Need Help with HL1 games borking my graphics pl0x

[copulatingduck]

That is my suspicion anyways. I don't know how many have noticed, but when running hl1 mods, the brightness (or something like that) for your system goes up. You'll notice if you try to bring up the Steam settings (Shift+Tab) thing while in game.

Today, after running a windows update, I rebooted my computer. Everything looks fine while booting, but once Windows is loaded, everything just goes super bright. There is very little contrast. The first thing I thought was "OMG It looks just like when I first ran NS a few days ago!"

I can only read text if it is black on white. I tried restoring to 2 days ago before the updates, but that didn't do anything. Tried updating my video drivers. No dice. Then I wondered if there was some stupid setting in the HL1 video settings that would do this, so I tried to run NS. No dice, I see the main menu, this it quits out. Tried running Science and Industry. Same thing. I have tried running every single HL1 mod I have, and they all do the same thing. I see the main menu for a split second, then they quit out.

Anyone have any suggestions? Ever heard of this happening before? Has it happened to you yet? I would rather not pull a brbuninstalling if I don't have to. I have space to back stuff up (only 1.5 TB of hard drive space, one of the drives has been clicking and having very sad read/write times so I just pulled it out and tossed it), but I would rather not watch files transfer for hours on end.

Also, in the future, is there a way to install Windows to one hard drive and specify that everything else I want to install (games) should go to and run from another hard drive so that if I have to re-install windows, it can be just windows I'm installing and not everything else? I know with The Lunixez that you can just say root dir on SDA1, home dir on SDB! etc, but I wasn't sure if you could just do the same with windows.

Apologies for the long post. And sorry to bug you guys, but Google was not helpful. 

[copulatingduck]

OK, I think I figured it out. So it's actually the gamma setting that a lot of the HL1 games have really high by default. So I decided to try uninstalling HL1 mods 1 at a time, hoping that after a restart something might magically click making my compy work again. So I uninstalled the first one, but I don't remember what it was (what does that tell you about how many games are loaded on this stupid machine?)

After a restart, I realized that Action Half Life was also a HL1 mod, so I tried running that just to be thorough. I assumed it wouldn't run since the other HL1 mods didn't, but what do you know, it worked. I futzed with the video settings, and that's how I figured out it was the gamma setting that is very high by default in HL1 settings. I quit out, and by screen is still too bright. I try adjusting it in Natural Selection, and then when I go back to desktop, it's like I got my very own visit from Tingle the Map-deciphering fairy:

"Kooloo Limpa Make Text Readable!"

And now I can read everything again. My graphics are back to normal. I guess Windows and HL1 games do not play nice with each other or something. I figured I would post this so if anyone else has issues they know how to (hopefully) fix it. However, my other question (about "smart partition management") with Windows still stands.

[Vandamguy]

yes you can install games to another HDD leaving windows on its own drive. However, when you wipe windows off and reinstall it, you wont be able to play the games that are on the other HDD.

registry entries

[copulatingduck]

yes you can install games to another HDD leaving windows on its own drive. However, when you wipe windows off and reinstall it, you wont be able to play the games that are on the other HDD.

registry entries

Well boo for Windows. That's not very helpful.

[rumsfald]

under the early days of steam (like 4 years ago), I copied the entire HL folder over to a new computer/new windows install.  this was really helpful because I didn't need to re-enter my steam id/pass or have to dig for the HL key.  dunno if it still works.