Way Too Bright !

Skumball

NS is far too bright on my comp. In the colour correction of the NVidia drivers I have to set the gamma to around 1.80 to bring the brightness of my monitor up to a normal level. Otherwise games are way too dark and windows use in general is dark. This is great for everything I do on the comp except for NS. The brighter textures are pure white and elements of the HUD are hard to read because they blend in with the bright background. The mini-map is impossible to even see, it's just a white square:

<img src='http://mysite.freeserve.com/skumball/2bright.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>

Any help appreciated !

I have a GF2 Ultra with the 30.82 NVidia drivers and I'm running Win98 SE

eaglec

I have only seen this problem when using a naff monitor, basically you need to reduce your brightness and increase your contrast. Best to return you video card to default settings, turn down your brightness and wack up the contrast to max, then increase the brightness until white is just white. After that make small adjustments to contrast and brightness and if you need to adjust your gamma by VERY small steps.

Skumball

Thanks for your help. I've played around with a few settings but nothing really works. If I reset my gamma on my NVidia drivers then the mini map becomes clear, but then every other game is too dark. Even like this, NS colours are still too bright in some areas and dark in others. And it is only in NS. I play DOD, TFC and CS, all with the same settings and they are all fine. Methinks the NS team need to do some graphical work.

Skumball

Also I have noticed that when I bring down the console and type 'quit', the textures on screen darken to a normal level for a second before the program quits. What is NS doing to make everything so bright? It seems to bump up the brightness of everything when the game starts. When I hit ESC even the menu is really bright. And that picture on the console, that is really bright too. Come on NS team, sort it out! (Love the mod BTW <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->)

FireStorm

what's your gamma value in HL? (type "gamma" in the console) Try to reduce it (type "gamma XXX")

Skumball

Sorry forgot to mention that. I usually crank both Gamma and Brightness in the config up to 4 in HL mods so that I can actually see in darker areas. So I tried putting both Brightness and Gamma down to 1. This make the game very dark in a lot of areas but the brighter areas were still bright white! NS increases brightness when the game starts for some reason. If I can stop this happening it might fix the problem. I tested out DOD and when the game starts it does not boost the brightness so it is only with NS.

Tsungfai

Did you use the "Reset Gamma" and/or "Tune Monitor of Optimal Gamma" on the start menu?

Skumball

I have run through the gamma tune program and set up my monitor so that it displays what the program instructs. The reset gamma only puts the nvidia gamma setting back to defaults. Can anyone shed any light on the brightness boost that NS incorporates?

MonsieurEvil

Yes. NS has a built in effect that Flayra refers to as 'over-brightening'. This is just a way of making the colors more vidid and crisp in the HL engine, and avoiding the dull dreary look that usually plagues Quake/HL mods. It's 100% intentional.

If you are using an old dying monitor, it's going to cause the problems like you're describing (we had a few complaints of this when the game first came out). The two settings you can play with to find a balance on this are:

gamma (ex: gamma "2.500000")
brightness (ex: brightness "1.000000")

I have no hard fast answer for you on a magic setting, you're just going to have to try different combinations until you get something that works. Or shell out for a new monitor that doesn't have a dying CRT like yours, which is probably not a good option for you.

Skumball

Yeah the monitor is pretty old and needs a gamma increase to keep things clear. I can't afford much in the way of upgrades at present so I'll have to stick with it for now. It's strange because when I start a LAN game the brightness is pretty bright, but joining an online game is twice as bright! Dunno, very odd. Anyway thanks for everyones help.

Mop

i have brightness on 4 and gamma on 16 and its still pitch black! <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->

Thansal

Alex, start a new thread and post your syspecs in there and we will try to help you.

ok, skum, as MonsE said there is the over brightening effect, the fact that you say it drops down to proper lvls when you leave sounds like you have played with gama/contrast.

ok under your NS folder in your Start menu there should be a thing that says 'tune moniter' play with that, see if you can get it working. reset your lvls in game (do this through the menus) then try playing a game.

Hmmm, /me wonders if Flay could put in a command ns_overbright 1, allows us to turn on and off the over bright, could be intersting to see if it fixes certain probs.