Recommended gamma/brightness?

[SoldierGuy]

Just curious

[PsyWarVeteran]

Brightness - 1.0
Gamma 2.2

[Snark]

gamma 1.8
brightness 1.5

[JC]

gamma 1.8 (default: 2.2)
brightness 0.5 (default: 1.0)

reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/HalfLife/comments/s7y6vo/halflife_1_looking_fantastic/

[Snark]

Conclusion, adjust according to your monitor and preference.

[Hellektronic]

I think it might depend on which version you're running. Steam runs at 1.0 brightness and 2.5 gamma default, but according to people the original non-Steam Half-Life ran at 0.5 brightness and 1.8 gamma. That brightness setting (0.5) seems to work nicely to give a more atmospheric look.

Gamma on the other hand, seems to mostly affect the brightness of light sources, and 1.8 seems too overall dark to me despite what people say.

So, I'd gamble the ideal would be:
Brightness: 0.5
Gamma: Either 2.5 or 2.2

If you're playing online though, a lot of people forgo atmosphere for visibility. So 1.0 brightness or higher would be good.

[Cosgrover - CS]

Originally posted by Hellektronic:

I think it might depend on which version you're running. Steam runs at 1.0 brightness and 2.5 gamma default, but according to people the original non-Steam Half-Life ran at 0.5 brightness and 1.8 gamma. That brightness setting (0.5) seems to work nicely to give a more atmospheric look.

https://ibb.co/nNLK5qGD

For the original version (using 1.0.0.9 here as 1.0.0.5 doesn't have a "config.cfg" file) Clean Install on clean install of an old version of Windows:
Gamma is 2.5
Brightness is 1.0

The Steam version was the same prior to the 25th anniversary update. The 25th anniversary update changed the Gamma to 2.2.

[Hellektronic]

Originally posted by Cosgrover - CS:

https://ibb.co/nNLK5qGD

For the original version (using 1.0.0.9 here as 1.0.0.5 doesn't have a "config.cfg" file) Clean Install on clean install of an old version of Windows:
Gamma is 2.5
Brightness is 1.0

Really? Hm, interesting. Guess people on the internet are just crazy. I mean it's also possible the game was darker early on, I have no idea.

Currently, the game defaults to 2.5 gamma... so I guess they reversed that decision on the 25th Anniversary update.

A small note though if you're going to experiment, changing the values in the console mid-game doesn't seem to work very well. You'll have to save the game and type "reload" to get the full effect.

[Ikagura]

I cannot tell with your personal monitor setting but there's no benchmark?

[Cosgrover - CS]

Originally posted by Hellektronic:

I mean it's also possible the game was darker early on, I have no idea.

The earliest available retail versions store these settings in the registry (1.0.0.5 - 1.0.0.8) instead and it turns out they're the same as well:
https://ibb.co/rKJSXs4k
Brightness is once again 1.0
Gamma is once again 2.5

Originally posted by Ikagura:

I cannot tell with your personal monitor setting but there's no benchmark?

There isn't much a point if both the Steam and WON versions are the same here. The only real differences was down to how the Steam version handles anti-aliasing and texture filtering. You have to run them both in the same rendering mode on the same hardware and that means using my Windows 11 machine, so the images below are going to be 1280 x 960 instead of 1024 x 768.

WON 1.1.0.6:
https://ibb.co/271vpssn
(note: no upscaling by the game and the game saved the picture as an uncompressed bitmap image)

STEAM PRE-25TH:
https://ibb.co/8pVTmjy
(note: originally upscaled by the game to 1080p than compressed to a jpeg)

[Hellektronic]

Originally posted by Cosgrover - CS:

The earliest available retail versions store these settings in the registry (1.0.0.5 - 1.0.0.8) instead and it turns out they're the same as well:
https://ibb.co/rKJSXs4k
Brightness is once again 1.0
Gamma is once again 2.5

I don't know where the 1.8 gamma idea comes from then, that would almost have to be some harebrained idea from people like the reddit post above... not a good idea, it looks too dark.

Halving the brightness to 0.5 though actually isn't a half bad idea, because most of the "bright" spots are more affected by gamma for some reason. Basically it just slightly makes dark spots darker, increasing the contrast between light and dark.