Can anyone please help figure out where my video problem lies?

[+c0re-]

I have had this issue since I got my radeon 9800 pro card, (to replace a
geforce 4 ti4200)

To me it seems to be a struggle for power between the video drivers gamma
settings, and a game's own gamma settings.

If I load up the game asheron's call (a pretty old directx 3 game), I have
to rely on the ati gamma settings (through the ati control panel) otherwise
the game is unplayably dark. It has no gamma setting in it whatsoever, all
it has is a lame brightness which only increases the lighting marginally on
the 3d area.

This isn't a problem in itself, but then if I play a game which does have
it's own gamma settings, for example Farcry, this seems to override the ati
gamma settings while I play farcry (which is fine) but then when I exit
farcry and go back to asheron's call, no gamma settings are applied, I have
to load up the ati control panel and reapply the settings.

It's not a major problem but it's annoying to have to reconfigure my gamma
each time I do something different on the computer. With my nvidia card I
set the gamma once and that was that.

I've even resorted to opening up my monitor and increasing it's internal
brightness dial, which wasn't a great fix since it increases the brightness
but not the gamma, leaving everything looking kind of washed out.

Anyone know of a fix/workaround or have suggestions please? Ati support
haven't responded to any emails other than to give me the typical "reinstall
the driver" response, which I've tried several times to no avail.

Thanks in advance for any info.

 

[cowboyz]

I have had this issue since I got my radeon 9800 pro card, (to
replace a geforce 4 ti4200)

To me it seems to be a struggle for power between the video drivers
gamma settings, and a game's own gamma settings.

If I load up the game asheron's call (a pretty old directx 3 game), I
have to rely on the ati gamma settings (through the ati control
panel) otherwise the game is unplayably dark. It has no gamma setting
in it whatsoever, all it has is a lame brightness which only
increases the lighting marginally on the 3d area.

This isn't a problem in itself, but then if I play a game which does
have it's own gamma settings, for example Farcry, this seems to
override the ati gamma settings while I play farcry (which is fine)
but then when I exit farcry and go back to asheron's call, no gamma
settings are applied, I have to load up the ati control panel and
reapply the settings.

It's not a major problem but it's annoying to have to reconfigure my
gamma each time I do something different on the computer. With my
nvidia card I set the gamma once and that was that.

I've even resorted to opening up my monitor and increasing it's
internal brightness dial, which wasn't a great fix since it increases
the brightness but not the gamma, leaving everything looking kind of
washed out.

Anyone know of a fix/workaround or have suggestions please? Ati
support haven't responded to any emails other than to give me the
typical "reinstall the driver" response, which I've tried several
times to no avail.

Thanks in advance for any info.

Not sure if this will help much but in the Ati control panel you can set
settings for desktop and 3d seperately. Are all the settings setup?

 

[McGrandpa]

I have had this issue since I got my radeon 9800 pro card, (to
replace a geforce 4 ti4200)

To me it seems to be a struggle for power between the video drivers
gamma settings, and a game's own gamma settings.

If I load up the game asheron's call (a pretty old directx 3 game), I
have to rely on the ati gamma settings (through the ati control
panel) otherwise the game is unplayably dark. It has no gamma setting
in it whatsoever, all it has is a lame brightness which only
increases the lighting marginally on the 3d area.

This isn't a problem in itself, but then if I play a game which does
have it's own gamma settings, for example Farcry, this seems to
override the ati gamma settings while I play farcry (which is fine)
but then when I exit farcry and go back to asheron's call, no gamma
settings are applied, I have to load up the ati control panel and
reapply the settings.

It's not a major problem but it's annoying to have to reconfigure my
gamma each time I do something different on the computer. With my
nvidia card I set the gamma once and that was that.

I've even resorted to opening up my monitor and increasing it's
internal brightness dial, which wasn't a great fix since it increases
the brightness but not the gamma, leaving everything looking kind of
washed out.

Anyone know of a fix/workaround or have suggestions please? Ati
support haven't responded to any emails other than to give me the
typical "reinstall the driver" response, which I've tried several
times to no avail.

Thanks in advance for any info.

yeah, I think a lot of us that like the desktop somewhat less bright or
washed out looking have run into this. The ATi control panel doesn't
provide a quick way to get to the color tab, as NVidia does. But there
are several 3rd party 'tweakers' that do allow saving individual
game/application settings that are called whenever that game/app is run.
Rad-Linker is one that's just for the games. Be careful, this allows
for far more settings than just color/gamma/brightness. Clock speeds,
quality settings, all are used.

You can get that and a couple others here:
http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/12/1/
McG.

 

[JT]

I have had this issue since I got my radeon 9800 pro card, (to replace a
geforce 4 ti4200)

To me it seems to be a struggle for power between the video drivers gamma
settings, and a game's own gamma settings.

If I load up the game asheron's call (a pretty old directx 3 game), I have
to rely on the ati gamma settings (through the ati control panel) otherwise
the game is unplayably dark. It has no gamma setting in it whatsoever, all
it has is a lame brightness which only increases the lighting marginally on
the 3d area.

This isn't a problem in itself, but then if I play a game which does have
it's own gamma settings, for example Farcry, this seems to override the ati
gamma settings while I play farcry (which is fine) but then when I exit
farcry and go back to asheron's call, no gamma settings are applied, I have
to load up the ati control panel and reapply the settings.

It's not a major problem but it's annoying to have to reconfigure my gamma
each time I do something different on the computer. With my nvidia card I
set the gamma once and that was that.

I've even resorted to opening up my monitor and increasing it's internal
brightness dial, which wasn't a great fix since it increases the brightness
but not the gamma, leaving everything looking kind of washed out.

Anyone know of a fix/workaround or have suggestions please? Ati support
haven't responded to any emails other than to give me the typical "reinstall
the driver" response, which I've tried several times to no avail.

Thanks in advance for any info.

\

You can also use hotkeys in your game to adjust the brightness on the fly.
There is a button in the color tab of the control panel for this.

 

[+c0re-]

thanks guys, just out of interest does rad-linker work with the catalyst 4.5
drivers? I read in their release notes that 3rd party gamma utilities won't
work with them.

At the moment I do have the hotkeys set up to adjust gamma + and - but it's
annoying having to manually adjust it each time I switch games, I never had
to even think about this with my nvidia card.

I did set them also in the color tab.

thanks again for the help I'll check out radlinker

 

[cowboyz]

thanks guys, just out of interest does rad-linker work with the
catalyst 4.5 drivers? I read in their release notes that 3rd party
gamma utilities won't work with them.

At the moment I do have the hotkeys set up to adjust gamma + and -
but it's annoying having to manually adjust it each time I switch
games, I never had to even think about this with my nvidia card.

Just because you keep mentioning it I will mention that I had the same
problem switched around with my Nvidia cards. I was always adjusting the
brightness and contrast depending on which game/app I was using. Its the
Radeon that I never have to think about adjusting anything.

 

[+c0re-]

Yeah I realised just after I posted that it sounded like I was bashing ATi,
I wasn't meaning it that way at all.
I'm absolutely pleased with this radeon, it's a ton faster than what I was
using and way better all around apart from this annoying glitch. Really hope
they get it sorted in a future (soon) driver release then it'll be perfect

 

[Gordon Scott]

yeah, I think a lot of us that like the desktop somewhat less bright or
washed out looking have run into this. The ATi control panel doesn't
provide a quick way to get to the color tab, as NVidia does. But there
are several 3rd party 'tweakers' that do allow saving individual
game/application settings that are called whenever that game/app is run.
Rad-Linker is one that's just for the games. Be careful, this allows
for far more settings than just color/gamma/brightness. Clock speeds,
quality settings, all are used.

You can get that and a couple others here:
http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/12/1/
McG.

use this path (adjust to your actuall path) to create a shortcut to ati's
control panel
Place it on your desktop

"D:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI Control Panel\atiprbxx.exe" /a

Gordon

 

[JAD]

PhotoShop installed? with its gammaloader?

Yeah I realised just after I posted that it sounded like I was bashing ATi,
I wasn't meaning it that way at all.
I'm absolutely pleased with this radeon, it's a ton faster than what I was
using and way better all around apart from this annoying glitch. Really hope
they get it sorted in a future (soon) driver release then it'll be perfect

 

[JT]

I actually have this same problem going from a GeForce 4200 to the 9800 Pro.
I'm always having to fiddle with the brightness/gamma in games with the
hotkeys or the game's own gamma control. I don't have any gammaloaders
installed. It did it after a clean install as well. I've gotten used to it,
but as the guy said it is an annoying glitch at times.

 

[+c0re-]

Yup I have photoshop installed with it's gamma loader, although the gamma
loader seems to be disabled by the drivers.
I've also downloaded and run colorific 3deep to try and calibrate it,
although as soon as I apply my settings in that, nothing happens, I believe
again being overridden by the driver