So Microsoft did an update, and now my XBox One (original version, rather old) is actively flickering. Like, it's visible even to people without crazy bad eyes. It might be time to update to an XBox One S... yet another expense I wasn't anticipating this summer. 🙁

Well that really sucks... Be aware that some people including me cannot play the S, even on the monitor or TV which does not give any strain. I tried it many times and it was bad.

So, there was a long saga and I ditched that XBox One. But it turns out that because I was in the beta program I had just gotten an update earlier than everyone else. As of the October update last week, my new unit is also flickering. I'm going to use a USB drive and downflash it to the August update... and then lock it to prevent further updates. Don't know how long that will hold me, since eventually it will require updating to play online games due to security patches. Fingers crossed.

Gurm can you point out a place where it's easy to spot the flickering? Like the home menu? Have you tried the Xbox one x?

Link XBox One X has no obvious flickering, but... it hurts. Newer ATI chip, of course. As for the XBox One original... yeah on the home screen. It's easier to see on my plasma. Everything just seems a little shimmery...

Gurm You mind listing game consoles you haven't had issues with? I know you find the ps3 golden.

Link XBox 360 was fine. Wii U was... less awesome, but not truly bad. XBox One was fine for a while until more recent updates. PS3 was fine. All consoles older than XB360/PS3 were fine (includes original Wii).

JTL This has GOT to be software caused. Since updates made a known good device "bad". I have also had that experience with older laptops that were fine on an older OS version but hurt on current ones. I just wish we could pin it down and turn it off.

hpst I agree. They probably updated the video drivers, turned on ... something ... which made it bad. Some games have always done the same thing, and hurt more to play than other games. Not at all sure why/how. I wish I had the wherewithal (I would have, 20 years ago) to get a dev unit, decompile the driver stack, and figure it out. 🙁

Gurm Where do we go from here? I am a firm believer its the same root technical cause behind all the strain for the majority of us. Whether that is dithering or whatever it is likely the same thing whether we are talking computers, phones, consoles etc. Any idea how to hire someone to determine what this is? I am pretty sure I have seen your name in the Apple thread that is 10 years old so know you've bee suffering this for a long time...we need to take some concrete action.

hpst I really wish I knew. Drivers are complicated, Intel claims they found NOTHING when they analyzed their drivers from a known good to known bad config. I don't buy that - clearly something is very different and we know roughly when it happened. That might be a place to start. Find a known good and known bad config. The problem is that this is cropping up in so many different ways - drivers for some, chip iterations for others, VBIOS settings for others, and options for another group. On my phone (HTC One m8, Verizon), updating the "firmware" (not really firmware on an android device) from the version that shipped with Android 5.02 (Lollipop) to the one that supports Android 6 (Marshmallow) was what did it - this isn't really firmware in the traditional sense, but rather it's the low-level drivers for the hardware. Even just puttering around the bootloader screens hurt after that update. Sunspark found that on some versions of the device there was an alternate driver set for the Harman/Kardon equipped models that made his ok to look at. That didn't work for me. But in that case it was CLEARLY the low-level display drivers that broke the device for me. No idea how to disassemble those, but I have both sets. HTC cannot be reached for comment, but there are a ton of hackers out there... On Macs it is clearly the screen - my 2011 Core i5 Macbook Pro was fine until I sent it to Apple to get the screen assembly replaced. It came back hurting my eyes. Some Macs have "magic" screen/chip combos (early 2013 has a GeForce 6xx and are great, late 2013 has a GeForce 7xx and isn't). Apple not only doesn't care - on their forums their moderators mocked us openly and when we complained about that WE got banned. Apple doesn't give two shits. On nVidia cards it's the vBIOS - MSI 970's are fine, but other newer versions aren't. 960 and 950, being newer chips, usually aren't. Will nVidia tell us what they changed? Who knows? On ATI we're pretty sure it's drivers, when we used to be able to turn off dithering it was ok. But that was a while ago, and it was for an older version of the card, so who knows? It could be vBIOS or hardware for them too. AMD is unlikely to listen to us, but I guess we could ask. Windows 10 introduced compositing. It's ABSOLUTELY the support for composition layers that makes it hurt, since the initial release did not, and all versions right up until they introduced that support didn't. Newest version (1807) is better than previous versions were, I can use it for 15-20 minutes without trouble, but I can use 15xx all day with the same hardware. I submitted a bug report to MS. No response. On my XBox One, Destiny 1 is fine. Destiny 2 hurts. I got used to whatever they were doing, and could play for an hour without issues, until the latest update from MS/Bungie. Now it hurts again. If I put in Destiny 1 it is fine, no issues at all. Clearly there's some new video mode they are using. Some games use it, most don't. Will Bungie tell us what that is? Probably not. Where am I going with this? I don't know. I have no idea how to proceed, but we're rapidly approaching a day when I can't work or make a living and it scares me.

XBox One

JTL

hpst Also I remember the intel forum thread where the sent TUL or whoever the Thinkpad and I saw people say they didn't test for dithering...so we still really need to find a way to do that.

TUV. And we don't have the results of the tests that were done so it's just speculation.

hpst

JTL Ah yeah the German lab...we need to figure out how to contact them and ask. I bet intel has some agreement with them though and they'd not release results to us. Do you think its worth making up a post for Hacker News and trying there? You know how that place works where IF you can get front page attention things often morph into arguments about related things and the original issue never gets solved or focused on, and I fear it would devolve into long threads where people insist its just PWM or just posture etc. But I don't know where else to possible find people who might be able to help. Reddit is a joke and useless. Intel shut us down in their forum as you know. Unless you are willing to take this on full time if we can crowdfund you I don't know how else to get any progress....it's been years and years with no eurekas. I find all sorts of people asking similar questions online going back many years, but they never get anything but the usual unhelpful responses and no solutions. Like this for example https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/eye-strain-from-certain-video-modes-drivers.53468/

JTL

hpst Do you think its worth making up a post for Hacker News and trying there? You know how that place works where IF you can get front page attention things often morph into arguments about related things and the original issue never gets solved or focused on, and I fear it would devolve into long threads where people insist its just PWM or just posture etc

Might be worth a try and could possibly raise awareness but I fear the latter (arguments and fixation about unrelated things) could happen.

hpst Unless you are willing to take this on full time if we can crowdfund you I don't know how else to get any progress....it's been years and years with no eurekas.

I'd rather not commit to anything at the moment but be rest assured even though I am very busy due to my own personal life and such, it's not a lack of interest preventing me from working on this.

JTL

hpst I find all sorts of people asking similar questions online going back many years, but they never get anything but the usual unhelpful responses and no solutions. Like this for example https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/eye-strain-from-certain-video-modes-drivers.53468/

On one hand with the knowledge of PWM and blue light being common I feel issues like the ones we talk about are less obscure then they used to be. Does that make the end of the story? Not at all. More work needs to be done and there are still many things we aren't certain about.

hpst

JTL but I fear the latter (arguments and fixation about unrelated things) could happen.

I am positive it would based on years of reading there, and am frankly just so desperate I am revisiting all the bad ideas I have ever had. It's a constant cycle of desperate motivation, trying everything again, failing, being more depressed for a while, then repeat. Every time I think I even find a workaround something comes up to burst that bubble. We need to find someone to supplement your ideas or who can work on this more regularly. I just don't know where to find them.

JTL

hpst (e.g: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16087871)

They seem unaware that the original issue only affect Macbooks made between circa. 2008-2010...

hpst

JTL Yeah every thread I have seen there talking about eye strain in some manner is already off the rails before I notice and could comment and bring up our ideas. Since stuff has a very short lifespan of discussion there unless you are in at the start and get votes there is zero chance of guiding the discussion at all.

JTL

hpst

hpst Since stuff has a very short lifespan of discussion there unless you are in at the start and get votes there is zero chance of guiding the discussion at all.

Couldn't have explained it better.

hpst

JTL I just don't know where else to MAYBE find more people like you to work with you or who could even run with your findings independently. You have too much going on to work on this full time, but you are the only one I have seen with any plausible plan. It's obvious industry isn't going to help...Intel shut it down and acted weird. It's going to have to be an ad hoc solution. I can't wait years so am willing to help crowdfund whoever can help.

JTL

hpst When I paused work on this in January to attempt to get some work done I was half hoping someone else with the right skills would "pick up the torch" and ask me to writeup my research and code for them to them to work on it.

I may restart work on this when I'm able and PROPERLY take some notes this time. While I remember almost all of it I think having a set of notes written up would be helpful too.

Lot's of interest here, but the skills you need to do this, they aren't the sort of thing you learn in a day from a premade guide. It's from years of somewhat related low-level programming experience.

hpst

JTL So how and where do you suggest we find someone to help carry the torch?

Link

Gurm how do you find the switch in docked mode?

Gurm

Link Much the same. It's not the screen that causes issues, it's the display chip/driver. Hard to say which was more tolerable, docked vs. handheld, because handheld I took my glasses off and docked I was 10 feet away from my 60" plasma.

Link

Gurm you can see the film grain type of dithering on the switch?

Gurm

Link I'd have to go back and check. I sold my switch because it was hurting my eyes, but my kid is buying another one so I'll let you know. It also seemed pretty variable - meaning that an early edition (release day) switch I played with didn't give me issues, and I've seen them hooked up in store displays looking ok... but again those are probably first-gen, first-run units.

JTL

hpst I don't know anyone who has the time, interest or knowledge to work on this stuff sadly.

Other then myself, but like I've said before I have some time constraints at the moment. 😐

Gurm

So. I just picked up an XBox One S.

And... eye strain. Not as instant as the X, but definitely there.

What's BEYOND ODD is that I've successfully used the XBox one (S, usually, but occasionally X) in multiple places - conventions, mostly - without problem. Why is it an issue in my living room? Not sure. I'm back to trying to downgrade the original X to last August and see if that helps. If I can pinpoint "yes it was the October 2018 patch that broke it", then I can petition MS to find out what they changed in the display driver/code/etc.

SeniorTaquito

Gurm So far only newer computers have caused my eye strain. About 2 years ago I upgraded my original Xbox One to and S and haven't had an issue except for Borderlands 2 from the Handsome Jack collection. I played the original Borderlands 2 on Xbox 360 years ago with no issue but when playing the Xbox one version I couldn't play more than a few minutes without eye strain and a headache.

Someone mentioned a switch earlier in the thread so I'll also add, I'm able to play Switch in handheld and TV mode without issue. I'm playing on a 2017 65" Samsung series 8 LED TV.

Seagull

Gurm

Could be your tv, If it has a particularly fast response rate then it could make dithering more harsh.

To be honest though, I think it could simply be the excitement of being at the convention keeping it from affecting you. I personally find that to be a factor for me.

Gurm

Seagull true. Although at the MS convention, I was exhausted and killing time at the end of the day. But in that instance I was playing an XBox One X on a MONITOR. I think before I rule anything out I'm going to plug this S into a known-good monitor and see how it looks at a stupid fast refresh rate...

SeniorTaquito

Gurm to follow up on my last post. After not playing much xbox one s since October when Black Ops 4 came out, I turned it on and updated. I tried playing the master chief collection and eye strain kicked in right away on the home screen and loading screens. My eyes were bloodshot after playing a few rounds of slayer and I had to give up.

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