Gamma Test
Gamma Test shows a set of fine light-and-dark stripe patterns that should visually blend into a flat gray at typical viewing distance if your display's gamma sits close to the standard 2.2 curve. Click Start Gamma Test, step back from the screen, and cycle through the patterns with the arrow keys to see which one appears the most uniformly gray to you — a pattern that still looks clearly striped up close is a rough visual guide only, not a colorimeter reading, but a useful first check before adjusting your monitor's gamma setting. The touch screen test online runs fullscreen so you can inspect your panel edge-to-edge under real viewing conditions.
Click Start Gamma Test and step back from your screen. Cycle through the striped patterns and find the one that blends into the flattest, most even gray. That pattern is closest to your display's target gamma. Use the arrow keys or on-screen controls to move to the next pattern, and Escape to exit.
What Gamma Actually Controls on Your Display
Gamma describes the relationship between the digital brightness value a display receives and the actual light it puts out. Displays don't respond to brightness in a straight line — a pixel value of 128 out of 255 doesn't produce half the light of 255, because both the panel electronics and human vision are non-linear. The gamma curve compensates for this, and the near-universal target for consumer displays is 2.2 (sRGB technically uses a slightly different piecewise curve that approximates 2.2 closely enough that "2.2" is the shorthand everyone uses).
When gamma is set correctly, midtones look natural — shadows retain visible detail without looking washed out, and highlights don't blow out or look artificially dark. When gamma drifts from 2.2, the whole image shifts: too low a gamma value makes the picture look flat and hazy, while too high a value crushes shadow detail into pure black.
How to Read the Striped Test Patterns
Each pattern in this test alternates thin light and dark stripes at a specific gray level. At the correct viewing distance, your eye can't resolve the individual stripes — they optically blend into a single flat gray tone. If your display's gamma matches the pattern's target value, that blended gray will look uniform and match the reference gray patches shown alongside it. Use the free color accuracy test to confirm whether your monitor shows this issue before you adjust settings or return it.
What a Mismatch Looks Like
If the stripes still look distinctly striped rather than blending into flat gray, or the blended tone looks noticeably lighter or darker than the reference patch next to it, your display's actual gamma is off from the pattern's target. A pattern that looks too dark overall suggests your gamma is running higher than intended (crushing shadow detail); a pattern that looks too light or washed out suggests gamma running lower than intended.
Viewing Conditions Matter
Ambient light in the room affects how your eyes perceive contrast, so run this test in consistent, moderate lighting rather than a pitch-black room or bright daylight — both extremes throw off your perception of the mid-gray blend point.
Where Gamma Settings Live on Your Display
Most monitors expose a gamma setting directly in the on-screen display (OSD) menu, often labeled simply "Gamma" with presets like 1.8, 2.0, 2.2, and 2.4. Windows and macOS also apply system-level gamma adjustments through their display calibration utilities, and GPU control panels (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel) have their own gamma sliders — if more than one of these is active at once, they compound, which is a common cause of a display that looks correct in the OS calibration tool but wrong everywhere else. Run the contrast ratio test online for a few seconds under normal room lighting for the most reliable result.
For color-critical work — photo editing, video grading — a hardware colorimeter that measures actual light output gives far more precise gamma correction than a visual test like this one. This test is a fast, no-equipment sanity check for everyday use, not a substitute for instrument-based calibration when color accuracy really matters.
Gamma vs. the Other Display Settings You Might Confuse It With
| Setting | What It Actually Changes |
|---|---|
| Gamma | The curve mapping input brightness values to output light — controls midtone contrast and shadow/highlight rendering |
| Brightness | Overall backlight/luminance output — shifts everything up or down uniformly |
| Contrast | The spread between the display's darkest and lightest output — stretches or compresses the range |
| Color Temperature | The warm/cool tint of white — independent of gamma, though both affect overall image character |
Frequently Asked Questions
- What gamma value should my monitor be set to?
- 2.2 is the standard target for virtually all consumer content — movies, games, and most websites are mastered assuming a 2.2 display gamma, so that's the value to aim for unless you have a specific professional workflow (like print-matching) that calls for something else.
- Why do the stripes look different depending on where I sit?
- Viewing angle changes how much light reaches your eye from each stripe, especially on VA and older TN panels with narrower viewing angles. Sit directly in front of the display, at a normal working distance, for the most accurate read.
- Can I actually fix a bad gamma reading from this test?
- Yes, in most cases — open your monitor's OSD menu and look for a Gamma setting, or use your OS's built-in display calibration tool (Windows' Calibrate Display Color, or macOS's Display Calibrator). Adjust until the striped patterns blend as flatly as possible into their reference gray.
- Does gamma affect gaming performance?
- Not frame rate or input lag, no — gamma is purely a visual/color setting. But a gamma that's too high can crush shadow detail, making it genuinely harder to spot enemies or details in dark areas of a game.
- Is a visual gamma test as accurate as a hardware colorimeter?
- No — a colorimeter measures actual emitted light with a sensor, which is far more precise than judging where stripes visually blend by eye. This test is a fast way to catch an obviously wrong setting; for color-critical work, a hardware calibration device is worth the investment.