99% of strain is how Windows draws the frames on your screen.

Don't look for the problem in the card or the drivers or your monitor!

Just try different versions of Windows until you hit your sweet spot. Mine was Win11 22H2 and I'm sticking to it forever!

    BloodyHell619

    Seagull

    I totally disagree with Seagull here that this is like a ChatGPT response, I am fairly confident ChatGPT would provide a much more relevant answer than that.

    But I am not surprised, most people even on what should be very specialized and technical positions know nothing about how even basic technologies work. Last time I for instance found that a technician at Eizo in my country, guy that specializes in evaluating LCD monitors (and doing the job for 10+ years per his words) had no clue whatsoever what pixel inversion is.

    With this state of things when people that should know actually know nothing and our lives are in the hands of a few engineers (those that really know) that are placed behind several layers of firewalls it is hard to believe anything will ever change.

      I don't know if what I am seeing was there before, if I had already noticed it before, I don't even know if I should mention this because I am really starting to think that focusing too much on the screen and trying to figure what is truly happening can really make you see things that you can no longer unsee and which will start to strain your eyes.

      All in all what I have been experiencing so far is really solidifying my theory:

      I think simply looking at a screen with very bad PWM or Dithering is gonna make your eyes notice them more, and then you can no longer unsee them. So I would advise if a screen is straining you, and you have a working alternative neither try to get use to the bad screen or pay too much attention to it trying to figure out the problem. Your eyes might become even more sensitive to the problem, or they might witness some other problem, and you might not be able to unsee it any more. Don't try to get use to it. Not only will you not be able to, but you might not be able to use the screens that you easily could have before either. Just quickly get rid of it.

      I was reading more about pixel inversion and this is exactly what the site that had a test for it said too. Here's the exact lines:

      "Avoid doing these tests if you’re sensitive to flicker.

      Also – sometimes, ignorance is bliss. If you don’t notice any interlacing artifacts, these tests may point them out, and you might start noticing them in everyday use.

      So, unless you’re just testing out a monitor or suspect that your monitor has too strong pixel walk that warrants an RMA, doing these tests may not be necessary."

      In the past few days I have tried to leave home a lot more, and I think it massively helps. Having your brain have other thing to focus on is at least not gonna let the screens that work for you stop working for you.

      If you think my theory might be true, and you have had the experience of going back to devices that used to work for you and not being able to use them, maybe don't read this part of my post!

      Looking really close at my two LCD monitors, I can see all the pixels flicker, like some movie grain. I recall seeing this exact same thing on my moms Tab S6 Lite, which strained my eyes like crazy. It's like static noise on old TVs, every single pixel is doing it no matter what colour it's showing.

      Could this be the source of eye strain? Could this even be dithering? machala Or probably it is bad pixel inversion? I do not dare to take the pixel inversion test to be sure. But I wonder if any of you have seen these too.

      I can not see this on my only none-straining LCD smartphone, at least from the same distance I look at it as my monitors, and I don't dare look any closer because it is literally the only screen now that doesn't give me eye strain. I still am not fully comfortable with my gt 1030 card which never gave me eye strain after I put back in my GTX 970 which was wrecking my eyes. I don't know if it's still the lingering strain, or if something has really gotten messed up irreversibly simply by putting that card in. I have tried system restore, removing drivers and reinstalling them disabling dithering through any app there possibly is, but I am still feeling bad. Sadly I have been forced to constantly use my Galaxy Note 5 for many hours, so I think the pain is due to that because It is getting less and less though, and I hope it fades.

      Oshim 99% of strain is how Windows draws the frames on your screen.

      Don't look for the problem in the card or the drivers or your monitor!

      Just try different versions of Windows until you hit your sweet spot. Mine was Win11 22H2 and I'm sticking to it forever!

      I doubt that's the problem in my case. I have been using this Windows version with absolutely no strain until I put that wrecked GTX 970 in. It could be that each card might work better with a specific Windows version, but I literally gave up. Right now, I simply wanna be able to use my 1030 with no strain like before.

        BloodyHell619

        Hi, dithering, signal fading, "incompatible" video timings or pixel inversion… or all of it at once in different combinations.

        Did you have a chance to read this post of mine?

        https://ledstrain.org/d/2211-issues-with-monitors-might-be-caused-by-pixel-inversion

        And this experience that goes with it:

        https://ledstrain.org/d/2131-potential-correlation-between-video-timings-and-flicker/5

        What is definitely interesting here is the impact of video timings - that different timing algorithms and settings have clear impact on picture stability. Although I wasm't able to "fix" my setup with different timings, others were and I can definitely confirm with several PCs and laptops that changing video timings provides totally different picture stability sensations. And this is no impression, I am sure it is different I can see it. I'd love to have a graphics card or monitor engineer explain here why this is happening as video timings - as someone quite correctly said - were primarily meant to control picture on old CRTs and are basically a remnant from that time.

          machala

          I just read that. Very interesting and rather scary. Right now I don't even want to start thinking that that might be the issue, I feel my eyes are just seeing too much all ready. It seems pretty terrifying to mess with. And my GT 1030 was absolutely strainless before I paired it with the 970 I hope I haven't done something irreversible, caused damage on a hardware level, something like what happened to your screen after you played that old game.

          I am utterly devastated right now, the GT 1030 that I have been using with not a single bit of eye strain before putting the 970 in is straining me now. I really don't know what the god-damn that GTX 970 did, but something's wrong. It's been a week now that I have pulled it out, and I am still feeling the burning sensation in my eyes flickering eyelids and neckpain the exact signs I get from dithering screens. I tried rolling back the Nvidia driver, I tried uninstalling all the drivers with DDU. In the process, I actually found out that god-damn windows keeps installing the latest driver you ever install over what ever older driver you install even when you delete it. Then I saw an option in DDU that prevented it from doing so, but it still hasn't made the strain go away. I tried every app there was that disables dithering, but still the strain is there. I'm just devastated. I am probably going to delete all driver, then upgrade to Windows 11 to see if it helps. If not, I might have to either stick an even older card in my pc or restore a pretty old windows image I have.

          It's almost like the cards that dither have a dithering virus that infects every other card you put in their place. :"{

            machala I think they are both TN LCDs, also very old. Been using them for over 15 years.

            An LG Flatron and a Samsung SyncMaster.

            BloodyHell619 what if the 970 has made you sensitive to the 1030's output (which hasn't changed)? If that's the case just giving your eyes/nervous system a few days break from screens, and then going back to the 1030 might help.

            4 days later

            Man, this is really messed up. The 1030 is really straining me. I literally cannot believe this. It's not making it unusable, but it's been making it really hard for me to use.

            @Deepdeep There's no way the strain from the 970 could have lingered this long. My eyes actually feel relived now when I look at my Galaxy Note 5 from my monitor!

            • I tried downloading the latest versions of Driver uninstaller to fully wipe the NVIDIA driver.
            • Tried installing the oldest possible drivers.
            • I even paired the card with an older Radeon card that I had, hoping it would undo what ever the GTX 970 did.
            • I upgraded to Windows 11. No use! It neither reduced the pain nor worsened it, so I can say for sure that at least in my case it has nothing to do with windows.
            • (One thing I did notice is that Windows update now updates your VGA driver too. That might be the reason upgrading windows might be causing strain)
            • I tried disabling dithering with the colour control app.
            • Tried changing my monitor's colour formats to all modes RGB, limited, full …..
            • Tried installing older versions of my CPU chipset driver
            • Tried clearing my CMOS

            nothing is working ……

            I've scanned this thread and hopefully I can add some perspective as I own multiple 970 cards and have owned more in the search for a good config. I've also been through the whole good setup gone bad multiple times over the years.

            Once upon a time I had Windows 10 1909 running super sweetly with a Gigabyte G1 Gaming 970 card with no eye strain at all (z97 mobo and 4790K cpu). It was great. But then my motherboard blew up - I think taken out by my SSD, which died at the same time.

            So, I bought a new motherboard, CPU (10700K) and SSD. Nothing I did would get me a working setup. They all produced eye strain, even using Win 10 1909 and the same video card, hard drives, cables, screen etc. And certainly none of the newer builds of Windows worked. I knew of discussion here about using older WIn 10 builds and none of them worked either. Conclusion - the motherboard was doing something nefarious. On top of this I suspect Microsoft had added something new to the 1909 build.

            (Intererstingly, my son is now using that CPU & motherboard with another G1 Gamng 970 card and it's runs the latest Win 10 build without too much eye-strain. But I guess if it was my main then perhaps I might change my tune).

            I tried other 970 cards that I knew were 'good' with this setup and still no joy.

            So I replaced the blown up motherboard with something fairly similar (same z97 chipset, albeit a different manufacturer) to resurrect my old 4790K CPU. Win 10 1909 still wouldn't work nor did any of the newer builds available at the time, all causing lots of eye strain… but lo and behold Win 10 1511 worked! No eye strain at all.

            Since then I've been happily running this old build, locked down not to update, without too many problems. My advice to you is go back to an older build of Windows 10 like 1511 or maybe 1607 and start from there.

            Some additional notes:

            • Most Unity based games cause eye strain. Don't use anything like that for testing.
            • Some browser versions can also cause eye strain. Thankfully, Edge seems pretty good. Start with that, not Chrome.
            • Subsequently, due to positive comments in this forum about certain Win 10 releases, I have tried newer builds of Windows 10 but none that I've tried have provided a good initial experience. (Part of this is that Win 10 1511 can't run a newer .Net version that some apps are now asking for).
            • I have had experience of good 970s going 'bad' and I subscribe to the theory that some config that impacts us can be written to the card (by video drivers?), changing its behaviour fundamentally. I have ultimately overcome this by going back to an old Windows build.
            • I run DVI (card output) to HDMI to a VGA adaptor to the screen. This doesn't really do much but I figure even if it softens the image anything that softens the digital 'nastiness' could be a good things.
            • You can have a good working setup and try a different screen and it's eye strain city.

            I know for a fact, having bought and sold multiple of these video cards that they're not all the same. Of the dozen or so G1 Gaming 970 cards I've owned:

            • V1.1 hardware always causes me eye strain, and these get on-sold.
            • V1.0 hardware is a lottery - Hynix RAM is A-OK, and Samsung RAM is bad (they get sold too).

            The VBIOS version doesn't seem to make any difference that I've been able to detect, and these days it's super hard to get specific versions. I'll add to this that I've tried and failed with 980, 980ti, 1070, 1080, 1080ti, 2080ti, Vega 64 graphics cards with every one of them causing eye strain. All were bought and resold, sadly!

            Don't give up, just take everything back to basics. And if you get something that works. Make a good backup!

              AgentX20 The same thing happened to me. I had a perfect PC with a ryzen 1700 and I changed motherboard, ram and processor to a 7800 keeping everything else the same, software, monitor, GPU, etc., and it was completely unusable.

              Then I upgraded the BIOS on the old motherboard with the intent of putting a 5800 on it and it became inusable as well, even going back through the BIOS.

              So the motherboard and BIOS play a very important role and I didn't know that.

              And, my opinion is that we would need to understand what impacts the BIOS has with image rendering in the monitor. Surely that is an easier way than figuring out why one version of Windows is good and the other is not.

                5 days later

                AgentX20

                Hey man thanks for the thorugh info.

                After losing all hope I decided to install a fresh windows 10 1511 build to see if it works but it made no difference. The strain of the 970 was still as bad. ( And I nearly wiped all my drives in the process and was just a step away from a heart attack lol) Unfortuently my 970 is the v1.1. and my 1030 is now really straining me on all versions of windows that I tried; 1511, 1904 and also Windows 11 22h2. I just don't get what the 970 could have done to my gt 1030 to make it give me strain too.

                Do you think flashing the factory vbios might fix my gt 1030?

                  Lauda89 Yep, a BIOS upgrade made my screen unusable as well more than once. Not the usual eye strain (neck tension along a line from skull to shoulder blades, loss of eye mobility, sticky eyes etc), but physical pain behind the eyes, inflammation and "scratching sand in the eyes-feeling". My eyes hurt so bad that I can look at the screen only very briefly and then I must look elsewhere like gasping for air. If I install the last BIOS version I have felt comfortable with (from the end of 2021), the issue goes away but God knows what will come next...

                    BloodyHell619 Given your situation, you've got nothing to lose…

                    Save the old BIOS first though, just in case.

                    And rest assured, we know just how hugely frustrating this stuff is.

                      AGI but physical pain behind the eyes, inflammation and "scratching sand in the eyes-feeling

                      Oh boy! Yes, that's the exact sorta pain I'm having right now. It's so disgusting.

                      AgentX20 And rest assured, we know just how hugely frustrating this stuff is.

                      Thanks so much, mate.

                      God, I don't know what that wrecked card did to my system, absolutely nothing works. Changing the bios didn't work either.

                      First I did a BIOS update to the latest version, it didn't help. Then I did a downgrade to a pretty old version, still didn't help. I took out my GT 1030 and put in an ancient Radeon HD5850 which I also never had strain with and still there was massive strain. I don't even think dithering had been invented when this card came out! There is no setting for dithering at all in "ColorControl" app. I am absolutely clueless, devastated and in pain. I'm just gonna give myself a few more days and hope the pain is just my imagination, because I don't think there is anything else left for me to try.

                        You'll have to try a different motherboard or a different monitor.. since you used two different cards.

                        You may also benefit from trying an entirely different OS.. why don't you flash a Linux distro onto a USB drive and boot from it and see how it is? Try MX Linux's XFCE spin.

                          BloodyHell619 I don't think there is anything else left for me to try.

                          Without going back through all of this thread, it could still be your Windows version.

                          Microsoft is very aggressive at slipstreaming updates, so you need to apply some tricks to stop the updates.

                          If you just put 1511 on, with an old/appropriate video driver and NO updates, does it cause eye-strain?

                            AgentX20 Without going back through all of this thread, it could still be your Windows version.

                            Microsoft is very aggressive at slipstreaming updates, so you need to apply some tricks to stop the updates.

                            If you just put 1511 on, with an old/appropriate video driver and NO updates, does it cause eye-strain?

                            I fully formatted my SSD, even deleted the partition and created a new partition and installed a fresh 1511 build of windows and still there was as much eye strain.

                            Sunspark why don't you flash a Linux distro onto a USB drive and boot from it and see how it is? Try MX Linux's XFCE spin.

                            I tried this and there was still eye strain even in that Linux build.

                            I think I am even having strain in the bios screen.

                            Today I did a bunch of stuff and no use:

                            • I went into my registry and tried manually erasing anything I saw of my GTX 970 and RTX 3070ti. Still eye strain.
                            • Used iObit Uninstaller to monitor the Nvidia driver installation and then deleted it from there. Still strain.
                            • I also had a really really old pc, slammed my Redeon Card in it, and I was actually still getting strained.
                            • I then put an even more ancient card, an NVIDIA 9800GT, into my own system and still eye strain.

                            I could only think of three possible reasons for my strain, at this point: something has either gone wrong with my eyes, I'm just seeing something I didn't use to see before, or something has gone wrong with my monitors. And I have been using the monitors for 15 years, so I doubt it could be that. I don't have any other monitors to do a test any ways.

                            Right now I could only think of 2 more things I might have to try, I might start taking blood pressure pills or anti depressants. It is just crazy to think that every device I have been using in the past is becoming unusable.

                            Still, my eyesight is perfect and my LCD phone is usable for me without the slightest pain. I really can't figure out what's going on.

                            Sadly the 9800 GT didn't work in my old system, and now I put it in this system, so what ever infected my 2 other cards has most probably infected this too anyways.

                              Have you changed your electrical wiring setup lately? Instead of having a monitor in 1 wall outlet and the PC in another wall outlet, same for the speakers, etc. have everything together on a single power bar plugged into a single outlet. The thought behind this is to minimize ground hum.

                                dev