Game too dark

[ATI RADEON 8500]

Lately I've noticed that my game is very dark. I am geting very annoyed having to fool around with my ati control pannel's color and adjust the brightness yet doesent help much or make it way too bright.

Games like U2k4, Eternal Land, Hidden and dangerous deluxe and 3dmark2001se.

My system specs...
Ati radeon 9500 with latest patch
Envision 17" monitor
Ecs k7s5a mobo
Game are dark in Direct3d and opengl.

This game used to play games very nicely and not too dark. I am not sure what causing this at all.

EDIT: Well I tried to figure out whats the problem so I test my other monitor on this computer and it was perfect. No very dark area..

[El_Brio]

Monitor is probably dying. Is the desktop dark also? How about when you bring up a white page like a blank spreadsheet? If they are OK then it may be your video card.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Both Nvidia and ATi seem to have borked their Gamma up over their last several driver releases. As such, i reccomend you tweak your gamma settings in the display control centre and see if that helps any.

--Jakk:t

[ATI RADEON 8500]

I have been endlessly adjusting the stupid gamma but i either get tooo bright on the whole screen or too dark on the whole screen. It doesent fix the dark area.

I took a screenshot of the game and pasted it into psp7 and it acutally showed the dark area on my envision monior. But my DELL monitor showed the picture fine.

Envision
http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v280/HYPERI0N/Envision.jpg

DELL
http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v280/HYPERI0N/Dell.jpg

Noticeable diffrence eh? On my Envision monitor the contrast and brightness are maxxed out. On My Dell Contrast are 100% brightness 50%.

Even the video I capatured with my friend canon a40 in rather dark room was pitch black on my envision but was clear enough on DELL.