So both of my 1080p 360Hz IPS monitors (one Alienware AW2521H, one Asus PG259QN) give me eye strain. It usually starts as a burning sensation then minor headache between the eyes. They have a polarity where polarized glasses are immediately DARK when I put them on. The displays that don't give me eye strain are my LG C1 and laptop IPS, both of which are still CLEAR when I put the glasses on. I believe this means my eyes prefer vertical waves but I may be mistaken. I came to the realization I don't really need 360Hz, but I do like G-Sync. I still would want to go with two 24/25" monitors as with my current setup I get about a 40 viewing degree angle on the 25" monitor, and I want to move up in resolution but am aware 4K is basically impossible to get below 4K without sacrificing options. I really do not want to go 27", but anything from 1080 up to 4K, and at least 120Hz, is fine. 24" 1440p is probably what I will go with in the end. I do have high standards for color accuracy which is part of why I bought the 360Hz monitors as they were actually the most color and gamma accurate high-refresh / non-art panels available in 2021. But the main concern is getting a pair of monitors that won't cause eye strain. Anyone who had eye strain with the AW2521H or PG259QN and moved to a new monitor with good results? Is there a database for monitors that separates them based on polarity?

TrantaLocked Hi. Do you want to play games on the monitors or is it work stuff too? Why arent you using an LG C1 for your PC/console aswell? I think testing it for 1-2 days would be super valuable information, because if you get eyestrain on the C1 too, it may be another cause(lighting, GPU dithering, neck problems, brightness/contrast/saturation/sharpness settings). I say that because i wasted already thousands of € for things that didnt help my symptoms at all. 😉 Are you sure your lighting isnt hammering into your eyes and causing the strain? For me some 1000hz light bulbs are 10 times worse than my 60hz PWM-driven flickery TV. I will get my LG 24GL600F today(i hope) and will share when i have it. Not wether it works with your glasses but it at least flickerfree(your 2 monitors are flickerfree too). There is one user who tested it and his strain was gone and he settled with it(dont think he is active anymore). I will share in a few days, when i was able to test it. And i dont know wether there is a database about monitors with polarity. Just saying, test wether rest of your setting is ok. Perhaps even use only one of the two monitors for a week each to see, wether one is just defective.

hayder1983 I play games and use the internet mainly. I do use the LG C1 for my console but I use my computer when I want dual monitor and for mouse and keyboard for games I prefer that control setup. I do not get eye strain on my LG C1. My lighting as in room lighting? I usually keep it pitch black whether I'm on my phone, laptop, TV or computer. I have tried with just one or the other and it's the same effect and for both monitors. I am looking into VA panels. There was a big inrush of 165Hz VA panels over the last few years and I will be demoing a few of them. Color accuracy will probably be worse than what I have now but I'll be fine with a calibrated ICC profile. My previous monitor Samsung 2494SW was 6-bit+ FCR and didn't cause issues so I don't think I'm sensitive to dithering. But I do believe I'm sensitive to certain PWM implementations, not all but some of them, and I may also be sensitive to some of the newer types of LED backlighting used (yellow phosphor vs red+green phosphors?) but I'm not sure. For the 1080p 360Hz displays I own, I suspect the strain comes from the horizontal polarizer and/or other layers used besides the LCD panel itself like the matte surface or something. Because focusing on the panel itself is difficult for some reason, like even though there is no dithering or PWM, it doesn't look or feel "stable" to look at, but I'm not sure if that causes the eye strain or is a separate issue. It could be an overly stronge matte finish because my other matte panels I've owned in the past were never as aggressive as the AW2521H/PG259QN in matte grain. Looking at my laptop IPS (technically HADS IPS), phone OLED and TV OLED is just easier to focus. It's sort of like how e-ink displays are easier to read.

TrantaLocked Cant really suggest much, because you are searching for 1440p 24 inch and i only tested 1080p 24 inch. But perhaps try 2 TN Panel. A TN Panel might trigger less strain for your eyes. When you try a entry level TN-Panel you might get sth with a more conventional backlightning. I am testing the LG24GL600F right now, but it is too soon to say anything right now.

hayder1983 I'm trying the SAMSUNG 24" Odyssey G32A 1080p 165Hz VA as we speak. It's vertically polarized (AW2521H 360Hz is horizontally polarized). I think my eyes like the Samsung. I will need to test for a bit to see but so far it does seem better. It also has lots of good options like gamma and response time, which can only be used when VRR is disabled unfortunately. The typical VA trail is long as always but color ghosting is reduced when the response is set to faster or fastest. It's capable in terms of color and can do about 96% sRGB according to the SpyderX calibrator, so with calibration it looks really great but it already looks very close to perfect out of the box. I can definitely say that I don't get that "looking inside an oven" feeling I that get from the AW2521H after looking at it for a while, but I think eye strain is still very slightly there. If my LG C1 is no eye strain, the G32A is like 2/10 eye strain, and the AW2521H is like 9/10 eye strain. The eye saver setting on the G32A definitely does slightly reduce eye strain funnily enough but it's bad for picture quality. MBR does make for a very clear image (though still with a long VA trail), but eye strain increases with it. Also, I really do wonder if matte grain strength has something to do with it though.

TrantaLocked My polarization and PWM recordings so far: -Alienware AW2521H: Horizontal Polarization, NO PWM -Asus PG259QN: Horizontal Polarization, NO PWM -Samsung G32A 24": Vertical Polarization, NO PWM -Acer Nitro KG241Y: Vertical Polarization, NO PWM -ASUS VG247Q1A: Vertical Polarization, NO PWM -Samsung 2494HM: 135° Polarization (diagonal NW/SE), YES PWM under 100% -LG 24GL600F: 135° Polarization (diagonal NW/SE), NO PWM under 100% -LG C1 55" : Vertical Polarization, NO PWM -Galaxy s10e OLED: 135° Polarization (diagonal NW/SE), YES PWM under 100% -BOE NV156FHM-NY1: Vertical Polarization, YES PWM under 100% -BOE NV156FHM-N4B :Vertical Polarization, YES PWM under 100% UPDATE: I bought a circular polarizing lens and found that even with that lens, it still has a specific angle where it blocks light so I'm not sure what's going on. I thought for a circular polarizer, light output would be reduced evenly at all angles whereas linear polarizers block at a specific angle. I don't know enough about polarization to know for sure whether some of these panels are actually circularly polarized or linear, so I'm just going to include the darkness angle that I measured with my linear polarized glasses. The AW2521H and PG259QN also have a heavier matte finish than the other matte panels. There is one discovery I made which is many displays come with a slight green-leaning color temperature which may be easier on the eyes but I'm not sure of this yet. I recieved a version of my old Samsung TN to test, and I discovered it's notably more green in temperature than sRGB 6500k, and so was my BOE NV156FHM-N4B, and my Galaxy s10e. Also, color ghosting is worse on a 2022 Samsung G32A VA than the 2009 Samsung 2494 TN -_- Insane display tech has barely changed or improved for your baseline after more than ten years. I'm still not 100% sure what all of the contributing factors are here for eye strain, but I do believe that polarization is a contributing factor. I do think my eyes don't like horizontal polarization, but some eyes may prefer it. The polarization study does show that circular is supposed to be the best however. A higher matte grain could also contribute to reduced focus on text. A screen taking up more % of your FOV also contributes. Brightness level also contributes and I believe high contrast scenarios can be bad at high brightness. And I really am going to pay attention to the slight green-color temperature that I've seen in so many displays but I do think color temperature does contribute.

TrantaLocked I am just testing the LG24GL600F(TN-Panel). It has a sharpness that doesnt break my eyes, it has no oversharpness and no blurriness. I think it is because of the coating being more matte than on the VA Panel i own. Sharpness settings rarely help with this kind of strain, I think needs to be right kind of sharpness out of the box, otherwise you cant fix the sharpness. Overdrive only got better because of high refreshrates. On 60hz my old TN-Panel had a near perfect overdrive with nearly no overshoot(i couldnt see overshoot), no smearing, no ghosting, no blur trail, no visible strobing, it was really nice to play shooters even on 60 fps. I even prefered it for watching movies, because i liked the motion handling so much. The new TN-Panel i am testing is like a newer version of my old Panel, not as perfect, feels a bit cheap, but with LED backlight. I actually dislike VA-Panels. I like TN-Panel motion handling and even the saturated colors are less straining for me. IPS panel colors are similar, but motion handling is still better on TN-Panels. Things that my strain you(considering your old monitor was an 2009 TN Panel): Sharpness(Mostly affects reading) Coating VA-Panel overdrive Contrast(most people ignore that, but i think most people in this forum have at least a slight issue with it) New phosphors/LEDs making your panel overly red or green or yellow(not all new panels use the new phosphors) Peak brightness(white wasnt as bright on my old Panel, tested it side by side) Brightness Color reproduction If you have the VA-Panel and your old TN-Panel side by side try testing turning saturation to 200% and look at a test picture of the most saturated colors. Both screen will be pushed to the limit of their color gamut. If you get more strain from the VA-Panel you might have some problem with vibrant colors. If there is no strain at all, you know, that it isnt a factor.

hayder1983 I'm also going to try that LG TN. I tried both the Samsung G32A VA and the Acer KG241Y VA and at first it seemed the Acer was better for eye strain than the Samsung, but it quickly went south after a few minutes. The Samsung G32A is tolerable but still not as good as the three other displays I like, Samsung 2494HM TN, LG C1 55" OLED and BOE NV156FHM-NY1 IPS. I find it strange that certain PWM displays hurt and others don't, because both the BOE IPS and Samsung 2494 TN use PWM and they're fine. I'm praying I like the LG24GL600F. Otherwise I feel like all hope is gone. If anyone here who has owned the Samsung 2494HM, is there a way to not get the error message when overclocking the refresh rate? The same settings for 75Hz worked fine with no error message on my 2494SW which is just a non-HDMI version of the same display.

TrantaLocked I think with the LG 24GL600F my eyes are slowly going back to normal. It seems to be very conventional, because LG needed something good and cheap. Main reasons: saturated colors(they look normal to me, they dont shoot your eyes out) sharpness it doesnt use the new red-ish phosphors(otherwise even blue somehow gets red-ish) no high frequency flicker The monitor stand is horrible, the monitor always is tilting to the right(0,3°) but my desk is not tilting… But you can fix that, the panel is a very conventional TN Panel with 144hz, normal TN Panel colors, and my eyes have for some reason no pain when reading. The last one is perhaps the most important, because my work is 90% reading and writing. Only one thing is that i reduced the saturation of the 6 colors to 47/100(50 being factory setting) and reducing contrast to 45(70 being factory setting). I am using it at 10/100 brightness in the morning(nearly no lights on) and go up to 25/100 when the sun shines(no glare) or even higher with glare. I also tried the Dell S2421HGF, but it seems to use high frequency flicker, it gave super hard pain even after 2 minutes of use. Colors were super greyish and ugly, not sure what it does better than the LG. PWM was very different with non-LED screens, i could use my old Panel for 14 hours and i did use it for 14 hours per day. And i have used 3 dozen of monitors with LED backlight(work, friends) in the last decade and never had any strain, most strain i got is now with the new screens and only in the last 6months, not sure why. I also was at a museum, they had some very old Samsung and NEC monitors showing some movies, and it was super pleasant to look at them. One was even showing a color test picture, it was totally soothing to look at! I had no symptoms with any of them. I am sure most of them had LED backlights. If everything else fails, i will get some old LED backlight monitors. But at the moment i think i can handle the LG. EDIT: If you still get strain, try turning off overdrive. It does strain my eyes a bit when turned on.

hayder1983 I'm trying the LG 24GL600F. I'm not 100% sure if I like it yet. It has a 135 degree polarization like my Samsung 2494 TN and Galaxy s10e OLED. I may be able to get used to it and tweak some settings but it isn't immediately easier to look at than the Samsung G32A 24" or Acer Nitro KG241Y. I will however say other than my hesitancy on eye strain amount, the LG 24GL600F is the best monitor of all the budget 1080p 24" monitors I've tried. It has the best feature-set user menu, a 3.5mm audio input, light and sleek design allowing it to sit further back on the VESA mount, and of course the best motion clarity. This LG 24GL600F is absolutely insane for the $120 sale it's on. Anyone can go into buying this monitor with little to no regrets. The main drawback is the way the matte layer is done, which is that it makes the top end of the panel look darker at lower viewing angles. It is going to be a tough decision between the LG 24GL600F and Samsung G32A 24". The Samsung G32A 24", like all VA monitors I have tried, has noticeable color ghosting even with the response setting turned on. But it isn't very tough to look at. The Acer KG241Y seems to have a weak color gamut and is missing the audio input, and overall it's surprisingly barebones despite being in the same price range as the others. I do think the decision will come down to eye strain amount. I would hate to not keep the LG because it has such a great feature set and visual clarity, but if it ends but being straining I'd be happy to keep the Samsung G32A VA. And I can tell the LG is probably a bit too straining, and comparing to my 2494HM I'm starting to suspect the LED baseline color temperature really does matter a lot, because the CCFLs in the 2494HM are tad on the warm/green side and the LEDs on the LG 24GL600F are a tad more blue. This matters because no amount of color correction, whether in monitor or in software, can change the color temperature of the black level and near-black grays . It will ALWAYS be the color of the LED+other layers. I do suspect this black color temperature needs to be not too blue and possibly not too red for it to not be straining, and that makes me wonder if the old CCFL TNs are so easy to look at because they aren't so blue like LEDs.

TrantaLocked I am happy that the LG benefits you. I have returned it, because for some reason i had eye pain when it displayed motion. It was hard pain with the overdrive on and mild pain with the overdrive off. I also had mild strain when using it to read. It was much better than the DELL S2421HGF but still not usable for me. But motion being painful to my eye was new, i never had that before. I will try some business monitors with good motion handling. I am happy with every allrounder that does less strain on my eyes and opens up the possibility of casual gaming. The DELL U2520D arrived yesterday, perhaps i am more lucky with business model screens. I also think reddish LEDs in the screen are more straining. But my old CCFL had backlight which was like 5500K by itself and it was great to look at. 🙁

Recommendations for new monitor

TrantaLocked

The new setup with bias lighting I described has lasted. I can now go for a long time without very noticeable eye strain. The setup again: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098SWWGJB top bezel mounted bar light set to warm and max brightness, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07S5ZLP3B LED strips on back of monitor, set to orange/red button in bottom right at max brightness. The colors don't actually match with the buttons for most of them but there are lots of color options. There is a lamp with a warm 2700K bulb and warm shade a few feet behind me to my left. The Acer Nitro KG241Y Sbiip is 2-3 feet away from my eyes depending on if I'm leaning forward or back. I have tan/off-white curtains. The Samsung 2494HM is mounted to the right of the Acer, both 1080p 24". I have the Acer set to 22 brightness with the Samsung at minimum brightness. The Acer seems no worse between minimum and mid-range brightness. I'm still using my normal close-range glasses.

hayder1983

Just Yesterday i was using some old Eizo ev2456 and had no symptoms at all. Nothing. At the office with office lighting. I think it is the professionell lighting. Perhaps i should buy some professionell lighting for my home.

AGI

hayder1983 What do you mean with "professional lighting"?

GregAtkinson

hayder1983 Are you sensitive to PWM? I just bought the 2494HM and unfortunately even at the highest brightness setting, the one I have still uses a small amount of PWM.

Unless anyone knows any tricks in the settings???

hayder1983

GregAtkinson I am unsure. I think low frequency PWM is ok for me. High frequency PWM not. But as soon as i started using the 2494hm and i use it at brighntess 10/100 my eyes started to normalize. Eyedrops only once per day. No pain, only a bit of a dry eye. I can use my laptop screen too. No nausea.

AGI Trilux lamps from my work. Very high quality but used office lamps. Didnt try it yet.

Donux

TrantaLocked I think you are making wrong assumptions about solving eye strain for monitor. Refresh rate might have for some users positive affect, but that is nothing to do with LED strain or PWM. I would advice to stay way from cheap gaming high refresh monitors. These usually have very poor color accuracy and might have LED flicker / temporal dithering. Simple Rules are:

27 Inch only QHD (4k option should be prohibited, 1080p too since its too low).

32 inch sweet spot for 4k

24 inch probably could do with 1080p, but it will not be sharp.

Refresh rates:

Any of these monitors with high refresh rate without having premium price will either (or both) - very poor color quality and temporal dithering, or flickering screen. Want gaming refresh rate - pay real price for it!

Now, since this is LED strain forum, if you want protect your eyes, industry already has solution and that is certification TUV Eye Strain / Flicker-free. Any product that has these labels must go through testing to acquire the certification.

And if you do not care about the details, well then pay super premium, those should be good in most cases. Also, why would someone bother with Asus, Dell, Alienware and other mickey mouse brands. There are only two panel manufacturers - LG and Samsung. Thats it, why bother with other branded products that are trying to sell you on ports, menus, stands, design and other non-sense.

Hope that helps,

degen

Donux I am not going to address all of your points, but it would be helpful if you injected some humility into your writing. It is more conducive to good conversation. We are all experimenting and trying to find what works best.

EyeDiscomfortCertificate

Donux You are so grossly misinformed:

No there is no "sweet spot resolution", I've used 27 4k scrren which cause no strain and also had experience with 27" 1080p which caused imeediate strain.
No there is no "only two panel manufacturers" and Samsung does not produce any panels since 2018(?), however the do design their panels and outsource their manufacture to CSOT and AUO. Now there 4 major IPS panel manufacturers (BOE - by far the market leader these days, LG, Innolux, AUO) and 3 major IPS panel manufacturers (Innolux, AUO, CSOT). Neither LG nor Samsung put their panels in their monitors- LG uses exclusively BOE and Samsung does not make panels at all.
TUV are mostly useless certificates, outside the low blue light certfication. There is a plenty TUV certified products which strain eyes. I own one, a quite expensive device.

You should probably tone down your attitude, especially with such a poor knowledge of the topic.

JTL

EyeDiscomfortCertificate No there is no "only two panel manufacturers" and Samsung does not produce any panels since 2018(?), however the do design their panels and outsource their manufacture to CSOT and AUO. Now there 4 major IPS panel manufacturers (BOE - by far the market leader these days, LG, Innolux, AUO) and 3 major IPS panel manufacturers (Innolux, AUO, CSOT). Neither LG nor Samsung put their panels in their monitors- LG uses exclusively BOE and Samsung does not make panels at all.

In addition. I wouldn't be surprised if certain brands insisted on higher quality quality of panels versus others because i.e AliExpress has sellers claiming to sell same panels known to be used in certain high end monitors but sometimes at a discount and the cynic in me wouldn't be surprised if they ended up being "B grade" or thereabouts from same factories.

On a related note NEC and Panasonic largely divested themselves of the high end monitor market a few years ago, so that's another potential curveball towards quality.

Clokwork

I have a BenQ GW2780 and can use it with minimal issues. I was set on upgrading to an Eizo 2760, but I am reading negative things about newer Eizo monitors which worries me. My current monitor and the Eizo Flexscan models both bost some sort of "flicker free" brightness control, but only Eizo explicitly states they use a hybrid approach which I translate as them using high frequency PWM on mid to lower brightness levels. I haven't seen any information from BenQ stating how they implement their "flicker free" method.

I have grown to despise HDR. Many panels offered today want a piece of the P3 color space or something equivalent. That's impossible on an 8 bit monitor without FRC.

Since I don't bother with HDR, I thought Eizo Flexscan montiors would fit my requirements for a "high end" 8 bit monitor that doesn't attempt to exceed the sRGB color space. I suppose finding that quality in a monitor that uses zero PWM doesn't seem obtainable right now.

Lauda89

Small update: the new AMD 7900X + 1660 super PC keeps giving me problems with my Alienware aw2518hf monitor, so I tried to buy a new 27" 2K 144hz 8 bit VA monitor without FRC but the situation doesn't change, massive dizziness.

Today I tried connecting the PC to my LG B8 OLED TV and with that the situation improved drastically. I need to do more tests because I still have some dizziness/headache from yesterday, but it seems perfect with the OLED TV.

I was already planning to buy LG's new 27" OLED 240HZ (27GR95QE) however it's an 8bit + FRC.. so I'm considering whether it's better to buy the Alienware AW3423DW which is a 10bit?!

Fuzon

Lauda89
Funny I have the gsync version and there is no setting that makes this a nice screen to look at. I am hoping to find something decent for gaming that's still 24in… hoping someone has some advice.

tfouto

Lauda89 buy a other TV, and use it as a monitor. You just have to be farther away than usual.

Lauda89

Lauda89 Another update: I tried the samsung G8 OLED with the 7900X and with the 1660super but the situation is still the same: dizziness.

Desperate, I decided to change the 7900X and motherboard with a 13700K. Because i can use the Accenture PC with W11 21H2 + i5 1145G7 with the uperfect 17" portable monitor and my old CCFL.

So i changed the MB, the CPU, installed W11 21H2 but nothing change, still sick with every monitor i got.

The iGPU is different to be precise because the 13700K has a UHD 770 while the 1145G7 has the Xe. Maybe this is the reason but I am beginning to think that the motherboard plays a very important role.

The old perfect PC (1700X+RX 480) I "destroyed" it two weeks ago by updating the motherboard bios for the purpose of changing the CPU. Putting the old bios back didn't fix the problem.

JTL

tfouto @Lauda89
a) TV's can have their own issues with image quality when attempting to use them as a computer monitor (i.e subpixel layout, also chroma subsampling that's used to "fit" more data into a connection of fixed bandwidth)

b) If the only thing different is the components of the computer were changed, while otherwise running the same software I highly doubt changing monitors will do anything to "solve" the issue.

Allekss

TrantaLocked i think, for the most of us the problem is in the LED backlit. Monitors/TV's which uses LED backlit are more agressive on eyes/brain!

Fuzon

Well since no one here was actually helpful, I ended up rolling the dice with an omen 25i. Decent enough for gaming, and the polarization is horizontal and works decent enough for my eyes. No splitting head ache and can look at it for a decent amount of time. Could there be better monitors out there… perhaps but this was enough for my use case.

ryans

Lauda89 Putting the old bios back didn't fix the problem

You were able to downgrade the BIOS? Is the VBIOS separate?

Sunspark

Lauda89 NVRAM values. Disconnect the power and pull the CMOS battery connector out and leave it off for an hour to give it a good long time to discharge. When you reconnect it, all the contents will have been blanked and it will load the values in again from the chip that is present. You will know it has happened because you will need to set the time and date again. If there is no connector, then just remove the battery itself, usually a CR2032 coin cell or similar.

The reason this is worth trying is because downgrading doesn't necessarily overwrite a value if it has no reason to if a value is present.

TrantaLocked

Lauda89 One of the things that can happen is the high frequency of switching between different monitors for testing in and of itself can cause some strain. You basically just want to choose the one that created the least amount of long session eye strain that also has the features you want, and stick with it, then immediately and move on to experimenting with rear and overhead lighting and glasses prescriptions - as I detailed in my last two comments.

But still, after over a month of no eye strain with the Acer Nitro KG241Y, if I turn off the backside lighting strips that I applied, I still get a bit of eye strain. Lighting is important. I no longer need to use the over-head light but it's still nice to have. I always keep the backside strips turned on when I use the computer. Both lights are connected to a USB Y cable that allows the lights to turn on and off with the computer.

JTL

ryans You were able to downgrade the BIOS? Is the VBIOS separate?

This is a desktop with a dedicated GPU. VBIOS's usually aren't embedded into the system BIOS image similar how graphics are on laptops.

Don't think Windows Update handles VBIOS updates either.

JTL

Sunspark Don't know about the motherboard he has, but I'm aware of certain motherboards that store user configuration and other variables in nonvolatile storage and use the lack of power as a cue to potentially clear it, rather than the "old" practice of storing the config in RAM or similarly power backed storage that would be blanked upon removing all power. What is the difference? I've seen evidence the former isn't entirely perfect due to potential firmware bugs.

Ivan_P

Sunspark I am wondering, does it apply to laptops and integrated graphics?

For instance, if after Windows 11 installation, all other non-problematic os became bad, will it help to unplug the CMOS battery for an hour?

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