http://annystudio.com/misc/anti-aliased-fonts-hurt/ Going to do a writeup later on font rendering of Windows, Mac and various Linux distros. (I believe this is the eyestrain problem we are having under Linux, as even the virtual consoles use font anti-aliasing, on some setups with accelerated video.

I know you can modify this in Linux MInt Cinnamon (DE) under Fonts Personally, greyscale doesn't bother me and is a good compromise of quality versus anti-aliasing. None Greyscale RGBa

Welll nice theory I also believe that besides from dithering anti aliasing is the root of the eyestrain problem. As I mentiontend I also noticed that the picture from a new notebook is much sharper/clearer even on my trusted external HDMI monitor -> eyestrain. The two last screenshots really look like the difference between my old machine and new ones. Do you know if you can turn off RGB Anti Aliasing in Windows? or Intel driver? Also it would be very interesting to kwow at which time the rgb anti aliasing was launched.

I am currently running Debian 8.2. Trying if I get used to the (small) eyestrain I always have under Linux. I use proprietary NVIDIA drivers with dithering disabled. Well I hope it is really disabled. So far I feel no difference between font antialiasing off and on. But in VESA text mode (no KMS), there is no eye strain at all. Disabling hardware acceleration in xorg.conf (Accel false and NoAccel true) did not help. There is no Linux eyestrain from within Windows (10), be it a virtual machine or a VNC remote connection. Which makes me think the problem is something only a physically connected monitor can show. A driver problem, something open and closed source drivers have in common - or an Xorg problem. If you have Linux eyestrain, too, let's try to isolate the problem. All major desktop environments should be able to disable font antialiasing (sometimes called "smoothing"). I noticed that Linux uses different video modes than Windows. You can recognize this when you use a VGA connection, factory reset the monitor and then first run Windows, then Linux (same resolution and refresh rate). The monitor will have to auto-adjust, telling me that the Linux mode is a new mode that has not been saved before, and that something is different even though it says 1080p@60Hz in both examples.

Looks they disabled it on the new Apple Mojave and that made blur fonts for non retina users https://angristan.xyz/how-to-fix-font-rendering-macos-10-14-mojave/

daniel_mate I haven't tried upgrading to 10.14 yet.

JTL Looks it affects only non-retina and external displays. Also mainly white text on black background. I have MPB Retina + Air and CCFL (Dell ST2410b) and LED IPS (ThinkVision P27h-10) monitors...which both are bad with both MACs but good with my recent Chromebook discovery. I'm headed home from work, and upgrading my Air to Mojave first thing I get home. ...Looks I've missed all this "font antialiasing" software issue, kinda just discovered it today (yes I'm late couple of years) and I think this is part of my issue (text feel very smooth, sometimes even bold) where the chrome does not have this, the font feels thin, I can see the square pixel and even white/grey pixels in the font which I turned to love last 2 weeks!!!! This article explains it great http://www.lighterra.com/articles/macosxtextaabug/ I have to test disabling it in chrome://flags too, which just says Default, but I have no clue if that means enabled or disabled (my guess this is disabled in chromebook but enabled in mac) Will test if I feel difference on the Dasung HD too (which I'll be returning next week)

daniel_mate I haven't used Chrome in quite a while so I can't help you there. If I remember correctly Chrome on OS X did "inherent" the OS font rendering settings but I could be wrong. I remember under Windows with Chrome it had it's own antialiasing settings that needed to be disabled.

JTL Updated the Air to Mojave...the weird part is by default anti smoothing was still enabled! I disabled it and can definitely say it's easier on my eyes and I get the chromeebook font feel! However it comes with slight drawback, on dark backgrounds the white font seem little blur, the opposite also feel slight blur but not as much. This "blurness" is not as bad on my external CCFL as it is on the Air display but either way I find it much more usable this way than with smoothing enabled! The chromebook does not have this blurness at all, neither the external display when connected to it. Other good thing with Mojave is it comes with Dark theme option (asked on first boot if want to pick it). Tho both options are under Settings - General. ...will update the Retina one on Monday (must bug IT at work, I don't have permissions) and will see how this affects it (since other article said Retina won't get blurred)

Definitively disabling anti-smoothing makes my Air more usable. I can't tell yet if it fully eliminates my problems tho!! I do not see the fonts blurry with the smoothing on (usually complains from the rest) but somehow my eye can't lock on them and keep seeking. On the Retina, this flag does not make any difference, no improvements, which makes me think my eye simply can't handle Retinas high pixel density. However when I plug the external monitor, it becomes usable!! Regards the iPhoneX have: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/8277/how-does-apples-retina-display-affect-sub-pixel-rendering Subpixel rendering is not happening if the display is not in the normal orientation. This is the main reason why iOS doesn't have sub-pixel text rendering!! So I guess this goes back to my Retina theory (Super Retina in the case of iPhoneX) and why I cant use it. This screen is way worse for me than any other screen I have looked at (I have this phone mainly for the camera with portrait mode :S)! https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-retina-display-2000362 I'll try to work with the Macs instead the chrome this week, if I don't get the chromebook relief then dithering is next vector of attack. Just I can't test this on the Macs :S

Damn, looks there are anti aliased shapes too, not just fonts! The picture on the right is the only thing so far I have looked at on my chromebook that I can't hold my eyes, it gives me the same eyes flip feeling instantly as when using the MACs (till yesterday when disabled font anti aliasing and used external monitor) https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/key-concepts/aliasing-anti-aliasing.html Ok that picture is too big and blurred too (with fonts I don't feel the blur part) This one is smaller, the most right box is too hard to look at for me, instant discomfort. https://bjango.com/images/articles/1pxisnotenough/1px-aa.png I guess you guys see them blur too, but does your eyes feel like want to flip or maybe cross trying too hard to focus or there is nothing?

Anti-aliased fonts can damage eyesight - writeup

Gurm

JTL Correct. Which, as I said, there are like 5 of. It's frustrating, but most displays are 6/24 bit. This is why every device flickers. 😉

daniel_mate

oh looks it's not the bit depth that is my second problem but DPI!! Accidentally noticed that under SwitchResX there are HiDPI and same resolution as regular ones, as soon I picked non HiDPI my Mac discomfort lowered (both on the Retina display and the External one).

Besides not being able to tolerate "smooth fonts" looks I can't tolerate DPI > 1x
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI#Chromium_.2F_Google_Chrome

Here is output of chrome://gpu/ output from my comfortable chromebook
Display(s) Information
Info Display[12528934998507520] bounds=[0,0 1241x698], workarea=[0,0 1241x650], scale=1.1, internal.
Color space information {primaries:INVALID, transfer:INVALID, matrix:INVALID, range:INVALID}
Bits per color component 8
Bits per pixel 24
Info Display[13702326689085187] bounds=[1241,0 1600x900], workarea=[1241,0 1600x852], scale=1, external.
Color space information {primaries_d50_referred: [[0.6663, 0.3285], [0.3202, 0.6144], [0.1480, 0.0513]], transfer:0.0000x + 0.0000 if x < 0.0000 else (1.0000x + 0.0000)**2.2000 + 0.0000, matrix:RGB, range:FULL}
Bits per color component 8
Bits per pixel 24

At this point I use same external monitors, same font, no smoothing, DPI scale 1 and the Mac still gives me slight discomfort, it's has slight blurness, however I would say 95+% my situation has been improved 😃

Looks if iPhone X feels worse than iPhone 8 then it's the DPI, DOES SIZE MATTER? section on this link
https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-x-or-iphone-8-price-size-camera-all-factor-in-your-buying-decision/
as it has higher scale.

hpst

daniel_mate

Is DPI the same as scaling in this context? On KDE neon there is a scaling option and since my panel is 1080 its way too small at 1.0 and I use 1.5 to make things big enough, but I cannot use that laptop due to strain anyway. I also tried leaving scaling at 1.0 and reducing display resolution to 1600x900 but it didn't change the strain. It would be great if simply a set of rendering/scaling/resolution settings could solve this.

martin

Im thinking about this and it makes quite a lot of sense. Imagine when some mentioned that older OS on a good comfortable phone was ok and new one wasnt. Maybe the font rendering in that new update changed, the fonts are more blurry and impossible to fix your vision onto, thus the issues.
Or of course dithering which is still hard to prove and Im not sure why it would change inbetween software updates, but it could of course.
If every outline of every box, font and image is anti-aliased (blurry), then it would makes sense how we feel "unable to focus" most of the time. Its very simple, easily overlooked and for example on iphones impossible to fix. Supposedly though you can change fonts on jailbroken iphone, would be a good idea to try that.
Technically also if you have the same OS on an older and newer iphone, the OS still knows which iteration of iphone it is and could therefore still render differently between those two devices.

daniel_mate

hpst yes I think I use it in same context
When picked same resolution on the Retina, just non HiDPI, the scale changed from 2 to 1 and now both my retina and Air laptops feel same...tho still have discomfort but at least my eyes don't feel like they want to flip instantly (after disabling anti-aliasing too).

hpst

daniel_mate Do you know Linux? I am trying to figure out how to replicate your results in Linux. If I put scaling to 1 or don't increase DPI in another place the text is too tiny on a 1080 14" screen. There just isn't any way to get a 1080 14" display readable without adjusting SOMETHING to make text and elements larger.

daniel_mate

hpst I do.

I got Red Hat Enterprise wks last week to experiment at work
It has NVIDIA Corporation GK107GL [Quadro K420] (rev a1) + Lenovo ThinkVision P27h-10 27 monitor.
It had pre-installed the nvidia settings tool
As is it came with grayscale auto aliasing.
Disabled dithering over it too, but have no clue if it did anything.
I use 1600x900, and chrome says scale=1...yeah this resolution is pretty big (huge everything)
This setup feels same to me with the Macs (after disabling their default sub-pixel antialiasing on them)

This Linux and the Macs give some blur/smooth feel of everything (not just the fonts), where the good Chromebook and Matte TN Mac feel sharp and pixelized (also talking about pictures not just fonts)

...on my to do is to experiment with different live linux CDs on the Macs.

Ananiujitha

daniel_mate

In MacOS Mojave, unless I enable old-style font smoothing, I get a lot of eye strain and migraines. Even if I pick "strong" font smoothing instead, it's just too weak and the text is too faint and spiderey.

daniel_mate

Ananiujitha I think that is normal. This Mojave "issue" got so many write ups cause almost everybody on non-retina displays is affected. The change is visible for worse quality and I guess even people with good eyes get strain with it after short time. ...but for people with bad eye/s like me that can look for few minutes only the bad quality one is more tolerable than the beautiful smooth one.

Pudentane

Been having the same exact issue on Linux for years. Different GPUs, displays (except for IPS), drivers, playing with fonts and whatnot never solved it for me. Yes, it's an issue which you can only feel, not see. Yes, you can't focus on text or elements for too long, everything feels fuzzy, juddery and makes your eyes wanna roll inside your sockets. This stupid thing has been keeping me off Linux and I don't get it why only a few people are affected by this. It doesn't make any sense. What exactly is missing here, and what is so special about Windows? Whom do we have to address about this? Nvidia, ATI, Xorg or Kernel devs? WHAT do we tell them exactly? These are all 1 million dollar questions. We have a discussion open here as well: https://ledstrain.org/d/785-eyestrain-when-switching-from-windows-to-linux/31

Please, join if you have any solutions or just want to help us expand our "strained" community.

purestsoul

I think using a bad monitor is the primary reason for damaged eyesight. Pick a better monitor from here

Ananiujitha

I have a Benq painscreen. It still hurts.

« Previous Page