Exported MFDs - brightness/contrast level way different from in-cockpit

[Bigity]

Recently set up a screen with TM cougar MFD panels on top.  

 

I've noticed the brightness and contract levels are vastly different between in-cockpit and exported - well beyond monitor brightness/contrast type issues. 

 

[rob10]

Known (long term) issue.  Best option is to use Reshade to adjust it.

[Bigity]

Bleah, saw some years old posts about it, was hoping it was OBE.  I'll go find that reshade post and look at that, thanks!

[Red Dog]

Just want to confirm this issue. At night when you dim down the in game MFDS (F-16 in my case) to a non bright level, the exported MFDS are completely invisible

It would be great if both in game and exported have the same BRT levels

Hopefully that gets sorted one day.

[Sarge55]

I have the same issue.  Love to see that sorted by ED.  Faffing around with ReShade is a pain.

[rob10]

They have publicly acknowledged the issue and said that there is no obvious or easy fix, so it's on their radar, but not likely to be fixed short term.

[Chaffee]

Have you tried this to brighten displays?

You also need to do this to make it work.

Dunno why it's been an ongoing issue when users have a fix. I don't have MFDs, so I haven't tested it, but given the responses in the comments, a lot of people have had success.

TLDR: A UI mask + ReShade fixes the problem. If you don't know what those things are, click the links above.

N.B. read through the comments on that first link -- lotta super helpful info in there. Really needs to be the source of a knowledge base.

Edited February 15, 2024 by Chaffee

[rob10]

1 hour ago, Chaffee said:

Dunno why it's been an ongoing issue when users have a fix. I don't have MFDs, so I haven't tested it, but given the responses in the comments, a lot of people have had success.

Reshade is a reasonable workaround, but it's not a complete solution.  There are some side effects of using it to get the desired results (performance impact, lighting impact, etc.).  ED have said it's a complicated issue with no obvious and easy full solution and I can believe that.

[Chaffee]

16 minutes ago, rob10 said:

Reshade is a reasonable workaround, but it's not a complete solution.  There are some side effects of using it to get the desired results (performance impact, lighting impact, etc.).  ED have said it's a complicated issue with no obvious and easy full solution and I can believe that.

N.B. the ReShade link I posted actively reported zero performance impact. Don't forget that UI mask...

Of course, that may be due to hardware. I'd conjecture that anyone exporting MFDs has their base system sorted and should have similar results.

What I've seen on these forums is multiple reports of MFD brightness issues and an official response of "there's no fix." There is quite clearly a useful workaround, and it's one that works well for a vast majority of users, given the "this works/doesn't work" ratio reported in the comments.

So this > than nothing, by something like at least an order of magnitude, and it can be implemented for free, with zero performance impact. It's minimally a 90% solution, which is half again better than any 80/20 MVP release and massively improved from nothing.

"Complete" solutions never ship. Not anywhere. Not by anyone. No end user wants to sit on $500 worth of MFDs waiting for a complete solution.

Edited February 15, 2024 by Chaffee

[Usagi]

ReShade works, but with some night displays, like radar of AJS37, it creates a lot of posterization as image is so dark and has so few colors that it cannot be brightened without bringing a lot of artifacts.

 

One example of posterization as attachment.

 

Edited February 22, 2024 by Usagi
added image