The right computer monitor for dark games

[Jakob Rosenblatt]

Maybe someone can help me out.

I love playing dark games like penumbra and other horror games. These games are meant to be played in total darkness to get full immersion. The problem is: Most pc monitors simply can not display "black" properly. The overall image appears "grayish"...

Can anyone recommend me a proper pc monitor for dark games/films (the price doesn`t matter since I`m rich )

[SHODANFreeman]

Maybe someone can help me out.

I love playing dark games like penumbra and other horror games. These games are meant to be played in total darkness to get full immersion. The problem is: Most pc monitors simply can not display "black" properly. The overall image appears "grayish"...

Can anyone recommend me a proper pc monitor for dark games/films (the price doesn`t matter since I`m rich )

I don't know anything specifically, but you'd want to look for one with a ridiculously high contrast ratio.

[Thomas]

A lot can also be done setting up Gamma, Brightness and Contrast correctly (in both gfx card and monitor settings). It is also worth setting up the gaming environment properly, for instance on my old monitor I put duct tape on some lamps to decrease their glare. The screen of the monitor itself might also play a large difference. There is so much to visual perception going on that one has to take lots of factors into account.

[Jakob Rosenblatt]

A lot can also be done setting up Gamma, Brightness and Contrast correctly (in both gfx card and monitor settings).

I spend a lot of time on finding the "right" settings. I have even got a large number of different profiles for different dark games (like "Call of Cthulhu", "Penumbra", "Doom 3", "Pathologic" etc.) and films (like "Alien").

I became quite obsessed with it...

It is also worth setting up the gaming environment properly, for instance on my old monitor I put duct tape on some lamps to decrease their glare.

Sounds familiar to me. I have a set up for my computer mouse that shields the light from the diode...

The screen of the monitor itself might also play a large difference.

This is the point of my question. Whatever I do: The problem is that the screen itself (and I tried 3 different monitors) isn't totally black, it is "grayish". And this is of course most visible if viewed in total darkness. Therefore I am in search for a monitor, that is able to display real "black" in a dark room.
It has something to do with "background brightness" and the "black level".

There is so much to visual perception going on that one has to take lots of factors into account.

Yes, it even depends on the gaming environment itself. For example take "Penumbra". Some settings work very good if the glow stick is on, because there is a high contrast between the glowing light of the stick and the surrounding area. The surrounding area is divided into two parts: 1.) The part illuminated by the glow stick. 2.) The part not illuminated by the glow stick. This part seems totally black.
But if I turn the stick off, the not illuminated area doesn't seem as dark as before, it is in fact "grayish", because there is no high contrast anymore.

And this is only one detail. It seems to be a very complex problem.

[SHODANFreeman]

My monitor was fairly cheap, and it has this kind of whitish glow around the edges when playing something that is very dark. I think it might just be clamped too tightly on the edges but have no idea if that would even be possible to fix.

[Kedjane]

My monitor is worthless. All blacks that are in the top and bottom of my screen turns blue. It makes playing horror games or any games that are dark really hard. Looks almost like when you squeeze your nails to the screen and the colors go blue.

[Yuhaney]

My monitor is worthless. All blacks that are in the top and bottom of my screen turns blue. It makes playing horror games or any games that are dark really hard. Looks almost like when you squeeze your nails to the screen and the colors go blue.

Sounds like you might be using one of those old 4:3 monitors.

[Thomas]

I became quite obsessed with it...

Mee too Even wrote blog post on the topic:
http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2009...-dark.html

The screen of the monitor itself might also play a large difference

Wrote wrong here. What I meant here was the frame color of the monitor.


Btw, what I really hate is when a game has a gamma setup screen, but when done accordingly the darkness is all wrong. Very annoying and quite common! I hope Penumbra (and Amnesia) aint like that

[Jakob Rosenblatt]

Mee too. Even wrote blog post on the topic:
http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2009...-dark.html

Thank you. It was very interesting to read. There are "gourmets" out there who know to appreciate such details...

[Kedjane]

My monitor is worthless. All blacks that are in the top and bottom of my screen turns blue. It makes playing horror games or any games that are dark really hard. Looks almost like when you squeeze your nails to the screen and the colors go blue.

Sounds like you might be using one of those old 4:3 monitors.

It's 16:9 or 16:10, can't remember which 1680x1050 is. It's flat and all. Old thick monitors could never have this problem, but most cheap flatscreens do.