Shogun 2 soooooooo dark!!!!

[P4010]

Hi all,

I have just installed this game. I love the total war series, and this looks like it could be a classic, but I have on major problem... everything seems too dark!! Especially in battles, unless I turn brightness to maximum, I cant really see anything clearly, and even then, if i turn to face my troops, I can hardly see they're faces. For example, at the beginning of a battle, when the general makes his speech, if my brightness was on medium, I would see only dark shadows basically.
Is this just me?? Has anybody else experienced this? Are there any fixes. I have a Quad core, 4GB Ram, twin 9600GT Nvidia cards and runs smoothly with most things on ultra.

Thanks all

[Brusilov]

Post some screen shots.

[P4010]

Hi Brusilov, how do i do that??

[Blom89]

In the game press the print screen key normally located in the top right section of your keyboard and then go to your desktop and open up paint and press ctrl+v and the screenshot will show up in paint, then save the screenshot to your pc.

Thats how Ive always done it, but I believe Steam has a screenshot manager, Im not sure.

--- double posts merged (Brusilov) - please use the EDIT button

F12 is the key you press to take screenshots using Steam.

[P4010]

Thanks Blom, will put pics up in few mins

[P4010]

Here are some shots of the game on my system. Some are with maximum brightness and gamma and some are with medium. All of them look too dark for me to different extents. I dont think the graphics look too good generally either..... What do you think?? Is there anything I can do? Does it look the same for you all?? Am I too fussy??

[Blom89]

Your game looks considerably better than mine does and I play on High settings.

Those screens do look a bit dark, but it doesn't seem game breaking.

Hopefully CA's upcoming patch for dx11 and dx10 and other issues will fix whatever's going on.

[P4010]

Thanks Blom, what does DX do exactly??

[Blom89]

Directx is whats responsible for all the pretty colors and effects and anti-aliasing and anything having to do with the way the game looks.

Currently, shogun 2 is only capable of Directx 9, which is old. Thus the game doesn't look very good. Directx 9 is only capable of shader model 3 support as well, while Directx 10 supports shader model 4 and directx 11 supports shader model 5.

With the patch CA will be releasing, in a month or so, the game will then support directx 10 ad directx 11, both of which are quite new. Directx 11 has a lot of new features which can enhance the way games look.

You need Windows XP for Directx 9, Windows Vista for Directx 10 and Windows 7 for Directx 11.

WIndows Vista supports both DX10 and 9, while Windows 7 supports all 3.

To put it simply, the higher the directx number is, the better the game will look, but at the cost of frames per second most likely.

--- double posts merged (Brusilov) - please use the EDIT button

Also, depending on what video card you have, some cards only support certain Directx versions.

For example, my card supports directx 10, while the 5000 and 6000 series support directx 11.

for nvidia cards, the 200 series support directx 10 while the 400 and 500 series support directx 11

[P4010]

I have win 7 so looking forward to patch!!! Thanks for your help Blom, appreciated

[Baleurion]

I'd say it is your windows monitor settings, did you install proper drivers for your monitor? But a more likely cause is the graphics card drivers or the color profile in windows.

But anyway there is a preferences.script.txt file in C:\Users\ Your Name \AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Shogun2\Scripts
Open that in notepad and change the following numbers to whatever you want

gfx_gamma_setting 2; # gfx_gamma_setting <float>, Set gamma correction #
gfx_brightness_setting 1.4; # gfx_brightness_setting <float>, Set brightness #

I'd say your best bet is to raise gamma, unless you tried that already, brightness mostly increases the glow and things that are already bright.
(i have mine increased by .2 just for extra nice colors, i felt the game was a tiny bit too gloomy as well, but not as dark as what you showed at Full brightness setting)
Gamma raises the entire image brightness, especially shadows and midtones.

[SonOfCrusader76]

Looks like you've just got to turn your monitor's brightness up a bit.

[randir14]

The game looks like that for everyone, it's because of the new lighting system.

[Kshar]

I agree it's terribly dark. I doubt its intentional seeing how hard it is on the eyes. Adjusting in game gamma/brightness doesn't really help, nor does the moniters or nvidia's settings.

[Brusilov]

I agree that it appears that a lot of problems are caused by the new lighting system.

If you view the unit from the direction that the sun is coming from they have reflections all over the place - even in the rain. As the light source is very bright when you look at a unit looking in the direction that the sun is then the units look very dark indeed.

Even with R:TW that was the case, however, the lighting isn't as harsh in R:TW than it is in S2:TW.

[Steforian]

Well there is the brightness settings on your graphics card, and the brightness settings on yoru monitor. Generally you should set you monitor to 50% brightness and turn it to whatever brightness is needed on your graphics card program (Nvidia Ntune or Ati Catalyst controller).

[uk_john]

For me i is just the cut scene movies and the avatar in the diplomacy screen. CA made a big deal out of being able to see the expression of their faces to see if a deal was good or not, but the Dyamo is too dark to see features of his face that clearly! I cannot turn the gamma or brightness up for them as the rest of the game is bright enough, it is only those little windows of cutscenes and the Dyamo ion the Diplomacy screen that are too dark!