Eye discomfort?

[patosaiex]

Hello, sorry for not searching first, I'm at the office so I can't do much research.

At home, mostly, I noticed some of my games are causing some weird eye discomfort.

Go quickly about my rig's specs:

phenom II x4 955 BE (not OC'ed)
Sapphire HD 6770 (not oc'ed either)
8gb ddr RAM (1333)

For monitor I'm using a samsung monitor (LS23A550HSLZ).

What puzzles me is that not all games cause that discomfort. Like, TF2 or CSS don't, but Bad Company 2 is almost ubearable to look at.

What are common causes for that? Low Framerate? Too much/little contrast? I'm used to play with high brightness (mostly because I like seeing enemies in FPS games).

COuld it be tiredness? Sometimes between working and gaming I spend whole weeks with less than 5 hours sleep (though that was not the case this week particularly). Well, I do spend 8 hours in front of a computer while in the office. But why is it that not every game makes me unconfortable?

 

[rolli59]

High brightness and tiredness! Reduce brightness wear clear glasses.

 

[Ishkrish]

Sometimes things like texture shimmering or vertical synchronization can be culprits in this. Especially if your noticing eye strain or headaches.

Was there any apparent visual things you were noticing that were causing this? Like shimmering textures, or choppy frame rates, screen tearing??

Try forcing Anistropic Filtering in your catalyst settings to something like x4, x8, x16
(This makes textures that are viewed on an angle appear more clear, this helps reduce that unwanted "graphical shimmering" on some textures which can give a headache or eye strain.

Also try adjusting the refresh rate of your monitor, make sure its at 60hz or above. Having this set too low can cause unwanted visual impacts where the frames don't render fast enough, or too fast causing visual "tearing".

Here's a sample of what image tearing looks like:
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/5333/vsyncxm1.jpg

Usually the image is physically split. But the screenshots don't do it justice cause it can sometimes rapidly flicker and move around the screen. If something like this is happening, the culprits will be vsync and screen refresh rate. May need to try and play with those.

The Vsync (vertical sync) settings may also help alleviate that to a certain degree. Vsync eliminates image tearing by capping your framerate at the refresh rate you've assigned. This removes the impacts of image tearing.

But it's a tough call to put a solution on that one specifically as there is a couple of things that could potentially be happening. Might be tough to know without seeing it first hand.

If you need any help with adjusting those settings feel free to let me know. Most of those can be adjusted in the catalyst control center drivers, but if the options are in the game it would be ideal to try those settings in game first and then try the driver settings second.

Your system specs seem to be up the challenge of the games you've mentioned. So I don't believe it's a frame rate problem. Try checking out the anistropic filtering settings unless you think it's a framerate issue (choppy gameplay)

 

[Chainzsaw]

Using a computer for more than 1 hour can cause eyestrain.

You need 15 minute breaks after evey hour looking at a screen.

Brightness can cause eye strain.

Low resolution can cause eye strain.

Tiredness as someone said above.

Dry eyes.

I sometimes use my Call of Duty Pro gaming glasses (note, not just for gaming). They reduce glare, and enhance contrast.

Also in a game like BFBC2 - all that moving around - your eyes are probably constantly adjusting to close up and far away distances inside the game. That can cause eye fatigue as well.

 

[patosaiex]

Hum... a while ago when I bought bc2 I wasnt having much trouble, but lately, even if I start my gaming session with bc2 I just can't look at it.

I do sometimes feel framerate on bc2 drops noticeably, but I could probably lower settings (usually chose performance over quality anyway).

I usually don't like vsync much because with triple or even double buffer the input lag annoys me too much. And I do notice the tearing but it doesn't usually bother me. I mean, it does bother but I choose tearing over input lag (even if it's little, it bugs me more than tearing).

So, I've been testing it, and I still feel discomfort with bc2. Well, for that matter I didn't sleep much for the past few days (daylight saving time just started this weekend in my country).

What's that graphical shimmering? That one I'm not sure about. Gonna google it =P. Well, the discomfort is almost like staring at some bright light, even if it's does not look bright. I mean, dark places in the game, etc...

Gaming glasses? That somewhat sounds interesting, could they be worn over regular glasses (=_=)? I can't addapt to contacts ¬¬.

 

[Ishkrish]

Hey here's a thread on texture shimmering if you were interested in learning more. This is something that can occur with certain displays with textures which are viewed at an angle.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/305128-33-radeon-69xx-texture-shimmering

It's not really something that you can see from a still image, but if you take a look at the samples in this link below, maybe you can identify what the problem is. (Sorry the site is in german, but the video is right on this page and outlines the issue in detail with a side-by-side comparison)

http://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/tests/grafikkarten/amd_radeon_hd_6870_hd_6850/s09.php

I can't promise this is the issue you're experiencing, but I was running into similar issues before I understood what exactly was going on. At the very least I hope this helps make your experience that much better in other titles....

Check out your Anistropic Filtering settings in game maybe?

Again, I could be way off but just thought I'd try to help with some info.

 

[patosaiex]

Hum, I guess the problem is glare. I googled it and just looking at wikipedia's photo example of glare makes me want to look away from the monitor.

How to reduce glare from settings? I wear eyeglasses but they already have anti-reflex treatment, I keep the lenses clean...

 

[patosaiex]

Best answer selected by patosaiex.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey