Gamma incorrect in Windows 10

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Gawd
Joined
Aug 25, 2010
Messages
640
I don't know what is causing this but it could be one of the March updates for Windows 10 as I don't recall this happening before that timeframe. Basically, gamma and/or brightness seems off in Windows 10 now. For example, in Apex Legends while in the Firing Range, the place you spawn in is a cave and supposed to be dark and hard to see. Yet I can see everything clearly. I have attached a screenshot. You are not supposed to be able to see the walls and the end of the cave like this.



I haven't changing any setting related to brightness and/or gamma in Windows 10 or on my monitor.

And it's not just Apex Legends (the only game I've tried so far) as even just using Windows 10 everything seems to have a slightly elevated brightness.

Any ideas? I tried rolling back my NVIDIA drivers and it made no difference.
 
I tried changing the "Output dynamic range" in the NVCP. It was on the NVIDIA default setting of "Full". I tried changing it to "Limited" and my black wallpaper turned gray. Put it back to "Full".

By the way, I have Discord on my PC and iPhone. When I open Discord on both, the gray colored areas of the Discord app are much brighter on my PC compared to my iPhone. They used to be the same tint/color.

Also, it seems the rest of the colors are still fine. It just that grays are elevated in brightness and not as "deep". Basically, gray colors seem light gray now.
 
Not sure if this matters, but I did shift my PC to another room about a week ago. Settings and cable hook-ups are same though.
 
Have you checked your HDR settings? I've had a few occasions where something would trigger HDR and then it would remain stuck on afterward until I either toggle the HDR setting or manually reset the video driver (Windows Key + CTRL + Shift + B).
 
My monitor doesn't support HDR. I did try the resetting the video driver using your method but it made no difference.

By the way, I did try another GPU (a GTX 1060) and still had the same results.
 
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Are there any BIOS settings that affect gamma? As stated earlier, I changed rooms and had my PC unplugged for a day or so. Wonder if anything got reset or changed in the BIOS.
 
Also, I wonder if this is caused by some SDR/HDR mess up in Windows 10? My monitor doesn't support HDR. Right now, blacks are blacks like they should be. But the other colors, especially grays have elevated brightness. It's like there is a lack of "depth" in picture in certain conditions. It's not really noticeable unless you know what to look for (like my screenshot in the first post). If you look at how the cave in the Firing Range looks like in Apex Legends in YouTube videos or screenshots, it is completely dark and hard to see inside. Yet my screenshot shows I can see all the way to the back of the cave.
 
Is it possible that it's a monitor issue rather than a computer issue? Do you have a different computer to try your monitor out with? Or even just use a TV Cable Box, Satellite Receiver, or Bluray player via HDMI to test if you have to. You said that you didn't change any monitor settings, but is it possible that something was changed on accident? I know many monitors come with several profiles that can be swapped between fairly easily, sometimes with the press of just one button. Perhaps try to set your monitor to default settings.
 
I did reset the monitor settings as well and reconfigure them to my preference (same settings as when everything was fine). Will try another monitor and report back.
 
Just tried a doing a clean install of Windows 10. Issue still there.
 
It was probably an update to the game that changed the gamma curve since most games do not respect the gamma curve as set in Windows.

For Apex Legends I would find the videoconfig file and change the gamma setting in there. Note that this value does not match real gamma values, as far as I know. I would try values between 1.35 and 1.75.
 
I just checked my brother's PC and we both confirmed the issue is happening on his PC as well. Even on his lock screen (which he hasn't changed in forever), there is elevated brightness on the dark areas of the screen. We can even see banding that was not there before in the dark areas of the screen due to the increased brightness. Seems like it is an issue caused by some previous Windows update. Guess I'll just stop trying to fix it and wait to see if Microsoft fixes the issue in a future update.

Edit: There is also a massive difference in the way the grays of Discord look on our PCs vs. our phones. The gray colors of Discord on our PCs are way brighter where previously there were quite similar to how they look on our phones.
 
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I look screenshots of Discord on my PC and iPhone. The difference may not look like much but notice how I have selected the "Rules" category and how the small gray rectangle highlighting the "Rules" category name is brighter on PC. Also, the difference is a lot bigger in real life.

PC:

smYwR2A.jpg


iPhone:

Kg3jWOY.png
 
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