Display calibration during gaming lost, were can I find MSI RGB colour profiles

[msm_muddassir]

Hey guys,

Question in short: Where can I find the sRGB profiles of the Dragon Center app?

I am the happy owner of a GL72-6QF, but there are some things I changed to enhance my experience with this laptop. Amongst which I changed the audio driver to a previous version in which the subwoofer actually works (sound is great now; previous topic), but I also wanted to change the Silent Option tool and the MSI Dragon Gaming Center to the MSI Dragon Center, which actually combines both in a much more appealing interface. Dragon Center also lets you select sRGB display profiles for different energy profiles. For now I disabled them, since I don't know how to calibrate them.

I also calibrated the screen in windows calibration for both my system's standard and user's standard, which made my screen way more accurate and vibrant, compared to before. After calibration, I noticed that games went to launch a different colour profile at launch, and also the youtube videos change colour when I hover over them with my mouse. By eye it looked very likely as if the MSI/windows sRGB standard display profile becomes activated in both scenarios. How can I change them? Or is there a workaround that I did not think of yet?

I am well aware that it might actually be the Intel HD (530) or Nvidia (960M) driver setting the standard sRGB profile, but I am curious if the MSI Dragon Center will be able to override the profile change. Plus I might even use different colour  profiles for different scenarios, as in also calibrate the gaming sRGB profile.

Thank you in advance!

 

[DarkwingsDuck]

Do you have MSI True Colour installed?  You can adjust the brightness, contrast, tint etc with that utility.  In the tool, there are 2 tabs once you select show settings from the bottom of MSI True Colour window.

 

[msm_muddassir]

In fact, I haven't. Based on a vid on youtube it might actually be exactly what I am looking for, thanks for the suggestion! I will try it out right away and will post the results.

 

[davidh]

Hi msm_muddassir,

MSI has a good idea: provide an easy way for users to configure the color of their display(s) for different applications. In fact, they try to do this automatically in some circumstances. But their system is not truly based on calibration and, even if it were, they do not provide an accurate means for the user to recalibrate (all displays need to be periodically recalibrated as they age). The built-in Windows display calibrator that you used is crude at best. This is why I do not like MSI's True Color / Dragon Center software for this purpose and recommend that users uninstall True Color. And I do not recommend that the built-in Windows calibrator be used, either. Plus, I recommend that all automatic color adjustments by gaming control centers be disabled.

I've worked professionally with media creation programs for decades and formerly managed an in-house publishing department. Much of my work is with still images using Adobe Illustrator and the extended version of Adobe Photoshop. But I have the entire Adobe Master Collection so I also deal with After Effects and Premiere Pro for video and InDesign for print media. Needless to say, accurate color is paramount for these programs and my work. So my requirements may exceed yours by a fair amount and you may not want feel the need to do your own calibration.

But the only way to truly control the color of your displays is to buy or borrow a colorimeter and calibrate them, yourself. With your own colorimeter and calibration software you can create your own icc calibration profiles for your displays for various circumstances and needs.

Under Microsoft Windows, the icc profiles are usually stored at: C:\Windows\System32\spool\color\. You'll typically see the profiles for both your displays and printers here. However, I don't know if True Color uses icc profiles and, if it does, if it stores them here, too.

Colorimeters have come way down in price. When I started using them in the 1980's they were very expensive. Nowadays, you can purchase one for less than US$100. I posted some information on some of the most popular models here. I'm using an i1Display Pro by X-Rite (Pantone) which is a pro-level device. But you can pick up an affordable X-Rite ColorMunki Smile for just US$81.42 from Amazon.com here or B&H here.

And the nice thing about owning your own colorimeter is you can calibrate as many displays and computers as you want.

Lastly, if your ambient lighting changes frequently (for example, you work where it's bright during the day and dark at night), you may want to get a model that does live adjustments based on the ambient light. These colorimeters will continuously monitor the ambient light level of your room and adjust the display(s) accordingly. This "live" calibration scheme isn't perfect, but it can be a great help when you must work in an environment with changing light levels. The ideal environment for color work is a dark environment with all surrounding surfaces a neutral color (grey, black or white). A color tint to the surrounding area will skew your color perception, making you less able to perceive color accurately.

Kind regards, David

 

[msm_muddassir]

Unfortunately, this app is not compatible with my notebook. I get an error as soon as the program MSI True Color app starts. Thanks for your additional info David. I know hardware to accurately do calibration is available, but at this point I am happy with a crude calibration, especially since the default is off by miles.

Anyways I won't be enabling MSI's sRGB profiles then in Dragon Center and will have to find a way that the my calibrated icc color profile that's enabled will stay enabled in all programs and browser embedded videos.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[DarkwingsDuck]

I should have checked your PC model before suggesting MSI True Colour.  Apologies for wasting your time.

Like David has suggested, hardware calibrator would be best.  I am also looking at his suggested lower cost solution in the future.

My previous laptop colour was also off after a few years of use.  I found that one of the freeware, QuickGamma, was useful in providing a general guide to readjust the colour/gamma, etc. 
Link to site:  https://quickgamma.de/indexen.html

Other software calibration programs (review):  https://windowsreport.com/display-color-calibration-software/

 

[msm_muddassir]

Short update: The youtube video changing colour when hovering my mouse over it got resolved when re-installing both Nvidia and Intel drivers and updating them to the latest version. At launching games however the color profile is still reset to default it seems. I read somewhere on another forum that turning full screen optimization off in windows compatibility, might stop the change at launch, but haven't tried it out yet.

I'm still very interested where I could find the MSI's RGB colour profiles of the Dragon Center and if they are indeed icc files. So any suggestions there are very welcome. I tried resource monitor while actively switching through profiles and it did change settings.json in the Dragon Center app files, so maybe analyzing that file might give some more info.

Upon installing True color (see earlier post: not compatible!) the profiles changed in the Dragon Center App and the MSI's RGB title turned into MSI True Color. But likewise, automatic .icc whole drive search or manually searching through Program Files, AppData, Spool folder did not reveal them.