Brightness higher than in DOS version?

[Kzer-Za]

I have default brightness settings (all of them: brightness, gamma, contrast, etc), but some places are noticeably lighter than in DOS version. For example, look at the screenshot from The Abyss. You can see everything plainly, but I distinctly remember that in the DOS version in this place you couldn't see anything without Nightvision Goggles if you didn't touch brightness.

Does anybody else observe it?

[Graf Zahl]

The lighting cannot be matched 1:1 between true color hardware rendering and DOS software mode. If you need that, enable palette emulation.
The overall brightness calculation is correct but cannot account for unevenness in the palette or crushed colors due to limited palette entries which can all cause deviations in brightness.

[Kzer-Za]

Ah, thanks! With palette emulation it looks the same as "back then"