[Intel-gfx] Eyestrain problems with new Intel drivers

[Janus]

Dear developers,

I have the same problem as the one described by Michael bellow: the
Intel Graphic card produces eye strain and headache after some minutes
of using it. I found a lot of people complaining on the same problem,
but no solution. I tried lowering the resolution, increasing the PWM
frequency, but without luck. I also installed an old version of intel
drivers (2.20.12), because the subject of this email was "with **new**
Intel drivers", but it didn't help.

I have a new HP Folio 9470m, with the Intel HD 4000 graphic card, and
I cannot use it. Even when connecting an external monitor, I have the
same problem. When I connect my old laptop, with an nvidia card, to
the same monitor, the eyestrain disapear, so it must be the Intel
card, or its driver.

I will be glad to provide any information you consider relevant. I can
do whatever test you want, but please, do not ignore this message. I
am not the only one to have this problem:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Eye+strain+Intel+graphic

I am on (Arch) Linux, but I saw some reports on Windows too.

Best,
Alejandro

On Mon, Jan 9, 2014 at 3:30 PM, Michael Vanier wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I recently got a new Macbook Pro, which I dual-booted into Ubuntu
> 13.10 (Linux kernel 3.11). My previous computers were from 2008 and
> used ATI or Nvidia graphics cards. The new one (with Intel HD 4000
> integrated graphics, core i7, no other graphics card) seems to cause
> me a lot of eyestrain compared to what I'm used to. The experience I
> have is that light surfaces appear to shimmer in a way that didn't
> used to happen, and this shimmering seems to be related to the
> eyestrain. After about an hour I really don't want to use the computer
> anymore; it's like a burning/sore feeling in the eyes coupled with dry
> eyes. It's not a monitor problem, because I can hook up the Macbook to
> an old monitor which works perfectly well with old hardware (no
> eyestrain) and the eyestrain is still there. So it would appear to be
> due to the graphics hardware/driver combination. It's also not
> Intel-specific or OS-specific; I've seen the same effect on Mac OS X
> and using different video cards; it seems to be the new normal. I'm
> really confused about what could be causing this. Resolutions don't
> matter; you always get the eyestrain. My first thought was temporal
> dithering (or spatiotemporal dithering), but my reading of the intel
> driver source is that the kernel drivers have disabled ST dithering in
> favor of spatial dithering. I have seen a few people report similar
> problems in mailing lists (including this one), and some of them got
> some relief by disabling the DRI/DRI2 extension in Xorg (this was
> around 2010), which doesn't seem to do much for me (nor does switching
> to the modesetting driver or fbdev driver). (Interestingly, using
> modesetting/fbdev drivers doesn't seem to slow down glxgears either,
> which always claims to run around 1700 FPS). Some people got relief by
> switching to the Vesa driver, which my Xorg won't accept; it just
> unloads it and reloads the Intel driver. Interestingly, the eyestrain
> is present even before X loads up or if you don't load X at all; when
> the system boots you can see very flat-looking text (which I think is
> OK) and then it switches to a more shimmering kind of text (presumably
> when the intel driver kicks in). You would think plain text would have
> absolutely constant pixel values, but that isn't what I see (except on
> old hardware). I'm sure that 99% of people can't notice this, but for
> the 1% who can it's a huge pain. I'm on another mailing list with
> dozens of other people with similar problems, so it isn't just me. If
> anyone has any suggestions as to what I/we can try (not eyedrops, I
> mean software stuff) or where I can look, I'd be really grateful. I've
> had my eyes checked recently and they're fine.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mike
>
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-- 
Alejandro Díaz-Caro
http://diaz-caro.info