Desperately need a new computer, but my eyes are not cooperative

[Timpetus]

Make sure you're following the 20/20/20 rule, whatever else you do to solve this problem. Look at something at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes. Your eyes need to change their focus occasionally or they'll degrade much faster and you'll have vision issues even during the 8 hours you're apparently not looking at a screen.

 

[FatLouie]

This is your problem in a nutshell. Staring at a screen all day is going to knacker your eyes. Dry eyes from not blinking are the least of your worries.

This is something best discussed with an optometrist well versed in occupational eye strain. Anything else is skirting around the issue. The optometrist should also give you pointers in what sort of screen to pick as well.

Yep. That is why I mentioned the Oasis eye drops in a previous post. My eye doc was adamant about me understanding that when we use a computer, we tend to stare and not blink as often as we do when we are watching TV from across the room, or speaking with someone. The end result are dry eyes, blurry eyes, irritated eyes.

OP says he spends 16 hour days on the computer, no doubt his eyes are drying out.

 

[RedTomato]

I have considered using this iMac as a makeshift monitor, but the panel is starting to deteriorate and flicker now and then, which is quite irritating in itself. So I don't see this being a long-term solution. I may have to see if I can acquire an old Lightning display off ebay if I want to go that route. The only other option is to see if the new 24" imacs are any different... or wait and see what comes out in the future. Maybe I'll have to sit and wait to see what comes of the oled macbooks rumored to come out next year. Not sure what else I can do, really.

You've already tried so many monitors I honestly don't think it's worth waiting for a new Mac to come out. It will NOT be what you want. I suggest putting in place something you already know works.

1. Buy another iMac 2010 the same size as the one you already use. This will be your new screen. You already know it works fine for you.

2. (trial) Test it with a borrowed M-series computer (Mac mini or MacBook) to see if the 2010 iMac accepts displayport input. Some responses here say it won't, some say it will. (You can test with your current degrading 2010 iMac, you don't need a new one for this test.)

3. If the test works, great, keep your new 2010 iMac and use it as an external screen for the Mx Mac. A M1 Mac mini is dirt cheap used nowadays and will work fine for you.

4. If the test fails, buy one of the last Intel Macs to use with your new 2010 iMac in Target Display mode. Any Mac model made 2019 or so will do, and they're getting quite cheap now. Use a modern SSD as a system drive, will give it a speed boost. Will be far better than than your current 2010 iMac.

5. Consider buying a second 2010 iMac to keep as spare.

 

[drrich2]

I'm not familiar with all the models you listed having tried. I share some concerns with other posters, and I'd like to know...

1.) Have you tried a high refresh rate display? People have mentioned flicker can irritate some people; perhaps a high refresh rate would help?

2.) Have you tried an OLED display? Perhaps one with high refresh rate? You said the Samsung odyssey g7 (which is QLED and 240-Hz refresh rate), and that "...thought I returned that because it had other issues that I wasn't able to accept..." What other issues? Was it okay for your eyes? Note: I think QLED is a type of OLED technology).

3.) Have you tried blowing up the text and viewing a display from farther away? I'm well into my 50's and my eyes are different even from each other. I crash in a plush recliner with my eyes about 4 - 5 feet from a 27" 4K display; I hold down the Command key and tap + until most online elements blow up to comfy viewing. I suspect less eye strain. Perhaps some distance would help offset the unpleasant experience you get from matte as opposed to glossy.

4.) I was going to ask about what brightness levels the displays you tried had, but the Apple Studio Display is capable of high brightness, so subtle straining to cope to lower brightness probably isn't your issue?

I get that the 2010 iMac didn't give you eye strain, and newer displays do, so it stands to reason something is different. Yes.

 

[drrich2]

Better Display is a GitHub app (with a free version) which allows FRC to be turned off.
Which helps some people.

Had no idea Better Display could do that; a little Googling turned up this page:

Eye care: prevent PWM and or temporal dithering​

From the article:

"In order to prevent PWM flicker, you first need to figure out the hardware brightness threshold below which PWM is activated. For most displays this is somewhere between the 30% and 50% range. You can use various techniques to figure out the exact treshold or you can simply assume 40% which should be safe for most displays.

In order to prevent the display to use hardware brightness levels below the PWM threshold and use BetterDisplay's software dimming instead (which does not trigger PWM), you should change the Combined brightness - minimum allowed hardware brightness level setting under the display's Advanced control settings section (make sure Combined brightness is enabled for the display)."

Note: Recent Intel era iMacs were capable to pretty strong brightness (I used to use a 2017 27" iMac), higher than come non-Apple displays. The mid. 2010 27" iMac, on the other hand - Typical brightness: 375 cd/m2.

Also:

"Preventing temporal dithering on Apple Silicon Macs​

Note
In app version v3.x the GPU Dithering option mentioned below can be found under the Color Mode menu.
Apple Silicon Macs automatically select the best available color depth for a display connection - this usually results in 10-bit color depth with no option to change this and thus prevent temporal dithering (or FRC - a high frequency switching between color levels to achieve an interim color).

Starting with version v2.3.0 you can toggle GPU Dithering under Image Adjustments to turn temporal dithering on and off for Apple Silicon Macs. This option is available and useful both for the built-in and external displays. Please note that this setting changes GPU side dithering and disables dithering for built-in Apple displays - external displays that have their might have their own additional hardware temporal dithering algorithms (still disabling GPU dithering helps)."

Yeah, I should clarify that I've been searching for a substitute for a couple of years now. I've tried and returned many monitors including the Studio Display.

Something just dawned on me. Maybe irrelevant, but I gotta ask. That list of displays you tried over a couple of years; what computer were you using to try them?

See, I just assumed you were using a computer that could drive whatever the display's capabilities were (e.g.: 144-Hz refresh rates). Were you using the mid.-2010 27" iMac? If so, your graphics system was one of these two per Apple's product page:

• 3.2GHz
  • ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory
• 2.8GHz
  • ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics processor with 1GB of GDDR5 memory

Quick Googling didn't tell me what resolution/frame rate combo. the Radeon HD 5670 supported, but...the year 2010... Consumers started getting 4K t.v.s in 2012. 4K Computer displays started rolling out in 2013 (from online searching). So what might a 2010 iMac drive?

Big question - what computer were you driving those displays with?