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"#p24636 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"#p24637 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"#p24655 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"#p24671 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"#p24695 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](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4528539/#:%7E:text=Like%20many%20animals%2C%20humans%20are,carotenoids%20in%20the%20macula%20lutea) 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"#p24764 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"#p24766 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"#p24786 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"#p24794 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"#p24921 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

photon78s

I think their are basic principles but no one size fits all solution. It's useful to see both the personal experiences and the "objective" measurement data. What's interesting is when the subjective experience does not seem match the measurements.

FWIW, I'm not a professional programmer but prior to more severe eyestrain and discovering this site I was doing a moderate amount of graphics related programming (VSCode with default white and darker material theme in the evening, windows 11 using both mix of both integrated and discrete gpu modes). I attribute eyestrain to switching from 240hz to 60hz refresh rate on a laptop screen and increased "stress". I do not remember ever having significant eyes issue during the windows 7,8,10 and using laptops with wide gamut support and/or PWM like the thinkpad w520, t500, etc. which I not longer have for testing.

photon78s

GregAtkinson

How do you define "reasonably low flicker" in your oscilloscope measurements? I have been using 20dB gain on the detector but have tried higher gain settings but that makes it even harder to find a device with a "flat" waveform.

GregAtkinson

photon78s How do you define "reasonably low flicker" in your oscilloscope measurements? I have been using 20dB gain on the detector but have tried higher gain settings but that makes it even harder to find a device with a "flat" waveform.

Before I answer that, let me refer to this chart. I pulled these numbers from the Thorlabs site:
10dB = 3.3x
20dB = 10x
30dB = 33x
40dB = 100x

Here's my favorite (now dead...) laptop. Barely any flicker at 40dB/100x magnification:

Here's the same model, but with a different panel. This is unusable for me. I assume the flicker is what makes it unusable, but I can't say that for 100% certainty - maybe something else that can't be picked up by the photodetector (like FRC or pixel inversion) is causing the problem.

Here's the LG 27MQ450-B at 100x magnification:

I have the waveforms for all the monitors in the table a few posts above in case you want me to post a few of the waveforms. I'm too lazy to post all 20 of them though. :-)

If you want more details, you might be interested in this thread:
https://ledstrain.org/d/2598-help-wanted-to-measure-flicker-andor-test-a-flicker-free-monitor

photon78s

GregAtkinson

Thanks! Similarily, I can tolerate this (lenovo legion 7i 2023 at max brightness measured with the thorlabs detector but using only the Miniware DS213):

But not this (samsung s10+ at max brightness). Both at 20dB.

The lenovo screen at max brightness, detector at 40dB, and oscilloscope window at 10mS.

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?

TrantaLocked

I finally figured out why the position of my main monitor on my dual monitor stand determines whether or not I will have a dizzy feeling at my desktop. It's because when I have my main monitor on the left, and I'm positioned more to the left of my desk and facing straight - now positioned closer to and facing a room corner - there is less air flow and my exhalation doesn't circulate out as well, leading to higher CO2 concentration levels. With the main monitor to my right, I'm sitting slightly more to the right and facing diagonally to the open part of the room where there is better air flow. The better air flow in the center of the room is in part due to how air works in a room but also due to the channel of air circulation I create with my tower fan that moves air coming in from one vent then out the door on the other side of the room.

This dizzy feeling is the same feeling I get when I've either kept my doors closed for too long or had inadequate fan circulation channels (Where air may be moving a lot due to different fan sources but chaotically, making it hard for air to efficiently enter one side of a room and exit the other. This can be caused by air purifiers or poor fan setup).

It's always been CO2. So what I can do now is either move my monitor to the right position of my dual monitor stand, which I've done, or move my desk which is hard to do with my current room layout. I recommend people experiencing dizziness to consider air circulation in the position they use their computer.

Donux

TrantaLocked I keep as far as I can. I even recommend getting 2x of the same desk, so you could place monitor far away and increase scaling. Also, disable all sensors, install ditherig.exe and pick explicitly sRGB color profile on monitor. Also set wifi transmit power to lowest. All these remove all dizziness. Also, do not use windows 10, use windows 11.

eDenon-2

You guys can write such a long text, what a patience.

TrantaLocked

Donux Yeah maybe. I'm still trying to figure that out. I was using my Samsung 2494 CCFL LCD for about a year with no eye strain and then it randomly developed a green hue and color banding a few days ago and I decided to put my Acer VA LED back to the right position. But even then I still feel like I've been having more issues after my last post. Could EMFs actually be involved? What kind of EMFs can monitors produce?

Anyway, I opened up my Samsung 2494 monitor, blew on the video processing PCB and reseated the internal display cable on both ends, and miraculously the green hue and color banding are completely fixed. First time I have ever been successful in a monitor repair or modification attempt.

I am very happy about this repair success because I have used this type of Samsung CCFL LCD for my main monitor for over a decade and really do not want to switch until I can buy an affordable OLED/MicroLED monitor where there is no chance of backlight color temperature being a problem. I have given up on all of the modern LCD panels because it always seems like something is wrong. My Samsung is just nicer to look at. It has the typical greenish backlight temperature and a coarse grey colored matte coating. Despite being tech from 2008 and having PWM, it's really good.

I do still think I'm having circulation issues in that side of the room regardless of the monitor. I will probably need to buy a second fan and place it in the corner facing the direction the existing air current goes.

There are some OLED monitors now at the size I would want. Any of them actually good? With them now reaching around $500 open box, $100-200 OLED monitors may not be that far off in the future.

« Previous Page