Brightness problem...

[squirekat]

... or probably better said "Darkness problem".

I'm having trouble with a couple of games, specifically Myst and Riven. I used to play them all the time with no problem but haven't played them for years. Recently I decided to install Myst V. The installation goes fine and the game plays fine but my screen is so dark I can hardly see anything in some of the cave scenes.

I have my brightness set to 100 and contrast at 100 through the buttons on my Dell 1626HT 21" CRT Monitor. I also have a Radeon 9800 series graphics card and have installed the Catalyst Control Center where I can make more adjustments. The only thing I've changed in there is the gamma, which I've upped a little bit to increase brightness. I have no problems viewing web pages, the desktop, various windows, etc, yet when I load Myst V everything is so dark it makes the game virtually unplayable.

I'm out of ideas on how to fix the problem and was hoping one of you gamers might be able to "shed some light" on the subject

Thanks,
Mark

[leroys1000]

Is there a control for brightness or gamma in options
on the game menu screen?

[squirekat]

Thanks for the reply, Leroy,

Unfortunately there is only a function for adjusting brightness, and it doesn't seem to help, even when I adjust it to max brightness.

There is a screen that comes up when first installing Myst V where it says something like "Adjust the brightness so you can barely see the (whatever)". Even at max brightness I can't even see whatever it is I'm supposed to "barely see".

Mark

[leroys1000]

For catalyst control center,there should be adjustments
for direct 3D and opengl.
Might want to check those.

[squirekat]

Hi Leroy,

Actually, I have tweaked everything in CCC trying to get Myst V to where it isn't so dark but the only things that seem to help are brightness, contrast and gamma, and all of those are maxed out.

I don't really know what to adjust in 3D or OpenGl. There are 3 settings for 3D and 2 for OpenGl that I can either check or uncheck. Actually, those are only the most advanced settings. All the lesser settings such as anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering and Mipmap detail are set to highest quality. Here are my current settings on the more advanced features...

3D
Enable geometry instancing (unchecked)
Support DXT texture formats (checked)
Alternate pixel center (unchecked)

OpenGl
Triple buffering (unchecked)
Force 24-bit Z-buffer depth (unchecked)

Any suggestions on whether I should change any of these settings?

Mark

[leroys1000]

Let the application decide is usually the best choice for those.
Under the color tab there are color sliders you should be able
to turn up to get more brightness.
You should be able to link them so they move together.
Other than that I am about out of ideas.
You might try an earlier video driver version and see if it
is more compatable with the game.

[squirekat]

Thanks leroy,

I've been through all that. If I turn the brightness any higher it starts to make my Desktop unreadable (way too bright). I actually turned the brightness up really high one time, to the point where my desktop was almost white, then I started Myst V and it was still too dark to see much, basically the Desktop brightness setting had no effect on the Myst V game.

I suppose earlier drivers might work but I don't want to roll back my graphics drivers just to play a game so I think I'll just skip playing Myst V. Other than that my computer is running perfectly.

Thanks for all your help,
Mark

[MickinPlymouth]

Just keep upping the gamma on your vid card, that's what it's for..
For example every time I play some games (Dangerous Waters, Monster Trucks, Flight Sim 20004 etc) I always have to up the gamma quite a bit for my GeForce 2 card, its a hassle having to do it every time you load a game but it only takes a few seconds.
Also try juggling the Brightness and Contrast controls besides Gamma to get a clear bright picture..

PS and when you finish the game, re-set the sliders back to default (I hit 'Restore Defaults'), otherwise your desktop and stuff will be too bright)

PS again - when you up the sliders to get a brighter pic, don't forget to hit "Apply Settings", then it should carry them into the game

[squirekat]

Thanks MickinPlymouth,

I tried all that and nothing worked so I finally replaced my ancient Trinitron CRT monitor with a new Samsung LCD. That solved all the problems. My old monitor had deteriorated so slowly that I just didn't notice the difference until I replaced it.

Mark

[MickinPlymouth]

Incidentally,when i bought my monitor I set the brightness/contrast settings on maximum,but some games were still dull, then 3 years later I happened to tweak the colour settings almost by accident and the picture became a lot better and brighter. So for 3 years I hadn't known about the colour setting, duh..