And this isn't an FSX problem per say.

 

I took a screenshot in FSX. By changing the resolution down to 1600x900 in Windows, suddenly the screenshot looks like a normal FSX night (i.e. way too bright, terrain is clearly visible, horizon can be seen). Bring it up to 1920x1080 and the very same screen shot is pitch black again.

Played around with Nvidia's settings.

They allow you to bring the resolution down to 1080i and the screen actually gets much dimmer and less brilliant. But it does solve the problem with the black nights.

 

I guess this has something to do with black levels running full 1080p.

Turned out to be how gamma is being set at 1080p.

 

Bumped it up from +1 to +1.22 through Nvidia control panel to get it just where night ground textures show up properly color wise, but not enough to bring back the overly bright FSX nights most complain about.

As an aside, those that say FSX is way too bright at night, Gamma is the way to fix it.

You might also be interested in a tiny utility called "Gamma Panel" available freely on the web.

It will alllow you to adjust gamma, brightness and contrast with hotkeys.

For example on my setup, I have it set with hotkeys "ctl caps 2 to 9" with gamma settings from 0.55 to 0.95.

These settings will vary quite a bit depending on your monitor ( mine is Dell U2412HM).

It does two things really:

1. darken the day time flying;

2. brighten the night time flying.