Intel confirmed no dithering on Intel arc a770
autobot does it solve/improve that
nope
Even safe win10 1809 build didn't solve that. tbh laptop's screen could be reason but I sold laptop half-year ago, only now I understood issue could be in:
1) screen (noticable pixel-inversion especially in all new screens I tested)
2) motherboard/CPU/GPU (some users noted swithing motherboard solve eye-strain, some users told only CPU (amd 5600g to 5700g) switch give extra eye-strain, and I myself got strain using rtx20 and newer series over gtx10 line keeping exact same PC components)
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I dont think an OS will do dither at software level, I only know some monitors will do dither at hardware level which hurt eyes.
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I have a hypothesis regarding Ubuntu 18: the display might feel easier on the eyes because some new graphics cards aren't supported, resulting in an image that's less straining. If that's the case, we could blacklist the necessary kernel modules to achieve the same effect in newer versions of the OS.
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WhisperingWind What's our goal? Something like an eye-safe linux distribution?
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I don't think it's specifically about the distribution itself. It's more about a set of useful hacks and configurations that might work for certain hardware.
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WhisperingWind we could also disable the gpu like this:
https://superuser.com/a/210381
It's easy to just try it on a given system and see if it solve the issue.
And if this solves the issue and we know that using intel Arc also is dithering and eye strain free, that's easy to buy an Arc card if a gpu is needed.
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we could also disable the gpu like this:
The environment variable LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1
switches Mesa to use CPU for calculations. The graphics card continues to function normally and is managed by its driver. When I enable software rendering, the image quality seems a bit nicer. Previously, I noticed that colors change between CPU and GPU rendering, which might trigger the FRC module on my monitor. So, I'm currently using only software rendering, but I can still manage the graphics card through the driver (I have it set to 6-bit). I think for cards where the driver enables dithering, software rendering won't fix the issue.
Below is the system information for the software rendering mode:
$ inxi -G
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel DG2 [Arc A770] driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: swrast gpu: i915
resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,swrast platforms: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: mesa v: N/A renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 18.1.3 256 bits)
API: Vulkan v: 1.3.275 drivers: N/A surfaces: xcb,xlib
$ lsmod | grep i915
i915 4329472 5
drm_buddy 20480 2 xe,i915
ttm 106496 3 drm_ttm_helper,xe,i915
drm_display_helper 253952 2 xe,i915
cec 94208 2 xe,i915
i2c_algo_bit 16384 2 xe,i915
video 73728 2 xe,i915
llvmpipe (LLVM 18.1.3 256 bits)
is the CPU (software) render.
The lsmod
command indicates that the video driver is loaded.
To “disable” the video card, you need to blacklist its driver. In this case, Mesa will also switch to software rendering, but the video card driver won't be loaded.
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I've blacklisted the i915 driver.
inxi -G
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel driver: N/A
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.4 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
unloaded: fbdev,vesa gpu: N/A resolution: 1920x1080\~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.7 256 bits)
v: 4.5 Mesa 23.2.1-1ubuntu3.1\~22.04.2
echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
XFCE
"enable display compositing" = off
System is less comfortable than
inxi -G
Graphics: Card: Intel Device 46d2
Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.20.4 )
drivers: fbdev (unloaded: modesetting,vesa)
Resolution: 1920x1080@77.00hz
OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 8.0, 256 bits)
version: 3.3 Mesa 19.0.8
ubuntu 18.04(zorin 15 lite)
echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
XFCE
"enable display compositing" = off
Maybe some other small differences between. i"m not sure.
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This sounds intriguing! I will install Ubuntu 18.04 and try to figure out which system components might differ.
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WhisperingWind It could also be placebo, the difference exists but it is small-medium. also edited previous reply to add details.