there's really nothing changed I think.

                                                          dev