Kindo on 26/2/2006 at 21:22
Hey!
My game(s) are too dark when I play. It's really bothersome in Thief, when lighting and everything is the main ingredient of the entire game. Sure, I can ramp up the in-game gamma, but doing so makes the game uglier, since it kind of amplifies the different colorations of certain textures. It's like, it becomes too bright, and it's obvious it's not right.
No monitor settings make any difference, and I've tried to apply Custom Settings, using the RadLinker tool on the Thief.exe etc, but no matter how high I turn the settings up (I'm talking about moving from 100 to 200 in Game Gamma/Brightness etc here), I can't see any difference whatsoever. Sure, in the game menus it's all blindingly bright, but when I load the actual game, it goes back to its standard darkness.
Any thoughts? I'm thinking this might be a hardware problem, with my monitor or something, but any help is welcome.
Thanks.
jtbalogh on 27/2/2006 at 04:30
Quote:
Sure, in the game menus it's all blindingly bright, but when I load the actual game, it goes back to its standard darkness.
You may have to adjust the settings for the menus, windows desktop and in game separately. Find out what resolution the game is from the thief options menu. Then use software to adjust video/monitor settings for that resolution only. Or adjust the monitor itself while playing the game. For safety, verify the CAM.CFG file has gamma 0.5 before starting all your adjustments again.
As a reference, the menus are always 640x480. The game might be like 1280x1024 in the options. The windows desktop might be like 1024x768.
Domarius on 27/2/2006 at 08:09
@Kindo
Let me guess - you're using an LCD monitor?
Kindo on 27/2/2006 at 12:31
Quote Posted by jtbalogh
You may have to adjust the settings for the menus, windows desktop and in game separately. Find out what resolution the game is from the thief options menu. Then use software to adjust video/monitor settings for that resolution only. Or adjust the monitor itself while playing the game. For safety, verify the CAM.CFG file has gamma 0.5 before starting all your adjustments again.
As a reference, the menus are always 640x480. The game might be like 1280x1024 in the options. The windows desktop might be like 1024x768.
Hmm... yes, I play the game (and desktop and everything else) in 1280x1024. I've been looking around in my various video-settings programs (such as RadLinker and Catalyst Control Center) for any options of settings dependant on a specific resolution, but I haven't managed to find anything yet. Any suggestions on programs to look for that might handle this?
Quote Posted by Domarius
@Kindo
Let me guess - you're using an LCD monitor?
Hehe, nope. I have an old, crummy (
http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0000DHKW6.03.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) Scaleo C994 - pretty much the only thing about my computer that's not upgraded. That's why I thought it's the monitor's fault my gamma is all screwed up.
Domarius on 27/2/2006 at 14:47
Well if your monitor itself is too dark, no changing of any software or video card settings is going to give you rich colours or avoid the washed out colour banding you'd be seeing by boosting the brightness this way.
However, being an ex-pc technician, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.
As monitors get old, they get fuzzy, and sometimes dark.
If you unscrew the casing of the monitor, somewhere you should find 2 dials that can be adjusted with a phillips head screwdriver.
One is for focus, the other is for brightness. Adjust to suit. They can usually be found near either of the back lower corners of the monitor.
WARNING: Please pay attention to the fucking voltage warnings on the inside of the monitor casing, for christ's sake. They aren't joking. You want to NEVER touch the metal wirey stuff surrounding the actual glass of the monitor just behind the casing at the front of the monitor. The voltage stored inside those is much higher than what goes in since it stores it slowly over time, and there is plenty of electricity stored up in it to kill you, many times over. It's even dangerous after you've pulled the plug because of the slow discharge.
Stay the hell away from the wirey stuff and you should be fine. :thumb:
Spitter on 27/2/2006 at 16:12
Jesus, great advice. Electrocute yourself.
mol on 27/2/2006 at 16:17
What Spitter said.
That something CAN be done doesn't mean it SHOULD be done. Don't even play with the idea.
The inscrutable po on 27/2/2006 at 17:03
A long time ago I had a 14 inch monitor that was too dark to play Thief. It ruined the experience, but nobody came straight out and told me it was a monitor problem so I wasted a lot of time trying everything else. Eventually I got a viewsonic CRT professional series. It's humongous but it's bright, colorful and the blacks are really black not gray. I hate that gray smoke that's supposed to be black on all the monitors at Best Buy. It's not expensive but the P95f+ takes up a lot of space. To save myself carrying it around parking lots and up to the house, I ordered it through the mail. It's about 19 inches wide, 18 inches tall and front to back it's also 19 inches. Games, especially Thief 2, look great on it. I burned out the first one after 4 years and I'll buy another one when this one burns out. I tried the flat screens and as convenient as their size is none of them had real black or the gorgeous brilliance of this. This one was around 400 to 500 USD.
Domarius on 28/2/2006 at 03:43
Glad I sufficiently expressed the danger there. But that is the only way to adjust your monitor - it may be the cause of your problem, it may not. Other than that, there is just buying a new monitor :)
jtbalogh on 28/2/2006 at 07:08
You said it was a crummy monitor and you are running it at such a high 1280x1024 ? Time to get a new montor ... Meanwhile, reduce the resolution so the monitor does not have to work so hard to increase brightness. If your menus at 640x480 are way too bright then run the game at 640x480 too to test it.
