Computers, eye damage, and FPS...

[TheNiceGuy]

According to most optomitrist sites I researched, monitors are not damaging to our eyes. They can cause eye strain and other 'normal' eye problems that come from extended focus, etc.:
http://www.pasadenaeye.com/faq/faq08/faq08_text.html

I read a bit about about FPS here:
http://www.100fps.com/how_many...mes_can_humans_see.htm
and here:
http://www.daniele.ch/school/30vs60/30vs60_2.html

And it started to get very interesting. And too technical for me! For best use of a CRT monitor (especialy for games), what conditions are good? I know about higher refresh rates being good. And equaling program Hrz with monitor Hrz. But what about peripheral room lights? High, low, or off (to increase any 'blurr effect' like the movies - good or bad?)? Equal refresh rate on room lights as the monitor? Dark or light background for a monitor? Brighter/dimmer monitor?

BTW, I have an NEC 22" CRT monitor that I use A LOT, and have noticed my eyes getting really sore lately, so I am curious!

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: TheNiceGuy
But what about peripheral room lights? High, low, or off (to increase any 'blurr effect' like the movies - good or bad?)?

You generally want to reduce or eliminate ambient light, so you can get a better effective contrast ratio and avoid glare. I'm not sure what you mean by a 'blurr (sic) effect'.

Equal refresh rate on room lights as the monitor?

I'm not sure this would help. And good luck finding any lights with a 'refresh rate' other than fluorescents (which subtly flicker at 60Hz). Again, you probably want the lights off to begin with.

Dark or light background for a monitor?

Personal preference? I use a black background with green text when using xterm, as I find it easier to read. Others prefer a white background with black text. You definitely want to maximize contrast between the text and background, though, to reduce eyestrain.

Brighter/dimmer monitor?

Brighter is better to a point (again, it improves contrast ratio). Some monitors can actually be set bright enough to be annoying -- and at that point you're probably well beyond crushing your lighter color shades anyway.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Blurring (no sic) refers to the third link. He is refering to one of the factors that allows movies to play at 24 FPS and look good. The dark theatre and reflective screen allow the frame to leave a very slight 'imprint' on your retina that carries to the next frame, simulating continuous light. Monitors work a little different, but is there anything to glean from that? i.e., room lighting and contrast.
And by background I wasn't refering to the screen images, but rather the physical area around the screen. Would a black monitor/wall be better than a white one?
And if flourescents havea 60Hrz 'refresh' rate, couldn't they react poorly/better with a screan at a different rate or synchronized timing?
Any ideas?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: TheNiceGuy
Blurring (no sic) refers to the third link. He is refering to one of the factors that allows movies to play at 24 FPS and look good. The dark theatre and reflective screen allow the frame to leave a very slight 'imprint' on your retina that carries to the next frame, simulating continuous light. Monitors work a little different, but is there anything to glean from that? i.e., room lighting and contrast.

Um, not really. The 'imprint' (afterimage) is created by the way your eyes work, not the properties of the screen. In theory, a brighter image/higher contrast ratio produces more of an afterimage -- but I'm not sure this is an especially big factor here. I don't think you are getting a significantly higher brightness level from a movie projector than you do from a monitor (given the distance you are usually sitting from a movie screen).

Movies have motion blur already, because there is a nontrivial shutter time when you're filming at 24FPS (CG movies simulate it to get the same effect), and that's a much bigger reason that they don't look choppy. TVs don't look choppy at 24FPS because they have a fairly long decay time on their phosphors, producing a similar effect. Monitors are built specifically have a very short decay time (so they can run accurately at high refresh rates).

And by background I wasn't refering to the screen images, but rather the physical area around the screen. Would a black monitor/wall be better than a white one?

I doubt it would have a noticeable impact, as long as you're sitting reasonably close to the screen. Apparently, the ideal thing for contrast ratio (at least in a home theater) is to have a low (but not black!) backlighting level, so that ambient light from the display doesn't drastically change the brightness level of the room.

And if flourescents havea 60Hrz 'refresh' rate, couldn't they react poorly/better with a screan at a different rate or synchronized timing?
Any ideas?

Well, fluorescent lighting looks like crap pretty much no matter what you do (the color balance is awful). And I don't think it's really possible to synchronize the lighting with the refresh on your monitor (not that I think it would do much good, since then you'd be running the monitor at 60Hz).

 

[h2]

I asked my eye doctor this, he's a very good one, does research, publishes, very smart guy, he said, yes, absolutey, crt monitors mess your eyes up. I wish I could do his explanation justice, basically the radiation/elecro whatever the monitor spits out dries out certain key components of your eyeballs, and this denies your eyeballs the nourishment they need. He did a test study with 500 people on this affect, and it was conclusive, he's about to start makinig glasses that protect against this radiation for hard core computer crt users. This is not an issue with LCD monitors.

Also, another study just came out, from Japan, positively linking II think it was glaucoma with heavy computer use. Unfortunately this study did not control for crt versus lcd so it only tells you so much, but anyone who works with this stuff all the time should be able to tell you about burning eyes etc, that's not natural or healthy, it's a bad sign, that's why I switched to lcd monitors.

By the way, you want to read opthamologist sites, not optomitrist sites. Optomitrists are the guys down in your local shopping mall. And I don't know how much of this is published yet, heavy computer use like we have today is really a very new thing. The affects are longterm, not overnight. But the japanese study showed a very clear corollation. Ignore this stuff at your eye's health. Or pretend you'll never lose your vision because you're too cool. I've seen it many times, serious eyesight degradation in programmers etc.

 

[CycloWizard]

As a gamer (or ex-gamer anyway), I can tell you that the reason high fps is desirable has a lot more to do with aim in-game than your eyes. Generally, you want a refresh rate as high as your fps to avoid texture tearing that results from vertical sync problems that occur when your refresh rate is lower than your fps. However, it's much more desirable to set your max fps to the lowest level that you achieve in game, because the most damaging thing is a large change in framerate (drops especially). These rapid changes basically make it impossible for you to aim consistently and, in some games, drastically effect your movement.

As for eye damage, LCDs don't refresh in the same way as CRTs, IIRC. CRTs draw a new frame for every frame rendered (i.e. it draws 60 frames every second if you're getting 60 fps), whereas LCDs simply shift which color is assigned to each crystal at a given time. So, the LCD is a more natural image than the CRT, which bombards you with a very rapidly changing display at all times.

In a week I'm going to work for this guy, so I should be able to get some better answers if you're really interested.