Why is it always so dark now?

Tapio75 · September 2023

EDIT: Added that image as m example after editing my setting. Game time there is 20:00. Does that look normal to you on that time of day?

Be it day or night, the game seems very dark all the time and due my disability, its very hard to see. Last i played couple of years ago, i had no issues at all. Day seemed like a day and night was also having a good visibility with my setting, but now no matter how i set the game specific color settting in Amd Adrenaline, the game seems mostly too dark.

One reason people say is HDR, but i do not have HDR support so that out of the question. I have all quality settings maxed, and only setting i sdee giving brief moment of clear visiblity is changin Anti aliasing settings. When i change the setting, the ganme briefly shows a good brightness setting, especially when changing to screen space, but it always just auto adjusts the brightness back to too dark.

Have they changed something about how the lightning work on past couple of years or have they implemented some sort of auto adjusting brightness like something that simulatess eyes adjusting to lightnning?

BalDing710 · September 2023

i've noticed that it seems a lot darker as well....guess it's time for a new addon

Sarannah · September 2023

Brightness works the same as before. Have you tried running the game with amd adrenaline(overlays) turned off completely? As it seems to be an out-of-game issue. And when changing in-game settings give you a brief moment where the brightness is fine, it appears another program takes control right after that(amd adrenaline maybe?).

Don't think ZOS made any changes to how the lighting in the game works.

PS: Monitors get darker over time as well, so adjusting the game's brightness every year helps somewhat. But I doubt this is your issue.

Grizzbeorn · September 2023

I've not noticed any difference in the lighting.

Tapio75 · September 2023

Sarannah wrote: »

Brightness works the same as before. Have you tried running the game with amd adrenaline(overlays) turned off completely? As it seems to be an out-of-game issue. And when changing in-game settings give you a brief moment where the brightness is fine, it appears another program takes control right after that(amd adrenaline maybe?).

Don't think ZOS made any changes to how the lighting in the game works.

PS: Monitors get darker over time as well, so adjusting the game's brightness every year helps somewhat. But I doubt this is your issue.

Thats true, but i have calibrated the monitor recently to have suitable settings for me.

Changin Adrenaline settings like overlay off would be worth trying too. Only two differences though are, that now im running Windows 11 and have a new video adapter, but comparing other games like GW2 or STO to ESO, i have no issues in other games. In fact it seems lot better now on other games as i can run better setting that before, but it might be that Adrenaline is changin something regarding ESO... But as the same seyying apply when ESOI is running backround, its rather bright and gopod contrast out of game when its running backround. Almost too bright, but it may change something when foing back to game anyways.

Jolipinator · September 2023

There's a Shadow over Morrowind.

Tapio75 · September 2023

Not to mention the day is way too short. Feels like it lasts only an hour these days. So litle time top actually fully play the game as night time is often too dark.

I did try to tweak some settings, but i could not make the day any clearer sadly.

You know i wish ESO would have ambient light setting like LOTRO does so i could just easily adjust how much base light there is.

rpa · September 2023

There is a kwama mine delve at Telvanni Peninsula which was can't see a *** dark at PTS, appears at some time before sale (when I got the chapter) lightning was tuned there so it looks like survival horror game when gamma setting is turned way up. Other than that I have not noticed any major changes in lightning. And I play with rather moderate monitor brightness. (PC)

SeaGtGruff · September 2023

I haven't noticed any changes in the brightness. As far as I can remember, it's always been dark enough that I like to use the enchanted lantern memento to see better.

As for the length of the day, it's my understanding that the in-game time is one-fourth of real-world time, and also that daytime is longer than nighttime. Depending on when and for how long you're able to play, you might end up experiencing a lot more of the nighttime than usual.

disintegr8 · September 2023

I seem to encounter nighttime a lot more than I used to, but I have been playing a lot more every day lately, so it could just be that.

SeaGtGruff · September 2023

I think there are websites which show the current in-game time, so one idea would be to check those to see when it's daytime, then try to schedule your playtime accordingly-- or see when it's nighttime, if you're looking for vampires or werewolves that can infect you.

Tapio75 · September 2023

There are also addons that add ingame clock that works nicely, but that does not hgelp much. I seem to encounter night time way more than i used to.

All this would not actually be a problem for players like me, if the game would really give tools to counter darkness, but they might not understand how dark it can be for some people and just dismiss the thing and i assume many normal people wonrt understand either because they dont have to face the problems that night time and general darkness can bring to some.

For all purposes it would be best to give players client side control over the night/day length and also morning/evening legth so we could just tune it to our liking. Also the tools to tune ambient lightning styreth, spells and torches and such would be great.. For exam,ple magelight has alwayts been a great help in single player games, but ESO decided that its not a light, but a stealth detection tool instead and its light is very dim and the moving nature when its orbiting the player makes it more problematic that help as the light moving there mostly blinds even when its dim compared to stationary light with good light emission.

We have treasure hunter perrsonality that gives nice torch, but it hardly emits any light so its no use exept fort roleplay. The light emitted should be about 4x what it is now to make it work and this does not mean the flame on the torch, but the light it emits as they are separate things.

Only useful too is Almalexias enchanted lantern, but it need consstant reactivation and it should be toggle instead. Even its light seems to be reduced on my side at this point as if something is wrong with lightning system in the game or in my system.

AstroST · September 2023

Just play a NB, you will have your personal red lantern(s) always with you.

JanTanhide · September 2023

No change on my PC. Day is quite vivid and night is dark as it has been. Have you changed anything in your video settings pertaining to the drivers? What I mean is for example on my PC I am using a XFX 7900XTX video card which uses the AMD Video card program similar to Nvidia's for adjustments to just about everything including the quality, brightness etc. of the GPU and Monitor.

I have mine currently set on "Vivid" on the display. I don't remember what I used on the Nvidia Control panel when I was running a 1080 Ti but it was similar in function.

TaSheen · September 2023

AstroST wrote: »

Just play a NB, you will have your personal red lantern(s) always with you.

Gives a whole new meaning to "red light district"....

zaria · September 2023

Lightning in the room matter a lot, low sun coming into my living room makes it very hard to see anything in dark dungeons.
Easiest is probably to adjust monitor.

Tapio75 · September 2023

JanTanhide wrote: »

No change on my PC. Day is quite vivid and night is dark as it has been. Have you changed anything in your video settings pertaining to the drivers? What I mean is for example on my PC I am using a XFX 7900XTX video card which uses the AMD Video card program similar to Nvidia's for adjustments to just about everything including the quality, brightness etc. of the GPU and Monitor.

I have mine currently set on "Vivid" on the display. I don't remember what I used on the Nvidia Control panel when I was running a 1080 Ti but it was similar in function.

I have RX6750XT and it uses the same Adrenaline software. L also use Vivid profile currently and have set Brightness to 0, contrast to 110 but it seems like something is changin my brightness/contrast on the fly as if Windows 11 is using some sort of adaptive brightness usually related to laptops, but i have a desktop and Windows has no options on that feature to begin with. There is also possibility of content adaptive brightness, but no options for that eithjer anywhere.

For example yesterday i was watching AHS on Netflix and thee ghame was runningf on backround. Sometimes i switched back and it was actually very bright at that point. Way brightewr than normal and i actually had to adjust gamma to notr hurt my eye.. But soon it went dark again. Later i did the same and this time the brightnes/contrast were perfect.. Exept it got dark very fast again. Later when i played, i noticed that it often seemed like brightness and contrast were fluctuating on the fly very mildly. This could be vitnessed by seeing tthings go very lityle to dark, then brighter again, but very mildly. Almost unnoticeably. I was walking from Brothers of Strife to Ebonheart and i could see very well, but in Ebonheart the Contrast was out of control again. Shadows were too dark and bright was too bright. Everything also seemed oversaturatred, but reducing saturation did litle to help it.

It bugs me that i dont seem to have any sort of adaptive brightness anywhere in any form. Cant find one in Adrenaline nor in Windows and even in Monitor, there is none. The monitor does not support HDR either so thats not the issue here. It also seems like light sources are not emitting much light, buit that could be due issues with brightness/contrast or it could be broken DX11 compatibility on DX12.

I kinda wish i was back in Windows 95 without all the automated AI garbage

Sarannah · September 2023

You should not look for a brightness setting... what you are looking for is an "overlay" setting. Overlays adjust the screencoloring to whichever overlay type you choose.

Driver software contains overlays, like amd Adrenaline. But Steam for example, also has overlays available. Disable overlay in any program that has it enabled. Or just disable these programs completely, even the amd adrenaline one. Just to see if it works, you can turn it back on after. Try it one by one, so you can know for sure which is causing your issue.

PS: You can shut down the nvidia control panel as well, or atleast amd's version of it in your case(don't know the name). The drivers will still work, just that program can't adjust any settings anymore. Worth a try.

Túrin_Vidsmidr · September 2023

https://esoui.com/downloads/info1558-VotansDarkerNights.html
You could use the in-game sliders of this addon to regulate the min-max brightness levels while still keeping a gradual day/night cycle.

SpacemanSpiff1 · September 2023

it isnt.

maybe a driver update changed gpu settings.

Wolfenbelle · September 2023

Tapio75 wrote: »

It bugs me that i dont seem to have any sort of adaptive brightness anywhere in any form. Cant find one in Adrenaline nor in Windows and even in Monitor, there is none. The monitor does not support HDR either so thats not the issue here. It also seems like light sources are not emitting much light, buit that could be due issues with brightness/contrast or it could be broken DX11 compatibility on DX12.

Do you use add-ons? If yes, it is possible that one or more of your add-ons are interfering with your ESO settings. It might be worthwhile for you to work through the add-ons one-by-one, disable one add-on at a time, reload the UI each time and see if there is any improvement.

Blodreina · September 2023

The game is to bright , i want an endless night

Tapio75 · September 2023

Wolfenbelle wrote: »

Tapio75 wrote: »

It bugs me that i dont seem to have any sort of adaptive brightness anywhere in any form. Cant find one in Adrenaline nor in Windows and even in Monitor, there is none. The monitor does not support HDR either so thats not the issue here. It also seems like light sources are not emitting much light, buit that could be due issues with brightness/contrast or it could be broken DX11 compatibility on DX12.

Do you use add-ons? If yes, it is possible that one or more of your add-ons are interfering with your ESO settings. It might be worthwhile for you to work through the add-ons one-by-one, disable one add-on at a time, reload the UI each time and see if there is any improvement.

Yes, but none of the few i have shopuld interfere with any video controls, but they are disabvled none the less. Also i have turned off teh adrenmalöine softwware and disabled its overlays, which make no difference. I dont actually have any other software using overlays as its a very clean install as i like it. I dont even use stem currently and its not installed.

I cant think of anything else that either Windows is still hiding some adaptive brightness/contrast system somewhere but its hidden and i cant use regedit or anything with my eyesight as they are still on old style white backround which basically blinds me. Other thing i coime back to is, that some system in the game is noit working correctly on ESO on my combionation of system as iys slowly getting darker to the too dark point soon after i start the game. Sometimes the setting is great for a while, but it changes gradually to too dark. ITs just like its missing brightness or gamma is faulty, but outside the game everything is fine.