Liberator005
Maybe the dithering setting is just hardwired in the gpu hardware ?
Maybe … BUT, AgentX20 say:
(Win 10 1511, 970 card and driver version 391.55). Now this has been a good strain-free setup for a long time now
I've got backups…
just this one time I'd try a newer driver… 411 something… uh-oh eye strain feelings detected
Next, I rolled back with a bare metal restore from backup. And… it STILL felt off.
I've now done a ground up OS installer rebuild of my PC - exact same hardware and using the same Win 10 1511 OS installer as was working OK for me before. … Sadly, I am still getting bad eye strain.
I did try reflashing both VBIOS with the same version so see if that helped but no joy there.
…seems like dithering was not originally hardwired
This is just my guess, but this is how I imagine the sequence of changing dithering as a variable for the programmer:
a) the initial value of the variable from the video bios (or video chip hardware), in old cards is not set or is set as OFF
b) a variable in the uefi nvram of the motherboard, the initial value is inherited from point a) or is forcibly set to ON by “new” motherboards because it is useful for “image beauty”. This can try to explain the fact that “good” video cards perform “good” on old MBs but “bad” on new ones (including even before loading the OS).
c) a graphics pipeline consisting of the OS(version), graphics driver, DWM, registry, color profile settings and M$ knows what else…. Or perhaps it inherits the initial dither value from b), or perhaps new operating systems are simply forced to be set to ON for “image beauty” on modern cheap (6-bit) monitors. This can try to explain why dithering is enabled more often on “new” OS/drivers. Why the state of the variable is then stored in b), (if this is at all possible), I cannot explain. This is all despite the fact that MS/Nvidia technical support denies the very fact of dithering.
.. too many "perhaps" (