Why my eyes are tired after looking at 0AD screen (playing, observing, lobby reading, etc.)

[BeTe]

I feel very tired, unlike with other things on my PC. Why could it be? 

Are my settings correct? What I can do to fix it?

[Tapothei]

When I ever do play any Playstation games my head also become hurt possibly from low frame rate, around 30fps, can also be motion sickness, or that your monitor has too much contrast/brightness the colour is tiring you, eye strain or could be anything really.

Actually your fps is throttled both in menu and games, so increase it to 60, if you want precise use the scroll too. I think thats what causing you tired.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Oftentimes, watching 0 A.D. replays on YouTube knocks me out. Don't know why. 

[Tapothei]

13 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Oftentimes, watching 0 A.D. replays on YouTube knocks me out. Don't know why. 

Its a sign its boring to watch. Basically equivalent to hearing history lectures if your not into it. Well it happens to me to various gameplay videos a lot especially if it goes beyond 1 hour.

[BeTe]

10 hours ago, Tapothei said:

When I ever do play any Playstation games my head also become hurt possibly from low frame rate, around 30fps, can also be motion sickness, or that your monitor has too much contrast/brightness the colour is tiring you, eye strain or could be anything really.

Actually your fps is throttled both in menu and games, so increase it to 60, if you want precise use the scroll too. I think thats what causing you tired.

If it's my monitor, it'd not be case ONLY with 0AD. 

Re FPS limit, I have same limit in OpenRA (another RTS) to 55 fps and I don't have any issues. Now I check FPS and it actuallyu drops way below 55, to like 15-20... Now i lowered all Graphics settings to lowest so now 0AD looks like ugly Minecraft  Will see how it works for my eyes.

[Deicide4u]

1 hour ago, BeTe said:

Now i lowered all Graphics settings to lowest so now 0AD looks like ugly Minecraft

I prefer looking at original AoE2 and AoM era graphics, as those just work for a RTS. Too much detail, and you get washed out or saturated assets that are hard to look at. Sometimes, it takes too long to recognize which structure you're looking at, which only amplifies the eye strain.

Just take a look at old AoM videos. The art style was amazing for its time.

Edited 21 hours ago by Deicide4u
details - > detail

[BeTe]

41 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

I prefer looking at original AoE2 and AoM era graphics, as those just work for a RTS. Too much detail, and you get washed out or saturated assets that are hard to look at. Sometimes, it takes too long to recognize which structure you're looking at, which only amplifies the eye strain.

Just take a look at old AoM videos. The art style was amazing for its time.

Abolutely agree. Starcraft 1 graphics are perfection I'd say. AOE2 also cool.

I tried to reduce all graphics to lowest, but it very bad, like Playstation 1 graphics and also it seems it's not better for eyes. I don't enjoy playing 0AD like that.  

Is there any mod to "change" models/graphics but without affecting gameplay and ability to play Multiplayer?

Edited 20 hours ago by BeTe

[Deicide4u]

37 minutes ago, BeTe said:

Is there any mod to "change" models/graphics but without affecting gameplay and ability to play Multiplayer?

As far as I know, there isn't.

I keep my settings at Medium (with shadows at Low) and there isn't any lag with R28, except in extreme late game with hundreds of units on the screen. 

Edited 19 hours ago by Deicide4u

[Tapothei]

17 hours ago, BeTe said:

If it's my monitor, it'd not be case ONLY with 0AD. 

Re FPS limit, I have same limit in OpenRA (another RTS) to 55 fps and I don't have any issues. Now I check FPS and it actuallyu drops way below 55, to like 15-20... Now i lowered all Graphics settings to lowest so now 0AD looks like ugly Minecraft  Will see how it works for my eyes.

Nononono, there is a setting there that you throttled the fps. Lowering the graphic setting doesn't do anything unless you change it, check the setting again and find the word 'FPS throttling in games' and bump it to 60 fps. Hopefully I didn't misunderstood something.

[BeTe]

1 hour ago, Tapothei said:

Nononono, there is a setting there that you throttled the fps. Lowering the graphic setting doesn't do anything unless you change it, check the setting again and find the word 'FPS throttling in games' and bump it to 60 fps. Hopefully I didn't misunderstood something.

1) I can set to 100, but my PC is weak so it can go up to like 50 or so. And once armies grows, then it drops to 20 regardless of limit in Settings.

2) Also 50-60 limit should be OK - I have that configured in an another RTS and it's fine for my eyes.

[guerringuerrin]

In my case, I don’t feel like 0 A.D. causes eye strain or headaches directly. I’ve always associated that more with blue light from screens, which is why I’ve been using anti-glare / blue-light blocking glasses for a few years now, and they’ve worked quite well for me. At night, I also enable night mode to reduce blue light intensity.

However, one thing I have noticed in 0 A.D. is that the lack of contrast makes me strain a bit more to distinguish certain units—especially when some player colors are too similar to the environment.

I think this mod could help reduce that visual strain. I’ve used it for a while and it makes unit differentiation much easier. It might be worth giving it a try.
 

Regarding FPS, there’s no real benefit in going beyond 60 FPS for this kind of game.

Unlocking the frame rate will only make your hardware work harder (especially the GPU) without providing any meaningful gameplay advantage. It just increases power consumption and heat output for no practical gain.

Edited 2 hours ago by guerringuerrin

[BeTe]

46 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

In my case, I don’t feel like 0 A.D. causes eye strain or headaches directly. I’ve always associated that more with blue light from screens, which is why I’ve been using anti-glare / blue-light blocking glasses for a few years now, and they’ve worked quite well for me. At night, I also enable night mode to reduce blue light intensity.

However, one thing I have noticed in 0 A.D. is that the lack of contrast makes me strain a bit more to distinguish certain units—especially when some player colors are too similar to the environment.

I think this mod could help reduce that visual strain. I’ve used it for a while and it makes unit differentiation much easier. It might be worth giving it a try.
 

Regarding FPS, there’s no real benefit in going beyond 60 FPS for this kind of game.

Unlocking the frame rate will only make your hardware work harder (especially the GPU) without providing any meaningful gameplay advantage. It just increases power consumption and heat output for no practical gain.

Yeah I used "Redshift" software on Linux to cope with blue light. I had problem in OpenRA with Snow maps. But it didn't help me so I don't use it.

"one thing I have noticed in 0 A.D. is that the lack of contrast makes me strain a bit more to distinguish certain units"

This is super annoying thing and reason why I hate all new games. That's how Starcraft 2 looks to me compared to Starcraft 1... terrible thing.

I'll check this mod. It'd be really cool if someone would develop some graphics mod to reduce graphical overwhelm so you can really focus on play not at finding and distinguising units during chaos.

[vladislavbelov]

On 28/03/2026 at 9:44 PM, BeTe said:

What I can do to fix it?

Could you try enabling VSync? It disables screen tearing and ignores FPS limiting, though it won't go over your monitor frequency (typically 60Hz).

[BeTe]

57 minutes ago, vladislavbelov said:

Could you try enabling VSync? It disables screen tearing and ignores FPS limiting, though it won't go over your monitor frequency (typically 60Hz).

Oh i never understood what Vsync is for. Tried it now.... It goes above 60, but drops to 40-50 due to PC performance. But it doesn't help. Just spectated game for 5 mins and my eyes are already tired. Maybe b/c of playing other settings... i have to set to low quality and then it's pixelated. But idk, i didn't have such problem with Minecraft years ago...

[BeTe]

@guerringuerrin I tried this ffm_mod, but i didn't notice change. As I can see it's just for colors, not graphics itself.

[guerringuerrin]

3 minutes ago, BeTe said:

@guerringuerrin I tried this ffm_mod, but i didn't notice change. As I can see it's just for colors, not graphics itself.

Yes, as I said:

1 hour ago, guerringuerrin said:

it makes unit differentiation much easier. It might be worth giving it a try.

 

Edited 34 minutes ago by guerringuerrin

[Deicide4u]

5 minutes ago, BeTe said:

ust spectated game for 5 mins and my eyes are already tired. Maybe b/c of playing other settings.

My honest advice is to seek assistance of a medical professional. This might not be related to the game.

[BeTe]

8 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

My honest advice is to seek assistance of a medical professional. This might not be related to the game.

 bro, I play Starcraft and OpenRA and have no issues at all. I can play it for hours.

[vladislavbelov]

30 minutes ago, BeTe said:

As I can see it's just for colors, not graphics itself.

Try disabling Post Processing, it also affects the picture.