Lightening the Map

[Malaspina]

I agree it's a usefull bit of kit, I'm not too unhappy with the "dark" colour so I can live with it.

In an ideal world the game would generate a little lighter colour but no big deal really.

I recently reinstalled the game after I stopped playing last April. I am pretty happy about the progress made till now, but this lighting problem is definitely a game breaker for me. I'll try the gamma gizmo, but is JMM sure there's nothing to be done in this department?!

[Petrus58]

No need to wait - just try MadRussian's terrain mod. It lightens up the game quite considerably!

[nix]

I have to agree with Hook: use the gapa program!

I just got the gamma program gapa.exe and set up various gammas eg 1.0 hotkey A, 1.3 hotkeyB, 1.4 C, etc remembering not to use any hot key that Histwar uses (D,S,I,U,W,P etc) to avoid disabling their function. This took about 1 minute. gapa remembers these settings so before launching Histwar i just double click on gapa.exe on my desktop, then launch Histwar. Whenever anything looks too dark just hit the appropriate hot key  and the  gamma changes;  if it is too light then choose a different hotkey. The point is it runs dynamically so it is almost continuously variable as you play: simple! and it solves all those too dark to see properly problems.... There is no noticable loss of performance in histwar having gapa run in the background (and this on an old Geforce4 ti 4600 128Mb card where it would be most noticeable!).

[Broadsword]

I have to agree with Hook: use the gapa program!

Good to know, but the real solution is for the game to be patched so it doesn't have this gamma problem. No other game I've bought ever had this much of a gamma problem. Fixing it should be a high priority, because newcomers who try the demo may be turned off by this first visual impression, and not get far enough into the game to experience its really great features.

We can accept that HW graphics are outdated compared to mass-market standards and Total War, but IMHO it's important  to make sure the HW graphics look as good as they possibly can within their limits (proper gamma, push the numbers of trees and objects to the max, things like MadRussian's great uniform mod, etc.)

[Petrus58]

Good to know, but the real solution is for the game to be patched so it doesn't have this gamma problem. No other game I've bought ever had this much of a gamma problem. Fixing it should be a high priority, because newcomers who try the demo may be turned off by this first visual impression, and not get far enough into the game to experience its really great features.

We can accept that HW graphics are outdated compared to mass-market standards and Total War, but IMHO it's important  to make sure the HW graphics look as good as they possibly can within their limits (proper gamma, push the numbers of trees and objects to the max, things like MadRussian's great uniform mod, etc.)

Broadsword - Have you tried MR's terrain mod? It does lighten up the maps considerably to the point that even early morning starts are fine (at least to me).

[Broadsword]

Broadsword - Have you tried MR's terrain mod? It does lighten up the maps considerably to the point that even early morning starts are fine (at least to me).

Yes, and it's a big improvement. The game overall is looking much better than it did originally.

[glaude1955]

Bonjour MadRussian,

Quel mod devons nous utiliser ?
MadRussianTerrain,  MadRussianTerrainSub1 ou MadRussianTerrainSub2.
Les trois mods figurent sur ton exemple de JSGME.
Mais JSGME indique que des fichiers ont déjà été modifiés par le précédent.
Devons nous utiliser uniquement MadRussianTerrainSub2 ?

Merci

Yves

Hello MadRussian,

Which mod should we use?
MadRussianTerrain, MadRussianTerrainSub1  or MadRussianTerrainSub2.
The three mods are on your example of JSGME.
But JSGME indicates that files have been modified by the previous.
Should we use only MadRussianTerrainSub2?

[glaude1955]

Thank you for the clarification.

[Hook]

Good to know, but the real solution is for the game to be patched so it doesn't have this gamma problem.

I'd prefer to have a gamma slider in the options, as I can guarantee everyone's monitor will be different and no one setting will work for everyone.  But until we get that, the gapa program is a nice workaround.  I have a number of games where I have to use gapa all the time, changing the gamma during the game as needed.

Hook

[JMM]

Just a short comment... 5 months ago, I worked on the system to adjust  the gamma of HW... unlucky the system didn't work for a unknown cause.

I'll work again on this part but I have to said I don't know how 
If anybody finds a kind of example (source C,C++), I can try it 

JMM

PS: today, the code uses GetGammaRamp, SetGammaRamp, functions of DirectX 9