CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder brightness problems

[mollymeow]

Hello all.

I installed this game yesterday and immediately played it. When I started the game, right before it loaded my screen got a lot lighter, as if it were adjusting the brightness for the game.

The game looked great yesterday.

Today, I go to start it and it doesn't adjust the brightness while loading. The game is SO dark that I can't see anything.

I closed it, went into my video card settings and changed the brightness, then loaded it. It changed my settings BACK during loading. Still WAY too dark. I've searched on the internet and can't find any way to fix this. Anyone have any ideas?

Oh yeah, I'm running Windows XP, I exceed the requirements, and my video card is a Radeon X300.

Any advice is appreciated, thanks in advance.

[fov]

Have you tried adjusting the brightness on your monitor while the game is running? There should be a button on the front of your monitor that brings up a menu, with brightness as one of the options.

[mollymeow]

I just wanted to come back and update this.

I have an LCD monitor. As a last-ditch effort, I changed it out for a "regular" (forgot what they're called) old monitor. That's what worked for me. The thing that's bizarre, though, is that the brightness was just fine the first time that I played it.

Thanks for trying to help me in my apparently helpless situation! :)

[fov]

Molly - is it possible your LCD monitor is going bad?

My boyfriend's LCD monitor died on him recently... it started with brightness issues.

[mollymeow]

Thanks for the suggestion. It's entirely possible - I don't really know much about LCD monitors. It's about 2 1/2 years old. I'm going to research the average life-span on them now.

PS - this was a gift, given to us by someone who really isn't too familiar with computers.

[fov]

I think the average lifespan is older than that, but sometimes they just croak. My boyfriend's wasn't too old (maybe about 2 years?) It was still under warranty with Dell so he was able to send it in for a new one.

I'm not sure if there are tests you can do to see if it's dying, or if you just have to wait and see if the problem gets worse.

[cbminfo]

I agree the brightness on this game SUX ! I'm using an older TTX monitor and from the very start this game played in the dark. If it weren't for the green [you found it] button, I wouldn't have made it anywhere in this game. I've contemplated opening the monitor and giving the brightness capacitor a bit more range. Trouble is that's the way this monitor has been since it's 1st day. brightness & contrast maxed out. Gamma maxed on the ATI 9800 card.
Course watching CSI on tv last night it occurred to me they operate in the dark there also. Only lights seem to be blacklights, and flashlights.
Trouble is I can't get the flashlight on ALL the time unless I move into an area the game decides needs a flashlight.
this CSI and the previous CSI were both too dark. And there's no patch or gamma adjust at UBI for it.