Monitor hurting my eyes

Dogboy73 · 21 Oct 2007 at 21:48

I'm using a 17" Digimate TFT. The text appears a bit weak looking & I think it's a bit of a strain to look at it for long. I had this problem with my old 6800LE installed. I manged to get things sweet by adjusting the display settings in the NVIDIA control panel, auto adjusting the monitor & then playing with the monitors 'phase' setting a little.

I built a new system the other day & I now have an ATi X1950 Pro. But the problem is the same as it was before only this time I'm having trouble adjusting the display settings, in the Catalyst control panel, to get things sweet again. Any advice?

Ewanb75 · 21 Oct 2007 at 22:40

Glasses.

Dogboy73 · 21 Oct 2007 at 23:50

Ewanb75 said:
Glasses.

Had an eye test recently. Perfect 20/20. It's just the writing on the monitor looks a little ...... not really fuzzy. Just not as clear as it should be. Altering the monitors phase makes a difference but I can't seem to get things as sweet as they were with my old gfx card (although that wasn't particularly easy to set-up). Monitor refresh rate is 60Hz. Should I change it?

helmutcheese · 22 Oct 2007 at 00:07

Have you got CLEAR TYPE turned ON Globally.

daven1986 · 22 Oct 2007 at 00:16

also turn down the brightness - i find high brightness gives me a headache.

badbob · 22 Oct 2007 at 00:18

Reduce contrast and/or brightness on the monitor side.

Dogboy73 · 22 Oct 2007 at 01:01

helmutcheese said:
Have you got CLEAR TYPE turned ON Globally.

Clear type turned on globally?! ....... erm, what the hell is clear type :confused:

EDIT: Found it using Windows help ..... Blimey, that's better!

text still looks a little fuzzy but it's quite a bit sharper than it was. I've hit the 'auto-adjust' button on my monitor again & it's sorted things out even more. That'll do. Cheers for the replies

Dogboy73 · 22 Oct 2007 at 10:13

Monitor setting explained

Actually I realise I'm a little fuzzy on the whole monitor settings thing. For example what determines the resolution of a monitor? I've heard people talk about resolutions quite a bit higher than I can go to. The highest I'm able to go is 1280x1024 both on the desktop & in my games. In games (Valve games at least) the highest resolution is shown as '1280x1024 (LCD)'. This was the case with my older 6800LE & my new X1950 Pro. So is resolution determined by the gfx card or the monitor itself? Also what about refresh rate? Mine is currenty set to 60Hz. Putting this to 70Hz causes the screen to jump off centre. I suppose if I hit the auto-adjust button on the monitor this will sort itself out. But which should I be running at, 60Hz or 70Hz & why?

Steve2000 · 22 Oct 2007 at 11:18

Your resolution is determined by your screen size. 17" monitors are capable of 1280x1024 max. 19" monitors are the same, but everything is slightly larger. 20" monitors are capable of 1600x1200. Basically the bigger your monitor the higher resolution you can have.

Refresh rates - this stops your monitor flickering. The higher rate your monitor can support, the better. Check that little box syaing "Hide rates my monitor can't handle" and then select the highest from the drop down box.

badbob · 22 Oct 2007 at 11:34

It's a LCD, they don't flicker.

Will_3rd · 22 Oct 2007 at 11:38

deffo turn down the brightness, out of the factory most monitors are set to 100% brightness.

Had this problem with my SM226BW

something daft already!! · 22 Oct 2007 at 11:42

The difference in clarity when reading text in 60htz and 85 is very noticeable with an LCD. Switch to the highest your Monitor will support. Make sure you are sitting approximately one arms length from your monitor and your eye level is about 1" above the top of the monitor (put books under monitor to raise it if need be, or get monitor stands). Try to use in a well lit area and sit so your feet are flat on the ground with your knees at 90 degrees. These are a few tips I picked up during my DSE assessing for my work.

Dogboy73 · 22 Oct 2007 at 14:06

Steve2000 said:
Refresh rates - this stops your monitor flickering. The higher rate your monitor can support, the better. Check that little box syaing "Hide rates my monitor can't handle" and then select the highest from the drop down box.

howiepoohs said:
The difference in clarity when reading text in 60htz and 85 is very noticeable with an LCD. Switch to the highest your Monitor will support.

That's weird - I adjusted from 60Hz to 70Hz but the text was much better at 60Hz :confused:

Maybe I should try 70Hz with 'clear type' off? Actually my monitor goes up to 75Hz. I'll give that a go.

EDIT: Strange. The best setting seems to be 60Hz with clear type on & the monitor set to 'auto-adjust'. Higher than 60Hz gives a kind of moire effect around the text even with clear type on.

EDIT EDIT: Okay. I've gone back to 75Hz with clear type on. But this time I've adjusted the monitors brightness, contrast & phase manually. Things a looking a little better now.

ajgoodfellow · 23 Oct 2007 at 14:00

Just use 60Hz

There's no benefit to using a higher refresh rate on a TFT. Indeed, due to the higher bandwidth demands, it can reduce the quality of the display

Keep Clear Type switched off as it blurs the edges of the screen fonts (looks awful) and use DVI if you have the facility on the monitor