New monitor colors too saturated but control panel is empty
 

I just got a new monitor, Hyundai W241D. It's great but the colors are nuclear. The OSD doesn't have a saturation option. Just brightness, contrast, RGB, etc. So I thought I'd use the nvidia control panel. But it's empty. Well almost. There are adjust image settings (3D) and multiple display settings, but that's it. I uninstalled and reinstalled the latest version (96.85) and it's the same. I can't install anything later cause I have geforce 5200 and I guess that's no longer supported. I'm not sure what to do because my card is AGP and replacing it would mean a new motherboard, new ram, new cpu, etc!!

Any suggestions welcome! Thanks for your time.

Re: New monitor colors too saturated but control panel is empty
 

oversaturation is usually a hard thing to correct. have you tried searching for any color profiles for the lcd someone else may have created using a calibration device?

Re: New monitor colors too saturated but control panel is empty
 

The monitor isn't very popular, now I'm regretting buying the Hyundai but the Samsung was much more expensive.

For the calibration, I calibrated it myself with spyder2. Shouldn't my calibrator calibrate for saturation also?

Re: New monitor colors too saturated but control panel is empty
 

I think it should. What brightness are you using? New lcds are way too bright out of the box IMO. I have a 22 inch Samsung and lower it to about 15 or so for browsing the web and the default is 100.

Re: New monitor colors too saturated but control panel is empty
 

Thank you for your suggestion. The sypder calibration program suggested leaving the brightness at the default. I thought if the colors were too bright it would tone them down a bit.

I will try lowering the brightness and recalibrating. You're right, the brightness is too strong. It makes white on my old monitor look grey. ;)

Re: New monitor colors too saturated but control panel is empty
 

Understand that calibration programs only calibrate color values, not luminance. This is measured in cd or nit. Color calibrators try to make sure that for any given shade of such a color that it is within a deviation from the theoretically perfect color by so many points.

What you next need to do is calibrate your monitors settings such that you can see the full array of grays and that dark tones are distinguishable but not so bright that highlights are blown out and you can't tell the difference between white and very light greens, light blues, etc.

The best place to find monitor settings (individual RGB adjustments and brightness/contrast) is under professional reviews - ones where the technical aspects of a display are tested. These guys are nitpickers when it comes to color and usually you're safe taking their settings and rolling with it. Try sites like prad.de, xbitlabs.com, or extremetech.com. You'll see things like gamma curves, etc, but just look for the internal monitor settings and any color .icm files they may have.

Also I should mention that any new LCD you buy these days that has a glossy coating (and most seem to) will produce artificially saturated colors. Panels with anti-glare coatings are usually much more subdued by comparison and considered more accurate. However, you'll get used to the effect over time, especially in gaming. For desktop 2d work all day long, you might want to consider a different display.