Considering Linux for Dithering

Seagull

I am thinking of trying linux, I am reading a lot of back and forth on the forum on how it might be an effective way of disabling dithering at the GPU and OS level, is this correct, and is there a specific distro I should get?

I am going to be using with a gtx660 and a ryzen 7, does linux work with ryzen?

As an aside, I have 3 different gtx660s, but I can only comfortably use 1 of them, I am hoping that with linux I will be able use them.

JTL

Seagull I don't think the GTX 660 is one of the bad cards that dithered under any circumstances.

Using latest Windows 10? That could be a factor.

hpst

Seagull I tried 3 ryzen laptops with a few different distros (and the Windows 10 they came with) and had strain with all 3 quickly. Huwaei Matebook D, HP Envy 360, Dell Inspiron 13. The Huawei was the worst and happened in 3-5min. I don't remember which but at least one wouldn't load the desktop right due to missing AMD drivers and I had no Wifi there to install them, but I had enough example of it causing strain I don't believe a simple distro/DE change would help.

KM

Seagull As an aside, I have 3 different gtx660s, but I can only comfortably use 1 of them

Are they from different manufacturers?

Soreeyes

Seagull

All 660's should be fine. Generally any Nvidia GPU released before 2015 tends to be 100% okay (though I assume there's outliers both among us and the cards)

General rule of thumb for a comfy system barring whatever monitor works for you seems to be; Windows 7 > Pre 2015 Nvidia GPU > Pre 36x.xx driver (though there was a couple bad before that)

I'd give the other 660s a long run if I were you and see if it's not just your brain being like "MAYBE" (I've had this enough times myself)

Windows 10 seems to add in a lot of problems for people too. There doesn't seem to be much data anecdotal or otherwise for Windows 8.1 but I believe that it will more likely be okay than 10 in general.

As a side I'm hoping the 20xx series sorts whatever issue most of us have with newer cards but since the 710 (a 2016 release), second revision of the GTX 750 (late 2015) and most of the 9 series especially the later GPU's (960, 950) and later revisions of known okay cards seem to give people trouble I'm not holding my breath.

Also does anybody know at what point AMD started to cause people strain?

Seagull

JTL

They aren't too bad, just not as comfortable as the gtx660 card I use regularly, or the intel+ditherig pc I use at work. Same version of windows across all computers. Its possible its nocebo, or I just need time to adjust to the minor differences.

hpst
Ryzen laptops are different I think, in that they use integrated graphics, there is no integrated graphics in my desktop ryzen processor, all the graphics are handled by whatever card I have plugged in.

Seagull

Yes they are

hpst

Seagull Ryzen laptops are different I think, in that they use integrated graphics, there is no integrated graphics in my desktop ryzen processor, all the graphics are handled by whatever card I have plugged in.

Sure...I was more alluding to the idea that intel was the culprit as in my experiments even all AMD devices caused strain. I've seen people claim nvidia caused them strain as well. So whatever this is it's not isolated to a particular manufacturer or type (integrated/discrete) graphics.

Once again the frustrating ambiguity of "no consistently common variable" haunts me. We cannot seem to find any factor that when present always causes strain and when removed always relives it...even amongst peolpe with the same sort of symptoms and onset.

si_edgey

For future reference it might be handy if you could list your preferred GTX660 manufacturer and Windows version? It could help someone else!

Seagull

Where can I get older nvidia drivers? the oldest I found on their website was 38x.xx

On a side note, I am really hoping ditherig can be used, or will be updated for, the intel graphics cards that are due to for release around 2020. Or even better if there just didn't dither to begin with.

Anyway, back on topic, what are the best linux distros for eye strain?

Soreeyes

Seagull

EVGA have pretty much all the Windows drivers in their drivers downloads. They're NVIDIAs own with no EVGA bloat to them so if you need any that's the easiest way.