Nvidia and in-game Gamma (Geforce 8800GTS)

I like gaming, but I run into problems a lot where games are just too dark. This is a combination of not being able to block enough light from my living room during the daytime, and having bad eyes that are sensitive to light variation.

Some games do not have in-game gamma sliders, and those that do, even when the gamma slider is maxed the game may still be too dark.

Whenever I go back to the desktop, the brightness is perfectly fine, so it isn't like my monitor is fading.

Anyway, in the past I have used a program called PowerStrip to get around this. PowerStrip allowed me to set hotkeys to raise and lower the gamma, and this worked in games as well as at the desktop. The only place it did not work was when playing DVDs, and I used PowerDVD which has a place where I can set color profiles, so that was all cool.

Well, now that I have my new fancy 8800GTS, I find that PowerStrip is incompatible with it.

After doing some research, I learn about Nview and the hotkeys there. But, to my dismay, this does not work for games that have ingame gamma sliders. I have tried 3 games so far--2 have ingame gamma sliders, and one does not. Only the game without an ingame gamma slider has this worked for. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, sometimes the in-game gamma sliders don't adjust that far (ie, maxed is still too dark.)

Can anyone please tell me if there is a way to get around this problem, so that I can use hotkeys in-game to adjust gamma, regardless if the game has a built in gamma slider or not? I have tried many searches to no avail.

(By the way, I have the latest Nvidia drivers with that new funky control panel.)