Do you calibrate your TV correctly for games?

[Rummy]

So, I recently purchased The Witcher, and fired it up on my PS4 as normal etcetc. Then it came to the gamma slider, which some games use to fix bad calibs I understand, where I was to slide until 'the image is barely visible'.

 

However despite any of my sliding, no image ever appeared, and naturally I turned to Google. I quickly came across similar people with similar issues(I've never had it on this TV for any other games) and ended up at a video about calibrating ALL of the settings correctly for games and thought it might be worth sharing here and asking if any of you do this already?

 

For me I'd always just had my TV on whatever it was, and whilst I'll admit it feels a bit strange to me having it on these newer settings(not sure I did them 100% right either) - I do feel a bit like I'm getting a better visual out of my games than I was before. More detail, almost? I dunno. It's weird, but...yeah. I'll post the video and then hopefully this all makes sense;

 

reddit(with written instructions):

 

Video(gives background explanation too):

 

Nod to Microsoft for actually including this as a guide/process with the XBone(that's the images he uses for it) - it's something I feel that a great majority of people would never both with doing(myself included).

Edited November 21, 2015 by Rummy

[bob]

I never set the gamma slider to be 'barely visible'. I always put it on much lighter. Don't want dark-ass games.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I always get confused when I'm using that slider calibration setting. In the end, I usually go for the default setting or just a bit brighter than usual. Everything usually turns out fine.

 

I actually think games look fine on my TV. Films look great, too. TV on the other hand, I always feel could look better. Sport in particular, especially on the non-HD channels (such as regular ITV) always looks a bit meh. Not as crisp as I want it, but that's down to the channel not having HD or the signal, I guess.

[Nolan]

Yes I do. For shits and giggles the other day I ran through the Xbone calibration tool. Pretty close to spot on other than the gradient blocks of white and black, I want to say it was the last two blocks that blended. Or my eyes are bad and I couldn't tell.

 

I do find some games will be a hair too dark or light at times, but my TV can switch between light and dark black levels that fix that. My method is to just throw in a vivid game of sorts and fiddlefuck the settings until it looks good. Colors pop and are accurate, blacks are black, sharpness isn't blurry, but not so sharp as to cause white aliased lines on all the edges.

[Dcubed]

Not for games specifically, I just calibrate it according to professional standards, depending on the type of input (video and audio wise individually).

 

It makes all the difference in the world to what you see on the screen. I wince whenever I go to an event of sorts and I see TVs with all the wrong settings (WHY WOULD YOU TURN THE SHARPNESS UP!? WHHHYYYYYYYY!?)

 

If you're not gonna bother fine tuning your settings, at least turn sharpness down to zero on an LCD screen! For the love of everything that is holy, do it! LCD sharpness doesn't work like CRT sharpness! It just utterly destroys image quality when you turn it up on a HDTV! (there's something to be said for maybe a tiny amount on SD content, but not HD content! Set it straight to zero for that!)

 

Also never adjust gamma controls to match a game. Just don't.

Edited November 21, 2015 by Dcubed

[Tales]

Never done anything on tv for games, didn't know that was a thibng. As for the gamma slider I usually leave it slightly brighter than default.

[V. Amoleo]

I've always calibrated my TV for different types of media. Always bugs me when I'm at someone's house and they haven't calibrated their TV. Saturated colours, crushed blacks, ugh no!

[Rummy]

I never set the gamma slider to be 'barely visible'. I always put it on much lighter. Don't want dark-ass games.

 

I always get confused when I'm using that slider calibration setting. In the end, I usually go for the default setting or just a bit brighter than usual. Everything usually turns out fine.

 

I've usually been quite the same, but having watched the video and adjusted my stuff I can definitely see where he's coming from. It seems quite a few people just go for what is, but I think it'd be interesting if anyone calibrated as the vid advises and let's us know what they think!

 

*wink wink nudge nudge I think he's talking to you*

[Fierce_LiNk]

I've usually been quite the same, but having watched the video and adjusted my stuff I can definitely see where he's coming from. It seems quite a few people just go for what is, but I think it'd be interesting if anyone calibrated as the vid advises and let's us know what they think!

 

*wink wink nudge nudge I think he's talking to you*

 

I did watch the video and think, "oh, I should give this a go!" But then it was quite long and it got technical and then I got all panicky and wondered if somebody else could do it for me and then I realised that there was nobody else and then I stopped watching and ended up watching old Simpsons quotes on youtube instead.

 

It's one of those things where I want to reap the rewards, but I don't want to go to all of that effort of doing that stuff because I'm technically retarded. I might just get Ine to do it and then I can shout instructions are her from a distance.

[Kav]

I'm playing on a projector at the mo (I don't actually have a TV, haha) and don't set it up properly... in fact, I'm finding it hard to get the correct focus at the moment for some reason, it's a full 1080p projector (although I am using it on a wall and not a screen) but it is a little old now so maybe it's just not ageing well..?

 

It's ok for most games but sometimes makes it hard to spot enemies on games like Battlefront and CoD!

 

It used to be great though, a really clear picture, but for some reason I just can't quite get the focus right lately.

[bob]

Maybe it needs glasses?

[Kav]

Maybe it needs glasses?

 

That's a point, I actually do, my eyesight is awful!

[Goafer]

I just set mine up how I want it. I don't really care if it's "correct" to be honest. I do colour grading as part of my job, so I like to think my eye for colour/contrast etc is good enough to do it by eye, at least to my own standards of what looks good.

[Kagato]

There are some videos for my brand of TV that i watched a while back on youtube by folk that play a lot of games, basically just followed that as closely as possible and it looks nice enough...most of them use the same or very similar settings so set it somewhere in between.

 

As for that slider for games, i always put it up quite high so the skull/face/whatever is fairly visable, when playing games like Fallout and Elderscrolls it just makes it less of a nightmare when you are trying to stealth kill things in the dark.