so this is my story:
I noticed eye strain since Windows 11 22H2. when i was in 21H2, everything was good.
Since the 22H2 version, I noticed I have a serious pain in my eyes. At that stage, I decided to move to Linux. In parallel, I worked at a job which gave me a Macbook. It was a Macbook Pro 13 with i7. I didn't notice anything.
A few months later, after switching jobs, I had to work with Windows 11. I suffered a lot from eye pain but eventually found a solution which gave a little relief to my eyes. this was my solution:
https://ledstrain.org/d/2421-windows-11-eyestarin-and-headches

The laptop I worked with was a Dell precious NVIDIA graphic card.
after the little solution i found, i noticed i still have eye pain but with less pain, but still exist.
So I installed Windows 11 on my PC with an NVIDIA Graphic card and tried to find a solution, but still didn't find it. I even tried a laptop with Intel graphics but I noticed the same eye pain as the work laptop and the PC.
I even tried the ColorControl software on my PC with an NVIDIA card and disabled the dithering but I still noticed eye pain like before.
After a few months, I replaced my work laptop with a Macbook Pro 16 M2, which also gave me eye pain.
Something strange is that a friend of mine has a macbook pro 13 with i7 like i had with the same MacOS version and i had eye pain like the Macbook Pro 16 M2. I think it's software related.
I could find no solution to the problem. I am now using betterDisplay at 160% brightness with laptop screen and with the final version i have a little eye pain. If I work with 100% brightness or below, I have serious eye pain. this is the post i made then:
https://ledstrain.org/d/2525-macos-apple-silicon-eyestrain

Now, I tried to install Linux in my PC with NVIDIA Graphic and in the laptop with intel graphic and I also noticed an eye pain with all the desktop environments(I tried all of them for this test). I also checked in the NVIDIA X server that the dithering is off. Now I have on my PC an old pop os linux install which runs fine with latest updates and what seems to me odd is that in 144hz i don't have any eye pain but with 60hz or 100hz i have eye pain.

In addition to all that, I tried a few phones. I tried galaxy S23 which didn't do anything, i tried google pixel 6a which gave me an eye pain and tried an iPhone 15 Pro which doesn't do anything until iOS 17.1.2, which IMO, Apple enabled temporal dithering because i feel terrible from iOS 17.1.2 until 17.4(now). I even tried my iPad with the same results.
I also have an android phone with LCD screen which allows  me to replace OS versions(roms). So I tried AOSP Android 11(like google os), which was fine for me and then tried AOSP Android 13(like google os), which caused me eye pain like the pixel 6a. Because of that i'm sure my problem is related to software and not hardware 

So to summary:
1. Windows 11 give an eye pain without any relation to temporal dithering
2. Every Android phone beside Galaxy’s give me an eye pain which seems related to software
3. In the Linux OS, i also got an eye pain but seems something in the software
4. In iPhones in their latest iOS version, i know that the eye pain i get is from temporal dithering
5. MacOS also causes me eye pain. It seems its related to temporal dithering

So the first 3 problems seem the same. I'm trying to find which visual effect/software component causes this eye pain.
Does anyone know something about software components related to rendering or visual effects besides temporal dithering?

    twomee I think macos is def a no but you can always install win7 or win10 1507-1511. 1607+ is when issues started. However some newer OS's have been a hit or a miss. I think win10 1809 might be the more safe win10 build for example. Someone I know did modify a Nvidia driver to install on 1607 win10 which is using wddm 2.1. I believe wddm 2.4 is when Microsoft said they added dithering and some shading enhancements so wddm version could play a role ? The thing too is that certain motherboard/graphic cards can cause issues too. Certain GPUs seem to dither regardless of color control having dithering disabled. I think certain motherboards/bios versions also bring some sort of video noise/interference. Just seems like there's so many potential things. Also regarding Linux it seems certain distros are better than others. I think Nvidia is harder to tweak on Linux while Radeon I think may be easier to get going safely on Linux. Not 100% just from what I've read.

        jordan so a wddm related to directX also?

        The thins is, I want to find the effect which cause to my eye pain. I can avoid it by installing patches like specific windows version and using specific hardware. But I want to understand what is the cause of all this, which software component so I can know how to patch it by maybe writing a program to disable it.

        You wrote a lot of things which are right unfortunately, we have lot of components involved in that so it’s hard to see what is the cause, but I’m sure everyone can. Everyone have it’s safe zone/hardware/software

            Abeabe yep, tried it and still got same eye pain as before

              twomee I think the main OS related issue is DWM and WDDM. 1507/1511 supposedly is as good as win7 in comfort like I said but win10 1607+ is when they added composition layers that I think are affecting us. I would like to know if there's a way to totally eliminate those things. I think someone was using vivetool to disable directX not sure if it works for sure I haven't tested yet. I would love to hear If your able to disable these things. Btw you can read on wiki about WDDM history and it'll state what things were added in each wddm version. ACM is one other thing that I forgot to mention which is a color management that could maybe be another issue? Would be cool if someone can modify/write an Nvidia driver that can bypass all of this windows related visual enhancements for a direct GPU output of the picture.(assuming you have a safe GPU) GPUs I will be testing are Intel arc a770, Radeon w5500(Linux) and quadro rtx 4000. The quadro rtx 4000 supposedly has no dithering when recorded with a lossless capture card so should be a safe one. The rtx a4000(not same as Quadro rtx 4000) however dithers even with dithering disabled so it's hardware controlled

                  jordan honestly I think my problem is not in hardware.

                  I have same eye pain in Linux, windows and android, which seems some effect which I don’t familiar with. It’s probably a software problem which everyone inserted it into his own OS.

                  It’s happening also in intel graphics and in nvidia graphics and in android graphics. Also, I succeeded to disable dithering in macOS and still noticed same eye pain as windows, Linux and android. But I really appreciate your help. Are you familiar with some artificial effects? I’m really trying to figure out if it’s a artificial effect

                    Which Pop OS version did you use that provided you relief?

                      twomee Linux is usually most eye strainy. But… linux has a best benefit of configurability, which means you could mess with various GPU, display manager settings as you wish. So usually if you add GRUB commands to disable bits and peaces of your GPU, as well as add code to Xorg configuration, you could potentially achieve something decent. From my side, apart from eye strain, windows in some occasions could give me some odd fatigue. I believe that temporal dithering is old news already. I never find time, but planning to dig deeper into display panel manufacturing process and innovations during recent years and then study common GPU trends. Then add those innovations on a date time scale and mark potential dates of first strain reports and see what is a potential cause. Due to fragmentation of these industries, this could be also - complex factor that is impossible to identify. Generally some effect that arises when certain technologies including software operate together. As someone mentioned, best way to test it - is to focus on whole system and test for EMF/light flicker of laptop, or monitor.

                          Donux i did some of this at some point. I would start by using gpt to map detailed changes from display drivers and os to a timeline. That quickly got me on track to learn about changes and new compression types in for example display cable specifocations. Do ping me if you ever get around to it. Gpt was super helpful for it

                            karut I’m using the latest one. I updated all the software with the terminal. I suspect there is another effect which cause to me a little eye strain due in another laptop with same os I got eye strain, very strang

                            Donux this is what I’m planning. I want to understand why even after dithering on windows 11 I still have eye strain, it’s mean there is another thing beside PWM and dithering. The thing is, I don’t know from where to begin. I’m just sure it’s a software thing, not related to hardware and some driver versions

                                3 months later

                                Other than temporal dithering, there are other algorithms related to pixel flickering, like spacial dynamic dithering. As for iOS, it uses an agressive sharpen algorithm to post process picture signal on 12, 13, 14 and 17, except that 16.3.1 and 16.7.8 is comfortable. I suppose the sharpen algorithm adopts pixel flickering as well. You may try "more space" on iOS and macOS in settings. As it lets gpu render on a virtual canvas with higher resolution, it will reduce image sharpness when mapping the canvas to screens, which should alleviate eye strain a bit.

                                  Neuronum As for iOS, it uses an agressive sharpen algorithm to post process picture signal on 12, 13, 14 and 17

                                  source? how do you know this

                                    ocean10 available on iPad Pro 2018 and later. only on iPad and not iPhone (however, the "full" Larger Text mode on iPhone, the one where you have to restart the phone to toggle it, works in a similar way but lowers the virtual resolution instead of raises)

                                      Neuronum thanks for the suggestion. I tried that but feel same pain. It’s a software effect and it’s only can be disabled by a program or by Apple themself. Until then, it’s unusable .

                                        dev