Does the refresh rate make a difference?

lisadorina

Hey guys,

after having researched back and forth, I now suspect that temporal dithering on my Win10 pc is the culprit. I managed to get my old Win7 disk back to work, and it seems to be fine for my eyes, at least for the ~2 hours/day I can do offline work on it. The other 3 hours are spent on the Win10 pc which I need for online work, and the eyes definitely react to it. No matter how I switch the monitors and cables around, Win7 is good, Win10 bad.

All my monitors are 60hz. Does a higher refresh rate help with "masking" the dithering out? I might be on the wrong track here, and haven't found anything in the forum about it. If it's been discussed elsewhere, I apologise.

karthi3219

lisadorina no, higher refresh rate did not help me. My hp victus laptop screen have 144hz refresh rate. That screen is unbearable to me. So I don't think increasing refresh rate will have any good impact to the eyes. We need good setup which is usually combination of hardware and software combo to tackle the eye strain

lisadorina

karthi3219 Thanks for sharing your experience! My dad can lend me a screen with about 144hz as well, so I might give it a try to just have tried it. I'll keep in mind that it won't help with the strain though.

Staycalmsyndrome Ah, does the older Windows 10 version work for you eye strain wise?
I'm currently on Win10 v21H2 (if that's the correct number to look for). I've heard before that Windows 10 has a "good" and "bad" update history. Will have a look at how to downgrade. Thanks for the suggestion.

Staycalmsyndrome

Try "downgrading" the Windows 10 PC to Windows 10 v1511 or dual-boot. Newer versions of Adobe software(ex: after Photoshop CC 2017 v.19.0.1) are not supported.

eyeguy22

I'm in the process of trying a high refresh rate (120 to 144Hz) QHD VA 32" monitor for 2 days now to see if this makes any difference. I've had eyestrain and mental fatigue symptoms with several 60Hz 4K monitors (both IPS and VA) and will report back if this brings lasting success. Right now it's too early to say if this helps since there is always some "adaptation" symptoms regardless of the monitor, but sometimes they do settle down. I've been able to adjust with time to some devices that first gave me headaches or eyestrain symptoms (iPad Air, Moto G phone 2nd generation, Dell Inspiron13" 1080p laptop running Windows 10), but not others (LG G5 phone, Samsung UJ59, LG 32UL500, Samsung UR55).

eyeguy22

So I tried the QHD VA monitor at 120Hz and after trying it for a few days (Windows 7 and Windows 8.1), it didn't really make much of a difference in terms of symptoms (mental fatigue, etc.) compared to the 60Hz UHD monitors I tried earlier. So I'm back to looking at different options.

lisadorina

eyeguy22 Thanks for sharing! I'm also trying an Acer XV270P with Win10 that should be using 120hz since yesterday. Will see if it makes a difference.

Since you're also getting symptoms from Win7, do you know what exactly causes them? I'm mostly fine on Win7, but haven't tried it for more than 2-3 hours/day recently.

caboy

eyeguy22

I don't know if anyone has reported issues with Windows 7 or 8.1 before. Unless they were using a monitor that is 6-bit + frc.

Which vendor makes that monitor?

async

Those that tried 120hz, did you check if the the refresh rate is constant, or if it switched up and down? On Mac that can be checked with Quartz Debugger, and it happens on external ones as well, and not just the ProMotion display.

eyeguy22

To lisadorina : I have another Windows 7 setup that does not bother me at all if I disable the Intel HD4000 Graphics driver (and use the internal Basic VGA adapter instead) or, alternatively, when connected to a VGA output adapter (with Intel Graphics driver enabled) the external 22" 2010 LED TN monitor (with analog VGA, but not HDMI or DVI) also works very comfortably as well.

To async : it was a constant 120 Hz refresh rate and also using the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter or VGA; all variable refresh rates and GSYNC/FreeSYNC features were disabled.

lisadorina

@async I'm a little technically overwhelmed finding a tool that does that for Windows, so I haven't checked yet.

So I have used the Acer with (supposedly) 120hz for 5 days now and my eyes feel quite good. I don't know if it's because I used it less than usual, or because it is easier on my eyes, hmm. I might keep it for a while longer.

eyeguy22

to caboy ; The machine giving me symptoms with Win7 or 8.1 (as well as Win10), regardless of the graphics driver, is a Lenovo system with an Intel 530 Integrated Graphics and an i5-6500 CPU using a DisplayPort connector. I've tried it with several UHD monitors at different times, including Samsung UJ59, Samsung UR55, LG 32UL500 and Philips 276E8VJSB. I have a Dell AMD laptop from 2018 with Win10 that took me a while to get used to but can now use comfortably with the integrated display, but it didn't work comfortably with the UHD monitors I tried with it.

I have a couple of older Win7 systems (around 2011 and 2014) that run fine with my older 22/24" TN LED monitors using VGA analog output. I assume these monitors have 6-bit + FRC but are comfortable for me.

I'm not sure if my current issue is with the UHD monitors I've tried or their combination with the Lenovo PC but I suspect it's more likely the monitors since I tried different PCI graphics adapters (K420, GeForce 710, Radeon 5450) with some of these monitors and still had headache and fatigue symptoms.

I'm debating whether I should try an iMac eventually but have read here that many have symptoms with them. I'm pretty sensitive to PWM even on "Flicker-free" displays, which is why I usually run my displays at 100% brightness but lower contrast to dampen illumination.

I suspect, albeit without concrete proof, that the "Flicker-free" displays still have some sort of PWM type flicker at brightness levels below 100%, because they all tend to cause more headaches for me when I run them at 50-80% brightness than when I run them at 100%.

lisadorina

Update: Having reactivated my old Win7 system, my eye strain went down significantly over a couple of weeks. I still have to use a Win10 machine for internet access though which gives some eye strain, so I'm still looking for solutions.

Installing dithering.exe and using a PC with an Intel chip does seem to help, as well as having tried the monitor with a higher refresh rate (Acer XV270P, 120+? hz). Though I'm currently a bit eye strainy again, not sure what causes it. Win7 is still easier on the eyes as the Win10+dithering.exe one, I'd say.

But having barely any eye strain is so nice, ha. Life is different now. I wouldn't have gotten the idea of the OS being the culprit if it wasn't for this forum, so thanks.

ensete

lisadorina Update: Having reactivated my old Win7 system, my eye strain went down significantly over a couple of weeks. I still have to use a Win10 machine for internet access though which gives some eye strain, so I'm still looking for solutions.

You do no need to use Win10 for internet access, just use Windows 7 for everything. Purchase a decent third party A/V program and make regular backups to an external HDD (I use Macrium Reflect free edition) and you will be fine. I am typing this from a Windows 7 PC right now.

I know, I know, "But SECURITY!", but truefully thats just a red herring IT nerds like to scream to sound like know it alls (I know I am one). 98% of PC viruses come from clicking an attachment in an email. And since the majority of PC's out there are off Windows 7, it is no longer a target for exploits and hasn't been in some time. I know several people using Windows XP (with a hacked kernel) as their daily driver and have been for years and are completely incident free. Windows 7 is absolutely fine to use as your main PC especially if it offers symptom relief.

Sunspark

ensete You don't need a third party AV program which will bog down the machine. Windows defender from MS is fine.

lisadorina

ensete Oh, that's valuable information, thanks a lot for explaining. Yeah, you hear not to go online with Win7 PCs, so I've been going the super safe route so far to not loose any data and such. But if you say it should be fine, hmm. I'll have a deeper look into that. Maybe it's an option to set up a second PC with Win7 and use that for going online while the other stuff stays offline. (XP was a good OS, too. I miss these days.)

Sunspark Also thanks for that info.

ensete

Sunspark The risk there is MS stops shipping definition updates to Widows 7 PCs and doesn't tel you about it. NOD32 costs $40 a year and has always worked great for me.

Llisadorina there is no greater risk of data loss in a Windows 7 PC vs any other PC. You should always have a backup routine in place anyway. You can get a 5TB external HDD for $99 and there are loads of free backup options out there. I use Syncback Free to backup all my data files and Macrium Reflect to image my OS ever week and keep a running 4 weeks of images so I can always restore my system to any week up to a month previous. I once installed a Windows update that changed the Windows display to trigger my migraines, and was able to roll back to a previous image in like 5 minutes.

And like I said given the deprecation of Windows 7, it's far less of a target that Windows 10 or 11.