Color Banding in Night Sky

[MR762]

I'm getting really weird color banding during night ops. Any suggestions?

[wilbur81]

Nvidia card? If so, take a screen grab of your desktop color & gamma settings in the Nvidia control panel. What are your in game DCS gamma settings as well?

Edited May 6, 2024 by wilbur81

[MR762]

RTX 3080

 

[Loukuins]

On 5/6/2024 at 5:37 AM, MR762 said:

RTX 3080

 

Disable all custom settings in the Nvidia control panel, this is what causing you banding.

And enable 8bit or higher in the resolution setting in the Nvidia control panel, as well as the complete color gamut instead of the limited one.

Edited May 17, 2024 by Loukuins

[kris018]

Newbie so sorry if this was sorted out

I have this problem atm, adjusted my ingame gamma so its all dark but early morning it is really terrible.

Tried most solutions found online debanding filter ect ect but none is really working.

No point in posting a screen as i sent one to my phone and it looks just fine so guessing it is a monitor issue? IPS monitor might make it go away according  to this old tread
 

 

[silverdevil]

1 hour ago, kris018 said:

Newbie so sorry if this was sorted out

I have this problem atm, adjusted my ingame gamma so its all dark but early morning it is really terrible.

Tried most solutions found online debanding filter ect ect but none is really working.

No point in posting a screen as i sent one to my phone and it looks just fine so guessing it is a monitor issue? IPS monitor might make it go away according  to this old tread

hello and welcome. please post your DCS.LOG file found in SavedGames\DCS\LOGS. it may have some clues. also share your monitor make and model.

[kris018]

Thank you for reply

I have this monitor :  https://aoc.com/uk/gaming/products/monitors/cu34g2xe-bk/specification

Tried with and without HDR, playing with brightness all the usual things.

Hooked up an OLD monitor i had lying around (must be 10-12 years old) and everything looks fine 

dcs.log

[silverdevil]

4 hours ago, kris018 said:

Thank you for reply

I have this monitor :  https://aoc.com/uk/gaming/products/monitors/cu34g2xe-bk/specification

Tried with and without HDR, playing with brightness all the usual things.

Hooked up an OLD monitor i had lying around (must be 10-12 years old) and everything looks fine 

hello. no problem. you new monitor is a GSYNC. 

i put your log in the analyzer. here are results.

Logfile Analysis
DCS Version
2.9.15.9599
Edition
Standalone
OS-Version
10.0.26100
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
CPU
13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900F
[1x L3 caches]
Cores / Threads
24/32
Hyper-V
active
RAM
65348 MB
Pagefile
5888 MB
Preload Radius
103300
GPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
VRAM
24142 MB
Driver
576.40
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Custom Mods
UH-60L
Press the buttons below for recommendations.

Errors
The Integrity Check failed
Delete all unofficial mods and do a !repair of DCS.
Hot plug Events
Disable hot plug in your CONTROLS section.

Advice
 
If you have stability or performance issues pointing to your GPU, rollback the GPU driver to version 566.36,
Verify that this is configured correctly in Windows:
Game Mode disabled,
Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling disabled,
Core Isolation disabled

Tuning Tips
 
Disable civil traffic.,
Enable Full Screen mode.,
Turn off SSLR.,
If you have FPS issues, try turning off VSYNC in graphics settings.,
Tuning tips are recommendations for better FPS based on your CPU, GPU and RAM.
They might result in slightly decreased display quality.

i have a GSYNC and 3090. 

try these settings in the nvidia control panel for program settings dcs.exe

null

see how this works. i think it is VSYNC instead of GSYNC

 

[kris018]

Still the same, guessing these screens looks normal to you? (they look fine on my phone) 
To me they look washed out, really bad color banding.

Slightly OT
Game Mode disabled,
Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling disabled,
These have always puzzeled me, can't really think of a single game having they on or off make any sort of difference?

Edited Sunday at 01:15 PM by kris018

[silverdevil]

5 hours ago, kris018 said:

These have always puzzeled me, can't really think of a single game having they on or off make any sort of difference?

me too. i have changed these settings and see no difference. i also do not have a CPU (11th gen i9) with p/e cores. not sure if there is correlation.

the screen shots look okay to me. but yes they seem dim. switching monitors like you did is a good test. are there any settings in the monitor changed? maybe resetting to default may help.

[Czar66]

6 hours ago, kris018 said:

To me they look washed out, really bad color banding.

 

On 5/17/2025 at 12:22 PM, kris018 said:

I have this monitor :  https://aoc.com/uk/gaming/products/monitors/cu34g2xe-bk/specification

You have a VA monitor. Some of the deepest blacks out there. Anything above 0-0-0 rgb value, even by 1, will pop out. I had similar issue on a old VA monitor, now I only have IPS ones. I can't really 'see' the problem now, but I know what you're saying, I believe.

Tip: You need to reduce gamma or crush some blacks for the banding to disappear. I dislike those VA screens but they are awesome to watch movies in a dark room.
In the end, the banding will still be there but you can mitigate some. It is a problem inherent to the VA screens.

I'd say, enjoy their strengths.

On 5/17/2025 at 12:22 PM, kris018 said:

Hooked up an OLD monitor i had lying around (must be 10-12 years old) and everything looks fine 

Likely an IPS monitor or anything else but VA.

Edited Sunday at 03:25 PM by Czar66