hello guys. i have huge problem with all ips monitors. i had 3 ips monitors in last year. im trying to found solution what causes these problem for me so my story will be long debate about that. monitors i had (chronologically): 1\. hp omen 25i (24.5" 1080p 165hz) 2\. AOC Q24G2A/BK (23.8" 1440p 165hz) 3\. Asus TUF Gaming VG27AQML1A (27" 1440p 240hz) my symptoms were extreme eye pain, PUPIL PAIN (its most important here), vomiting, migraines and head pain. the first monitor i bought was shock to me, light was killing my eyes and i was wondering what is happening and why i have issues like this. this monitor have very low ppi and i was wondering if ppi is my problem. tried f.lux, tried modes with g sync and without g sync. i realised without g sync or adaptive sync i had a little bit less issues with my eyes but it was terrible to work on this monitor long time when i get some money i decided to buy AOC monitor because this monitor have very high ppi. but... problem still exist... on aoc monito movement of screen especially causes my eye huge pain. its something related to pupil adaptation that i will describe later. i didn't liked this monitor size even if ppi was bigger so i also checked this ASUS TUF monitor but... here was extreme pain in eye. its like someone is cutting my eye with knife. terrible to describe. most extreme pain i felt in my whole life. it feels like someone is cutting my eye with a razor and is putting hardcore laser light into it. everyone here thought it can be light problems, pwm problems but after some research and trying to identify what makes me pain it was something different. mostly i feel pain with my pupil when my eyes try to concentrate image (dont know how to describe) but look. when you look at far objects your pupil changes position and you need to wait your pupil visually adapt to thing you look at. same with object that you look closer. your eye work to see your object like in camera. you need to wait for camera focus to you see sharp image. thats how my eye works also and probably most of you all. and here i think is the problem. but im not sure what causes that to my eye on ips panels. maybe astigmatism? i was at doctor few months ago and he told me i have 0.5 astigmatism but as i did research 0.5 astigmatism is natural in most eyes of all people and i didnt had any problems before i bought ips panels. when i was at doctor and i tried to use glasses for astigmatism i had huge eye pain. head pain and wanted to vomit so i told to doctor to put it off asap because i cant stand it anymore so i dont think i have astigmatism problem. actually i try to find monitor that will work for me but as you see i ordered 3 ips panels and i have pain with all of them. i also use poco x3pro phone and i realised here i have no that much problem. of course sometimes i have vision problem with my pupil but its very small and doesnt affect my eye like for example asus monitor that cause my eyes literally bleed. i found poxo x3pro use 2400hz pwm so maybe thats the cause? i dont know but there is also another problem i found and it can probably lead to solution what all of you causes eye strain in these all new panels. actually my english sucks and i dont know how to describe this but for me its something with pupil and waiting for image to focus and in this process in my eyes huge pain exist. another thing that i noticed is this article: i dont know if you have this but when i look at stripes my brain actually bleed. not stripes on monitor, just in real life on tops or clothes. maybe this is solution? pixel structure of display causing our eyes have problem with focus and led panels burns our eyes? dont know how to describe it but this is what i feel when looking at modern ips panels. let make this topic one big try to find solution and source of our problems because its not normal in my opinion and i never had problems like this before i bought ips panels and as i read a lot topics you guys also didnt have this issues before. also guys look at this mprt mode. it causes my head to literally explode. i dont know how people can use this without problems. i have myopia in both eyes -3. maybe I have the wrong glasses and the lens spacing is causing my problem? but this pupil pain happens only on ips panels…

what monitor you think guys i should buy if i have problems like this with ips? is TN better for eyestrain problems? i found on market only IPS, VA, OLED & TN monitors only…

i brought my old syncmaster samsung s22b300 tn panel and its much easier for eyes but this monitor have flickering :( i saw on market there are no monitors with tn technology at 1440p. why?

i think its related to this problem: https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/why-does-looking-at-stripes-give-us-a-headache.html

i also realised **smaller resolution** than native of display are causing less eye strain on some monitors. not sure why but i feel it much different (@update: maybe because movement on screen was more smooth than in native resolution? thats my one theory) \+ rainbow effect on ips display causes some eye irritation i found

another theory i have its about movement of image. when i look at ufo test my eyes act differently and looking at objects movement in ufo test makes me pain. maybe response time of monitor is too high or too slow and our eyes cannot adapt to it correctly? im not talking about hz now but some changes in hz to lower or higher made my vision different. also changes of hz made my eye strain different and i can manipulate my eyes somehow but its not hz related imho. sorry for spamming but i really try to find solution and maybe it will be help for someone in future @edit: maybe our vision looking at ips need more ghosting? because movement for example of hand in nature when you move and look at your hand your pupils concentrate on object and you see object clearly and everything out of your hand is blurred. when you look not at moving hand you see your hand ghosted. maybe these ips panels movement is too sharp and it causes problems? im not sure but this is definitely problem related to movement too look on forums i read a lot people hate motion blur in games and some people love it, maybe its also related to this problem somewhere. actually i have 2 teories. some monitors give us this looking at stripe effect thats why our eyes hurts like here: https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/why-does-looking-at-stripes-give-us-a-headache.html second teory is with movement and speed of pixels. maybe if movement in ips panels will have more ghosting eyestrain will go down? not sure, i try to figure out or maybe too high ppi causes our eyes react on movement with strain? another thing about samsung s22b300 tn panel. it really made my eyes act different when looking at monitor but flickering was only annoying and rainbow effect. looks like this tn panel is more natural to eye eye (pupil?) adaptation to screen is definitely problem because i noticed "training" eye made me less eyestrain problems but for short amount of time and my brain was so tired and another theory it can be really maybe caused by astigmatism that eye cant adapt to screen correctly? but 0.5 astigmatism doctor says you need no glasses… not sure this is all weird :D conclusion atm is f\*ck ips panels can we slow pixels response time and make more ghosting to monitors actually somehow? if i do this maybe this will be solution for me and some of you guys to movement look more naturally or the light is too hardcore for our eyes? idk this is my thoughts i have on this problem you can check it and analyse

https://i.imgur.com/I7MxUm4.png dyac on - image sharper but movement is as you see. you have 3 reflections of image dyac off - image is smooth some counter strike players says they hate dyac on and prefer smooth move. thats why people with eyestrain prefer tn panels over ips? ips is in movement something like dyac and maybe that cause eyestrain? im right? how to buy monitor that wont make us eyestrain? open this: https://www.testufo.com/framerates#count=3&background=stars&pps=2880&fullscreen=1 look at movement, and if movement cause us eyepain or your eye strains to see the image it means this monitor isnt for us because we will have eyepain this is my conclusion for now

ok my thougts was good, its something with pixels and effect we have in eyes with stripe line etc ;) https://youtu.be/NlZmW-tp_4s

huge pupil pain in all ips panels. did i found source of problem?

qb74

@technicalitch
I think you should not be hasty.
Pixel inversion isn't as common of a issue on IPS as you think.
In fact, it's more common on TN than it is on IPS.
It is interesting to me that you've tried different types of backlights (WLED, KSF phosphor/NanoIPS) and yet your issue persisted.
Have you tried looking into the polarization orientation using polarized sunglasses? Are there any displays other than the Samsung which are fine to you?
If you're adamant on TN, you got options such as the Omen X 27 (it has PWM as per https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/hp/omen-x-27)
or the AG273QZ (no PWM)
https://tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/aoc_agon_ag273qz

Or if you wanna stay on 1080p, XL2566K or XL2586X (this one uses QDEF backlight, different to anything you've tried)

technicalitch

with this website:
https://pixelinversion.com/

all 3 monitors i mentioned in first post have problem

on hp i didnt noticed flickering, when i check with camera i see black lines but they are not moving
on aoc completely no flickering even when i change brightness
on asus extremely flickering and asus is worst for my eyes and i dont know why. looking at it is most hardcore shit i ever had

technicalitch

tbh im not sure if my eyes will be ok with TN, i can test it and send it back if its wrong. i tested 3 ips panels so i should test TN and VA and OLED but its very problematic to buy monitor and send it back before 2 weeks period will end 😃

when i look at ips i have something like rainbow effect with me eyes and it cause me most pain in pupil.

technicalitch

even my camera when looking at these monitors have this problem and i think same shit is happening with my eyes when looking at these displays. on the picture monitor is showing blank white image

technicalitch

is it flickering on video?
https://youtu.be/zr_vcd2xV8Y

explanation:
when i dont move camera i see stripes on camera but they are not moving, they are only moving when i move camera up and down. its flickering or not?

technicalitch

can you tell me where did you read about different types of backlight because https://www.displayspecifications.com/ says all these 3 monitors are W-LED

qb74

technicalitch https://pcmonitors.info/articles/the-evolution-of-led-backlights/
https://blurbusters.com/beautiful-red-phosphor-in-new-1ms-ips-1440p-lcds-interferes-with-blur-reduction-badly/

Another way you could test for pixel inversion:
https://www.testufo.com/inversion

technicalitch

again huge eye pain on aoc. its definitely about pixel structure not anything else

qb74

technicalitch
Are you sure you're not getting eye pain due to the low refresh rate of the AOC or due to light setup (perhaps flickering bulb or monitor being too bright in a not-well lit room)?
It uses a regular LED backlight.
165hz on the AOC is very blurry compared to something like the XL2566K @ 360hz.

Oh and btw, DyAc is a eyestrain issue for some (its strobing / emulating CRT's), don't bother with that.
It can get very sharp / clear without that "double imaging" (crosstalk), you just need to tune it.

technicalitch

it something like when i try to look at display and my eye is focusing to see image i feel instantly pain like someone hit my eye with laser or something especially on this asus shit

brjdenis

When I purchased a new AOC gaming monitor a year or two ago, I felt exactly what @technicalitch is talking about. Don't know why, but out of all monitors I tried AOC was the worst.

@technicalitch you are running windows 10? Did you perhaps try windows 7 or some version of Ubuntu?

qb74

brjdenis "a AOC" doesn't mean anything.
The Q24G2A and your "AOC gaming monitor" could be 2 completely different panels.
Panel + backlight is what makes a monitor, these are important in finding out the culprit.

Abeabe

technicalitch Have you tried a projector? do you have the same strain as with monitors? do you have the same problem with VA tvs or IPS tvs?

technicalitch

Abeabe im not sure but i was using projector like 6 years ago and i had no problems as far as i remember. about va panel cant tell anything didnt tested it. what is ips tvs? its something different than regular ips?

technicalitch

update: i tried today to use asus tuf gaming monitor even with huge eye pain as much as i can stand but it completely destroyed me, i felt like i was close to death. total disaster to my brain, bod. all i know i will never adapt to this monitor no matter what, sadly.

jordan

technicalitch on reddit it seems a lot of people say va doesn't cause eye strain but ips does. So far the only LCD I can tolerate is my va tv, ips all seem bad for me. I want to try va monitor eventually

technicalitch

jordan did you tried VA? any difference you noticed?

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

jordan

Will make a full post on this later but agree with VA, I have recently found the first truly comfortable "external monitor" I've ever used, and it's an old 42" Sharp Aquos LC-42D64U TV from 2007 which has a VA panel.

(Rather ironic my most comfortable monitor is a TV considering my username lol…)

It even lets me fully disable auto contrast enhancement (like a "randomly changing backlight and black level depending on screen contents" kind of thing) in the display section of the factory service menu which had nearly 200 pages of options, lol, it was super comprehensive and the setting was hidden away somewhere near page 150 I think

I've been using it for 2 weeks now (connected to a Windows desktop with integrated graphics) and the image is so beautifully crisp, pure, comfortable

It also has a CCFL backlight, plus one of the best matte coatings I've seen on a display with no "foggy haze" or "rainbow" effects while still 100% eliminating glare. Subpixels look crystal clear up close despite the matte coating… I have no idea how they managed to achieve this LOL

Color gamut and contrast is also soooo much nicer compared to my usable portable devices which mostly have TNs

I will post once I can reproduce this with a similar VA TV with a more suitable size for a monitor e.g. 30" or 26"