Best graphic card to prevent eyes strains ?

A graphic card from 2009 or before. I know that's not the advice I wanted, but it's the only advice that has worked for me. Everything since 2012, maybe before, might work for Adam but not for Bob. Check the drivers, and roll back/forward to see if that helps/hinders. I've not come across anyone who "really knows". We're just guessing, and making slow progress.

If you get a new set up that works for you, please tell everyone.

The safe route is not to upgrade to Win 10 without a way to switch back to your old Win 7. Everyone knows this, but it's important.

From the testing I did, your only option to be free of dithering from the GPU would be intel integrated graphics, so I'd recommend getting a newer intel processor.

Radeon: Pre-2012
Intel: Some chipsets (see separate thread on Intel chips)
GeForce: GeForce GTX 6xx (all), 770, 780, some 750's (but not all), some 760's (but not all), some 970's (early models) and ostensibly early 980's (but nobody has tried them, they are super expensive experiments).

@Edward @Gurm @Seagull Which OS do you use? Is it any special settings?

kammerer I use Windows 7, on a 2009 Sony laptop (CCFL) with Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD. This is the only set up that doesn't cause eye strain, though I've used Linux (mainly Ubuntu) that are now end of life that have not caused eye strain. It is painfully slow, and almost unusable at times. So I switch to using a W10 laptop when I need to do standard office productivity tasks.

I can use Windows 10 with tolerable eye strain if I use integrated Intel graphics. Ditherig seems to make a slight difference.

GTX 1050 ti, GTX 1060, and GTX 770 all cause more or less eye strain that isn't tolerable. I'd try plasma screens or OLED laptops if I could view one in shops. These are all on W10.

I tried a few different laptops from about 2013-2015 going Intel only, AMD only, AMD GPU, and didn't find a good solution.

All Mac OSs since 2012 have been really bad for me - intolerable instantly and just get worse if I try to endure it for half an hour.

I've tried colour adjustments using accessibility options, flux and similar, ditherig, and probably other ideas I've forgotten.

My plan for a next build is probably an i5 (6th generation), with Win 7 (second hand) and maybe stick a GTX 6xx in it.

kammerer

I was able to demonstrate that intel integrated graphics do not dither on a normal installation of windows 10.

Windows 7, 8, 8.1 are all fine. Windows 10 in the first year of its release (15xx, LTSB15) is fine. Some people have gotten LTSB16 to work, but everything "Anniversary Edition" and later (1609+) induce eyestrain due to "composition spaces" being introduced. This has gotten somewhat better with 18xx builds and good drivers.

Gurm When you say Windows 8, 8.1 and early W10 are fine, what do you mean?

I didn't think I was being unclear. Systems running Windows 8, 8.1, and Windows 10 prior to the Anniversary edition introduce no extra eye strain above and beyond what is present in the hardware or drivers.

Gurm I wasn't sure if by fine you meant tolerable or something like the definition you just gave.

Ok yeah. Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10v15xx (and some early 16xx) introduce no extra strain. Windows 10 16xx->17xx introduce significant strain. 18xx->19xx are... less, but not zero.

thelele it will be awful. Why would you buy a known-bad card? All GeForce above 7xx are known to induce strain except a few early 970's (I happen to have one).

thelele This is information from Mark at Blur Busters but he has some neat suggestions not sure if anyone on this forum has tried them. Only reason I'm mentioning it is because I think I have issues with LED monitors and the color black. I was able to give myself some eyestrain by playing with the black equalizer on a monitor that doesn't strain me and I thought this was super interesting. Randomly by default I had the brightness of the blacks up higher around 65 out of 100. This is how I always used the monitor. I think I had switched the settings not sure why think it was by accident but the black equalizer was at 20 now for some reason. I was feeling mild eye strain that I wasn't feeling before. Jacked the black equalizer back up to 65 and no issues again.

I am not exactly sure how the black equalizer works but I would guess when it's off you are taking full exposure to the LED because of the closed shutter. I would guess when it's on and a little higher you are minimizing your exposure to the full onslaught of the LED. Just a theory though. Good luck!

"Since your change is mainly software, I would rule out most of your speculation (probably not FRC, not dithering, not PWM, etc).

Some theoretical tests:

(1) Test your blue light sensitivity. Click Start -> Enter "Night Light" -> Adjust to warmer colors

(2) Test a lower refresh rate such as 24Hz or 30Hz in order to force Windows to a lower frame rate.
Use NVIDIA Control Panel to do this refresh rate. You might have a sensitivity to high-performing frame rates. Most prefer high frame rates but there are some motion sensitivites that low frame rates can help.

(3) Test your sensitivity to brightness. Your monitor might have reset to factory brightness. Try dimming your monitor to see if it improves things.

(4) Test your contrast sensitivity at both extremes
(A) Increase method: Use Windows High Contrast Mode.
(B) Decrease method: Use NVIDIA Control Panel -> Contrast -> increase the brightness of your blacks and dim the brightness of your whites.
Some people are sensitive to extreme (A) or extreme (B)"

A link to the Blur Busters thread.
https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5696

jasonpicard interesting on the blacks. i just tried the RGB(limited black) mode & it seemed to help out.