Games and monitor calibration

[markc]

What the heck is it with computer game publishers? I notice that many of them turn off my monitor calibration software so that I have to play with an unbalanced monitor. It's bad enough that I have to remember to re-run the startup program after playing, but last night I noticed that Civ IV won't even let me do that. I had to reboot! Of course I realize this after I viewed a bunch of images here and worked on a couple of my own. %$@%#~!

Just fair warning for anyone else who uses a calibrated monitor and plays computer games.

 

[Big Mike]

I only use Adobe Gamma to calibrate my monitor but ya, I did notice that my 'calibrated' setting was way too dark to play a game. Stupid.

 

[Digital Matt]

My suggestion: Partition your hard drive and install 2 versions of your OS. Have one installation just for games, with all the appropriate drivers and such, and the other just for work. You can dual boot and select your OS. If you want to play a game, select that OS, and after you're done, reboot and login to your work OS to work on photography or whatever. It's the best way to keep pesky games and bad drivers from screwing up your computer's performance.

 

[markc]

It's a good idea in general, but not for me. If I were to bother, I would dual to Linux, and it would still be a reboot. I don't do enough other things to make it worth a dual set-up.

 

[ts_imagery]

Well, if you don't want to dual boot, you could always reverse engineer the games and take out the code that disables your calibration software, although that *might* actually be more work.

Or you could buy a monitor with a built-in hardware calibration that is as good as your software calibration, although such a thing may not exist.

Otherwise, I don't think I have any good suggestions besides just "stop wasting time with computer games", but I don't think having to reboot is worth giving up playing Civ IV.