Screen Dims When Playing Games Windows 10 (SOLUTION)

In the operating system wars today, one of the reasons why Windows 10 has been leading the charge by a long mile is because of the many different games you can play on this OS. More and more people are now playing video games competitively and professionally on Windows 10 computers as compared to the past when people only used to play games on their PCs as a hobby. So why do screens dim when playing video games?

Screen dimming when playing games in Windows 10 could be because of an auto-brightness setting in your monitor or Windows 10 settings, wrong settings in your graphics card, or maybe because your drivers are not updated. Changing the settings or updating your drivers can resolve the issue.

Why does the screen dim when playing games on Windows 10?

Too many people have been experiencing a common problem when they have updated to the latest version of Windows 10.

And, quite frankly, this is a problem that has been common for Windows for more than a decade already as those who played back in the days of Windows XP and even Windows 98 have experienced this problem.

We are talking about how your computer screen suddenly dims when you are playing games.

Yes, even in the day and age of Windows 10, there are still some avid gamers who experience their screens dimming on a regular basis whenever they play their video games.

This could be in PCs or even in laptops as there are many different reasons why this problem is still persistent even today. And, more than likely, this usually happens when you update your Windows 10 computer.

But why is this still happening? And what are the main reasons why the screen tends to dim when you play games on your Windows 10 computer?

As mentioned, there can be many reasons for this problem.

The first possible reason, although not the most common, is that it could be due to an auto-dimming feature found on your computer monitor.

Again, this isn’t very common but this happens mostly for those who are using desktop computers and not laptops because of how some computer monitors tend to have different settings.

So, again, there will be some desktop monitors that come with this feature for one reason or another.

What happens here is that the monitor comes with an auto-dimming feature that automatically adjusts the brightness settings on the monitor the moment you start up your game.

This usually happens when the game is probably optimized for lower brightness settings or if your monitor recognizes that you probably don’t need the extra brightness for that game.

Whatever the case may be, some monitors do come with this feature.

If it is not your monitor that comes with the auto-dimming settings, it could be your Windows 10 that has this feature. This can happen for both desktop computer and laptop gamers.

However, it is more than likely more common for laptop users because of how some gaming laptops come with a light sensor that tends to dim the screen when it recognizes that you don’t need the extra brightness, especially when there is enough available light around you.

Another reason why Windows 10 can kick in this automatic feature is that the system will try to balance and optimize the ambient light level with your game.

It’s similar to how your phone’s auto-brightness setting works as you will more than likely notice your phone screen becoming dimmer when the ambient light level is high enough.

So, what happens here is that the laptop is also trying to conserve your battery so that you can game longer, considering the fact that games tend to eat up a ton of battery power.

Of course, there is also the fact that the dimming feature might be due to your Windows 10 power settings. Windows 10 has a power-saving mode that is usually common in laptops because of how these computers rely on battery power a lot.

However, this can also be found in desktop computers because of how some owners would like to make sure that they are not using too much power when doing simple computing tasks.

So, if your power saving mode on your Windows 10 computer has been enabled, what happens is that the screen will automatically dim when you start your game because the system will recognize that the game will eat up a ton of power and that one of the ways for the system to save power is to decrease the screen’s brightness.

Again, while common in laptops, this can also happen for desktop users.

If you are using a dedicated graphics card for your Windows 10 computer, it could also be an issue with your graphic card’s settings. Different types of graphics cards have different settings.

There will be cases when the settings are configurated such that, when you are starting a game, the graphics card will display a completely different color, which will make your screen look a lot less bright than it should be.

Finally, we have the most common culprit of them all, which are your Windows 10 drivers.

Oftentimes, when you update your Windows 10 computer, the different drivers installed in the system do not follow suit and will stay the way they are.

If that is the case, then your games won’t end up running well enough because of how the system is incompatible with the drivers installed on the computer.

This will make your games appear less bright than they are even if your computer screen’s brightness did not even change.

However, even if you are religiously updating your drivers, there will still be some cases where the new drivers are incompatible with older games that are not optimized for the new drivers.

This is common for games that have not been updated for a while probably because of how old they are and how the developers have already abandoned them.

How to stop your screen from dimming while playing games in Windows 10?

Any of the abovementioned problems and issues could be what is causing your Windows 10 computer screen dimming when you are playing games.

And the only way for you to try to tell whether or not the culprit is any of those mentioned is by troubleshooting and by implementing some quick fixes that may be able to resolve the issue.

So, in that regard, here are some of the ways you can stop the screen from dimming while you are playing games on your Windows 10 computer:

Auto-dimming features on the monitor

If you think that the main culprit is the monitor itself because it comes with an auto-dimming feature, you can test things out by using a different monitor.

If the problem is eliminated, then the first monitor probably has an auto-dimming feature that has been enabled.

You can access and change this feature by tinkering with your computer’s monitor.

Different monitors have different settings. It is up to you to read the monitor’s manual or to check out the settings to see if you can disable the auto-dimming feature yourself.

Adaptive brightness settings on your computer

If you believe that the problem is with the settings of your computer after you have tried a different monitor or if you are using a laptop, then there is a really easy and quick way for you to fix the dimming problem when you are playing games.

So, what you need to do is to access your Control Panel, go to Power Options, then Change Plan Settings, find Change Advanced Power Settings, look for Display, and find Enable Adaptive Brightness under it.

If the adaptive brightness feature was turned on, you can simply disable it.

If the adaptive brightness is the result of how your computer is in power saving mode, you can simply go to Power Options and then switch your computer’s power mode to the standard settings or to the high settings if you want to get the most out of your games.

For those who are using laptops, you can easily access this option by looking for the battery icon on your computer’s desktop screen.

Graphics card

For those who have a good reason to believe that the graphics card settings are the problem, you can try going to your graphics card’s dedicated settings page to see if there are some problems with the settings that might be causing the issue.

Every graphics card has a different way for you to access the settings. But once you figure that part out, it won’t be difficult for you to look for the settings that might be causing the problems regarding how your screen looks dimmer.

Driver problems

Again, even if you may have updated your Windows 10 computer, there is no guarantee that all of the drivers may have been updated.

This is true if some of the drivers come from third parties such as when you have a dedicated graphics card installed on your computer.

So, while doing a quick Windows Update should fix most of your driver problems, you may have to update some drivers yourself by searching for Device Manager.

In there, you will see the different devices that are installed on your computer. You can update some of them especially if they have something to do with your graphics or your screen such as your graphics card or your display adapters.

What you can do is to right-click on those devices and select the Update Driver option.

However, if it’s because some of your new display drivers are incompatible with the game such that the screen dims when you play that game, you may need to roll back the driver.

You can do so by accessing the driver in the Device Manager, go to Display Adapters, right-clicking on the display adapter, click Properties, click Driver, and select rollback if the option is available to you.

This will roll the driver back to a previous version that may be compatible with the game you are playing.

Conclusion

There is no one issue or solution that may be causing your screen to dim when you are playing games on your Windows 10 computer.

That’s why we presented you with different possible problems and solutions you can use depending on what works.

In that regard, it should be up to you to troubleshoot the problem so that you can use the corresponding solution that best solves the issue at hand.