DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I did not do quality changes, but that 30 frames did some trick. Probably will need to try with some more changes. But, I have to say, it is so inconvenient, that I almost lack motivation. And 1:1 scaling does not work for me at all with noMachine, which is really disappointing. There must be so other solution, preferably connecting external monitor or windows laptop via USB-C and pushing an image there. Maybe even using some sort of network streaming with OBS or VLC and picking up that stream in windows laptop via ethernet cable.

      Tried a bit on and off with the double invert trick for iPhone. Pretty significant effect. I have almost zero problems with it now, and it has been like this for at least a month. None. Dropping in 2 anectodal experiences in case others that are struggling with similar effects can provide some experiences that might make it a bit easier to relate them to some biochemistry.

      But, after using the phone for a short while without the double invert trick again I realized that other monitors get these intense glowing red colors again. Seems super strange, as those sources doesn't trigger the effect on their own. Almost like the intensity of the iPhone recalibrates my vision. Like an on/off switch for HDR on other screens and lights. Same applies to led lights on cars, and it is most prominent for red.

      I also noticed one other strange effect before I started doing the double invert. If I put on a color blind filter that skews the colors, like almost removing red from the iPhone screen it would significantly affect how I percieve other bright light sources for å pretty long time afterwards. If I remember correctly it turned the bright snow almost purple or green. For the white sky I often get this glowing yellow effect at times as well after screen use.

      No idea what kind of sorcerery the screen is doing, but I'm really interested in what kind of adaptation it might be triggering.

      @DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

      Donux

      the quality change to 4 notches is 100% necessary because it prevents the screen from switching over and over between a color-fringed (compressed) version and less compressed version with slightly different colors every couple of seconds at random times (which is what happens at quality 5 and up)

      at 4 notches and below, it remains the compressed version at all times, although this means you still get color artifacts they will stay the same at all times

      also, another thing you need to do is disable show remote cursor pointer, otherwise the "pointer within the video stream" will cause anything it passes over to re-render and flicker slightly

      hiding the remote pointer and only showing the local one, in combination with the quality setting, will give you the most still image

      also, what do you mean by 1:1 scaling does not work? do you mean for retina / HiDPI displays? if so, then yeah that's right — it doesn't support Retina at all which is unfortunate. it only works properly when both the server and client are low DPI

      for me i work through NoMachine on a standard low DPI laptop and it handles that perfectly. all i needed to do to get a 1:1 fit was create a custom BetterDisplay virtual display with a resolution that matches my Windows laptop

      if it's still not working for you, try forcing the NoMachine server to H.264 compression mode and if that doesn't work try VP8 mode. while you're in that menu also set all the GPU acceleration options to software-only if you haven't done that already

        So I just got a deal on a m1 MacBook Air with a messed up LCD. I also snagged a dasung 13.3 hd portable monitor for a extremely good price to which I plan to use on it for now. My question is which Mac osx version should I update to? I see 14.6.1 Sonoma is what it's trying to get me to update to but I'm assuming I can just manually update a older version?

        The Mac currently is on OSX Monterey 12.5 and I noticed better display and still color doesn't support this version. Also do I just download better display or do I need that and still color both? I plan to eventually test other displays but need to find a baseline first.

          jordan

          When I tried that dasung model, it felt like the front light was flickering so I never relied on it. Not sure if the one you have has the front light. This was before I had the photodetector to do any real measurements.

              photon78s mine has a front light but I haven't tried it or tested it yet. I am getting discomfort from the eink not sure why. Even with better display dithering set to off still is not comfortable. Certain mode on the eink flickers too 🤔
              Vid here : https://imgur.com/a/6pBOwzA

                  jordan

                  That flicker is unfortunately one of the limitations of those dasung displays and probably e-ink more broadly. E-ink is good for static content.

                      photon78s what's weird is that it only does it in a certain display mode. Unless it still is doing it on the other mode where I don't see it, could be why it causes me issues. I was wondering if maybe better display wasn't working correctly or something.

                      When I use it I get weird tension in my head, sorta like pressure. Agitation/nervousness and it feels like something is moving behind my nose when I use it. Super weird.

                        Donux Just found a solution. In fact, shockingly, it made NoMachine usable on a laptop where Windows 10 is typically unusable. Working in Windows 10 1809 on ThinkPad T480 (8th gen Intel i5, UHD Graphics 620):

                        The Solution

                        • Install an Ubuntu MATE 24.04 VirtualBox VM within Windows 10 1809
                          - (since it's within a VM, this seems to bypass the typical GPU driver issues that newer Ubuntu versions have, which is why I simply use 24.04 instead of an older version)

                        • Disable 2D acceleration in the VM graphics settings

                        • Disable the fullscreen bottom toolbar in VirtualBox UI settings (to ensure the VM runs 100% fullscreen)

                        • Disable the software compositing window manager in Ubuntu MATE's "Window" settings

                        • FWIW, I left MATE's text rendering on subpixel, I actually found it the most comfortable of the options

                        • Turn off Ubuntu automatic updates for good measure

                        • Use the VM in fullscreen.

                        • Install NoMachine within the Ubuntu MATE VM and use it there.

                        • (set up similar NoMachine settings, of course — BTW also keep ditherig.exe running on the Windows side to ensure stuff stays reduced to 6bit if your laptop isn't true 8bit)

                          Immediate and 100% noticeable difference. SO much less strain.

                          This is because the non-accelerated Linux VM itself is what makes it super comfortable, so all other Linux apps like Firefox run with way less strain too. Your screen will remain like this until you exit fullscreen and return to Windows 10, which will cause the usual strain to return.

                          Bonus: you also get less slippery trackpad scrolling within the Linux NoMachine client 😉

                        Wait, what???

                        For some totally unknown reason, whenever my VirtualBox VM of Ubuntu MATE 24.04 is running fullscreen, the strain that I experience in Windows (and by extension, the Windows version of NoMachine on this laptop) pretty much vanishes. Everything looks flat and solid color backgrounds look so much more relaxing while the Linux VM is fullscreen.

                        In fact, the fullscreen VM is more comfortable to me than running Linux natively (which in that case, was only marginally more comfortable than Windows 10 on my T480)

                        Of course, this is super weird and it doesn't seem like this would work at first because Windows 10 is technically still the thing running behind this all, but the VM consistently stops strain for me every single time.

                        While running Windows, even with ditherig.exe, I usually need to wear "everything becomes pure deep shades of red" monochrome color filter glasses in order to use this laptop (which surprisingly get the job done! As long as I'm wearing the glasses and essentially viewing this laptop without color, I can use this laptop for many hours. But when I'm not using the glasses, Windows 10 on the T480 becomes unusable after only 10 minutes, and it doesn't matter if Intel graphics drivers are enabled, disabled, or downgraded, I get the same strain. It's even worse on 22H2 which is why I'm on 1809.)

                        BUT… whenever the Linux VM is fullscreen it's seriously a night and day difference. I immediately feel like I don't need the glasses anymore. I can use this laptop very comfortably in full color as long as the VM remains in fullscreen(!!) — even if Intel drivers remain enabled in Windows (however, Intel drivers were downgraded to earliest possible version, if that matters.)

                        I'm writing this post on "NoMachine inside VirtualBox inside Windows" without any strain. BTW, NoMachine still runs perfectly fine at full speed within the VM.

                        And yes, the strain returns for me immediately after hiding the VM and switching back to Windows.

                        Trying to figure out why

                        It's not because of the Windows UI design or text rendering, because I put a PNG screenshot of Windows within the VM and suddenly I could view that single "freeze-frame" of Windows without strain. I have a more detailed theory that I will make a thread about later, but what I'm generally thinking is that it's related to a specific type of strain-inducing illusion-like color/contrast enhancement method (in fact, not temporal and unrelated to dithering) that I'm becoming pretty confident is used by Windows 10 and 11 — that somehow VirtualBox is able to bypass.

                        What led to this theory is that I've noticed that solid black vertical lines look different on the fullscreen VM vs. on usual Windows. On the VM, the lines actually look like deep black ink to me. On Windows, there is a very faint hint of color fringing (that is there regardless of ClearType on or off — it's not related to ClearType and affects more than just text).

                        I've consistently repeated this same exact experience switching between Windows and the fullscreen Linux VM every day for 2 weeks now. This is why I am finally posting this — I know this is not placebo.

                            I'm fairly certain that Mac uses more compression with artifacts when processing the screen while color table adjustments are in use. Metal overlays doesn't seem to have the same issue. Also there are some color schemes that get the same effect as quantization. No idea why. Probably some bandwidth limitation.

                            photon78s Yeah I'm still using the same low 250 nits Innolux panel. Originally I kept it despite the strain because my monochrome red color filter glasses made it usable enough for hours of coding because they seemingly filter out 90% of whatever color technique is causing the problem by making the screen physically a single color to my eyes — and I really lucked out with amazing keyboard build quality/supplier lottery so I wanted to get the benefits of the keyboard ergonomics since all my other laptops have really bad keyboards, with the potential I could improve it with a panel swap later.

                            But now it's finally usable without the glasses (only within the Linux VM, but that's enough for me because I can run my entire coding environment within there!)

                            Although I still want to do a panel swap, because overall it's still not the best panel, I wish it could go up to 300 nits since 250 is TOO dim for me and there's something slightly off with the viewing angle where either the left or right half kinda fade to a "slightly blacker tint" if you're not looking at it totally centered (something that is usually fine on other IPS panels. No, this isn't the privacy screen variant, it's just a bad IPS lol.) — plus, I still have a feeling a different panel can improve the Windows side.

                            But, for now, the panel is at least able to achieve much lower strain inside the VM and not give me reading issues, although it's still a very low quality IPS IMO and has other issues like the brightness and a kind of metallic feeling likely due to the annoying viewing angle situation, outside of strain.

                            The PWM-like brightness dips don't change in a recording so I'm pretty sure the strain is coming from something to do with both Windows compositor interacting with a feature of this gen of Intel graphics hardware with the end result of a "color sharpening" enhancement being applied. I still seem to feel a similar issue on a native Linux install and even the BIOS screen (where the iGPU is likely already active, because the Lenovo logo prior to it shows at full resolution) but not as bad as Windows. BUT the issue is noticeably reduced by a HUGE amount specifically while the Linux VM is running fullscreen within Windows.

                            I've recorded the same PWM dips on other completely usable devices like my old Xiaomi Redmi 3 phone so that's not the direct strain source IMO (although the flicker depth is stronger than usual on the T480), the main difference between the PWM "dip" screens and a true PWM-free screen (like the 2016 MacBook Pro I mentioned in another thread) is that my vision in the real world feels slightly less washed out, easier to focus, and colors/contrast look better after using a PWM-free screen, but it mostly doesn't affect my time during using the device itself.

                            Note that this only applies to the devices with "slight brightness dip every frame"-style PWM, I have worse symptoms directly connected to PWM when it's the more infamous "strobe-like" PWM type.

                            I still have some optimism that a panel swap could improve the rest of the Windows install though, because different panels may provide different data along the lines of EDID, calibration, or timing info that may cause Windows or the Intel drivers to render to them differently. Or, the way that pixels are arranged or high contrast colors are displayed on different panels may be less likely to create the illusion and strain effect the "sharpening" method is causing. (high contrast colors, not contrast ratio, as this panel has a low contrast ratio but still has the issue)

                            (I also think either the Intel gen or the panel is connected because I have a Surface Pro 4 with 6th gen Intel HD 520 and a Samsung PLS panel that's running Windows 10 22H2 with very minimal issues and is totally usable for most tasks with the exception of the super bright glossy hiDPI panel not being the best fit for text-heavy stuff like code, compared to newer laptops where 22H2 is totally unusable for me.

                            Plus, a T480s with an LG 2K panel didn't cause the eye "pain" with the same graphics chip and 1809 version but it did cause some nausea feeling instead plus I did notice similar, but less, abnormal color fringing so possibly that panel interacted with the colors in a different way — had to return that one though I require the panel to work at 1x for a bunch of non-HiDPI compatible apps I use and NoMachine, and 1440p@1x at 14 inches is WAY too small. The LG panel was also one of those panels that shows up as "intense red" instead of a "more relaxing deep orange red" through my color filter glasses, very likely due to use of KSF phosphors, meaning it didn't really "support" my color filter workaround if you get what I mean.)

                            There is also weird panel lottery cases to still be careful about even when the issue could have more connection to software — I saw two T460 (Skylake CPU) laptops side by side at a used computer store with IDENTICAL AUO panel IDs in Device Manager, both had only the Basic Display Driver running without Intel drivers at all and had the same Windows version, and one was very comfortable to me but the other immediately felt wrong, had a hazy/blurry feeling and a slightly different color tint. That does make me want to find that AUO panel and swap it in though, but when I do that I'll make sure to buy more than one of the same panel because of that experience. Unfortunately that was also only a 250 nits panel though.

                            BTW, here's an image someone shared surprisingly all the way back in 2013 where an Intel driver updated added forced sharpening artifacts to their ThinkPad screen (an x220 in their case) VERY similar to what I've noticed is present with e.g. the black lines I mentioned within the usual Windows desktop outside of the VM on my T480. https://imgur.com/a/hdvlU

                            I don't think this type of color processing reached wide-scale use across laptops until several years after 2013, but it's really interesting to see a really early example of something closely resembling the same issue I've noticed. (Note that the cause may be different between laptops, a visually same processing method could be generated for a different reason and by a different source depending on the device. But I just wanted to give an example of what the artifacts roughly look like.)

                                DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

                                I most likely had the same model LG 2k panel in my T480s which I no longer have and the reds where intense as well. Amazing discovery and solution. "Sharpening" or some better term to describe this should be added to the screen stressors hall of infamy. Reminds of this comment on a Viewsonic "10 bit" monitor:

                                Most of the color modes are great, but the "Photographer" setting has a ridiculous amount of sharpening added and in my opinion is not useable.

                                  I had a workable mac (M1 air hooked up to 27inch Cinema display, laptop shut) Worked well with Stillcolor until I installed a web development app that somehow changed something and I then got eye strain.

                                  I've since discovered that the app had flipped it to 10bit color mode. On the original setup I must've choose 8bit when I was mucking around with Better display and not realised how important it was in my circumstances.

                                  So yeah my workable settings are StillColor running and Better display color mode set to 8bit, oh and I have font smoothing turned off via terminal command too. If I get strain again I will now know to click 8bit again.

                                    Did anyone find a way to change ioreg properties in dictionaries? This one seems interesting.

                                    dev