I too am cursed by evil gamma
This gamma crap makes me sick. I can only run UT in 32-bit color. I've been posting this same forum thread on as many forums hoping somebody notices. Take a gander.
First of all, my current configuration isn't the problem, because this same problem has happened to me on a different computer--different video cards (Asus GeForce DDR, 3dfx voodoo3 3000), different motherboard, cpu, sound card, monitor, hard drive, etc.
When I run 3d games, often my colors are wrong--pale colors glow yellow, whites are blindingly bright. This happens most obviously in QuakeIII, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, and Unreal Tournament, but in UT, only when I run in 16-bit color; in 32-bit color, the colors are perfect. This doesn't happen at all in Vampire: the Masquerade, nor do I see it happening in Heavy Metal: Fakk2. I've messed around as much as possible with gamma at the Windows (video display properties) level, using the Detonator 3 drivers' video controls; I've fiddled with brightness sliders. The only thing that actually made a difference was, QuakeIII-based engines all recognize the command r_ignorehwgamma 1. This tells the app to ignore hardware gamma settings. When I do this, color is normal, but only for those games.
It seems possible to me that maybe I'm having these problems because I used to own a Voodoo card, and maybe somewhere in my Registry or System files, Windows still thinks I have a Voodoo card, and is applying gamma settings appropriate to that card, to my new one. But that theory breaks down quickly, because before I bought the GeForce2, when I was still running the Voodoo3, I tried running Unreal Tournament in D3D and OpenGL instead of Glide, and the same problem showed up. So here it is. On THREE different video cards, two different MoBo/CPU combinations, two different sound cards, two monitors, etc., I can't get correct colors unless I use built-in software hacks to DISABLE hardware gamma. What am I doing wrong? Is there a BIOS setting that's screwing things up? Please respond, you can tell I'm big on gaming, this is making me completely crazy, after all the money I've spent I'm sure you understand my frustration. Thanks.
Oh, incidentally, on my GeForce2, OpenGL is choppy, ugly, and discolored; D3D doesn't come close to Glide (yes, my Voodoo3 played UT far, far better than my GeForce2 does, it's not about the cards, it's about optimization for an API), but it's definitely better, by far, than OpenGL UT.