I know it's kind of a touchy topic since everyone has different monitors/settings,
but I still think it's worth discussing since compared to many other games I played,
Quake is probably one of those few that gives a dark, washed out picture by default .
I personally use 0.8-0.9 gamma (in ezQuake) and always crank contrast to its max
(3.0) which gives a nice visible picture without washing it out, anything above 75hz
refresh rate on my lcd would give a distorted greenish look on the screen so it's
probably the best value by default to retain compatibility for both crt and lcd owners.
I would be glad to hear your ideas.

I use gl_gamma 0.6 and gl_contrast 1.2 or 1.3, dont remember. Using a standard 19" crt screen. Looks like most other games, not too dark and not too light

I wonder what developers think about it, especially refreshrate since I believe
that nQuake's default is above 75hz which distorts the color on lcds.

You can't overscan refresh rate on any new (read, newer than 1996) monitor because they refuse to display image if this happens. Read: if you specify vid_displayfrequency above max supported on a TFT monitor that can only display 60Hz or 75Hz and try to run it, you will get:

1) error message (from monitor) that mode is not supported
2) error message (from OS/ezQuake) that mode is not supported
3) closest refreshrate (that's 75Hz or 60Hz on TFTs)
4) windowed screen or some other strange behaviour.

In nQuake's case, I'm pretty sure all it does is that when it can't set the refreshrate above the monitor specs, it will fall back to the closest matching one, probably 60Hz. You should manually edit vid_displayfrequency (from game or config.cfg) to match the best mode your TFT can offer to make sure it's correct.

I have changed refreshrate through ezQuake's menu, I am not sure why
it works that way but anything above 75hz (I tried 85hz and 120hz) gives
a greenish look.

happens on my asus vw222u when i use high refresh rates.
funnily enough, 1280x1024 and below is ok at 75hz, but at 1680x1050 it exhibits that behaviour

This must be LCD related problem. On CRT things like that doesn't happen. Maybe LCD monitors doesn't produce accurate colors on higher refresh rates?

I play on my CRT on 85hz but i can push it to 120hz. Doesn't matter if it's 60, 70, 75, 85, 100 or 120 hz, colors are the same (but on 120 hz image is a bit blurry).

My advice: try to counter this effect with graphic drivers. Set color balance manually, to get rid of greenish look, and save it as profile dedicated to nquake.exe (should be possible in all newest drivers i think).

That 3.0 contrast is retinal rape. :/

I got in the ezquake Video menu:

gamma 0.8
contrast 1.5

I got tft monitor @ 75 hz

I just hope that developers will take a look at default values since many people have lcds nowadays and I have two monitors one desktop and one lappy, I didn't adjust their settings that much but compared to other games Quake looked dark and pale, also the 75hz problem made me think that it would be best to leave the default value at 75hz so that people with monitors like mine wont have to wonder why the color is distorted.

I don't think there is a 'default' setting since the monitor settings itself matter as well. I mean, default settings in a game look different on your monitor in comparison with mine... You'll always need to tweak things to get the image quality you prefer. If I put my contrast all the way up (which is nuts imo) then it would be very hard for me to play the game.

Yeah megalodon, however if like 99% of the users have gamma/contrast higher than the defaults, it makes no sense to keep those defaulth so low. Note that they have already been increased slightly from original QW.

It'd be easy as hell if I had list of all plls gamma/contrast settings. But here I just don't know which defaults are ok.
Which new defaults would you eksy propose?

I suppose that the best solution is to compare and match quake's picture to default desktop picture and to picture of other modern games.

By that I don't propose my exact gamma/contrast ratios since it heavily depends on monitor settings.
Anything that will make the picture look close enough to default desktop will be sufficient.

Third pic has sunlight (dont know what's going on in the fourth). ZTNDM3, like many Quake maps has torches and that freaky misty sky. Quake was designed to be dark. Doom 3 would offer better comparison?

r_bloom might do what you are trying to achieve with that crazy contrast setting.

lol pyro

to be fair, you can't compare TF2 and Quake1. TF2 have cartoonish gfx with bright colors, and Q1 gfx is supposed to be dark. That is one of reasons why people use fullbrights, to see enemy better in dark enviroment. I think Quake 3 is the first FPS to have so many colors and so little shadows. For example, Unreal and AvP were even darker than Q1. I think it is possible to make QW graphic brighter and sharper, but not washed out, but it will require to modify textures (lot of work to do) and use custom .lit files.

And i don't remember a single game where i didn't changed default gamma/contrast/brightness settings after first launch... these aren't universal.

It's not a matter of taste, I simply try to match my true monitor settings in quake since by default it looks as if I turned gamma/contrast all the way down. Quake and most other id games are dark, but they are not dark like there are more shadows, they are dark to the point of lowering internal gamma/contrast for the sake of being more scary for the user since he can barely see what's happening on the screen which is complete opposite of what quakeworld is about.