Can´t see anything in dark videogames with my IPS panel! Any idea on how to fix this?

[fernandolloretb]

Hi guys

I have an Asus Rog Swift pg279q for two weeks now and I am very happy with it. The colors look awesome and playing games that are usually bright is the best visual experience I have had with nay monitor or TV in my life.

The problem is when I play dark games, it is very hard to see details in the dark is like very difficult to distinguish between one thing and another. I know there is this thing about IPS panels called IPS glow but I didn´t think it was that bad. The game that made this very obvious to me is Wolfenstein II, this games has a lot of changes between bright and dark areas and therefore you feel the contrast a lot more.

Is there any way to fix this?

If you have a pg279q or any other IPS panel, what visual settings do you choose for dark games?

 

[JalYt_Justin]

IPS glow wouldn't have anything to do with not being able to distinguish objects. IPS panels are good for colors, and good ones have a really wide range of colors, so that's why your dark colors look even darker. Use NVidia control panel to turn up gamma, and that should solve your problem. It will mess with the bright areas but it will help in the dark areas. Alternatively you can mess around with the monitor settings and try to find a balance, but that's something that you're going to have to do by yourself since everyone's eyes are a little different.

 

[fernandolloretb]

IPS glow wouldn't have anything to do with not being able to distinguish objects. IPS panels are good for colors, and good ones have a really wide range of colors, so that's why your dark colors look even darker. Use NVidia control panel to turn up gamma, and that should solve your problem. It will mess with the bright areas but it will help in the dark areas. Alternatively you can mess around with the monitor settings and try to find a balance, but that's something that you're going to have to do by yourself since everyone's eyes are a little different.

Thanks a lot for the reply.

Sounds like a good idea to turn up gamma but the thing is that even with brigthness in value 0 is sometimes a little to bright, thats why I thought it was IPS glow because the monitor literally glows.

I will try for sure changing that parameter and see how it affects.

Thanks

 

[madmatt30]

Contrast up , brightness down

Or the opposite way around .

Most games do have a gamma/brightness option in game settings nowadays which you're better off using.

I've had the the same issue on different titles , turned brightness up for BF1 & then when I've booted forza 7 instead everything ia way way too bright.

 

[Solandri]

Sounds like a good idea to turn up gamma but the thing is that even with brigthness in value 0 is sometimes a little to bright, thats why I thought it was IPS glow because the monitor literally glows.

Gamma adjusts the brightness curve upwards or downwards (becomes brighter quicker or slower). it doesn't change the endpoints (completely black, completely white). If bright stuff is fine but dark stuff is too dark, gamma is indeed the correct adjustment. It'll make the dark stuff brighter, at a (relatively) small cost of increased brightness of bright stuff. But the endpoints will not change.

The monitor's brightness and contrast settings mess with the endpoints. The brightness setting adjusts the brightness of the backlight (shifts the entire curve and the endpoints up or down). The contrast setting shifts brightness away from or towards (or even past) the endpoints of the brightness curve (moves both the endpoints). Although on some monitors it just seems to tweak the LCD response values (i.e. does the same thing as brightness, except via changing how much light the LCD lets through instead of changing the backlight).

 

[fernandolloretb]

Sounds like a good idea to turn up gamma but the thing is that even with brigthness in value 0 is sometimes a little to bright, thats why I thought it was IPS glow because the monitor literally glows.

Gamma adjusts the brightness curve upwards or downwards (becomes brighter quicker or slower). it doesn't change the endpoints (completely black, completely white). If bright stuff is fine but dark stuff is too dark, gamma is indeed the correct adjustment. It'll make the dark stuff brighter, at a (relatively) small cost of increased brightness of bright stuff. But the endpoints will not change.

The monitor's brightness and contrast settings mess with the endpoints. The brightness setting adjusts the brightness of the backlight (shifts the entire curve and the endpoints up or down). The contrast setting shifts brightness away from or towards (or even past) the endpoints of the brightness curve (moves both the endpoints). Although on some monitors it just seems to tweak the LCD response values (i.e. does the same thing as brightness, except via changing how much light the LCD lets through instead of changing the backlight).

Wow
I always though gamma was another way of saying brightness. So I am guessing I can change gamma individually for any game in the options menu or changing “globally” form the NVidia control panel am I right? Is strange to me to find this option in the software being so related to the monitor, shouldn´t it be in the monitor?

Thanks a lot for the reply

 

[Solandri]

I always though gamma was another way of saying brightness. So I am guessing I can change gamma individually for any game in the options menu or changing “globally” form the NVidia control panel am I right? Is strange to me to find this option in the software being so related to the monitor, shouldn´t it be in the monitor?

The brightness setting is typically a linear shift of the brightness curve up or down. This can result in the endpoints exceeding the capability of the monitor, or falling short. e.g. Pure black (0) shows up as dark grey (inability to display pure black), or dark grey shows up as pure black (shadows are clipped). And/or pure white (255) shows up as light grey (inability to display pure white), or light grey shows up as pure white (highlights are clipped).

The contrast setting is supposed to stretch the width of the brightness curve. Either compressing it towards the center (low contrast), at the cost of losing the ability to display pure black and pure white. Or enlarging it beyond the monitor's capability, so clipping (blowing out) the highlights and shadows.

But as I explained, LCD monitors rarely work this way anymore. Brightness usually controls the backlight brightness. Contrast (on cheap monitors) acts more like the traditional brightness setting by tweaking the LCD's response.

Adjusting the gamma changes the shape of the brightness curve but not the endpoints. Pure white stays pure white, pure black stays pure black (assuming your brightness and contrast were set to display these correctly). Just the stuff in the middle gets shifted up or down in brightness. It was originally developed as a way to compensate for the nonlinear brightness response of CRT monitors, so maintaining the endpoints was important.

All can be adjusted via the monitor or the video card. But typically the monitor will have brightness and contrast settings (though they don't exactly do on LCDs what they used to do on CRTs). Some of the higher end monitors will let you adjust gamma. But typically the gamma is adjusted in the video card (standard 2.2 for PCs and TVs, 1.8 for Macs).

It actually gets a lot more complicated than this. Each color has its own response curve, so you can tweak each color's gamma curve independently. And color profiles can compensate for nonlinearity which deviates beyond what's correctable with gamma. If you can borrow a colorimeter and color profiling software, it typically has a process to let you adjust the monitor's brightness and color settings so the white and black points are set up correctly. (You could also use it to generate a color profile, but in my experience most games simply dump your chosen color profile when running in full screen mode.)

 

[fernandolloretb]

Hey guys,

Someone in Reedit solved the problem for me. I am going to quote him here so anyone with the same problem can solve it to.

This is what he said and worked for me:
“The fact of the matter is that by default, windows should send you the full 8bit gamut of colour. Unless something has changed. Meaning your screen should receive all levels of black from 1 to 255. If you are indeed not sending the full 8bits on an IPS display, you are severely limiting your viewing experience. You can verify that and force the full 8 bit within the video card display settings.
Apart from that, there are some display that are offering "enhanced" blacks. I'm not sure if Asus put it on your particular screen. This, for me, would be a last effort. Something to turn to if everything else fails. Because if you activate such a "feature, you will not be seing the image as it should be.”