ShivaWind They definately are aware dithering is used, and it's also documented everywhere I look online. Most gamers want it enabled! The fact that Amulet Hotkey has made tools to disable it tells me it must be on everywhere. It never specifically mentions 'flicker' in any definition of dithering I see online, only 'changes the color representation' or 'adjusts nearby pixels to smooth gradients'. Most posts online agree that dithering is a 'down and dirty' method and isn't a perfect solution.
Taking Action
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ShivaWind I have an mri showing recent tissue damage in my brain.
First, sorry about it! Question: could you prove it is due to dithering / flickering of displays? I have been in a nightmare for almost two years, I have never been so unwell because of electronics and lighting. Yet, my MRI, taken 2 months ago, was immaculate. I was told I have a very healthy brain. If you have not followed the post in which I talked about it, basically my ophthalmologist thought the MRI could explain the twitching of my left eye (eyelid and face muscles). It could not, though.
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I posted on the Intel forums yesterday. They have a thread to suggest feature requests for Intel Graphics Command Center in Windows. I added a reponse to the thread, agreeing with a previous reply to allow user-selectable colour depth, but also to allow enable/disable dithering. I log in today, and my response has been removed! I double-checked and am sure it appeared immediately after posting yesterday, I don't think posts are approved before they get added.
I'm a little annoyed with this. The Intel devs have an IRC channel (#intel-gfx) which they frequent, however it is for general graphics talk only, not submitting bugs/features. I believe it is Linux only. Also I suppose one could politely ask the question in IRC "is temporal dithering enabled with Intel drivers?".
The thread is here > https://forums.intel.com/s/question/0D50P00004H90FcSAJ/intel-gcc-display-media-feedback
Please have your say and ask for user controllable colour output settings, and dithering checkbox/option.
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6th gen Intel integrated graphics do not have temporal dithering, tested on windows 10. Intel are the only graphics I have tested which do not have temporal dithering.
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AGI
It is pretty hard to prove anything medical with a sample size of one. like smoking, asbestos, lead paint there will need to be research. In this case it may be possible to use the military research on non-lethal weapons as proof of harm potential.
My E-ink monitors show dithering, the panel refresh is slow enough that you can actually watch it. I can't recall if I have used 6th gen Intel specifically, but Intel has typically been the worst possible for dithering. There was Ditherig.exe that supposedly dissabled it on Intel, but that never worked on my set up. the only sure bet I have seen is Nvidia on Linux with the disable dithering setting on in the driver. Radeon used to work in older versions of Linux, but not any more.
Harrison Generally yes, but monitor choice has a big effect too. I am sensitive to polarisation of light also, and this plays a big role in my eye strain/migraines.
ShivaWind I am afraid that may not be sufficient as a test for dithering. Driving E-ink displays is very different to driving an LCD. What you are seeing could just be an artefact of the conversion process being carried out by your e-ink screen.
The E-ink monitors are a good way to detect dithering by the video card. the dithering that is seen on the E-ink screen can be toggled by setting the dithering on/off in the video card driver, proving it comes from the video card and not the monitor. Placing an inline recording device to “hide” the E-ink screen from the video card does not change this. I will make a video showing the dithering starting and stopping as dithering is enabled/disabled.
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Seagull 6th gen Intel integrated graphics do not have temporal dithering, tested on windows 10. Intel are the only graphics I have tested which do not have temporal dithering.
Laptop or Desktop? I have a Lenovo 6th Gen desktop (i3-6100T) with ditherig running, which I cannot use due to strain.
Are you running latest Windows 10 and latest Intel driver on the machine? My understanding from Intel threads is dithering is enabled by default on 8bpc displays and above. The only machine I have ever seen ditherig work with IRL is a laptop. I have never had success on desktops.
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.
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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).
9 days later
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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?