How to turn off adaptive brightness?

Question

How to turn off adaptive brightness?

Elizabeth Cleveland 0

When I am playing games or working on art and the color pallet shifts, my screen will dim or brighten slightly, but noticeably. This does not happen due to ambient light around me, it is simply when colors on the screen itself changes. It gets to the point where it's hurting my head and distracting me from whatever I'm doing on the computer, and skewing colors on my screen. I have looked up how to turn this off, but when I go to the display settings, there is no option to toggle this off. It is infuriating. How do I turn this feature off? I do not want it, and it hinders more than it helps.

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2 answers

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Answer 1

Hendrix-V 14,595 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Elizabeth Cleveland,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum.

What you’re seeing is usually caused by a display power‑saving feature in Windows 11 that adjusts brightness or contrast based on screen content. While it’s intended to improve power efficiency or visual comfort, it can interfere with color‑critical work.

Here are some possible checking steps that you can try in this situation:

1 - Go to Settings > System > Display:

Under Brightness, ensure Change brightness based on content is off.
Check Night light settings
Go to Color Profile, ensure Automatically manage color for apps is off.

2 - On some systems, this behavior is controlled by the graphics driver instead of Windows.

For Intel graphics: Open Intel Graphics Command Center > System > Power, then turn Display Power Savings Off
For AMD systems: Set your Windows power mode to Best performance from the battery or power icon.

Let me know if you need further assistance, feel free to ask me by clicking "Add Comment" or "Add Answer" if you cannot add comment so your response will be visible. Thanks for your effort.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Hendrix-V 14,595 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-01-24T07:38:24.8566667+00:00

Hi,

I just wanted to follow up and check if the information I provided was helpful. If you have any further questions or updates regarding this issue, please feel free to let me know in the Comments section. I'd be happy to assist you.
Elizabeth Cleveland 0 Reputation points

2026-01-25T00:27:32.9233333+00:00

Hello,

There IS no "Change brightness based on content" option when I check it. There IS no drop down menu. There is only the brightness slider. Whatever this "Change brightness based on content" option is, I cannot access it.
Hendrix-V 14,595 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-01-25T06:44:01.4666667+00:00
Hi Elizabeth Cleveland,

On these devices like yours, Windows doesn’t show the “Change brightness based on content” option because brightness control is handled directly by the graphics driver instead of Windows Settings.

Here are some checking steps that you can try in this situation:

1 - Set Windows to Best performance

Select the battery or power icon on the taskbar

Set Power mode to Best performance

2 - Check graphics‑driver settings

Intel graphics

Open Intel Graphics Command Center

Go to System > Power

Turn Display Power Savings Off

AMD graphics

Open AMD Software and look under Display or Power settings

Disable any adaptive brightness, vari‑bright, or power‑saving display options

Let me know if you need further assistance, feel free to ask me by clicking "Add Comment" or "Add Answer" if you cannot add comment so your response will be visible. Thanks for your effort.
Elizabeth Cleveland 0 Reputation points

2026-01-26T05:42:51.8566667+00:00

I use Intel, and I checked under System>Power

This is what I see:

There is nothing that says "Display Power Savings Off", as you can clearly see.

What am I supposed to do?
Hendrix-V 14,595 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-01-28T04:27:07.93+00:00
Hi Elizabeth Cleveland,

Thanks for sharing the screenshot.

Based on your settings, nothing is missing or misconfigured. On some Intel‑based systems, Windows 11 does not show the “Change brightness based on content” option, and Intel Graphics Command Center may also hide display power‑saving controls.

In these cases, you can reduce the behavior with the steps below:

Select the battery/power icon on the taskbar.

Set Power mode to Best performance.

In Settings > System > Display, make sure HDR and Auto HDR are turned Off (if available).

If there is anything else I can assist you with, please feel free to let me know in the Comments section.
Elizabeth Cleveland 0 Reputation points

2026-01-29T02:27:57.4566667+00:00

Is there any way I can get one of the two ways of turning this blasted feature off to show up? I'm so sick of it. Reducing the behavior isn't enough; I need it gone. I'm not even sure I can reduce the behavior.

I don't see anywhere to turn HDR and Auto HDR off for the entire system.
Hendrix-V 14,595 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-01-29T07:31:57.02+00:00
Hi Elizabeth Cleveland,

I can fully understand how exhausting this is, especially when you need accurate, stable colors for gaming or creative work.

Based on what you’ve shown, there isn’t a setting missing or hidden from your system. On some Intel‑based laptops, brightness and contrast adjustments are managed at the hardware and graphics‑driver level. In these cases, Windows doesn’t surface the “Change brightness based on content” option, and Intel Graphics Command Center doesn’t expose a separate on/off switch either.

While there isn’t a way to force those two toggles to appear, you can minimize any remaining behavior with these steps:

Select the battery / power icon on the taskbar

Set Power mode to Best performance

Keep Battery Saver turned off

For color‑critical work, please try using an external monitor (this behavior only affects the built‑in laptop display)

Please note that this is a user-to-user support forum. Moderators, contributors including external Microsoft employees cannot directly intervene in Microsoft product features or access back-end systems. Our role is limited to providing technical guidance on reported issues, requests, or ideas.

Given these limitations, the most appropriate avenue for product changes or feature requests is to submit feedback through the official Microsoft feedback channels (or press Windows + F to open Feedback Hub app). Thanks for your patience and effort.

Answer 2

Hello, I'm Jan and I'm happy to help you today. I'm sorry that you are experiencing this problem with your display.

If you have an external monitor. Try to check for any DCR/dynamic contrast ratio settings on your monitor's OSD menu and disable this feature.
Check these on your graphics card settings.

For Nvidia graphics

Disable any dynamic color/contrast enhancements

Nvidia Dynamic Contrast/ Color Enhancement

For AMD graphics

Try disabling Vari-bright and automatic color temperature in AMD or Radeon Software.

For Intel graphics

Open the Intel Graphics command center

Click on Video

Click Advanced

Disable total color correction /Standard color correction

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How to turn off adaptive brightness?

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