Too dark.

[Scarekrowe]

When I play Doom2 on my computer it's super dark. Anyone else have this problem? I downloaded it on the computer I use at school and it's fine. I hate having to use idbehold-l to make everything brighter because it takes away from the game's atmosphere. I run windows XP and the Launcher says Doom95 when I run the launcher, is that the problem? Because it was made for 95? Is there a patch or something for this?
THanks

[Bloodshedder]

Push F11.

[SyntherAugustus]

Dont use doom95. Use zdoom. It's way more stable than doom95. Oh yeah, try adjusing your monitor.

http://www.zdoom.org

[Scarekrowe]

The F11 thing worked. I usually don't run Doom95, I run Legacy but it was still dark, but it's fixed now.
I tried downloading ZDoom but when I try to run it, it says "W_GetNumForName: STCFN033 not found!" I'd like to play ZDoom cause a lot of the custom wads are for ZDoom but that thing is missing. I tried redownloading it but still the same thing.

[Bloodshedder]

Make sure your copy of Doom/Doom2 is patched to version 1.9.

[Coopersville]

I have that problem in Quake, even with full brightness. I have no clue how to fix that.

[Mr. T]

opengl is generally a lot brighter than software, this might fix yer probs

[SyntherAugustus]

Scarekrowe said:

The F11 thing worked. I usually don't run Doom95, I run Legacy but it was still dark, but it's fixed now.
I tried downloading ZDoom but when I try to run it, it says "W_GetNumForName: STCFN033 not found!" I'd like to play ZDoom cause a lot of the custom wads are for ZDoom but that thing is missing. I tried redownloading it but still the same thing.

did you get 60.cab?

[Ultraviolet]

Get Power Strip. I've been using this trial version forever already... only difference is a nag screen.


About ZDoom: Copy the files DOOM.WAD and/or DOOM2.WAD (and/or HEXEN.WAD, HERETIC.WAD) into your ZDoom directory and ZDoom will give you a list allowing you to select any of those games to play. The error you described is common for people that try to run the program without providing a game resource file.

I can say with certainty that your problems with ZDoom are nothing more than user error, given that error message.

Once you get ZDoom running, from within any of the games it supports, you can press F11 to cycle (incrementing by 0.1 from 1 until you reach either 3 or 4) through brightness until you find a comfortable setting. If a setting of 3 or 4 isn't high enough, you can pull down the console (default is the tilde (~) key and type "gamma [x]" where [x] is the gamma setting you would like to try.

I find that the most atmospheric lighting setting can be achieved by starting from 1 and bumping that up until the shotgun in your hand doesn't appear as black and shiny as before. To a degree it should appear reflective, not an absolute black with white reflections on it but a very, very dark gunmetal tone. You will notice the richness of the blues, reds, and oranges is much nicer the darker you go, but you still need to be able to see, so this method is great for getting a good balance of atmosphere and color saturation, and being actually able to play.

[Scarekrowe]

Thanks everybody. ZDoom is now working and brightness is fixed.

[myk]

At one point an old monitor got so dark that DOOM was unplayable at gamma 3 and max screen brightness, and was (relatively) usable only with something like ZDaemon at maximum brightness (3.0, I think.) Eventually I got tired of it, opened the monitor case and started messing with the brightness, contrast and color screws in it, until I got it to a reasonable state.

[-Jk-]

Good thing you did touch any of the other electronics. If you had shorted anything, you might be sitting in heaven eating cookies with Jesus right now... :P

[Graf Zahl]

Coopersville said:

I have that problem in Quake, even with full brightness. I have no clue how to fix that.

You will have to adjust your brightness settings in the system's display properties. Modern graphics cards should have an option to do this. I always have the problem that the default settings are too dark for 3D-games.

[deathbringer]

At my college some of the old monitors where really dark, there was a site which had custom grey scrollbars, and it just looked like a solid black line

[Coopersville]

Graf Zahl said:

You will have to adjust your brightness settings in the system's display properties. Modern graphics cards should have an option to do this. I always have the problem that the default settings are too dark for 3D-games.

Doesn't affect DOS based games, nor Quake's 'Windows' ports.