Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Nemesis6 on February 16, 2011, 11:11:11 pm

Title: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Nemesis6 on February 16, 2011, 11:11:11 pm: I... nay, a friend discovered this program (http://stereopsis.com/flux/) a while ago and sent me a link. It's a little program that, in layman's terms, makes your monitor look like the rest of the room, as far as lighting goes. During the day, your colors will be cool, and late in the evening and at night, your colors will be warm; 6500k and 3200k, respectively.

Just thought I'd share this. It helps to reduce eye strain, hence it's good!
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Unknown Target on February 17, 2011, 03:48:37 am: Neat, trying it out now.
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Pred the Penguin on February 17, 2011, 06:53:58 am: I don't really understand how to use it. :confused:
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Herra Tohtori on February 17, 2011, 07:46:52 am: Nifty idea but doesn't seem to preserve the actual modified gamma settings set on NVidia Control Panel.

Which sort of ruins it.
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Nuke on February 17, 2011, 10:01:20 am: are you kidding, my monitor is the only part of this house that doesnt look like it was bought in a thrift store.
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Scourge of Ages on February 17, 2011, 10:41:37 am: DON'T DO IT!!!!!!

EDIT: Seriously, don't do it. It seems like a good idea at first, but soon you'll realize that the colors are too screwed up for you to get any work or gaming done, and you'll uninstall it.
If you're running Vista, at least, a few days later you'll boot up to find your screen way too dark and/or blue. That happened to me, and I couldn't figure out how to undo it for about a year. The only workaround I could find at the time was to reinstall the stupid program and let it run with neutral settings.
This program literally screws with your current color profile, and the only real way to get rid of it is to change color profiles.

I don't have firsthand experience with any other OS, but there are reports of flickering, stuttering, extreme lag, and the colors abruptly changing problems that seem to plague about 30% of all users.

If you play games or do any work that requires colors for more than an hour at a time, you do NOT want this thing.

EDIT2: Also, ~~customer service~~ technical support is practically nonexistent. The only way to contact anybody is to post in the comments section and hope somebody non-retarded replies. My name in the comments is "Earmite" if you have an urge to delve into them at all.
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Solatar on February 17, 2011, 02:39:01 pm: I love it. If I want to do gaming or color-sensitive work, I turn it off (it's not hard to turn off :p). I've been running it on Windows 7 for several months (error free) and swear by it. It's great for paper-writing, etc. because it makes the ominous white lightbulb effect a bit less harsh in the middle of the night. Or I can turn it off and let the blinding white light of justice keep me awake. :D

Of course if you're doing anything that requires color sensitive work, then you don't want to be running this at the same time. That should be obvious by reading what it does though.
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Scourge of Ages on February 17, 2011, 02:49:26 pm: Right well, if all you do is word processing or spread sheeting or anything where the glaring white of your monitor could bother you late into the night, then sure this will work fine.
BUT, since this is a community of gamers and artists, I figured that it would be best to try to alert everyone to the significant downsides before they went and did something they'd regret later.

The biggest problem I had was how difficult it was to remove once I decided that I didn't like it. But I have that figured out, so I can at least help if anybody else tries it and decides to get rid of it.
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Nuclear1 on February 17, 2011, 06:41:22 pm: I like it. If I have to do any FREDing or anything related to Freespace, I just disable it for an hour. Already making this computer less of a headache at night (and I'm practically nocturnal).
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Bob-san on February 17, 2011, 08:48:08 pm: I've been using it for a long time. Despite ****ing with your color settings, it has never failed on me and does in fact reduce eyestrain at night. (6500K during the day, 3400K overnight)
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Dilmah G on February 18, 2011, 10:35:25 pm: Andro showed me this the other month on IRC, and since then, I too have been living by it. Flight sim and all that doesn't look too bad with it on, not sure about FS, though.
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Scourge of Ages on February 19, 2011, 03:38:47 pm: So I uninstalled it about a week ago, changed color profiles like I discovered, and thought everything was good. Today when I booted up, everything is sepia colored. And I do not plan on ever installing it again, which leaves me back at square one with a brown monitor.
UPDATE: Changed profiles again, messed with manual monitor settings, and it seems to be fine again. For now.
Title: Re: F.lux -- A brilliant program
Post by: Davros on February 22, 2011, 01:26:52 pm: Quote from: Nemesis6 on February 16, 2011, 11:11:11 pm
makes your monitor look like the rest of the room,
Why would I want my monitor to look like a tip ?