Hey thanks both. I actually sort of consumed my evening with installing displayCAL haha. I eventually created a 3D LUT with the Spyder 2 without much trouble.
p.s. My display is a CCFL LCD (NEC ea231wmi), so it's still a good pairing of technology
How do you think I should setup the rendering, Asmodian? I keep it at "this display is already calibrated" + full exclusive
Edit:
Realized the gamma is - by default - set to 2.4 in displayCAL madvr preset, which would explain the wash out. I removed the screenshots until I run it again.