r/Monitors

So much of the discussion I've seen regarding the purpose of HDR seems to be that it enables monitors to display "darker darks" and "brighter whites." As far as my understanding of monitors goes, this is completely false.

Whether your monitor can display bright or dark colors is completely up to the display. It is entirely possible that an SDR monitor can display more saturated colors and have a higher contrast ratio than an HDR monitor. How the display chooses to map the incoming RGB signals to output values for each individual pixel is not a function of the display space, but rather the settings on the monitor itself. It so happens that the way many monitors map SDR color usually ends up completely oversaturated because most monitors can display colors exceeding the sRGB gamut, and manufactures tend to map RGB to the monitor gamut rather than sRGB.

What HDR does, then, is increase the amount of colors that are able to be displayed. When a monitor using SDR maps to some wider than sRGB gamut, the chance of banding increases, since there simply aren't enough bits per pixel to cover the gamut with sufficient resolution. Therefore, an HDR monitor may display the same brightness and contrast as an SDR monitor, but for any colors between extremes, there is more resolution to work with and less chance for banding to occur.

I believe a better phrase to describe an HDR monitor is that it can display "darker darks and brighter whites more accurately than an SDR monitor."

Hello!

I moved from a rather old office monitor, which probably was a TN panel, to an Acer Nitro VG271US (IPS) gaming monitor a few months ago. Since then, every time I look at the display for an extended period of time, I have severe eye strain that becomes worse. I can hardly keep my eyes open because they become so dry, red, and stressed out.

I reasoned that the IPS screen must be the problem because I could play games day and night on my previous office monitor without experiencing any kind of eye strain. Then, in an attempt to resolve the problem, I've chosen to get a VA monitor (Samsung Odyssey G5 LC27G55TQBUXEN). It was of little help - same problem.

Additionally, I experimented with the contrast settings and changed the color mode from sRGB to another, but none of it was helpful. I've run out of ideas. Do I really have no choice except to go and game on a 10+ year old monitor again? This can't be it.

Any ideas what it could be?

TL;DR extreme eye strain with IPS and VA gaming monitors, no issue with old a** office monitor somehow, help.

Thanks!

Edit: Thanks a lot for all these replies! I've tried all kind of brightness settings, tried background light, a different refresh rate setting. Nothing really fixes the issue. I tried switching back to the old TN monitor; no eye strain whatsoever. It has to be something the gaming IPS and VA monitors have that the TN monitor does not have. But god knows what that is..