Horizons Dark side of Planets not dark when using a HDMI monitor/TV? Check your graphic driver RGB range!

Agrar Therenus · Dec 26, 2015

This thread is misinformation, please rename it to "How to set your RGB colour range correctly'.

There is no way you can 'fix' a dynamic game mechanic by changing RGB settings. The two things are entirely unrelated.

If you're not using full range then EVERYTHING, including this game, will look awful-- and at all times, because the screen is only showing 16-235 RGB colour ranges, when it should be 0-255.

Spdrmn7 · Dec 27, 2015

Maybe mine is "broken", but I never experienced that lighting change like others. Landing in complete darkness on a 3g+ world while flying an Anaconda and using solely your instruments is terrifying.

Agrar Therenus · Dec 27, 2015

Spdrmn7 said:
Maybe mine is "broken", but I never experienced that lighting change like others. Landing in complete darkness on a 3g+ world while flying an Anaconda and using solely your instruments is terrifying.

It seems they have changed it in the latest patch. Perhaps they came round to my line of thought and realised it was in fact a priority, especially considering how obviously a not-much-work thing this was to change.

It's also variable, for instance it seems when you are extremely close to the star it'll be pitch black, but if it's distant the night side is brightened up a little more.

Jon flint · Dec 27, 2015

Thanks for the tip.

I'm playing on an LG 4k tv and my drivers had indeed defaulted to the Limited setting.

I can certainly see a difference, although it just looks too dark for me now, I had compensated for the bright display with my contrast/brightness/gamma and black level settings to get a pretty accurate image. Im to lazy to do it all again for Full range settings so have switched back to limited for now.

Whiteball · Dec 27, 2015

Couple of other things to try/remember...

Ensure your monitor/TV doesn't have dynamic contrast (or similar option) switched on
If you don't have a way to calibrate your monitor colour via hardware try a website like http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ to get at least some idea if your contrast and brightness etc are set ok.

A colour profile for your monitor (supplied or created by you) is applied in the Windows colour management secton.
If you don't have or can't do any of those the last resort is to use Windows own colour calibration wizard found under 'Control panel' -> 'Dislay' and on the left 'Calibrate Colour' option.

Shadowed · Dec 27, 2015

AMD's Radeon Settings contains this in Display -> Additional Settings -> Pixel Format.

Good catch OP!

[VR] Frank_G · Dec 27, 2015

This really helped. I descended into a 9 km deep crater today... man that was creepy and tense, landing by instruments and waiting for the ships searchlights to finally touch the ground... Thanks a lot, your advise made the game a lot better for me!

Duedy · Dec 28, 2015

yeah wait till you get some face hugging alien fly onto your canopy glass from out of the darkness. That's when your 5 min air supply timer kicks in to get back to your ship to change your flight suit before you suffocate.

Wobblin-Gobblin · Dec 28, 2015

But with the milky way in the background the planet cannot be completly dark. I'm in Merope currently. At night on a planets survace it's not completly dark with the nebula above you. It turns the black survance in a slightly red and greenish look. Without galaxy and nebula, the survaces are really dark

Lestenio · Dec 28, 2015

Enabled this last night and the difference is astounding.
I was about to land on the dark side of a planet. I took one look at how dark it was and decided against it.

Greyhawk · Dec 28, 2015

By the way this isnt "magically brightning the dark side". This is the way the eye works as well. When the bright side of the planet is occluded the iris expands letting in more ambient light until your eyes adjust to a new brightness level. On an airless world there will be more than enough ambient light to see as the atmosphere will not absorb any of it.

Human eyes have suprisingly good night vision. I can see quite well just using starlight provided my eyes are not exposed to bright lights or there are no bright lights in my field of view. I have ridden home on a pushbike on a dark moonless night with no lights (battery went

) without falling off.

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One other thing, on an HDMI 2.0 TV with 4:2:0 chroma in 4K resolutions you can only enable full colour range if you knock the refresh rate down to 30Hz (effectively making the game unplayable).

Fenster · Dec 29, 2015

Been trying to figure out what up my screen when i upgraded to gtx960 from my good ol Radeon 6870.
This was it! Thank you!
+rep!

Oheck · Dec 29, 2015

Greyhawk said:
By the way this isnt "magically brightning the dark side". This is the way the eye works as well. When the bright side of the planet is occluded the iris expands letting in more ambient light until your eyes adjust to a new brightness level. On an airless world there will be more than enough ambient light to see as the atmosphere will not absorb any of it.

Human eyes have suprisingly good night vision. I can see quite well just using starlight provided my eyes are not exposed to bright lights or there are no bright lights in my field of view. I have ridden home on a pushbike on a dark moonless night with no lights (battery went ) without falling off.

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One other thing, on an HDMI 2.0 TV with 4:2:0 chroma in 4K resolutions you can only enable full colour range if you knock the refresh rate down to 30Hz (effectively making the game unplayable).

That might be accurate if you were some human/cat hybrid. Sorry, but the dark side of a planet would be pretty damn dark. Only thing that would is another star nearby, or a planet or moon or nebula casting ambient light. Human eyes are notoriously BAD at adapting to the dark, comparatively to just about any other species. We offset that with our technology.

Curious thing though, I found a planet the other night, that didn't lighten up when I got near the darkside. It stayed pitch black. So i'm now curious why some planets are lighting up on the darkside and some clearly are not.

njc · Dec 29, 2015

I apply the fix every time I update the drivers. But despite the fix the brightness is still too high on the dark side. Many times I don't even need the lights to drive around. The planet is pitch black from afar, but when I descend it magically brightens up.

Henri · Jan 11, 2016

I am having the same issue and the buildings actually are dark which make them look very out of place in the whole scene.

Henri · Jan 12, 2016

it looks like there is light hitting the planet surface (from the core?) but it casts no shadow nor is it reflected by buildings and such.
is there something wrong with my gfx card?

note: mostly on ice planits

Im_Lost · Jan 12, 2016

Terrain definitely seems to be picking up ambient light from the galactic core when it should be. It may pick up light from nearby planets and possibly nebula as well.

When the planet switches to high detail it suddenly gets way to bright most of the time.

Kezha · Jan 12, 2016

Feeling incredibly blind and can not find the setting. under which tab in the nvidia control panel is it ?

Greyhawk · Jan 12, 2016

Oheck said:
That might be accurate if you were some human/cat hybrid. Sorry, but the dark side of a planet would be pretty damn dark. Only thing that would is another star nearby, or a planet or moon or nebula casting ambient light. Human eyes are notoriously BAD at adapting to the dark, comparatively to just about any other species. We offset that with our technology.

Curious thing though, I found a planet the other night, that didn't lighten up when I got near the darkside. It stayed pitch black. So i'm now curious why some planets are lighting up on the darkside and some clearly are not.

You would easily be able to see on the dark side of a planet unless that planet was in a dark nebula with few visible stars. Much the same way anyone with reasonable vision can see quite well just using starlight. Even easier when there is moonlight.

Ian Skippy · Jan 12, 2016

Greyhawk said:
You would easily be able to see on the dark side of a planet unless that planet was in a dark nebula with few visible stars. Much the same way anyone with reasonable vision can see quite well just using starlight. Even easier when there is moonlight.

Regardless, it'll take your eyes up to 15 minites to get fully used to darkness, not 3 seconds, and any sudden lights would badly blind you. Remember your cockpit is filled with light!