Wallboy
Newbie level 4
Hi all,
I'm trying to diagnose a potential issue with my computer monitor causing me eyestrain in Linux with the Nvidia proprietary driver. The screen almost appears to have an almost imperceptible shimmering effect which causes eyestrain and a onset of a headache within minutes. I get no eyestrain in Windows, nor does it occur with Linux running in VirtualBox on Windows. I found out the problem may be due to temporal dithering which causes adjacent pixels to quickly alternate color between each other every frame. Oddly enough disabling dithering within the Nvidia X Server Settings configuration tool does not seem to have any effect on the eyestrain. And once I reopen the configuration tool it seems to want to automatically re-enable itself.
After running verbose logging in X.Org and the GPU driver and not finding any warnings, errors, or anything that would point to an obvious misconfiguration, I realize I need to approach this problem using hardware measurements to confirm that the pixels are indeed shimmering/flickering.
I have very limited analog electronics knowledge and most of my expertise is in the digital domain and software. After a bit of research I found out that I'd need something like a Photodetector + an Oscilloscope. This combination is what is typically used by monitor review websites to measure the response time of pixels changing color. So I figure this combination would work to detect if there is some sort of pixel dithering happening.
I'd like some suggestions about what sort of Photodetector and Oscilloscope and any other hardware I would need to analyze this problem. From what I've researched, the pixels can have a response time as fast as 1ms, so I believe I wouldn't need anything too high end. I'd like to keep it as low cost as possible. More than anything I just want to prove to myself that the problem is real and not psychosomatic.
Also, if anyone has other ideas or specific hardware to tackle this problem, I'm open to any suggestions.
Thanks for the help.
I'm trying to diagnose a potential issue with my computer monitor causing me eyestrain in Linux with the Nvidia proprietary driver. The screen almost appears to have an almost imperceptible shimmering effect which causes eyestrain and a onset of a headache within minutes. I get no eyestrain in Windows, nor does it occur with Linux running in VirtualBox on Windows. I found out the problem may be due to temporal dithering which causes adjacent pixels to quickly alternate color between each other every frame. Oddly enough disabling dithering within the Nvidia X Server Settings configuration tool does not seem to have any effect on the eyestrain. And once I reopen the configuration tool it seems to want to automatically re-enable itself.
After running verbose logging in X.Org and the GPU driver and not finding any warnings, errors, or anything that would point to an obvious misconfiguration, I realize I need to approach this problem using hardware measurements to confirm that the pixels are indeed shimmering/flickering.
I have very limited analog electronics knowledge and most of my expertise is in the digital domain and software. After a bit of research I found out that I'd need something like a Photodetector + an Oscilloscope. This combination is what is typically used by monitor review websites to measure the response time of pixels changing color. So I figure this combination would work to detect if there is some sort of pixel dithering happening.
I'd like some suggestions about what sort of Photodetector and Oscilloscope and any other hardware I would need to analyze this problem. From what I've researched, the pixels can have a response time as fast as 1ms, so I believe I wouldn't need anything too high end. I'd like to keep it as low cost as possible. More than anything I just want to prove to myself that the problem is real and not psychosomatic.
Also, if anyone has other ideas or specific hardware to tackle this problem, I'm open to any suggestions.
Thanks for the help.
