eDenon @JTL says he doesn't have eyestrain (Radeon R9 M370X, macbook display is 6-bit),
Yup, that's me.
Running OSX 10.11.6 but I didn't have any problems as far back as Yosemite.
I've owned this laptop for almost 2 years. I'm doing much better headache wise this year and can use screens way more as a result. I can even use some screens that have PWM again somewhat.
Only thing I changed was the font smoothing settings using some defaults write commands.
To quote from defaults read
jtl-macbookpro:~ jtl$ defaults read |grep AppleFontSmoothing
AppleFontSmoothing = 0;
AppleFontSmoothing = 0;
I use gfxCardStatus to force the Intel GPU when on battery. I don't seem to notice any issues doing that.
The way the screens hooked up to the graphics card is much different on the dedicated graphics model than the integrated one.
I have a desktop with a GTX 1070 running Debian Linux but seldom use it because I only have a BenQ XL2720Z (27" 1080p 144hz TN panel). I seem to have a slight problem using it though. Will try it with a BenQ VA panel my mother uses and if it works might get a higher resolution monitor for myself.
eDenon 1. edit the binary that contains dithering related parts. (don't know how)
Assembly code. Very hard to understand if you don't know the context. Maybe I'll post some reverse engineering of the kexts later.
That's just one part of it though.
eDenon 2. plug an external 8-bit display that can natively output 16.7M colors, so graphics card doesn't need to do dithering. (but I'd buy a desktop pc, why use a laptop?)
Sometimes graphics cards still do the dithering even when an 8-bit display is connected.
Good luck