Troubles With Gamma And Brightness
sushibug
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12788Members
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12788Members
in Tech Support
<div class="IPBDescription">"Game doesn't support downloadable gam"</div> lots of sprites/icons are black and my score screen is green with black titles.
Yes I have read the faqs and done everything listed for the "messed up" display. here are my system specs that might matter:
amd 2400
radeon 9700 pro (cat 4.1s)
asus a7n8x nforce2 mobo
viewsonic 19" P95F+
i have disabled the radeon 9700 pro secondary where a secondary monitor can plug into but still no luck.
i am not using any third party software to increase gamma/brightness.
my desktop and 3d color settings in the ati control panel are default.
with ns2.0 the alien hive icons were black. now, with 3.0, the comchair icons are black and that isn't acceptable. i am a good comm and want to command whenever possible.
the only thing worth mentioning is that my monitor brightness and contrast are very high. i have lowered them to halfway, but in doing so it makes my desktop very dark and NS practically pitchblack. if i use the ati control panel to brighten up my desktop, the colors look stale and NS still yields the same black icons anyway.
my config file has gamma and brightness set at "3"
here are attached images:
<img src='http://home.pacbell.net/sushibug/hera.JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<img src='http://home.pacbell.net/sushibug/pulse.JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Yes I have read the faqs and done everything listed for the "messed up" display. here are my system specs that might matter:
amd 2400
radeon 9700 pro (cat 4.1s)
asus a7n8x nforce2 mobo
viewsonic 19" P95F+
i have disabled the radeon 9700 pro secondary where a secondary monitor can plug into but still no luck.
i am not using any third party software to increase gamma/brightness.
my desktop and 3d color settings in the ati control panel are default.
with ns2.0 the alien hive icons were black. now, with 3.0, the comchair icons are black and that isn't acceptable. i am a good comm and want to command whenever possible.
the only thing worth mentioning is that my monitor brightness and contrast are very high. i have lowered them to halfway, but in doing so it makes my desktop very dark and NS practically pitchblack. if i use the ati control panel to brighten up my desktop, the colors look stale and NS still yields the same black icons anyway.
my config file has gamma and brightness set at "3"
here are attached images:
<img src='http://home.pacbell.net/sushibug/hera.JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<img src='http://home.pacbell.net/sushibug/pulse.JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Comments
strangly the problem doesn't occur under NS3.0 beta in HL 1.1.1.0 aka the last WON based version
1) Update Drivers
2) this has nothing to do with what gama/brightnes/contrast levels are set at (it is a conflict stlye thing)
3) You should run the gamatweak tool found in your NS dir jsut to get your gama to the proper level.
For now the only posible fix I can think of is playing with driver versions.
I am also surprised this is in the 3.0 beta, i seemed to remember it being fixed...
as for drivers, i have uninstalled and reinstalled older catalyst drivers and steam as well... to no avail.
<!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->
ummmm,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
falling asleep sory
My guess is that some how this sliped through the cracks.
I coulda sworn this bug was fixed (/me goes perusing through bug DB, hope I still can <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->)
Now it should work!
I tried wiping all config settings and starting over but to no avail. Messing with the monitor brightness and contrast help very little. I also tried messing with gamma, brightness, and con_color, topcolor, bottomcolor, ... and it still didn't make any difference in the brightness of the hud.
Win XP SP1
GeForce 4 4400 53.03 (others tried)
Fresh steam install
Dual monitor config
Correction. I've done a SEARCH on the error message overlaid on the first screenshot, and turned up a number of matches. The common thread appears to be either A) Multimonitor setup (which I'm using with no problems) or B) Windows 2003.
I'd be most likely to believe it's Win2003 that's causing it to bork.
-This problem occured when I installed Windows 2003. It was working fine with WindowsXP with GeForce2 MX200.
-In windows 2003, I have tried 2 graphics cards, GeForce2 MX200 64MB RAM and ASUS Radeon 9200SE 128 MB RAM, with their latest drivers found from their official sites, no change, "downloadable gamma" error is still there. So it is not related with the drivers in Windows 2003.
-My GeForce2 MX200 does not have dual monitor support, so there is no another monitor that seems to be attached or configured in the system. So it is not related to OpenGL not supporting dual monitors problem.
-I have tried both Direct3D and OpenGL video modes, no change. So it is not related to video mode.
-I have not installed another 3rd party program which controls the gamma, except the drivers for the cards. both drivers for these cards supports to change brighness gamma from the control panel. This might be the reason but I haven't got any chance to remove/change the dirvers and try that.
-I have tried both skins for the Steam, no change.
-Windows2003's graphics acceleration is on the full state, to support OpenGL.
-In Windows2003, for NS2.0 (the WON version) has the both team colors as green, but commander mode was good (it was not dark).
-Problematic parts are: Showscores window, both teams seemed in green color, spectators and readyroomers seemed in very dark gray color, the title (servername, time, map) is also in dark gray, in combat mode experience level is very dark gray, in command console the commander interface is very dark but it is identifiable if you increase the brightness a lot, the small icons that describes what the gorg or commander is doing is also very dark. Whenever you enter a game, in the middle of the screen I got a message saying "Display does not support downloadable gam", this message comes whenever I open or close the console or I press ESC to go to the main menu and come back to the game.
It might be a Windows 2003 problem for me, but there has to be a solution or a clue about the problem. In WindowsXP it might be related to multiple displays or a 3rd party gamma loader software, but in Windows2003, I'm nearly sure that this requires a different solution.
I just remebered this being the case before.
I am now wondering if it has to do with how the Mapers were getting around the size limitations.....
I think you are right, because, today i played on ns_fahkikko and it worked extremely well, everything was all right, and in their proper color. To test it, I played on ns_nomblizkikko4 and it was perfect again, I haven't tried siege map but I'm sure that it will also work fine. There something about these maps, maybe the info entities in them, or is it about size limitations, as Thansal mentioned...
mappers for these maps may have the answer for this
(may be I should create some maps and find out the problem)
if a map has "env_gamma" entity and if its value is anything other then "1" then I have this darkness problem, if it does not exist or it only sets the gamma value to 1 then everything works fine
you can manually set this gamma setting, but it requires sv_cheats to be enabled. for example, create a game on ns_nothing, in the console type "sv_cheats 1" (without the quotation marks) and also type "setgamma 1" then look at the scoreboard, taa daaaa, everything turns out to be ok, command console, scores, building icons, everything will be back in their original color. HOWEVER, in my machine, it still says that the display doesnot support downloadable gamma. This solution could be valid for only Windows 2003 operating system, I haven't got a chance to try on the other operating systems. If you again type into the console "setgamma 2" then again this darkness problem jumps up. Since the cheats has to be enabled for this to work, we cannot use it in a public game. I'll search through the bug database if something like this has been mentioned before, and will post a suspected bug report.
To find this point, I have created two maps, which are exactly same except the env_gamma entities, one has gamma 1 and the other has gamma 2
if you like to test these maps you can download them <a href='http://eniac.redirectme.net/ns/ns_sample_maps.zip' target='_blank'>here</a>
you can download my demo file that I show the changed while I use the setgamma comand, <a href='http://eniac.redirectme.net/ns/gamma01.zip' target='_blank'>demo file</a>
here are my screenshots
on the map with gamma 1
<img src='http://eniac.redirectme.net/ns/ns_sample_gamma1.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
on the map with gamma 2
<img src='http://eniac.redirectme.net/ns/ns_sample_gamma2.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
I have also tested it on Radeon 9200SE 128MB graphics card, I don't think it is because of the detonator drivers, it might be because of Win2k3 however.
I was gona try and see what setgamma did for some one with out the problem, but I can't seem to start a game of NS properly <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I have created a trainer like file, all you need to do is
1) Download this file
<a href='http://eniac.redirectme.net/ns/eniac_ns_gamma.zip' target='_blank'>http://eniac.redirectme.net/ns/eniac_ns_gamma.zip</a>
2) Unzip it and run the ENIAC_NS_GAMMA.exe
3) Run Natural Selection
4) Connect to a server
5) Press ALT+TAB to go back to Windows
6) Run this program (if you have not done it yet)
7) Press the button "Set Natural Selection Gamma" in the program
8) Go back to game and enjoy your game <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
You will need to set the gamma (i.e. run the program and press that button) after each map change or server change.
For technical information, this program will set the current gamma in memory to 1 which will enable you to see the colors in corrected format.
Hope this helps until the developers fix this issue.
Note: This program runs perfectly in my system, I would like see if you can run it successfully too, so that I can open a new thread for this program.