Heya,
so we’ve been sometimes telling people to adjust brightness/gamma to 1.0 to keep the game "fair", but that is actually incorrect - anything from the display OSD settings, to the video driver can (and likely has) have an effect on gamma to the point where 1.0 isn’t the same for everybody.
Instead, games tend to have these prompts / dialogs / sliders to "please adjust gamma until you do not see XYZ", but we all know that we cheat on those, because no game is gonna tell us what to do.
However.
I would like to make a plea that you make an exception for Arma.
Next time you’re on a mission, day or night (but especially night), go to your Settings, Video Options, DISPLAY, and set Brightness to 1.0 and then adjust gamma carefully to the point where you don’t see the "X" on the left.
Don’t fudge it, be honest. We can’t check if you are or are not (because we can’t access your eyeballs), it’s up to your honor.
Also, probably do this after dark, a sun shining in your window will skew the results.
If it is grayed out for you, switch a dropdown above it from "Fullscreen Window" to just "Fullscreen". If you don’t want to give up windowed mode, go to your video card’s control panel and adjust gamma there (for the entire desktop), but I think most people will want real Fullscreen anyway because of FPS gain.
If we all do it, it has several advantages. Correctly set up gamma
- actually makes low-light conditions look much better - grass can have fine shades of light without discoloration and artifacts, even at near-darkness.
- makes NVGs have more contrast and apparent increase in sharpness.
- allows Mission Makers to rely on a specific setting, so they can tailor missions to that setting, giving you just the right experience without you having to complain (ideally, if mission reviewers don’t screw up).
For reference, my Gamma setting is around 0.7 because 1.0 is still too bright.
PS: If you alt-tab while the game is starting up, it will sometimes start up in "Fullscreen Window". If the main menu (or lobby) seem noticeably lighter/darker, do a quick alt-tab out and alt-tab back to the game, that fixes it.