Are Low Refresh Rates Bad for the Eyes?

suwalski asks: "Often when I go over to someone's house to help them with 'computer stuff' (translation: free support), I notice that many people who don't know better still use 60Hz as their refresh rate. XP seems to automatically tune higher, but for the others, I immediately bump it up, because it hurts my eyes. They say they don't see the difference. Am I right to assume that low refresh rates that make my eyes water are not healthy? If people don't notice the low refresh rate, does it still damage their eyes? Anyone know of any studies or papers?"

Comments

Glad I'm Not The Only One

[Joel Rowbottom]

When I inevitably get the relatives asking about PC upgrades and stuff at Christmas, and I end up reconfiguring their machines for them, I put the refresh rate up.

However, a low refresh rate is worse if there are flourescent lights in the room - which of course strobe a lot more noticeably than filament bulbs. Perhaps this is contributing to the problem?

Then of course, if you're always staring at a TV, your eyes might become accustomed to it.

Re:Yes, yes they are.

[Joel Rowbottom]

When these updates get too infrequent we see the flicker and it can be painful to the eyes. When the updates at at about 30 frames/sec we don't see the flicker any more, but people often still get headaches and other eye strains because the flicker is still there regardless of whether we can see it. 30hz is unacceptable, 60hz is better, but 3x or 4x... anything higher is preferable to lessen the flicker. With 60hz expect eye fatigue.

Yup, and it's a hell of a lot easier to see it if you look out of the corner of your eye, too.

It irks me too

[Pyromage]

I have no clinical data to say whether or not it's actually unhealthy, but everyone I know that actually seriously uses a computer can notice the difference. Every single one of them.

Some people may not notice, but those are usually the non-serious users. The "Computers are cool, but Word scares me" crowd don't usually notice much of anything. I once sat a guy in front of my dvorak keyboard (IBM Model M, removable key caps!) and he didn't notice for quite a while (minutes even!)...

Yep

[legLess]

Low refresh rates hurt my eyes badly - 60 is awful after just a couple minutes. I can see a little difference between 85 and 100, but only retroactively (i.e. 85 doesn't bother me). I used to run the network for a large architecture firm, and many of these people - although they drafted in AutoCAD all day long - saw nothing wrong with 60Hz. Some of them noticed that 85 or 100 was better, but I think many of them just acclimated to 60, not realizing anything better was possible.

On another note, Windows users should check out RefreshForce, which automatically sets the highest possible refresh rate every time you (or a game, or other app) switches resolutions or color depths in Windows. I run it on a couple machines wit no trouble.

My Optitions Advice

[Trevelyan]

This may seem a strange concept, but I asked my optition this (as opposed to /.) =)
He said to make sure that the refresh is above 75Hz if not more, the higher the better (well my current monitor is doing 64.9 =/)
And yes it is the low refresh that is hurting your eyes. One way to spot exceptional bad refresh to look just over the top of the monitor, if you can see it flicker then the refresh is way too low.

Re:Now it's everything else......

[spectral]

I have the exact same problem, though none of my friends seem to. In addition, in most every movie I've seen recently (yes, EVERY movie I've seen recently. In fact the high budget ones seem almost worse with it) that has any sort of high speed movement, it doesn't look crisp. I don't know if they're doing this intentionally, but the second there's any decent amount of motion, everything gets.. well, motion blurred. To the point of being practically one big mess where they're just colored blobs streaking around, and no more identifiable than that. Again, none of my friends seem to notice.. :(

The word you are looking for is "optician"

[Hell O'World]

...or at least that's one option.:)

But good idea. Ask a professional.

Re:Now it's everything else......

[yamla]

This is something that very much bothers me, too. It is far more noticable to me when the high speed movement is against a white (or light) background, much less so if it is dark. Very few movies, I find, have a lot of this but when it does happen, I'm with you. The objects are just one big mess.