All games require Gamma and Brightness so removing them is not an option. People have different types of monitors/TVs/Projectors to play games and not all of them have options that change the gamma/brightness much to help, even in small darkened areas.

However, limiting the gamma/brightness would be possibly a good idea.

What also might help if they actually switched the power on in chernarus because theres no light anywhere. apart from a street pole casting very bit of light every now and so. Using a flashlight makes you light up from everywhere because the light just clips through the walls etc. Needs alot of work

The only solution is to put everyone on a level playing field. The answer to that is increase visibility at night time. The blue movie filter used in Arma2: Eagle Wing may be a good fit.

FWIW I like dark nights but it's too exploitable.

HDR might be the biggest problem in the gamme/brightness predicament.
Turning it to "very low", leaves me with a dark night despite maxed sliders in both gamma and brightness. Switching the HDR to "low" increases the visibility extremly with both sliders maxed. Attached 2 secreens to show the difference.

This definitely needs to be addressed.

this is actually kind of easy to fix to set a standard gamma and brightness and remove the sliders so most have fairly the same settings.

or instead of sliders you have a drop down with most common monitors and fixed settings so it looks good and as the devs want it to look more work for them yes but it would fix it.

or lastly simply fix or remove HDR as that is the main problem here like many already said that when sliders are maxed its still really dark with HDR on very low so changing / removing that would also sort of fixing this issue

i admit i use this trick every time its night time but not because i want to i just don't someone to have a huge advantage over me if this was fixed we all have a equal advantage or how to say. .

sorry for miss spells hope most understand my point ^^

it is cheating maybe but realistically our human eyes start to adjust our light sensitivity so we can see better at night so actually you are adjusting your players eyes manually

iF4G your right about that but the eyes dont get that much adapted so you can see everything for a few 20+ meters 5 meters tops and deffo not inside a house when its supposed to be almost pitch black outside :s

Cheating: act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, esp. in a game or examination.

This is not cheating. Stop calling it that. Everyone can do it, you don't need special access so it's fairly featured.

Is it right? Well, right & wrong don't make a difference. Those terms are so ambiguous it would be pointless to argue one side or the other. The better question to ask is "Do we want it?"

Simple as that. No need to discuss how it bugs you to have to change settings, how unfair life is, etc. A vote for yay or nay.

I prefer to keep that setting in place; though, since I rarely play in night-time servers it doesn't affect me much.

Not a cheat; not an exploit. Down voted.

Not a cheat; but *IS* an exploit. Up voted.

why is it pitch black out when the moon is out, just make it possible to see a tiny bit? eyes adjust to the dark

an old problem you describe, at many other games you can do the same; brightness, gamma.. setting up the game to low details etc etc.

Hard to fix that, not everybody have the same gaming rig ;)

confirmed

"Fixing" this will not change anything. Anyone can go into the control panel of their graphics card and change this setting. What can be done is make the night time a little more lighter.

Dv9 i agree With you Many people jump on this band wagin and for get that they have stand alone Mods that can up your setting for you no matter what game you play. Most video cards have this built In post rendering now this is a complex problem and Don't think it well be a Fast or simple fix. But the the best of luck.
Ps I hate the dark in this game it makes it un fun. No matter how much you want to call it some thing else it is just that. Now I love the idea of a day night cycle But When i cant see my Ding dong 1 foot away and we Don't have nvg Or Working Flashlights That gave no ambient light off.

I think definitely a gamma and brightness restriction when dark should be in place but it's essential that the night time in Day Z be improved. Full moon nights in the mod were fine when they worked but often it would randomly turn pitch black.

A functioning night could add a lot to the game.

okay, 1)it is too dark at night, I've been under the impression that the whole of society has fallen, which means no light Pollution, which means the nights should be much brighter, for there's no outgoing light offset the light given off by the stars and the moon, the light pollution would have been decreased by 99.99% at least because off all the lights that are out.

2. until flashlights are fixed, there is no point in fixing this, and i don't mean just flashlights going through walls. IRL when i want to use a flashlight and try to remain undetected, i put my hand or a piece of cloth over the beam to help cut down the amount of light given off, so i can see without alerting whoever i'm trying to get past.

3. I have had monitors where i could turn up the brightness and gamma all the way in a game and it still barely helped.

4. you still can't really see shit with them both turned up all the way anyway. everything's grey-scale, and when you're inside (where the loot is) you still can't see loot. (it's more the clouds than anything)

Half of the people have misread or not read the post at all and are arguing what he allready stated. Its not about gama setting on the monitor that are woring but the ingame ones, if u read u will see that he states that monitor setings are useless but yet theres a ton of people sayig oh u can still do it on a monitor or it doesnt work on the monitor. Dumb people read then write beacause half of the coments are just shit.

I find it interesting that the gamma cheat issue probably won't be there for certain environments. Unless script kiddies find a way to brighten up their screen in some other way, which would really suck.

• Basicly any pitch black environments; caves, tunnels, rooms w. no windows.

I'm sorry... but the darkness represented in the state the game is currently in is completely bogus. I was a FMF Corpsman with 3rd Battalion 5th Marines for 4 years. NEVER... even in a star/moonless night out in BFE was it THAT dark that you couldn't see where you were going. When you increase the gamma and brightness it brings the level of darkness to where it SHOULD be in the first place. Except when you do that it does make it a lot more washed out, which is not correct.

But anyone that has arguments with this... drive out to BFE someplace, where there are no lights, wait about 20 minutes without having any lights near you and then walk around. I can guarantee you that it doesn't look like DayZ's darkness.

On that note, perhaps working to make the world pitch black could prevent such gamma adjustment cheats.

E.g having pitch black nights for some or all nights. It would be of importance that any screen gamma adjustment doesn't reveal anything, and so there couldn't be any low light situation.

Although having pitch black nights probably isn't realistic, it might perhaps solve the gamma cheat issue once and for all? Presumably, there wouldn't be any other cheats to this, other than say spawning night vision goggles as a cheat.

Get the anti cheat systems to check driver settings as well.
Never mind monitor is doesn't work anyway.

"I'm also able to do it without the gamma adjustment, so everyone else would be able too."

Really? Couse you can, then everybody else can? Gamma is for personal preferences, couse maybe he have too much light in his room, bad windows position with the sun, etc. I don't think so anybody should deicide what is good for another person. You should say "on max graphic is fine for me, so it should be for everybody else, turn off the options".
Yeah, this is a survival game. A GAME. If you want the atmosphere go out the woods to play airsoft. If i payede for a game, i want to play it. Running hours in the black is not a game. And far from reality, couse in reality you see much more after your eyes get used to the dark.
This is a game, where people can stay for a few hours on a day. A normal, mature person, who work for the money, not get from parents cant stay online for about 6-8 hours to wait for the morning. Just becouse some people prefer the dark, couse "blablabla in real life". In real life night not means black and white colors only. In real life you hear better in the dark, couse there are less sound. Couse there is colder. In colder you can get ill without clothes. Your weapon get stucked from it. In the reality there is no lag, only reaction time. In reality there is no fps spike. In reality the weather changes, so there can be full black night, or moonshine. Until you can't give the perfect reality you can't demand a part of it. If you prefer to play without light for the feeling, and without play with the options, it is your choise. Remove it only couse you want that... Dumb think. Others want another version. You can start an own server, where you play with only trusted people, who will not use gamma at all. And can play with permanent dark.
Just to be known: zombies can see better at morning, couse their eyes start to be rotten. So prefer night couse zeds will ignore you is far from reality too, so basicly cheat.
Give pain in ass for those, who would use a function what it is made for, just 'coue some people will use it for something else is the most stupid, most unfair thing. Those, who want to "cheat" will figure out how can they reach this with gamma, even if you remove tis from options. And "blblabla do not encourage" is an epic dumb argue. Who want to do, will do. Who don't... Well he will not start it just couse there is a gamma option.

Anyway i would prefer better lights at night, not the constant dark. Getting it better couse my eyes get used with it. And an option with slight gamma settings - where the motor play with the colors. You will not see better, just reach the settings what you need in your room.

Night is currently not fun for me with everybody else cheating by changing brightness and gamma.

Please make the night more fun, allow us to see more. maybe a full moon every night, night can be soo much fun and I understand it's maybe not the way its supposed to be but it will be a lot more fun.

(most fun I had playing the mod was on a modded server with brighter nights, it's filled with tension and it just feels amazing)

Perhaps instead of fixing the gamma, they should fix the night. The only pitch dark nights I have ever seen where on cloudy days and even I could see more with natural night vision than I can in day Z. In-fact, tweaking the setting makes the game closer to real. It is still difficult to see but at least you can navigate slowly without needing to give away your position with the broken flashlight mechanic (see flashlights going through walls). Making it hard to see inside but able to navigate outside would make things better.

Black is not affected by monitor brightness. If you take a picture of a pitch black room - turning up the brightness in photoshop will not show you more details.

Independent of all settings you should not be able to see things you should not be able to see.

You can still change your monitor brightness, this cannot be avoided.

I agree gamma is an exploit, however shades of grey on clear nights is needed to add an element of realism. It is currently too dark outside. It should be pitch black in rooms with no windows, and adjusted depending on the amount of available light able to enter the room. Torch light needs a fair bit of adjustment to make it useful.

I think if the night-time appearance had a bit of art direction (like this example http://i.imgur.com/mBziYT5h.jpg) then it would do two things:
1- playing at night wouldn't be impractical so people wouldn't resort to gamma changes.
2- If you did tweak your gamma it would look horrible.

This is an issue, but the issue is that it is impossible to play when it's dark. It's a pain navigating the woods during dark in reality, but it's not PITCH BLACK!
I'm not running the game at high graphical settings and when i turn up gamma/brightness it looks odd but i can play at night - it's not fun at all since it's still dark inside and the flashlight is a quite odd one. Most flashlights today can illuminate the room abit better than a smal circle.

The issue isn't gamma cranking, the issue is just terrible night time dynamic lighting making everything too dark or black & white. With better dynamic lighting, as we can see with the Arma 3 engine as opposed to Arma 2 and DayZ SA, there is much less need to adjust gamma and colors and dynamics can still be seen as in real life. Bottom line is, night mode lighting needs some serious overhauling in SA.

Still present in latest experimental

The HDR rendering needs to be improved/expanded to solve the night time issues. The game is unplayable without increasing gamma and brightness because the HDR does not do enough to adapt to low light situations.

Example: Go into a night time server, gamma and brightness all the way up, and turn your HDR to very low. Switch between Low and Very Low and you will notice a huge difference.

In real life our eyes adjust to light dynamically which is why we have limited night vision and more or less can see in the dark (especially if the moon is out). In the game however we don't have enough dynamic range to adapt to low light situations to make it playable.

just no. this doesn't need "fixing"

I think nightservers are very immersive and fun to play, but as long players can change the gamma and brightness it's an issue. I dont want to change my brightness but are forced to because other players do.

I would be great if they could somehow use the dynamic lighting that is used i the Arma 3 engine, and that the moon will light up the dark nights.

YES!

The most optimization settings are rather negative for DayZ. Currently the flashlight and other light sources are useless, because everybody can light up the view by changing the settings. It is really necessary to reduce the optimization possibilities.

There are so many features which can be implemented if they reduce the settings. Sunglasses could have an effect on gamma/brightness.

They should also disable the ability to change the FOV. It allow you to zoom in or have a bigger and unrealistic view field!

I don't think this one needs "fixing". You can't tell players how bright their screen must be. And on the other hand you only get this beautiful screen when the sky is clear. If it's cloudy or it's raining you still can't see shit even with the highest brightness and gamma. Anyways i might be the only one who thinks this way. It might only be dark for me with high gamma&brightness because i play on the lowest settings, i have no idea (so i can beat 15-20 FPS out of the game)

In ArmA III increasing the gama and brightness won't work for the night seeing ability! So try to copy it from arma III?!

I was wrong, it is still possible in v42.

On some servers the night is so dark that even changing those settings won't allow you to see anything without a torchlight.

everybody can do this so its a "fair" bug, with brightness and gamma up it's brighter yes, but still darker than by day ain't it? and btw you wont see a dude lying under a bush with camo by night.

The problem isn't that everybody can do this and it's a "fair" bug. I don't want to play with gamma and brightness set to max, because it looks aweful. But again, I have to do it because otherwise im a sitting duck... Thats why they need to change/fix this somehow.

I don't think the majority of people who up vote this even understand how useless night time is in DayZ.

Think realistically for once people.

1. The majority of night time servers (when it worked) were almost always empty or only had 1 or 2 people. When Day cycles into night, MOST people just end up leaving the server to find a day time server. This has nothing to do with how "realistic" or unplayable night time is, it is the fact that given the CHOICE, most players will choose to fucking see.

2. Besides that obvious fact, in real life we don't go wondering around in the woods during the night time unless you are a complete idiot. We would set up camp in a safe place and get some rest. THAT is real survival. So in essence, playing DayZ in a night time setting (realistically speaking) is completely pointless because it would be UNREALISTIC to be wondering around in the dark.

So night time boils down to two things and it only suits the needs of a minority of players who choose to be unrealistically immersed in a night time setting. As I said before, the devs will probably remove night time all together due to the fact that most players choose to play during day time, most night servers are completely empty, and it is actually unrealistic in the first place.

As for locking the gamma and brightness...that won't happen.

1. Not everyone's monitor is the same
2. Someone will eventually figure out how to manually change the brightness/gamma and shadows/clouds in the cfg files which would easily give them an unfair advantage over the idiots running around being "immersed" in the game play.
3. It is not an exploit or a cheat because everyone can do it. Just because you choose not to do something doesn't mean you can dictate what others can.

What you are forgetting is that it's a game. And how realistic is Zombies anyway? It's still a game, and some people like night time. And I dont want to lock the gamma and brightness either... That would just be stupid. But if they change the lighting at night I'm sure more ppl will want to play at night.

And if you are going to ambush someone I rather would do it at night, not at broad daylight where everyone can see me.

My problem here is that when my friend adjusts his sliders he can see pretty well on a pitch black server (He runs an GTX 660 oc), but when I adjust my values on my Radeon R9 290 still pitch black

IF this is fixed, it needs to be after the darkness issue is addressed and flashlights are changed (shining through walls for one, better field of vision second). Add in NVG gear, then worry about gamma.

Why? Because right now the only reason people are even playing at night is because you can simulate NVG conditions to a degree. I know a couple people who have almost shelved the game before I told them about gamma/brightness because the game just isn't playable to any real degree without it.

It's not a cheat. It's a work-around for dealing with the current ultra-black nighttime conditions. And no, that is not realistic... what should happen is you gain more and more clarity the longer you have no flashlight on and you revert to pitch black after using the flashlight for a time, just like how eyes adjust to real night conditions. Heck, add a red light filter for the flashlight so you can use it and not lose your night vision

Hello everyone,

Thanks for sending in all your feedback regarding this issue.

Once development of the new renderer for dx10/dx11 is complete, the devs will look into the options for addressing this issue.

Please feel free to monitor this issue for further updates.

Regards,

JStewart

Great news! Thanks a lot for looking at this, can't wait until the new renderer is implemented, hopefully that helps!

Not sure if locking such settings or homogenizing the level of customization is a very good idea, since everyone is playing on a different rig. Best idea I saw was the ARMA3 idea, where the game will adapt to your game settings, though, like another person mentioned, you can always change your individual monitor settings.

dmitriikeler you did not read his tread at all read again.

I totally agree with this report and it gives very good solutions.

I vote up, some people do make a good point about people generally sleep at night rather than wander around however in a zombie survival situation I can see a need to sneak into town for supplies! The darkness at night seems to be at a good level atm (maybe thats just my system), you can see as much as in real life if you'd been without light for an hour or so. I do agree that your night vision should be ruined by a flashlight - IE your virtually blinded if a player suddenly shines a torch in your eyes or your night vision is lessened if you look at the moon or a camp fire and takes a while to come back to full.

this has been around since arma 2 it is nothing new and no one have ever complained about it before why is it such a big issue all of a sudden?

Realism, I think.

There ought to be a method to have the in-game gamma slider become the global control, and then place restrictions on its range when the game is in night-time? If the game is running your gamma is locked? Or if the game can dynamically adapt to your settings, as someone mentioned, surely this is a step in the right direction?

I suppose if this were the case people would inevitably find workarounds for this.

Vectoron quote: "Independent of all settings you should not be able to see things you should not be able to see."

A valid point.

Someone else mentioned an increased peripheral blur during darkness - also worthy of consideration?

1. "Independent of all settings you should not be able to see things you should not be able to see."
   • EXACTLY! This data should not render for the client regardless of what their gamma settings are. There should be some form of threshold that is processed locally "If total darkness of object is below X, don't render the thing in the first place". This would negate the use of cranking gamma in the first place. It would still be processed locally so objects like flashlights would still work etc.

2. The gamma controls for this game (As well as Arma!) are beyond bad! There's no reason to be making such drastic changes to Gamma. If you're running any kind of decent rig, (Powerful enough to play the game with any FPS higher than 5), you won't need to change gamma more than a very miniscule amount.

The gamma controls should give no more latitude than 5% in either direction. Currently they can give a 50% boost nearly. There's absolutely no need for that any more. People aren't using a potato for a screen these days. This made sense in old CRT days, but anyone playing this will most likely be on a flat screen, which 99% of them have decent gamma curves that are better than the best CRTs ever were. If someone is playing this on a CRT and bitching, well... It's like bitching that your 8 yearold laptop won't cut it. It's not going to do it nicely, live with it, or upgrade. You don't need a serious gaming rig to play this, but don't expect your ancient shitbox to keep up either.

-Drop the gamma control range substantially as a patch.
-Change the local rendering where things that are meant to be black, simply don't render at all, or they render as black.

http://40.media.tumblr.com/c0141d2c167a3504a70900590ef7cbdb/tumblr_inline_nltxpxVrx91rkojmd_1280.jpg

Thats the real darkness in night at dayz(mod).. If in Dayz Sa the night comes, its a piece of cake. Didnt need a chemlight or a flashlight.

@Geez maybe close this ticket as obsolete?