I've always believed based on my experiences with some older (2013 to 2018) setups that the integrated graphics driver are a possible source of eyestrain. I have two laptops (one Intel, one AMD) that are very comfortable to look at when the Basic Display Adapter is being used (or when the hardware-specific Intel or AMD drivers are disabled), but not when the Intel (or AMD) drivers drivers are enabled. I don't play games so the performance-hit of the Basic Display adapter doesn't bother me.

But I'm wondering if this may not be true for some of the newer hardware, since I'm having symptoms with some newer machines or monitors even with hardware graphics drivers disabled. Does anyone have an opposite experience, where they felt better comfort with the hardware drivers enabled than with the Basic Display Adapter?

  • JTL replied to this.

    eyeguy22 But I'm wondering if this may not be true for some of the newer hardware, since I'm having symptoms with some newer machines or monitors even with hardware graphics drivers disabled

    For the sake of research and statistics, perhaps you could list some of the hardware configurations of the "problem" systems.

      I've had headache and/or visual fatigue with an i5-6500 system (Lenovo) using its 530 Intel integrated graphics with DisplayPort, both with the Integrated 530 driver enabled or disabled, although the symptoms are usually lower when the driver is disabled. The system came preconfigured with Windows 10 but I've also installed Win 7 and Win 8.1 on it (Win 7 installation was a bit more challenging given the need to install drivers separately, such as for USB 3.0). I've tried this sytem with several UHD monitors including Samsung UR55, Samsung UJ59, and LG 32UL500. I've also tried it with a PCI graphics card (K420, GeForce710, and Radeon 5450) but not with all of the above monitors but it still provided symptoms with whatever UHD monitor I tried it with.

      This Lenovo system is more comfortable if I connect it with one of my older (2011 or so) LED displays.

      • JTL replied to this.

        JTL I did try the UJ59 with an older Acer WinXP laptop via HDMI running at 1080p (the Acer doesn't support higher resolution that this) and it seemed more comfortable but I didn't use it for long since there isn't much point in running a UHD monitor at 1080p and that laptop is barely useable now (no modern software runs on it). I also temporarily tried the UJ59 with an Intel N5095-based Beelink Mini PC (which I don't have anymore) running Windows 11 and it gave similar symptoms as the i5-6500 Lenovo machine. So overall I think my issue is more with the monitor(s) I tried than with the PC but it's frustrating that I haven't been able to find a comfortable large (28+ inch) QHD or UHD monitor.

          Recent update, I've tried again the Quadro K420 PCI card on my Win7 Lenovo desktop (i5-6500) and connected to the UHD monitor thru DisplayPort (using the Basic VGA Driver, not yet the Nvidia driver) and it seems so far to be working fairly well today. I'll post updates once I test it a bit more.

          dev