Hey all, First off, I know this might be in the wrong forum, but I thought it could go in the Lounge, here, or the Directx / OpenGL one, so I just took a choice. My problem isn''t directly programming related, but it''s something that''s been nagging me for about 6 months, at least, but i''ve just never got so infuriated with it till now. The problem is, put simply, any game running on my pc is too dark with my default desktop / game settings. Now, for most games the easy solution is to bump up my desktop brightness, and tone down the contrast a bit. Super dooper. Example: CounterStrike; whatever I set the in game video settings at, it was so dark in dark places, I couldn''t see anything at all. When I altered my desktop settings it was perfect, in both OpenGL & D3D. However, games such as Myth 2, Quake 3 and Theif 2 (the only other games i''ve bothered reinstalling recently) pay no heed to my desktop settings in game. Quake 3 is tolerable, mainly because (A) it''s not too dark anyway and (B) the brightness control makes it flexible. Myth 2 is far worse, because there''s only a gamma slider, not a contrast one. Bright things sure are bright, but anything remotely dark is ridiculously so... I just can''t see on parts of the map. Enter the King of darkness, Theif 2. This is what made me post... I loved Thief 1 to bits, and so was looking forward to Thief 2... but... I can''t see ANYTHING 90% of the time. I have my monitor as bright as it can go, desktop settings make NO difference (well, they do to the front end, but not in game), and even on full gamma in game anything remotely dark is pitch black... I litterally have to fumble around not being able to see *a thing* (I can''t stress how much I mean "a thing"). If i ALT+TAB out I get a frame which does use my desktop settings, and for a split second I can see! wow! Naturally when I go back into the game it''s pitch black. It''s beyond unplayable. There are numerous other games affected, but I can''t remember them off hand because I don''t have them installed. My current graphics card is a GeForce2, but i''ve tried a TNT2, TNT2 Ultra, & GeForce1 (yes, i''m an nVidia man ). All have the same problem. Oddly, i''m also fairly sure when I first bought the PC back in.. erm... August ''99 (last millenium, that is) I could play Myth 2 (the only one I can remember playing back then) with no problems... I know that because bits that are black now I remember what they look like. Maybe i''m just going insane... I''ve installed various monitor .inf settings, all to no avail. The question is, is there ANY way I can override the standard OpenGL / D3D brightness & contrast settings? I''ve searched for months for a program that can do this, but I can''t find a single one, even on tweakfiles.com (which usually has the right thing). It''s starting to piss me off now, I try and relive the good times with Myth 2 and I can''t see half the time, I buy Thief 2 and can''t even play it. It''s ridiculous. Bah. Has anyone experienced any similar problems? Better yet, any solutions ? If anyone can help, i''d really appreciate it. Cheers all Insomnia