Too dark to see!

Welcome Gingercat, sorry your joining the site with a problem but we are here to help. It would be useful to have some additional information about your problem.

1. Is your game patched to the most current version? Check in the Game Resources section and if not install the patch.
2. What video card are you using? There are some things on newer video cards that can mess up how bright the underground areas are. But without knowing the exact video card and the revision of the driver I do not wish to offer suggestions and cause additional problems.
3. Do you have any mods installed?
4. Are you playing the game from the DS1 start or the LoA start?

I am running Windows 7 64 bit professional and I had several issues getting DS1 and LoA to function correctly and so have many others. So give us as much detail about your systems hardware configuration as possible, as every solution was different it seems.

Also look about the forums as many people like KillerGremal, iryan, ladyfemme have posted solutions about graphics issues with windows7 and 8

Of course Sorry, more details:

I've ran dsupdate1.0-1.11.1462_eng.exe, which as far as I know is the latest patch.

I'm running on a Radeon 5850 (there are two in the machine, but Crossfire is currently off), connected by HDMI to my monitor. Have selected it using DSVideoConfig.exe

Have just today downloaded and installed the latest drivers for this card using AMD's Autodetect utility on their site (handy).

Resolutions don't seem to matter, whether using 640x480 or specifying widescreen res (1920x1080) from command line.

No mods installed at the moment; I'll mess with those once I get the darkness sorted

Have installed DirectX 9.

Game's files are unmodified, fresh install.

Changing filtering, shadow quality etc don't make a difference.

Windows 7 itself is also fully up to date with patches etc.

I've had this game installed and running before on W7-64, not sure what I have / haven't done differently since I had to redo Windows due to HDD failure...

Edit to add: I don't think LoA is installed, just base DS.

No need to be sorry Gingercat.
Yes that is the latest patch for Dungeon Siege 1

Yes you want to leave the Crossfire off when playing any of the Dungeon Siege Family of games. You may have to edit system_detail.gas from the oem version provided by the game since it does not include your video card. I know how to do this with Dungeon Siege 2 but all the links to the same for DS1 are dead. I will try to find a working one.

I will have a look to see if I can find any issues related to the current driver for your video card and the game. As there have been reported issues with older games with both the higher end Radeons and GeForce cards.

The wide screen resolutions are not supported by the system detail gas see above.

Yes let us solve the darkness issue before adding anything else.
DirectX 9 is the correct version
Yes Windows 7 being up to date is a good thing.

I will look into a few possible issues and get back to you. If you decide to edit the system_detail.gas file make sure to save the old one. you can do this by renaming it to something like system_detail.gas.oem or whatever you decide.

I had similar issues when I installed Dungeon Siege on my windows 7 x64 system. However my video card is Nvidia and not ATI. The issues I had where the images would flicker and at other times things where very dark where it was hard to tell what was happening. Can not remember if I was in the open, in a building or underground when things got dark and when things flickered.
This is what I did to resolve this issue, disable Hardware TnL and set the game to use blit mode.

To disable Hardware TnL: 1. Click Start, click Programs, click Dungeon Siege, click Troubleshooting, and then click Dungeon Siege Video Configuration Tool.
2. In the Video Driver drop down list, select "Primary Display Driver - Hardware" and make sure TnL is off.
3. Click OK.

To use blit mode: 1. Create a shortcut to the DungeonSiege.exe file.
2. Right-click the shortcut, and then click Properties.
3. In the Target field on the Shortcut tab, add the following at the end of the line: bltonly=true. The entire Target line would then read:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Dungeon Siege\DungeonSiege.exe" bltonly=true

Not sure if this will help.

Shadow Watcher

This place
http://ds2.bplaced.net/sysdat/ds1/ should still/again work.
Not sure however if a new system_detail.gas file alone will solve the matter... :o
 

Hi all, really appreciate the help so far. Thanks for being nice, welcoming and helpful people!

Have tried "bltonly=true" from the commandline, have tried adding a custom section in the system_prefs.gas file that specifically mentions my graphics card (which now makes the DSVideoConfig.exe file actually name my card according to what I put in, instead of just calling it "Unknown"), and have tried non-TnL graphics settings... And I'll be damned.

Loading my existing file has the darkness problem... But starting a new file, and simply running hell-for-leather to the affected area as fast as possible reveals the underground spot just fine!!

Perhaps my existing save has something wrong with it that has cached bad settings...?

That's a pity, but it's not like it's a huge time investment, maybe half an hour or so to get back there, re-killing stuff in the process.

Huh.

The unexpected fix (starting a new game and not using an old save) has bitten everyone here from time to time. Seems most of us always forget to ask. Seems to simple. I would still take a look at the post prior to yours by KillerGremal as it is a very useful little tool.

So, the problem turns up in the second underground area now (Crypt of the Sacred Blood).

That's a reasonable distance through, not easy to get to with a new save to try and test. Don't quite know what to do now.

Maybe run under DS2. Will look into that.