Zwift added a brightness auto-adjust feature in its February 1 update. The official release notes explain it this way:
Graphics brightness auto-adjusts now so that caves, subways, valleys in shadow, etc are much brighter than before
But some Zwifters are complaining that the feature goes too far, resulting in a “washed out” look in these previously dark areas. Here is an example to see how this looks on my Windows PC, first without auto-brightness, then with:
Astute Zwifter Al Clewly sent along a tip he received from Zwift support to disable the auto-brightness feature. Simply add this “<PERF>67108864</PERF>” to the CONFIG section of your Zwift prefs.xml file, which is located in My Documents/Zwift
With Zwift not running, open the prefs.xml in a text editor like Notepad. The beginning of the file will look something like this:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ZWIFT>
<SPORT>CYCLING</SPORT>
<CONFIG>
<ANNOUNCER_VOL>1</ANNOUNCER_VOL>
<MINIMAPZOOMPREF>2</MINIMAPZOOMPREF>
...
Simply add the line in bold below and save your changes. Start up Zwift, and auto-brightness will no longer be enabled.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ZWIFT>
<SPORT>CYCLING</SPORT>
<CONFIG>
<PERF>67108864</PERF>
<ANNOUNCER_VOL>1</ANNOUNCER_VOL>
<MINIMAPZOOMPREF>2</MINIMAPZOOMPREF>
...
Disclaimer: editing your prefs.xml file incorrectly may result in problems running Zwift, so perform this hack at your own risk.
Enjoy, Zwifters!
