HDR games analysed

[Kyle Cross]

EvilBoris I'm really not satisfied with 2000 brightness and 175 paper white in DMCV on my LG B7, it largely seems to hang in SDR levels for me. When I raise the paper white number to higher values like 300+ it seems to bring things more into what I expect, but I'm worried I'm overblowing details at this point. Do you have any further recommendations?

 

[J_ToSaveTheDay]

I'm almost positive that the contrast of Sekiro is flatter than it should be with HDR enabled, but on my LG B7, I'm starting to prefer HDR enabled at its default brightness setting (5) and luminance cranked to 2000. The highlights are still good to my eye and in some scenes I think the darker ends of the contrast do a better job of selling atmosphere than the SDR contrast range -- I don't see black levels really achieving that inky OLED black but I still think it darkens the image to a more appropriate mood.

That said, a part of me feels like I'm sacrificing artists intent when it comes to color, but I do think adding a tiny bit of pop with a bump of Saturation to 6 helps the image a bit, but that setting seems completely subjective.

 

[EvilBoris]

I often feel like that, there are games that you Can see are going for a look, however there is clearly an awareness that many developers haven't got the hang of making this happen in HDR.

I hate having to feel like I'm second guessing the developers and that I know better, however sometimes I think this is the case.
Ultimately, Sekiro doesn't ever look bad, but there are other games that are going to a language aesthetically similar , who perhaps better leverage HDR as a technology

 

[J_ToSaveTheDay]

I often feel like that, there are games that you Can see are going for a look, however there is clearly an awareness that many developers haven't got the hang of making this happen in HDR.

I hate having to feel like I'm second guessing the developers and that I know better, however sometimes I think this is the case.
Ultimately, Sekiro doesn't ever look bad, but there are other games that are going to a language aesthetically similar , who perhaps better leverage HDR as a technology

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I can see that. We still appreciate your efforts and advice greatly, EvilBoris !

 

[Kudo]

Do you recommend HDR with Sekiro? I still think Windows 10 HDR is a pain in the ass, as when you enable it in Windows it's enabled for everything even SDR.
It looks wonderful on SDR with OLED but kinda interested.

 

[Kyle Cross]

Still hoping for some advice on DMC5. Max plus 175 PW really isn't wowing me on an LG OLED.

 

[jb1234]

I honestly can't really tell the difference between HDR off and on in Sekiro, at least with the default settings.

 

[shenden]

Im sorry if this has already been covered and not exactly part of the discussion in this thread, but I just recently got myself an OLED with HDR and was wondering is HDR only available on the PS4 Pro? Cause I only have the base ps4 which I still haven't hooked up to the tv.

 

[Overflow]

Im sorry if this has already been covered and not exactly part of the discussion in this thread, but I just recently got myself an OLED with HDR and was wondering is HDR only available on the PS4 Pro? Cause I only have the base ps4 which I still haven't hooked up to the tv.

Click to shrink...

No sir, HDR is fully available on the base PS4 too. Unlike the Xbox One Size which doesn't have access to HDR, while the X does.

 

[Kyle Cross]

Im sorry if this has already been covered and not exactly part of the discussion in this thread, but I just recently got myself an OLED with HDR and was wondering is HDR only available on the PS4 Pro? Cause I only have the base ps4 which I still haven't hooked up to the tv.

Click to shrink...

No, HDR is on base PS4 as well.

 

[Manu]

Quick question for those with mid-lower end TVs. I really like how the HDR on my TV looks most of the time, but I noticed that on lower levels the picture looks too green at times whenever there's supposed to be a highlight. The brighter colors look amazing, but if there's, say, a burning fire, sometimes the things that reflect the fire have a greenish tint to it. This was especially noticeable in God of War for example, where the halos around torches looked green-ish. Everything else looks great. Any ideas?

 

[shenden]

No sir, HDR is fully available on the base PS4 too. Unlike the Xbox One Size which doesn't have access to HDR, while the X does.

Click to shrink...

No, HDR is on base PS4 as well.

Click to shrink...

Ah that's great! Thank you guys for the answers.

 

[Mr Delabee]

No sir, HDR is fully available on the base PS4 too. Unlike the Xbox One Size which doesn't have access to HDR, while the X does.

Click to shrink...

Xbox One S has HDR.

 

[CRIMSON-XIII]

Does anyone know if RDR2 was downgraded recently? or if it was fixed with 1.07? I heard 1.06 introduced visual issues. Also, did they make the HDR better? The game looked amazing at launch on ps4pro with the resolution set to 2160 but idk

 

[Overflow]

Xbox One S has HDR.

Click to shrink...

Oh my bad, I thought I read not long ago that it wasn't supported. I'll have to enable it on mine.

 

[Kyle Cross]

Oh my bad, I thought I read not long ago that it wasn't supported. I'll have to enable it on mine.

Click to shrink...

I believe there are some games that have their HDR exclusive to the X for some reason, unless that's been fixed.

 

[J_ToSaveTheDay]

Still hoping for some advice on DMC5. Max plus 175 PW really isn't wowing me on an LG OLED.

Click to shrink...

You and I have the same TV if I remember right, LG B7.

I personally started at EvilBoris' setting, and then personally settled on 180 PW. I admit that scenes still feel quite dark to me in some cases, but I also noticed that OLED black levels tend to noticeably elevate beyond that point.

As I usually do when HDR feels a bit off, I switched to SDR as kind of a baseline reference point. To be, at least, SDR scenes tended to still look a bit dark, even after configuring the SDR reference images, but there was detail lost in the dark sections of the screen and highlights never quite wowed the same way.

I think 200 PW might be the upper limit before the dark ends of contrast start to wash out too much, but I do ultimately come away from DMCV feeling like the higher fidelity detail in lighting dramatically changes the contrast range the game operates in versus any other DMC game to date, so the dimmer appearance of the game overall is intended, in SDR or HDR.

But, to perhaps surrender all credit and to urge you to take what I'm saying with a grain of salt: I am no expert. No measuring tools and I basically operate on my naked eye to kinda determine where I want my HDR to go.

I give a lot of credit to EvilBoris as an anchor point, though, and I usually begin where he recommends and then fine tune to my subjective preference from there, if necessary. I think DMCV is the only game so far where I kinda broke off on my own, as I vaguely recall him recommending PW in the neighborhood of 135 initially.

 

[Kyle Cross]

EvilBoris Will you be checking out the Borderlands games? I just tried out Borderlands 2 and it seems more subtle than I'm use to, but it's hard to be sure considering I don't have my Linker set up so I'm dealing with my LG B7 dimming it. There doesn't seem to be any HDR configuration, just the basic SDR brightness slider.

 

[EvilBoris]

I did buy the first one , as you say it's pretty subtle. You can see it on particle effects and stuff like 🔥.

 

[Kyle Cross]

I did buy the first one , as you say it's pretty subtle. You can see it on particle effects and stuff like 🔥.

Click to shrink...

Btw, was the HDR in Monster Hunter World ever fixed? I noticed HDR was officially added to the PC version a few months back, and I certainly can't get a picture that looks good with the in-game HDR settings (it lets you increase brightness and color). Should I turn it off on PC?

 

[TheRuralJuror]

Btw, was the HDR in Monster Hunter World ever fixed? I noticed HDR was officially added to the PC version a few months back, and I certainly can't get a picture that looks good with the in-game HDR settings (it lets you increase brightness and color). Should I turn it off on PC?

Click to shrink...

Just came to ask this regarding the Xbox one X version.

 

[TremendousTea]

I just booted up fallout 76 on the X and noticed the sky no longer shows as blocky and banding in HDR anymore. Not sure if it was already mentioned here but it does seem better with contrast etc.

 

[SimpleCRIPPLE]

Btw, was the HDR in Monster Hunter World ever fixed? I noticed HDR was officially added to the PC version a few months back, and I certainly can't get a picture that looks good with the in-game HDR settings (it lets you increase brightness and color). Should I turn it off on PC?

Click to shrink...

Nope. Still not fixed. Black levels are still crap when HDR is enabled.

 

[impact]

Btw, was the HDR in Monster Hunter World ever fixed? I noticed HDR was officially added to the PC version a few months back, and I certainly can't get a picture that looks good with the in-game HDR settings (it lets you increase brightness and color). Should I turn it off on PC?

Click to shrink...

There's a mod that fixes it on PC

Which is a bad look on the devs IMO. If a single modder can fix your sloppy implementation, why can't they, for everyone? It's so annoying having to disable in the system settings everytime I wanna play a game with botched HDR. I know first world problems and shit...

also wanted to say I love your contributions to HDTVtest boris

 

[Kyle Cross]

There's a mod that fixes it on PC

Which is a bad look on the devs IMO. If a single modder can fix your sloppy implementation, why can't they, for everyone? It's so annoying having to disable in the system settings everytime I wanna play a game with botched HDR. I know first world problems and shit...

also wanted to say I love your contributions to HDTVtest boris

Click to shrink...

Is this Kaldaien's mod? I was using one of his HDR mods in the past for Dragon Quest XI, but eventually stopped using it cause it really did seem to be an SDR image but with values cranked for me.

 

[impact]

yea I never used it because I grinded my ass off on PS4 but I guess it's not good either then.

Shame overall because MHW is fantastic and Capcom's other HDR games are great. RE engine vs. MT framework

 

[chaosaeon]

If a single modder can fix your sloppy implementation, why can't they, for everyone?

Click to shrink...

Maybe they're a much smaller studio like Rockstar so ... oh, wait. /s. More patches for RDR2 and not only is the HDR still SDR, but people are saying it also might have hidden downgrades as well, jfc.

 

[Igorth]

Try The division 2 with the Neutral lighting setting turned on (last patch), you can turn the brightness to 20 and still get dark nights with huge specular highlights.

The daylight looks very balanced too, with blue skies and maybe a bit too much brightness, but nothing close to the clipping you see with the normal lighting on.

 

[PowerK]

Try The division 2 with the Neutral lighting setting turned on (last patch), you can turn the brightness to 20 and still get dark nights with huge specular highlights.

The daylight looks very balanced too, with blue skies and maybe a bit too much brightness, but nothing close to the clipping you see with the normal lighting on.

Click to shrink...

From what I've seen, the Neutral lighting looks like toned downed color saturation with slightly raised color temperature. Not sure what dev was trying to achieve by calling it neutral.
I seem to like nights with neutral lighting on and days with neutral lighting off.

 

[EvilBoris]

From what I saw of the Division, it had some really huge contrast boosts apply by default which really threw out the grading in HDR. My maths feeling was to turn the contrast much lower than the default, so perhaps they have done something with the neutral lighting here

 

[2shd]

Hi EvilBoris
Do you plan to look at Mortal Kombat 11 when it releases?
I'm curious to see how they implemented HDR, as Inj2 seemed off to me.

 

[Deleted member 50735]

I know this was touched on in the video about Forza Horizon 4's HDR, so thanks OP for putting the idea in my head a while ago.... But on my C7 OLED, FH4's HDR looks better by setting the in game HDR to 10,000 and letting the TV do the mapping to 4000. Its something I'm going to bear in mind for other games too moving forward.

 

[impact]

on the C8, the logo disappears right at 4,000 so I leave it right there. Might try it maxed out for shits.

 

[Freedom = $1.05]

Hi EvilBoris
Do you plan to look at Mortal Kombat 11 when it releases?
I'm curious to see how they implemented HDR, as Inj2 seemed off to me.

Click to shrink...

In my experience, at least on PC, it seemed like not all parts of injustice 2 were calibrated for hdr. For instance, the main menu looks washed out as hell but then it would look right when you actually got into the game proper.

Can't imagine mk11 will be worse but hey its wb and netherrealms

 

[ShaDowDaNca]

I am curious of your Division 2 findings..

 

[Maturin]

I know this was touched on in the video about Forza Horizon 4's HDR, so thanks OP for putting the idea in my head a while ago.... But on my C7 OLED, FH4's HDR looks better by setting the in game HDR to 10,000 and letting the TV do the mapping to 4000. Its something I'm going to bear in mind for other games too moving forward.

Click to shrink...

Had a similar experience with my 2018 LG LCD - it tone maps very well and I've found it worth maxing out the setting on Forza Horizon 4 and letting the TV take over.

 

[Deleted member 4976]

Is it weird that my Vizio P 2018 (P65-F1) basically works best at the default settings for all the games I've tried so far?

DMCV at 750, Division 2 at 3000 etc despite the numbers being wildly different?

 

[Deleted member 55913]

Hi,
I've been wondering about LG's (in my case, C8) issues with PC MODE, where HDR games show colour banding when the PS4 Pro output is set to auto. This is only redeemed when forcing YUV420. Interestingly, I even observe (very slight!) banding with in SDR/Auto, which also only goes away when forcing YUV420. Does anyone have information on what exactly is going on?
Some claimed this is due to PC MODE trying to force 4:4:4, but this doesn't explain banding in SDR.

Cheers

 

[burgerdog]

B7 owners. What did you guys set the paper white in far cry new dawn?

 

[OnagaTheDragon]

lately many games are seen differently depending on whether they are played in HDR or SDR, they change drastically, example with Tomb Raider and DMC V, in SDR the games have a fairly high contrast, the grays are black and everything is quite dark.

with HDR the games change DRASTICALLY, all the blacks are now gray and they get a much more neutral image, but full of details, basically you can see everything even the slightest shadow.

at the end,, what is the correct way to play?

this in with a OLED E7

 

[zzzyz36]

Is it really best to turn HDR off in Monster hunter x1x? LGB7

 

[OnagaTheDragon]

Mortal Kombat 11 is another game that looks extremely different whatever you choose HDR or SDR on OLED.

HDR= very bright image, the game doesn't have any luminance slider, just a normal gamma one, shadows in the game becomes grey or very dark greys, but never pure blacks, the crystals in the menu becomes all grey, colors are good, quite pale, the scenarios are quite washed out, all the details are pretty visible.

SDR= as always on OLED, shadow are BLACKS, the crystals in the main menu now display pure blacks, the image is very VERY contrasty, scenarios are quite dark, with shadows being very black or pure dark, but not quite crushed, details are still there, just as always on oleds are very Hard to see.

at the end, what was the developer intention???

 

[Hitcher]

Eagerly awaiting your Days Gone analysis.

 

[EvilBoris]

Eagerly awaiting your Days Gone analysis.

Click to shrink...

I'm probably not going to be able to anything about it , I'm busy with life and also a few of commercial HDR projects at the moment.
I had a quick look at the footage that Dark1x had uploaded last night and I get the impression from the data they have really pushed luminance at the top end. With it being an unreal engine game, I would expect a nice looking output, the default tone mapper it uses always gives a pleasant result, although I couldn't really see it with my own eyes on the YouTube video, as the default upload setting for YouTube HDR creates standard metadata which changes the way the image looks vs a game running natively (on my set anyway)

I'm really tempted to buy it to have a look, but I don't think I'll be laying down £55 to "have a look" this time.

 

[Dark1x]

I'm probably not going to be able to anything about it , I'm busy with life and also a few of commercial HDR projects at the moment.
I had a quick look at the footage that Dark1x had uploaded last night and I get the impression from the data they have really pushed luminance at the top end. With it being an unreal engine game, I would expect a nice looking output, the default tone mapper it uses always gives a pleasant result, although I couldn't really see it with my own eyes on the YouTube video, as the default upload setting for YouTube HDR creates standard metadata which changes the way the image looks vs a game running natively (on my set anyway)

I'm really tempted to buy it to have a look, but I don't think I'll be laying down £55 to "have a look" this time.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, something is up with the footage. Premiere isn't working for us these days after ProRes was added so Richard had to jump through some hoops. It looks quite different normally. Maybe it's a YT issue as well? Not sure

 

[EvilBoris]

Yeah, something is up with the footage. Premiere isn't working for us these days after ProRes was added so Richard had to jump through some hoops. It looks quite different normally. Maybe it's a YT issue as well? Not sure

Click to shrink...

I've juts bit the bullet and bought it, so I can experience it myself anyway :) it should have finished downloading in a few minutes, I must have caught the PSN CDN at a good time.
These big tentpole 1st party titles are always great to look at as a tech showcase.

By default YouTube tonemaps SDR (and possibly sends metadata) as if the title had been mastered on a Sony BVM x300. I generally find that games never look the same in HDR playing back via YouTube as they do natively- I've always put it down to that.

 

[EvilBoris]

Mortal Kombat 11 is another game that looks extremely different whatever you choose HDR or SDR on OLED.

HDR= very bright image, the game doesn't have any luminance slider, just a normal gamma one, shadows in the game becomes grey or very dark greys, but never pure blacks, the crystals in the menu becomes all grey, colors are good, quite pale, the scenarios are quite washed out, all the details are pretty visible.

SDR= as always on OLED, shadow are BLACKS, the crystals in the main menu now display pure blacks, the image is very VERY contrasty, scenarios are quite dark, with shadows being very black or pure dark, but not quite crushed, details are still there, just as always on oleds are very Hard to see.

at the end, what was the developer intention???

Click to shrink...

It's a really good question. Historically because of the limited dynamic range of video content, the norm has been to crush down blacks in order to maintain a good level of perceived contrast from bright parts of the image, which doesn't really happen in real life. HDR means that shadow detail *can* be better maintained because there is much more overhead to increase contrast/dynamic Range by increasing the brightness of the lighter parts of the image, by as much as a factor of 100x which means our eyes can deal the the image in a more naturalistic fashion.
Now it might be as simple as black data being clipped out and on your display which can produce literal unnatural levels of black, this produces a pleasing image.
Or it may be that the game is setup funny.

I'd be surprised if it was the latter, they had done a great job with Injustice

 

[EeK9X]

B7 owner chiming in about MK11, which I just purchased (and CTD after playing the single-player story mode due to a server disconnect issue - outrageous).

Left gamma at the default 50, as to conceal the MK logo on the left side of the test image (anything above that would make the logo appear), but felt that the game was too dark.

Anyone else with the same experience?

 

[EvilBoris]

It's interesting because many users complain that HDR modes are lacking in colour and is this a conscious move to try and help those users?
I could see this oversaturation in the intro sequence which reminds me very much of Gears of War 4 Aesthetically, but chalked it upto it being a little heavy handed with the movie like orange and teal look (something Gears also does), however I was quite suprised to see how clear cut the difference was between the 2 modes was in terms of this saturation.
It's most obvious in the orange tones in this image, many of the characters have quite an orange skin tone too as a result, but you can see it in foliage too.


However, It's not the worst crime a HDR game has ever made

 

[Deleted member 4970]

It's interesting because many users complain that HDR modes are lacking in colour and is this a conscious move to try and help those users?
I could see this oversaturation in the intro sequence which reminds me very much of Gears of War 4 Aesthetically, but chalked it upto it being a little heavy handed with the movie like orange and teal look (something Gears also does), however I was quite suprised to see how clear cut the difference was between the 2 modes was in terms of this saturation.
It's most obvious in the orange tones in this image, many of the characters have quite an orange skin tone too as a result, but you can see it in foliage too.


However, It's not the worst crime a HDR game has ever made

Click to shrink...

Great find! Def not the worst thing! If people don't like it, they can probably mitigate it by turning down their color sliders a touch or two!