Old monitor that I have no issues with, used for like 8 years -> AOC m2870vq (glossy VA, 1080p, 28inch, 60hz)
New monitor I bought a while ago and returned instantly due to immediate eye strain and headaches -> AOC 24g2 (matte IPS, 1080p, 24inch, 144hz)
Current monitor which was fine for a week and now gives the same eye strain, fatigue and headaches as the 24g2 -> MSI mag274qrf-qd (matte IPS, 1440p, 27inch, 165hz, sRGB clamped using novideo_srgb)
Phone which also gives me no issues -> Mi 9T (glossy OLED, 60hz, interestingly I think it uses PWM and doesn't give me issues unless I use it after using my monitor.)
My PC has an RTX 3070, using latest Windows 11, I have mild astigmatism which I have glasses for but the glasses seem to speed up the progression of the headaches, yesterday I decided to wear them all day and after a few hours I had to go lay down due to how bad my head hurt, without them it doesn't get as bad but I can instantly feel pressure between my eyes and in the sides of my head the moment I look at this monitor regardless of what's on screen, even just a blank screen gives me a headache and my eyes refuse to relax, on top of this my eyes seem to be bloodshot 24/7, even when I was using my old monitor, but I'm not sure of the significance because my old monitor didn't cause me any type of issues.
I don't really know what the cause could be, IPS doesn't seem to play very nice with my astigmatism causing white text on dark backgrounds to glow brightly, so it could be that my eyes don't like IPS monitors, it could also be the matte coatings since I've used glossy screens my whole life and I notice my eyes go out of focus after looking at these new monitors for a while.
I've tried running it at 60hz to see if the higher refresh rate caused issues for some reason but it didn't make a difference so I've ruled that out.
Something that could be relevant is that my old monitor used limited RGB output (16-235) instead of full, which to my eyes does look much less harsh, however, this setting doesn't seem to work over displayport on this monitor, and displayport is required for adaptive sync which I also need…
I don't really want to try another VA monitor due to the dark smearing, and IPS does not seem friendly to my eyes, ideally I would like to try an OLED monitor since they're the only type to use glossy finishes these days, but there aren't many and they're all pretty prohibitively expensive, my phone seems far more pleasant to my eyes so it's a shame there aren't many options for OLED monitors yet.
Anyway just looking for some other peoples experiences, can matte coatings cause this kind of eye strain? why would the issue only occur after a week of using the monitor? will my eyes get used to it? I'm already past the return date on this one so it would be a pain to go for a new monitor again, especially given my track record for eye strain is 2/2 so far, I would like to make a more educated purchase at this point because it seems likely that any new IPS monitor will be the same for me, there aren't any without a matte coating so it's not possible to test my theory that this is the cause.