Pernichev Thanks on reply and link.
I found out about dithering on this website. From the little I understand it is not universally acknowledged to be a problem, as flickering or blue light. The big guys in the electronics industry would probably say ours are just speculations. You are working on eliminating such a feature though. Could you disclose why you believe it is a source of eyestrain?
hpst AGI
I actually think that with the PWM Flicker removal you eliminate most of the eye strain anyway, enough to make it a pleasant experience. What we want from Iris is to be the best possible when it comes to saving eyes so that's why we are going to try adding it right now.
I created a form and right now we are collecting feedback on the dithering issue so we can have the right approach when fixing it and make what you guys expect possible. So, if you can, take the time to fill it out so you can help us:
https://goo.gl/forms/jQFKBZ1eweYsML0Y2
Pernichev I actually think that with the PWM Flicker removal you eliminate most of the eye strain anyway, enough to make it a pleasant experience.
Strongly disagree with this statement. I have just as much strain on known PWM free panels and have tested this extensively, same with blue light entirely blocked with lab glasses, as I do any other time. My most comfortable panel has PWM. For most people I have talked to its irrelevant to their strain. I do not believe PWM is that big of a problem and rather a red herring most times. There is definitely something else going on and dithering is the only likely theory I have heard. We just cant shut it off reliably to test.
With regard to your survey about dithering the answer to what we want is simple...to be able to turn if off across all major operating systems/gpus. My personal needs are Linux and Android, but Windows, MacOS and iOS solutions will be needed by users here as well.
I can also confidently say people will want it to be open sourced (that doesn't mean we won't pay for it) because this is a serious accesibility issue and not just an entitled feature request, many of us are losing our livelihoods and only opportunities because of it, and any solution cannot be dependent on an unreproducable proprietary code that is lost if your company pivots, closes, lets the solution rot etc. Things happen but this is too important so if a solution IS found, for the greater good it needs to be available.
hpst iOS might be impossible without collaboration from Apple since without a jailbreak you can't load your own drivers on the device.
hpst For most people I have talked to its irrelevant to their strain
It's certainly relevant to mine, and I feel even in cases where it's not the primary factor it's just "pouring gasoline on the fire"
I otherwise agree with your post though.
JTL Sorry, should have phrased it better and not said "irrelevant" as a blanket term. I didn't mean it's not an additive problem, rather that simply removing it from the equation doesn't cure people across the board from my reading, meaning there has to be something else going on as you know. If something is a root cause then removing it would have clear and omnipresent results across HW and OSes and use cases and we just haven't see that with anything so far. I just get frustrated when someone says "just removing PWM/bluelight/blinking more etc removes most strain and makes things usable" as this is provably not true. I am also of the strong belief that we will see more and more people like us because everyone is using Gunnars, F.lux, avoiding PWM per notebookcheck reviews etc and thinking they are solving their problem but the placebo or minor additive issue removal will stop working and that evil root problem will manifest but will be blamed on office lighting, CVS, or whatever else is the next red herring.
Thank you for coming here. I have left a few messages on Daniel's facebook about this issue and he was always quick to reply. Being able to turn off temporal dithering would be a blessing, as it would prove/disprove that its a problem. Many people here now encounter that on a safe system, certain applications are straining and unusable. For me on a good laptop with win 7 such app is the new firefox. Whether and how its taking over the display rendering is a mystery to me.
I dont believe theres something wrong with new tech, as millions are fine. But it does something differently and an unlucky minority of us has extreme reactions. I believe whatever it is, it disturbs eye teaming and accomodation of eyes. Whether that is completely fixable is still an open question for me. About 5-10% of people have hidden eye teaming and accomodation trouble, so it would make sense such minority is affected.
In VR, this issue is well known - https://packet39.com/blog/2017/12/25/the-accommodation-vergence-conflict-and-how-it-affects-your-kids-and-yourself/
However I believe even in non VR new display technology and rendering, something like this is taking place.
I have bought this app about two years ago and I didn't think it helped at all. I agree with most other people on this site that our problem is more then just blue light and PWM. I also use this app on my android phone right now just to control the brightness with software.
@Pernichev
I started using Iris Micro today as it allows me to change brightness and color temparature which is all I need - Iris Pro is a bit overloaded with features that I don't need.
However it seems that Iris Micro resets to full brightness occassionally, for example when plugging in a Bluetooth device. Do you know what could be causing it?
Pernichev Hey, quite off-topic but I would like to ask you as well, if you do not mind.
In the past, on Windows-based machines I always found enormous benefit from reducing the display resolution. The difference between native resolution and a lower one was striking to me. I would pass from eyestrain / neck-pain within seconds to being able to use the same machine for as long as I wanted without any symptom (I'd say, not even common CVS symptoms). Please note it was not about making objects or font sizes larger.
I wrote "in the past" because this "trick" worked until Windows 10 (Windows 7 was okay). I should mention that my use of Windows 10 is limited to a few days, when I realized that my prehistoric Windows XP laptop was screwed after the giant upgrade.
Forgetting my "viewing experience", from a general and objective standpoint, can you think of any effect that reducing the resolution may have onto PWM, dithering and any other plausible eyestrain trigger? Thanks.
Hi do you have any contacts in industry that could develop a non-LED based monitor - perhaps using cold cathode fluorescents? Software is a factor but LED itself is the main problem I think.
Thanks to this site and everyone on it. The video of Dgen filming the dithering had me thinking dithering was the number one problem. Or whatever other unknown thing FRC or graphics card issue causes the flicker that causes us eye strain and pain. Right now for the first time in 10 years I can use 2 monitors at what seems unlimited time. I'm still testing myself with extreme computer use to try and ruin my eyes. I now believe at least for me the main causes of strain are in this order.
1. Dithering
2. PWM
3. Blue Light
I don't wear any orange glasses or use any filter and am noticing no pain. At the moment I installed Windows XP and two monitors cause me no pain. I also have been playing my super NT(It's a super Nintendo recreated with real hardware that uses HDMI and no emulation)hooked up to both monitors and get no pain. The moment I hook up a PS4 to the monitors immediate pain. Windows 10 and 7 immediate pain. To me this explains why when I use my OLED phone I get no pain. It runs Android 4 so that crazy dithering algorithm isn't on this phone. It's the same thing for my phone unlimited use unless I read tiny writing on it but I believe that's a different issue. I can't believe I'm saying it but I'm not sure LED is the only problem. The part of our brain that processes LED/PWM is probably the same part that processes dither.
Pernichev Its probably one line of code that would take few minutes to fix. I suspect noone wants to do it as it will show the displays for what they are - inadequate compared to the marketing about them. However if you guys at IRIS could figure this out as a test tool, Id buy a lifetime subscription and go meet you personally and buy you a fancy dinner.
Hi Mihail, thanks for dropping by and trying to solve our eye strain and headache/migraine problems. Here are some causes of eye strain and headache/migraine that I know of:
Item 7-9 are applicable to everyone, but I believe most of us are here is because of 1-6.
To complicated matters, a smartphone/laptop/PC that is causing eye strain, it could have a combination of items from the list. For example, one laptop could have multiple sources of eye strain e.g. PWM, intel graphics driver, dithering etc, while another laptop only has PWM.
To further complicate matters, a person may get eye strain from one, or from multiple items from the above list. Plus a person may know some of the items in the list causes them eye strain, but may not know if others items causes them eye strain or not.
So to solve an eye strain problem for someone, say Person A, first need to know how many items from the list would Person A get eye strain from. Then need to look at the device (smartphone/laptop/PC). The device has how many of the items in the list? Then need to eliminate the cause of the eye strain one by one.
Take me for example, I get eye strain and headaches from item 1, 2, 5 and 6. These are what I know. So if I use a laptop that has PWM, and newer intel graphics driver, then I would get eye strain. For me to use a laptop without eye strain, I need to choose a laptop that has no PWM, has older intel graphics driver, and older version of Windows 10. If I buy a laptop with just no PWM, I will still get eye strain if the laptop is using newer version of intel graphics driver. The laptop still have other causes of eye strain that is affecting me.
So if a person says to you, hey I tried your Iris software on my PC but it still giving me eye strain. Maybe that person is effected by other causes of eye strain in the list. Getting rid of just one cause of eye strain (e.g. blue light), will not get rid of the eye strain if that PC still has other causes of eye strain such as PWM, dithering etc. Need to get rid of all the causes of eye strain from the device that that particular person has, before the eye strain can be eliminated.
PWM is mostly hardware. But dithering is software and hope you can find a way to get rid of it. Other things like intel graphics driver, we still dont know what exactly in these drivers that is causing the eye strain. Intel investigated for over 2 years+, then gave up and stopped investigating. So unknown factor x still remains unknown.
Any efforts you and your company can do to find the root cause of these eye strain, and find ways to solve it, would be greatly appreciated. Right now you already have a solution for one of the items in the list, which is blue light. If you can find the solution for one or two of other items in the list, that would give a huge positive impact to many of us here.
do some of you have any experience with this software so far? I bought the lifelong pro and in some cases it feels like that the eyestrain gets a bit worse.
