Desktop. Lastest W10 and driver as of when I did the testing. Capture card was set to 8bit 60hz. In addition, turning temporal dithering on using the Ditherig options resulted in my software detecting dithering. Without doubt, ditherig worked on this desktop pc.
Different rules may apply on a laptop, where the intel chip may dither. I haven't tested laptops, but using ditherig on a laptop created banding consistent with going from 6bit+FRC to just 6bit.
One thing I did find on Suguru's page (author of Ditherig) was a little Q&A section.
About Dithering Settings for Intel Graphics
It does not work and shows "Failed to load a DLL"
It seems you run the version which does not match the OS version.
Please run the 64bit version if your OS is 64bit.It does not work on newer versions of Windows 10.
It seems Device Guard or Credential Guard prevents it from loading the kernel driver.
Please turn off Hyper-V feature from Control Panel.
I am interested to know how Amulet Hotkey made their fix, the kext must be signed by Apple or they paid for a cert, and the Windows fix must have been in collaboration with Nvidia.
I don't think Amulet are going to email the dithering fixes any time soon, as it's their property and also requires their hardware to work. Who would they have contacted in Nvidia/AMD to produce the fixes? The frustrating thing here is it seems such a trivial fix (literally one line of code) but for whatever reason it is shrouded in secrecy.
Is there any way through linkedin or otherwise to directly contact a dev from either company and ask for information on how to disable dithering?
HP laptop with a tn screen, 4th gen i3 with iris graphics. Banding after enabling ditherig was pretty clear. Its a tn screen, so its natively 6-bit, and as its modern, the intel gpu is driving the dithering - hence enabling ditherig produces the banding. As I have said before, in all the testing I have done I have found ditherig to be effective. However, in some cases I have found that intel integrated graphics do not dither by default, as was the case with a desktop pc with a 6th gen i5.
Its seems likely to me that intel integrated graphics only uses temporal dithering on devices connected via eDP, which is the standard for internally connecting laptop screens. This being supported by my results thus far.
I'll be experimenting with the HP laptop this week if you have anything specific you want me to do to it, though I can't capture at the moment as my capture card is 4hours away in my office.
It found interestring discussion about deep color support in FirePro and Quadro:
As much as I know, FirePro and Quadro drivers offer nonstandard
proprietary ways to display 10-bit images inside windowed application
over a "legacy" 8-bit desktop manager (thus the user isn't forced into
DirectX or OpenGL fullscreen exclusive rendering modes and the
developers don't need to create their own specialized user interface
for that unique display mode).
Seagull I have noticed (yet after all the visual therapy and prismatic glasses) that on my macbook pro 15in 2018, when AMD is in use its a lot better - so much that on better days it feels like old tech with no pain to me. Its hard to check, so I keep a window open that shows if the card in use is integrated or "high performance" (and have a high demanding app like photoshop open in the background to force the high performance card being in use). Only downside is that it has to be plugged, otherwise battery drains fast.
Would you think then than when integrated intel card is used, it forces dithering because of the eDP connection, and the AMD does not?
ShivaWind I've actually noticed other strange things on e-ink that I think I mentioned somewhere else on here. One was that the mouse cursor can create a shadow to the right of it like a light was shining across the screen. This made me wonder if a lot of rendering on computers can be imperfect because they use vector driven graphics cards to draw. I've also wondered if it is the way things are refreshed as well that makes us sick. The updating of what's on the screen doesn't look particularly orderly when you watch it in slower motion on e-ink.
With a dual GPU laptop its hard to say whats going on, as the Intel and AMD GPU will be working together to some extent. But I'd caution you against believing that because there is no discomfort it is not dithering. The monitor I am using at the moment is only comfortable when hooked up to my GTX660, which dithers. Different Nvidia cards induce strain, using the intel GPU which does not dither induces strain. Something about the superposition of this Benqs native tn dithering and the GTX660 dithering makes it comfortable. Its possible that both your Intel GPU and AMD GPU are both adding dithering, but the combination is comfortable to you.
I found a patent on google entitled "Programmable dithering for video displays", there is information on dithering which was quite interesting. Link: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100238193
However, depending on the algorithm used to vary an applied dither pattern from frame to frame, temporal dithering can cause the undesirable visible artifact known as “flicker.” Flicker results when dithering produces a sequence of pixels that are displayed at the same location on a display screen with periodically varying intensity, especially where the frequency at which the intensity varies is in a range to which the eye is very sensitive. The human eye is very sensitive to flicker that occurs at about 15 Hz, and more generally is sensitive to flicker in the range from about 4 Hz to 30 Hz (with increasing sensitivity from 4 Hz up to 15 Hz and decreasing sensitivity from 15 Hz up to 30 Hz). If the pixels displayed at the same screen location (with a frame rate of 60 Hz) have a repeating sequence of intensities (within a limited intensity range) that repeats every four frames due to dithering, a viewer will likely perceive annoying 15 Hz flicker, especially where each frame contains a set of identical pixels of this type that are displayed contiguously in a large region of the display screen. However, if the pixels displayed at the same screen location (with a frame rate of 60 Hz) have a repeating sequence of intensities (in the same intensity range) that repeats every sixteen frames, a viewer will be much less likely to perceive as flicker the resulting 3.75 Hz flicker.
In order to reduce the flicker caused by temporal dithering a repeating sequence of dither bits with a sufficiently long period of repetition can be used. However, until the present invention, dithering had not been implemented in a programmable manner that allows the user to vary both spatial and temporal dither parameters so as to reduce artifacts caused by the dither process itself or the interaction of dithering with other processes, such as pixel inversion.
diop That seems to me like a big find. This basically explains that the interference of dithering with basic refresh rate of monitors (60hz) causes the flicker to be in very low frequencies and therefore painful for us. It also plain admits that dithering can be painful, eye strain and headache inducing. This alone should be enough to be sent to some parties. It could also be enough for the lawsuit that was mentioned here. Or at least to push things through with clear explanation of what needs to be done with updates and graphics cards.
martin Agreed. There is also an Apple patent specifically about the use of dithering on their technologies: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10403192B2
It keeps mentioning 'Intensity' a lot, I presume this is the scale of the jump between color values or the intensity of the pixel. Nethertheless, as the patent(s) actually acknowledge discomfort (the Apple patent alludes to it however their concerns are with the the longevity of the panel), this surely is all that we need from a legal perspective to enforce action.
Dithering is a patented invention so everything concerning it's workings appears to be available openly on the web.
diop That is amazing. May I ask how you managed to find it? I googled for dithering and associated keywords regularly and went through many pages on google, but never found this - yet its such a simple and perfect explanation of what weve been discussing here for so long. Also makes sense why Intel would be more painful than AMD etc., different graphics drivers having different algorithm and therefore different flicker. I dont want to spam this forum, feel free to write me on mjanas555 (at) gmail (dot) com
Ill also send this to notebookcheck for consideration in reviews.
Also make sure you copy the patents in case it would "disappear" from the web all of a sudden.
I don't want to be the parade pisser, but I don't think this is enough for legal action. The writing of patents, and the granting of patents is not rigorous. I could patent a necktie for aliens, doesn't mean they are real. This stuff about flicker perception is inconsequential, it is merely background context for the invention itself.
The first patent mentions dithering may cause discomfort, but in no way proves it. The second patent by apple might contribute to an action if they had admitted their dithering causes people pain. Even if they did, it'd be easy to argue that accommodations for an immeasurably small number of users is unreasonable.
If you want to put something together, look in research journals. They are rigorous and peer reviewed, where the peers in question are generally the most experienced and most highly qualified in their field. That is the proof you will need.
Seagull I don't want to be the parade pisser, but I don't think this is enough for legal action. The writing of patents, and the granting of patents is not rigorous. I could patent a necktie for aliens, doesn't mean they are real. This stuff about flicker perception is inconsequential, it is merely background context for the invention itself.
Fair enough, however we know that Apple are using temporal dithering on AppleOS so this patent may have useful information on how it is performed.
Seagull The first patent mentions dithering may cause discomfort, but in no way proves it.
It stipulates the conditions in which discomfort could be caused. It's difficult to conclude that is proof when only a small minority are affected by dithering anyway, so it's going to be subjective.
If the pixels displayed at the same screen location (with a frame rate of 60 Hz) have a repeating sequence of intensities (within a limited intensity range) that repeats every four frames due to dithering, a viewer will likely perceive annoying 15 Hz flicker, especially where each frame contains a set of identical pixels of this type that are displayed contiguously in a large region of the display screen.
Seagull If you want to put something together, look in research journals. They are rigorous and peer reviewed, where the peers in question are generally the most experienced and most highly qualified in their field. That is the proof you will need.
That may be so, unfortunately for the lay person this is a monumental task. I wouldn't know where to begin looking, otherwise I would have prepped a case years ago.
It seems we are going to be waiting a long time if we expect changes to be made by the big companies. I have been aware of these issues for five years, and I'm sure some others here for much longer. I didn't expect to still be experiencing symptoms for this long and without a way to control dithering five years later. I thought it would have been updated or resolved by now. I want to continue to support the tech industry but find that I am no longer excited by anything new, because I know I won't be able to use it.
Can we crowdfund somebody to fix this issue? If Amulet Hotkey can create dithering tools then we know it can be done. Is it complicated? I'm sure it is, but for the right person it is a cinch, and perhaps less than a few hour's work.
diop Can we crowdfund somebody to fix this issue? If Amulet Hotkey can create dithering tools then we know it can be done. Is it complicated? I'm sure it is, but for the right person it is a cinch, and perhaps less than a few hour's work.
Don't ask, but reverse engineering closed source drivers and binary patching takes more then "a few hours". It's a compuer science skill in itself.
Linux would be an easy "prototyping" platform though. Since (with the exception of the Nvidia binary driver) all GPU drivers on Linux are open source. The problem there is for finding the right code for controlling a feature (let's say dithering) it's a "needle in a haystack" sort of problem. A single GPU driver can have a dozen copies of the same function for different models of GPUs and it's often not clear which function is for what GPU (no labels).
I have some announcements to make regarding a research project related to that. Will be within the month.
JTL
macOS: Amulet Hotkey, safe mode on macOS start up
Linux: drivers
Windows: Microsoft Basic Display Adapter, ditherig, igfxtweak
Do these count as starting points? Not tried Amulet, safe mode on macOS changes the type of discomfort I have, but doesn't remove it. Microsoft Basic Display Adapter is what I use daily and the best solution I have found for my case.
Edward Let me address some of your points
Edward macOS: Amulet Hotkey
Not publicly available. All it proves is this is possible, assuming no other factors causing strain.
Edward Linux: drivers
See above post
Edward safe mode on macOS start up
I believe it runs with only "basic" drivers that are running the hardware in a different way so the "vendor" drivers are doing "something" different. Side effects include lower performance and instability with certain applications.
Edward Windows: Microsoft Basic Display Adapter
Similar as above
Edward ditherig, igfxtweak
I think some people had some issues. Might be fixable. A Linux port should be doable.
Edward Do these count as starting points?
Close but no 'cigar.
JTL Obviously solving the visual impacts are primary. But security and stability (OS updates, driver updates, hardware compatibility, and other things I don't understand) are - for many - just as important. I don't have much of a clue about the tech side of things. Could you say which likely solutions are likely the best for security and stability?
Edward Could you say which likely solutions are likely the best for security and stability?
With context of current OS's and eyestrian, or in general?
That's a complicated topic that's made my career really. Way too long to fit into a single forum post.
I'd be willing to discuss more in depth another time.
