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  • Windows with colorControl still makes me eye strain

Hi,

I have a PC with nvidia graphics card, RTX 3060, which connected to external screen, gigabyte M34WQ.

i have a dual boot, the first is pop os Linux and the second is windows 11.

In the pop os Linux, somehow I got a situation which I don’t have an eye strain.

In the windows 11, I tried with color control to disable dithering and although it writes that dithering is disabled, I still have a serious eye strain.

Also, I had a windows laptop with windows 11 and somehow I succeeded to work with him without any eye strain with my external screen and with simple external screen of dell at the work.

So I t’s not the screen because I have some success to work with without eye strain.

Also, it’s not the WDDM of windows because I succeeded to work with the windows laptop without changing any driver.

My question is, what makes me eye strain on windows 11 even the dithering is off? How can I check what cause it to me?

For the beginnin, we need to compare data.

Whats your current win verison ( pro, home, 23h2 or 20h1, build number ). For win11 - does VRR, AutoColorMode activated, whats is graphic settings (10 bit, 8 bit, full or limited range in nvidia control panel, what is driver version)

And secondary, same but for your working laptop (CPU name, grapfic card name (incl iGPU), perhabs display model name, and all window version data as I wrote above)

    simplex ohh unfortunately I don’t have anymore this laptop… the details of my windows PC still relevant?

      twomee

      yep. The problem is in windows version & hardware. Or do you prefer to use tarot cards to get answers? 🙂

        simplex i wish tarot cards could solve my problem 🙂
        i have windows 11 pro 22H2 with build 22621.3296.
        i dont see VRR or AutoColorMode in my settings so i assume it disabled.
        i have 8 bit, with full range and the driver version of nvidia is 551.61.

        the laptop i had, was in the latest of windows 11 22H2, so i believe maybe i can solve it by some tweak in the settings.

          twomee i dont see VRR or AutoColorMode in my settings so i assume it disabled.

          its in advanced Display tab

          You can compress SSD to get extra Disk (100gb is enough) and install 3rd OS: w10 LTSC 1809 (turn off updates) and nvidia 466.63 drivers. Good to know you already used 8 bit and fullrange! I noticed, w10 2004 and up with rtx30+ series gives me pain in temples after 2+ hour of usage

          btw, what was your laptop config...? Some old hardware dont support windows dithering, so you can use newest win without issues

            Hunter20 i tried it too in addition to control color but seems it didnt helped, but thanks for the suggestion!

            simplex thanks, i will try that windows, need to find a time to that. i wish i could use the latest windows 11 version, sometimes in the work i need to use windows 11 and thought maybe i will figure out what cause it to me besides dithering.
            i read here about the 8 bit with full-range, i understood that the limit color and 10 or 6 bit enable dithering.
            the laptop was new, it was a Dell, i think the model was precision 5560 with nvidia card. which old hardware doenst support dithering?

              twomee

              huawei d16 2021, ryzen 4600h based, win11home for 1 language, 22h2 19045.4046 installed - no problems at all ( iGPU driver config dont affect on dithering )

              twomee How did you got to a situation to not get any eye strain on windows 11?

              I dont really know. huawei d16 also is 2021y model, as your dell 5560, and orient for win10 pre-installed.

              Zephyrus g16 2022 12700h + rtx4060/IRIS XE with last win11 - eye-strain. Was not able to run win10 1809 correctly (power plans + battery draw, hotkeys OSD)

              Thinkbook 16+ 2024 + intel Arc with last win11 - eye-strain. Was not able to run win10 1809 correctly (power plans + battery draw, hotkeys OSD)

              Asus gl702vm 2017 + gtx1060 with win10 1809 LTSC - no problems

              2 workstations (rtx2070s, rtx3080, 3080ti) with win10 1809 LTSC - no problems until I installed any win10/11 above 2004 with any nvidia drivers (old, newest)

                simplex do you really think it’s related to the year of the release of the laptop?

                Do you know how to stop updates in windows?

                Also, the PC I have is from 2021 with i9 10900F and Gigabyte Z490M GAMING X as motherboard,so according to your theory, it should work fine with win11 no?

                  twomee Do you know how to stop updates in windows?

                  google knows: using gpedit.msc, using win tweakers etc

                  twomee so according to your theory

                  my quote: noticed, w10 2004 and up with rtx30+ series gives me pain in temples after 2+ hour of usage

                  twomee it’s related

                  its related to this and supported/nonsupported hardware

                  twomee enable dithering

                  build number very important: windows 10 1809 LTSC 17763.1098, next 2 CPU updates (kb4589208 and kb5035849) will give you eye-strain back

                    simplex i found this build:
                    Windows 10 1809 LTSC 17763.1075
                    is that ok?
                    all version below 17763.1098 is that ok? 17763.914, 17763.832, 17763.1075
                    also, from where you downloaded it? do you have a link?

                      simplex

                      1809 LTSC 17763.1098, next 2 CPU updates (kb4589208

                      Are you using an integrated Intel video card or a discrete one? in situations where eye-strain is affected kb4589208.
                      What version of CPU microcode is currently running on your system(and CPU model)? (kb4589208 is update microcode to 0xCA on Coffee Lake system, for example)

                        glvn Are you using an integrated

                        Intel Arc iGPU @ ultra CPU. Win10 support Ultra only with 20h2 and later (after 2 KB updates in 1809, I got 1 socket and 1.4ghz base freq instead of 2 sockets and 3ghz base freq at non-strain 17763.1098). Power draw also reduced from 19w to ~12w after those 2 KB's

                        Finally, in theory, when we get supported CPU (and iGPU) by windows, it starts to dither. In my asus 7300hq + gtx1060 laptop (with w10 1809), dithering by ColorControl is always on, moreover, I changed 2x2 spatial to 1xspatial and finally it change but still dont affect eye-strain. I can disable dithering at all but wallpaper on desktop become full of squares. p.s. same actions at newest win10/11 starting from 2004 (20h1) not affect on final system dithering

                          dev