The night scene is not displaying properly

[YoYo]

In my case, I didn't touch the gamma, it's fine, just like it was from the very beginning (1.0, I think). I'm just sitting in VR.

Edited August 2 by YoYo

[YoYo]

I checked today after 004b and it's still the same: no night lighting or color. Strange stripes, like an RGB limit. The monitor displays the same thing.

On 8/1/2026 at 1:39 PM, Husar said:

Indirect lightning on or off? I have off for sure (for VR).

[YoYo]

Patch 1.003.

It still looks very bad in VR, lacking proper colors, looking more like a game from the early 2000s. Much worse than IL-2 GB.

Lighting on the external view hasn't been improved in VR either. Lights are rendered differently on the left and right eyes. The left eye is fine, while the right eye is 10% of the left.

Request to fix this bug.

[Stoikiy]

On 7/28/2026 at 4:25 PM, LuftManu said:

This might be something related to VR, because in 2D, night is beautiful!

Im also noticed weird colours in the cabin while fly my MiG 15 in night mission. 

So, over-colored and incorrect gamma also exist in 2D. I thought it might be DLSS but it's just theory, did not tested that.

Edited August 6 by Stoikiy

[YoYo]

1 hour ago, Stoikiy said:

Im also noticed weird colours in the cabin while fly my MiG 15 in night mission. 

So, over-colored and incorrect gamma also exist in 2D. I thought it might be DLSS but it's just theory, did not tested that.

I dont use DLSS.

[Stoikiy]

then its game engine gamma or else issue. This is how it look for me 

Edited August 6 by Stoikiy

[LuftManu]

14 hours ago, Stoikiy said:

Im also noticed weird colours in the cabin while fly my MiG 15 in night mission. 

So, over-colored and incorrect gamma also exist in 2D. I thought it might be DLSS but it's just theory, did not tested that.

Oh bummer! 

I'm in 4K with an QD Oled screen, and as YoYo said, besides the clouds, I didn't find something strange but that does not mean it's working correctly to everybody. Hope they fix the bug, at night is really cool.

[YoYo]

According to the last blog, we have information (I'm not sure if it's a summary or a completion notice) that the lighting system works really well, even at night, which is unfortunately completely untrue. I don't know if I missed something or what?

The sky, the clouds, still haven't been fixed, and EA seems to have finished, VR 1.003b. Needless to say, it looks terrible, and nothing has happened in this regard since the end of June to improve it.

The sky (oily spots, no colors, no lighting, RGB limit).

There is no glow over the city at all, in VR we have different images on the left and right eyes in the external views, on one we have lights, on the other unfortunately not

Zooming in on the Moon, strange blue reflections on the hull, RGB halo limits, no moonlight:

The background of the earth, you can't see anything, no shadows, no refractions of light, no glow, the water is completely black, if you look straight down (no stars, for example).

No color consistency, some sudden transition from black to light.

Any news on this topic? This blog post vs reality just looks pretty weird.

[YoYo]

The last blog (https://media.il2-korea.com/news/dd_85)  doesn't mention the work on night mode or the existing issue with incorrect texture display, RGB color limits, and night lighting .

I have no idea if they forgot to add this or if they're working on it, so it's hard to say whether there's awareness of the issue here. The level of nighttime appearance in IL-2 Korea, at its current stage, is unacceptable (mainly VR due to some limits which are shown in the examples above). In VR, we also have a bug related to the fact that we see different lighting in one eye than in the other. The image is not rendered the same.

I am posting examples from other simulators.

MSFS:

DCS:

Are we waiting for something? Is there any awareness of the problems with nighttime lighting in VR (but not only)? DX12 allows you to create a beautiful night, with a very realistic lighting appearance, also on clouds depending on the angle of the light, and in IL-2 Korea there is no night glow from cities, for example as well.

Hello devs?! Is there a plan to improve this?

Edited August 21 by YoYo

[Panthercules]

I hesitate to jump in here because I've just loaded Korea on this new PC and haven't even tested my VR setup or played with any of the graphics settings yet, but this thread piqued my interest and I wanted to just take a quick look and see what the night skies look like on my rig.  I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw.

 

Fortunately, things didn't look like any of the bad images in the thread above.  Once I get my VR gear set up I'll take a look and see if I'm having the same problems in VR that the others above seem to be having.

 

[YoYo]

4 hours ago, Panthercules said:

Fortunately, things didn't look like any of the bad images in the thread above.  Once I get my VR gear set up I'll take a look and see if I'm having the same problems in VR that the others above seem to be having.

 

Yes, the problem primarily concerns VR, where insufficient attention was paid. It's as if no one was testing this in VR even in the Alpha phase. The issue still hasn't been resolved during EA, despite reports, but we're still waiting.

Also, note that you have HDR enabled; that also affects nighttime. There were earlier comparisons here of what HDR looks like on and off and there are also some differences. It doesn't look that bad on your screenshots, but unfortunately for me (and others) it looks terrible.

Edited August 21 by YoYo

[MajorMagee]

I was curious what it would take to make it look more like the Mig-19 video posted above.

As Snapped In Game

With Mid-Range Values Boosted 2X in Photoshop.

A lot of information is hiding in all that blackness. At least there's no obvious signs of posterization when you bring these details out in post.

Interestingly the same big PBR induced Atmospheric Bloom we see around the sun is lurking under there as well.

[Panthercules]

Well, I got my VR gear set up and flew a couple of daytime missions in VR - one in the Sabre and one in the F-51.  While not perfect (some annoying building pop-ups, a few stutters, and some FPS drops over Seoul with the Sabre - fewer issues with the F-51, I guess due to the slower speed of the aircraft) it was pretty impressive-looking, and way better than I was expecting to see based on a lot of the griping on the forums.  If I were going to fly it now I'd certainly have to spend some more time tweaking the settings to dial them in a bit better, but overall it was very promising and I'm hopeful the devs can  get it to the desired state by the time my beloved F9F Panther gets here.

HOWEVER, when I repeated my midnight Saber mission (which the screenshots in my post above came from) in VR it was really horrible-looking, just like YoYo and others have been saying.

 

I hope the devs are going to deal with this, because there's no chance of doing any night missions in VR in these conditions, which would be a real shame given how cool the night looks in my 2D missions.

Edited August 22 by Panthercules

[AEthelraedUnraed]

@Panthercules Could you provide your GPU and driver version? The more info we provide, the likelier it becomes that the Devs swiftly resolve this. Especially since this issue seems to be highly dependent on hardware; I have one PC where the nights look fabulous even in VR, and another where the issue shows even in 2D.

It would also be great if the Devs could acknowledge that they're aware of and are looking into this issue, even if they don't have the time to fix it right now. 🙂

[YoYo]

17 hours ago, Panthercules said:

HOWEVER, when I repeated my midnight Saber mission (which the screenshots in my post above came from) in VR it was really horrible-looking, just like YoYo and others have been saying.

Exactly, that's what it looks like for me. I've now installed some new NVidia drivers, I'll see if that fixes anything but I suspect it's some kind of bug in the simulator.

[Panthercules]

4 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

@Panthercules Could you provide your GPU and driver version? The more info we provide, the likelier it becomes that the Devs swiftly resolve this. Especially since this issue seems to be highly dependent on hardware; I have one PC where the nights look fabulous even in VR, and another where the issue shows even in 2D.

It would also be great if the Devs could acknowledge that they're aware of and are looking into this issue, even if they don't have the time to fix it right now. 🙂

RTX 5090 running Game Ready 610.88 driver

[YoYo]

I had earlier NVidia drivers, checked 610.88 driver but the same in VR, still no any kind of the joy at night. 

The problem lies with the IL-2 Korea.

DCS (doesn't a night at DCS look simply beautiful?):

 

Edited August 24 by YoYo

[ComputerJones]

Not that this is all that helpful but I did a night mission last night and had none of this banding at all, nor did I have left eye/right eye lighting discrepancies. It was a mission starting at dusk that transitioned into night.

My configuration:

• i9-14900KF
• 128GB DDR5
• Gigabyte RTX4090
• Pimax Crystal Super 50PPD (72Hz mode, no upscaling, sharpening at 0.2, using Pimax Evo not Pimax Play)

Korea:

• Using VR Optimized preset
• DLSS Performance+ (model M configured in Nvidia App)
• 3x landscape detail
• 130km horizon draw distance
• Indirect lighting off
• no gamma adjustment
• 85% VR resolution

[YoYo]

1 hour ago, ComputerJones said:

Not that this is all that helpful but I did a night mission last night and had none of this banding at all, nor did I have left eye/right eye lighting discrepancies. It was a mission starting at dusk that transitioned into night.

My configuration:

• i9-14900KF
• 128GB DDR5
• Gigabyte RTX4090
• Pimax Crystal Super 50PPD (72Hz mode, no upscaling, sharpening at 0.2, using Pimax Evo not Pimax Play)

Korea:

• Using VR Optimized preset
• DLSS Performance+ (model M configured in Nvidia App)
• 3x landscape detail
• 130km horizon draw distance
• Indirect lighting off
• no gamma adjustment
• 85% VR resolution

Thanks for sharing. After analyzing this thread, it seems to be a IL-2 Korea issue but related to GPU. People with RTX 40xx are reporting it's fine, while those with RTX 50xx are primarily experiencing this issue in VR (Am I right?). The driver doesn't matter here. Problems are also reported by Pimax users, so it's not the HMD type. I've tested various Korean settings, and DLSS doesn't seem to matter, nor do other settings.  

1 hour ago, ComputerJones said:

nor did I have left eye/right eye lighting discrepancies

As mentioned earlier, this bug affects the external view, i.e. F2. From the cockpit it's fine.

Edited August 24 by YoYo

[ComputerJones]

I wonder if HDR might be having some effect? I have both Windows HDR and any game and "service application"-related preference set to enabled.

[YoYo]

15 minutes ago, ComputerJones said:

I wonder if HDR might be having some effect? I have both Windows HDR and any game and "service application"-related preference set to enabled.

I don't know of any headsets on the market that support HDR, either with LCD or OLED screens. This Windows feature is reserved for 2D monitors. I have HDR turned off, but there were people who had the same problem and had HDR turned on in the settings.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

49 minutes ago, YoYo said:

Thanks for sharing. After analyzing this thread, it seems to be a IL-2 Korea issue but related to GPU. People with RTX 40xx are reporting it's fine, while those with RTX 50xx are primarily experiencing this issue in VR (Am I right?).

Yes, I noticed that as well. The 20 series is also affected, in 2D (although strictly speaking it is below specs, being 3 generations old - but otherwise it works fine).

[Husar]

I'm on 50xx on 2D there is no problem on my end . HDR on or off.

[MajorMagee]

Do the VR headsets do some sort of variable data compression to ease bandwidth issues?

[YoYo]

6 hours ago, Husar said:

I'm on 50xx on 2D there is no problem on my end . HDR on or off.

50xx on 2D are fine, just VR on 50xx (chen you check this, 2 different sceneraios?). There are some differences in data processing between different cards (shaders) and maybe they didn't take this into account in IL-2 Korea.

4 hours ago, MajorMagee said:

Do the VR headsets do some sort of variable data compression to ease bandwidth issues?

I don't think so, because some people with Pimax are also having problems, not just Meta Quest. The common factor is the GPU. The problem actually occurs on cards from the 20xx series (rarely seen anymore) and the newest 50xx. All in conjunction with VR.