Anyone had tried to disable color dithering in AMD cards with this method? Did it work? https://docs.teradici.com/knowledge/how-do-i-turn-off-temporal-dithering-in-an-amd-graphics-card

Haven't tried it but did you see this? https://ledstrain.org/d/1259-ditherig-20-integrated-amd

ryans yes i have tried it, but unfortunately it didn’t work.

Besides Kawamato's Ditherig ( https://kawamoto.no-ip.org/henteko/myapp_en.html ) that should work for newer GPUs there are also alternative AMD drivers available at https://www.amernimezone.com (both for older and newer GPUs). These actually have a setting that allows to enable or disable dithering (I used SetupCLI.exe located in the unpacked folder with the drivers). Unfortunately, I have no special equipment to measure whether it is effective (with Ditherig on Intel GPUs I could see the effect on colour gradient such as the one available at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php with a naked eye).

bqqq3rcv 1) what model of video card and monitor are you using for testing? 2) dithering settings made in this way (via the registry) will take effect only after reboot with Ditherig on Intel GPUs I could see the effect on colour gradient 3) are you using the same monitor for intel graphics and amd graphics?

Disable dithering - AMD

snimat

Have you tried this? https://ledstrain.org/d/1893-has-the-amd-registry-edit-thing-worked-for-anyone/9 I only just found out about Radeon Tool and testing it for myself on a R6600M. So far it looks promising but this could be placebo.

glvn

snimat
As far as I understand, using SetupCLI.exe(https://www.amernimezone.com) and Radeon Tool(RadeonMod) are the same method, both tools use changing a registry branch value. The main question is: "does the driver use this value?"

what monitor model do you have?
operating system version?
video driver version?

bqqq3rcv

glvn Oh, thank you for explaining. Then these R.ID drivers probably have no special effect compared to official ones when it is like this. On the other hand, as snimat mentioned, SetupCLI.exe is for a custom driver. I could check registry and see what effect this setting has.

Aquila

Try the app color control

snimat

SetupCLI.exe is for a custom driver. So I expect the program only to be working with that driver.

Radeon Tool on the other hand seems to have no effect on my side. Besides the fact that it destroyed my driver installation twice so that I would have to resort to setting up the system again.

I am on Windows 11, Philips 346B1C and an ancient LG IPS225V. Video card is an AMD Radeon RX 6600M with the version 31.0.24002.92

Best effort I had so far was changing the Color Depth to 12 bpc and the Pixel format to YCbCr 4:2:0. I was able to trick the monitor into a color banding state which should rule out temporal dithering. This only worked with my LG monitor. I also use a HDMI Matrix switch (Fintech VMS04201 HDMI 2.0 Matrix Switch 4×2) between the PC and the display which might also alter results.

Edit: One of my hundred restarts broke the driver installation and "AMD adrenaline" again. Possibly Windows was trying to overwrite the updated driver once more. Given the poor experience I am having with my new mini PC (Minisforum HX80G), Windows 11 in general and how bad the display quality is, firstmost what pain it is producing: this is enough. Future LEDstraining devices will be returned on sight, no debugging no more. I am done with this.

glvn

snimat

Philips 346B1C

https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/ef821b52
the panel in this monitor is true 8-bit (not 6bit+frc)

in my case:
1) using an true 8-bit panel(Philips 243v DVI) in combination with Intel HD630 + dithering.exe does not give banding on the sample http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php if temporal dithering disabled,
but it starts to flicker a little in general if temporal dithering enable
2) using not true 8-bit panel (6bit+frc HP 27es HDMI) in combination with ATI/AMD HD4850 + reg tweak "HDMI_DisableDither"=dword:00000001 give banding on the sample
"HDMI_DisableDither"=dword:00000000 not give banding on the sample(after restart), but it seems to add fatigue to the eyes

My next dumb guess is this: perhaps eye fatigue appears from a combination of TWO independent phenomena:
A) dithering of the monitor panel itself (in the case of 6bit+frc)
B) dithering the output signal of the video card

bqqq3rcv

snimat Best effort I had so far was changing the Color Depth to 12 bpc and the Pixel format to YCbCr 4:2:0

Please, can you tell me how you did that?

bqqq3rcv

glvn Thank you for your response. It took me some time to gather information on devices used.

1) what model of video card and monitor are you using for testing?

In the case of Ditherig + Intel these laptops were used: Dell Latitude E6520, Thinkpad E440, Dynabook Satellite Pro C50-G-113 (all of them posses TN panel, which I also used for testing). Upon enabling Ditherig I could see the effect immediately. I made a picture on how Ditherig works for me with Intel GPU - in the left part Ditherig is not running and in the right part Ditherig is on (banding visible):

With AMD I tried HP 255 G5 laptop with its panel and Viewsonic VA2223-H connected through HDMI or VGA and R.ID drivers and SetupCLI.exe to disable dithering.

I also tried Ditherig with Ryzen 5600G + Dell 2009W.

In both AMD cases I couldn't see a difference.

2) dithering settings made in this way (via the registry) will take effect only after reboot

I tried rebooting both AMD machines and I still didn't see any difference (I expected the same behaviour like with Intel GPUs)..

3) are you using the same monitor for intel graphics and amd graphics?

No, I didn't (most of the devices mentioned don't belong to me; I'm testing whatever is possible to find a new display that would suit my eyes). However, Viewsonic display is mine and I still have Thinkpad with me so I will try and let you know if there is any difference with Ditherig.

glvn

bqqq3rcv

In the case of Ditherig + Intel these laptops

in the case of a laptop, it is impossible to unambiguously determine the model of the LCD panel based on the laptop model 🙁 AIDA64??

Upon enabling Ditherig I could see the effect immediately.

This is true, dithering.exe works through PCI control registers and its action occurs immediately. unlike discrete AMD drivers, which are controlled(controlled??) by values in the registry and changes require re-reading these values (reboot is an option)
Viewsonic VA2223-H have 6bit+frc panel https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/adb31ce7

for ati/amd gpu there are currently two known ways to control dithering:
1) a key value in the windows registry (works on hd4850 + win7) and not the fact that it works with modern drivers
(this method is used in SetupCLI.exe and RadeoMod)
2) dithering.exe of the latest version which should work with AMD GPUs(through PCI control registers??), but not with discrete AMD video cards, as I understand this situation
sorry for my terrible english 🙁

glvn

bqqq3rcv

Dynabook N156BGA-EA3; HP 255 G5 BOE06A5; E6520 LTN56HT01; Lenovo E440 LP140WH8-TPD1
I wonder what you can do with those data :-).

https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=N156BGA-EA3
https://www.panelook.com/PT156WHM-N10__15.6__overview_42420.html
LTN56HT01 ??
https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LP140WH8-TPD1
at first glance, all these panels are 6bit
2⁶ x 2⁶ x 2⁶=262144 (262K colors)
at a minimum, this means that such panels are not capable of displaying 8-bit color without tricks like dithering 🙁
and we return again to the questions: does dither affect strain? how to disable dithering guaranteed? What samples can be used to verify that dithering is disabled?

I continued my experiment at Windows 7 Classic :
(6bit+frc HP 27es HDMI) in combination with ATI HD4850 + reg tweak "HDMI_DisableDither"=dword:00000001 give banding on the sample http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php
(6bit+frc HP 27es DVI) in combination with ATI HD4850 + reg tweak "TMDS_DisableDither"=dword:00000001 NOT give banding on the sample 🙁 WTF ?

bqqq3rcv

in the right part Ditherig is on (banding visible):

By "Dithering is on" you mean:
dithering.exe launched with the "temporal" option is selected ?
or Dithering.exe launched with the "disable all dithering function" option is selected ?
Do you feel a difference in eye strain?

bqqq3rcv

glvn It took me some time to gather the data requested (I save reports using hwinfo since it's lightweight and free). Here it comes:

Dynabook N156BGA-EA3; HP 255 G5 BOE06A5; E6520 LTN56HT01; Lenovo E440 LP140WH8-TPD1

I wonder what you can do with those data :-).

Unfortunately, you are true about the Viewsonic.

I agree with you on information about dithering control (I also tested how setupcli.exe works; you can forget the alternative drivers for now). Don't worry about grammar; I think that most of the users here are not native speakers. For example, I am from the EU :-).

snimat

bqqq3rcv

Sure, I was using it with my LG IPS225V and the Feintech VMS04201 Matrix switch in-between. The VMS04201 has the feature of EDID spoofing, which tells the device that the display has some specific capabilities which might not match with the display. From the manual:

STD: The HDMI source is signaled that the HDMI sinks support 4K60Hz HDR and 5.1 sound. If your output devices do not support such format you may experience no sound or no signal.

For some reason (and later unreproducible) I was able to choose the color profile. Like I said I chose 12 bps and YCbCR 4:2:0 which looked good. Here is a picture from the sky of Euro Truck Simulator 2. I had no issues for that play session:

Maybe just maybe it is an option to actively spoof the EDID and set up an environment where the graphics card resorts to some fall back mode for old displays. I don't know your situation but every hack will be fragile. Any update, to Windows, to your graphics card, might break what you achieved and you are back to square one. Like I said above, I will return any device in the future, which strains my sight. My eyes are only recovering after three days of starring at bad graphics for debugging.

bqqq3rcv

snimat My eyes are only recovering after three days of starring at bad graphics for debugging.

Tell me ;-); I need a newer laptop that will replace my beloved dell latitude d620 (that is becoming slow and I'm worried about the lifetime of ccfl backlight too) so I tried a few laptops lately and recovering takes some time with me too.

I like your idea of using proxy device between your computer and display. I'm starting to think that EDID spoofing might be a way to go (I also considered lowering colour bit depth in OS but there are not many OSe's that would support it). I also don't know how to change color profile (e.g. to YCbCR 4:2:0).

snimat

The worst thing is that this is now affecting me with previously harmless devices, like my PS5, PS Portal or Xbox Series. It is definitely better when not using devices, before that my vision was "slow" all the time. No it is snappy as always, but still the slight burning when using devices (at night).

I also think it might be related with the content I consumed. I played mostly RTS and simulators, that had me glued to the display. I wonder if anyone has a clear and scientifically proven measure what is producing eye strain and what not. So far I only read about personal opinions, sometimes conflicting.

bqqq3rcv

snimat I wonder if anyone has a clear and scientifically proven measure what is producing eye strain and what not.

You mean something like this https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40123-022-00540-9 or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6825687/ ?

bqqq3rcv

glvn

glvn or Dithering.exe launched with the "disable all dithering function" option is selected ?

Yes.

glvn Do you feel a difference in eye strain?

I think it is better with ditherig on than without it (but only when using intel iGPUs). I still struggle to find out exactly what my is main problem causing eyestrain. I very much appreciate your ideas about panels and their properties in this respect. I also tried intel igpu+6bit-frc external display over hdmi and I find out that when ditherig is on (all dithering disabled) that bands when watching gradient are not so much visible as compared to laptop panels. Thank you for pointing that out.

glvn

bqqq3rcv

I also tried intel igpu+6bit-frc external display over hdmi and I find out that when ditherig is on (all dithering disabled) that bands when watching gradient are not so much visible as compared to laptop panels.

What full model name was the external display?
It would be interesting to see the results of dithering.exe + igpu on a real 8-bit panel (like Gigabyte M32Q)...

Enabling color management (.icm color profile) also affects the smoothness of gradients - it worsens them. I have long come across an assumption that enabling the color profile automatically turns on dithering on ATI/AMD gpu drivers. In any case, it is better to check whether you are using color management, as this may further affect the smoothness of the gradients.

bqqq3rcv

glvn What full model name was the external display?

The Viewsonic I mentioned earlier (besides that I have a few old CCFL displays but these are probably all 6bit)

glvn Enabling color management (.icm color profile) also affects the smoothness of gradients - it worsens them

I will try to find out how to disable colour management.

I also tried to override EDID (by changing info about supported bit depth) but had no success so far (i.e. it had no visible effect).

glvn

bqqq3rcv

I also tried to override EDID (by changing info about supported bit depth)

what software do you use to read EDID? Perhaps I misunderstand the information from the edid, but I still can’t determine the bit depth of the panel from the edid information 🙁

bqqq3rcv

glvn I used this one: https://www.deltacast.tv/products/free-software/e-edid-editor . It is necessary to use email address for download, so I used temporary email address for that. It has GUI that allows you to change values. There is an option to view changes in HEX format (in red). I used the changed value to add a key to registry (I copied the original value and edited it). There is a website from which I found out what has to be changed in registry: https://migueltek.com/tool/simple-edid-editor-for-win-11/ ;

So, We just need to write the modified EDID Block 0 information to "0" in the following path (0 means override EDID Base Block), value type is "REG_BINARY", length is 128 bytes.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY\%MONITOR_INSTANCE_PATH%\Device Parameters\EDID_OVERRIDE

glvn

bqqq3rcv

I used this one: https://www.deltacast.tv/products/free-software/e-edid-editor

Thanks for the link
but I still don’t understand how to use editing EDID to present an 8bit monitor as 10bit (for example)