HDR games analysed

[Decarb]

Rise of the Tomb Raider
So this game has a similar setup, a brightness slider which controls the black point (move to lowest point) and then a secondary HDR slider which controls the peak brightness.
Tomb Raider has been capped at 4000nits. Like the Frostbite games, either set the slider to the Max to let your TV tone map, or follow the on screen instructions to try to eyeball the peak brightness and let the game output.

RotTR is particularly great as there are loads of specular highlights, not just in the normal places you'd expect to see them in real life such as on the shiny ice and the twinkles in the snow as they reflect from the sun.

But also in lower light conditions on less obviously "shiney" surfaces, so as on this insanely high resolution boot.

It appears that once the output reaches 4000nits, any level above this jumps straight to 10k nits (which the display will clip anyway, as presumably the metadata is telling the display it's 4000nit)
It's not data that is missing, it can be brought into visibility occasionally, which suggests that it is an artistic decision or part of the process for grading the game for HDR.

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Still waiting for PS4 HDR patch so I can continue with my playthrough.

 

[Ogawa-san]

I knew something was off with MHW and how it looked so washed out, but I wasn't sure if it was intentional. I might just drop it to SDR :|

 

[kaizoku]

I'm kinda interested to see how some of these images would be different in SDR (Monster Hunter aside).

How will those Battlefront/Tomb Raider shots be different in SDR?

 

[KharmaPolice]

This is a great thread, thanks for the effort!

The FH3 night shot displays an issue that a lot of HDR game implementations suffer from: Darker elements of the picture are too dark. While HDR allows us to have a lot of detail even in dark portions of the picture, this is all moot if the human eye can't distinguish it. Even in cinema like environments the darker portions of the picture are going to look too dark. Developers need to stop pushing the darker portions of a scene into the very low end of the HDR range.
Infamous on PS4 is prime offender of this, where the majority of a scene is either super dark or super bright and creates the impression of mismatched SDR RGB ranges. But even games like Horizon:ZD with generally good HDR implementations tend to be too dark in the darker portions of the image.

Developers still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to HDR.

 

[Multiverse Moo]

I think only because it looks nice and they've published a bit more information about the HDR side of their rendering which led everyone to believe it was somehow unique.

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Actually it's because they did in fact go a very long way with their engine to reproduce well beyond what pretty much and current HDR display can currently due to the way they scanned the environments, car materials, etc. Of course, you then calibrate this to your own display.

Many games like Horizon and Gears will look more spectacular in terms of color and lights whizzing about the screen, as they have the added element of sci fi as part of their presentation (and Horizon is also just another brilliant implementation).

However, definitely give this a watch on an HDR display: https://youtu.be/FDkWwX3Id98

They also offer raw videos and other files of many of the games they have analyzed on their website.

 

[Dr. Dre's Dr.]

Wow great post. I feel bad for the posters here that don't notice a difference.

 

[EvilBoris]

Wow great post. I feel bad for the posters here that don't notice a difference.

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I feel bad for the ones who have been mislead by TV manufacturer's marketing and then unintentionally then mislead by other's hype and enthusiasm

 

[EvilBoris]

This is a great thread, thanks for the effort!

The FH3 night shot displays an issue that a lot of HDR game implementations suffer from: Darker elements of the picture are too dark. While HDR allows us to have a lot of detail even in dark portions of the picture, this is all moot if the human eye can't distinguish it. Even in cinema like environments the darker portions of the picture are going to look too dark. Developers need to stop pushing the darker portions of a scene into the very low end of the HDR range.
Infamous on PS4 is prime offender of this, where the majority of a scene is either super dark or super bright and creates the impression of mismatched SDR RGB ranges. But even games like Horizon:ZD with generally good HDR implementations tend to be too dark in the darker portions of the image.

Developers still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to HDR.

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This is why it's great that we have those additional sliders, this gives users the ability to bypass those restrictions. It's not developers faults that the PQ is not really suitable for home use.

HLG on the other hand doesn't have this issue as it's a relative Standard rather than an absolute one, so it works like everything we've had before.

 

[EvilBoris]

Actually Halo 3 doesn't support true HDR but 10 bit color instead. Amazing analysis tho!

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This is what I thought, but after looking at it properly I can see it truly is HDR

And really great HDR too.

 

[Zappy]

Actually it's because they did in fact go a very long way with their engine to reproduce well beyond what pretty much and current HDR display can currently due to the way they scanned the environments, car materials, etc. Of course, you then calibrate this to your own display.

Many games like Horizon and Gears will look more spectacular in terms of color and lights whizzing about the screen, as they have the added element of sci fi as part of their presentation (and Horizon is also just another brilliant implementation).

However, definitely give this a watch on an HDR display: https://youtu.be/FDkWwX3Id98

They also offer raw videos and other files of many of the games they have analyzed on their website.

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That isn't to do with HDR though. The settings they give you to adjust HDR are excellent. But there isn't anything unique about their HDR implementation. The things they do well complement HDR but would also show up in SDR - lighting models etc.....

 

[EvilBoris]

That isn't to do with HDR though. The settings they give you to adjust HDR are excellent. But there isn't anything unique about their HDR implementation. The things they do well complement HDR but would also show up in SDR - lighting models etc.....

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This, It's an artist's tool. My images only show how the lighting is being used, it does not show the artist's intent. A pretty game is a pretty game, HDR or not.

 

[Lost]

The added contrast & colors from HDR are amazing. I can't wait to see what HigherDR will look like in the future

 

[TheKeyPit]

Great read. I'm going to change some of my HDR settings after reading this.

 

[Kyle Cross]

Turning brightness all the way down doesn't seem to look right with Horizon, it just makes the overall game darker and causes black crush. Hopefully you can analyze it.

Still waiting for PS4 HDR patch so I can continue with my playthrough.

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I think the dream is dead there...

 

[Daxa]

Stuff like this almost makes me glad my TV doesn't have HDR, considering how long it took me to figure out how and when to switch between Full and Limited RGB on my PS4.

 

[EvilBoris]

Great read. I'm going to change some of my HDR settings after reading this.

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Assassins Creed and Frostbites games can be used to great effect for calibration in the Absense of HDR test patterns.

Look up your TV's peak brightness, set the game to match, then adjust your TV's Brightness and contrast so that the peak value you have selected is the first white to clip.
Make sure you disable any dynamic contrast options.

 

[MrCow]

Hey Boris, I just noticed that your Post is now featured on ArsTechnica. Did they contact you about it?
Anyways great thread and thanks for the analysis.

EDIT: NVM i should have read the article (but since i read the thread i saw no reason to)

 

[EvilBoris]

Hey Boris, I just noticed that your Post is now featured on ArsTechnica. Did they contact you about it?
Anyways great thread and thanks for the analysis.

EDIT: NVM i should have read the article (but since i read the thread i saw no reason to)

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Yes, Sam got in touch last night. You can tell he is a professional writer and I am not, he's done a great job of interpreting my waffle.

 

[borges]

Best HDR titles I've played are GT Sport, Horizon Zero Dawn and Ratchet & Clank.

GT Sport really does stand above the rest. It looks a different game with HDR.

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I second that GTS HDR is superlative, even better than Forza 7 which is already excellent. With Gears 4 they the best HDR games ive seen so far.
One game where im fairly dissapointing with HDR is FIFA, is kind of no existent, other than on kickoffs.

 

[Smokey]

Whilst I agree that it makes it better, each person does need to do it based upon their viewing environment too.
That low brightness setting will look great for some late night gaming, but as soon as you have a light on or the curtains open you will simply lose a load of detail to your eyes and you will feel the need to raise that slider up.

How the game deals with the difference in those black points is really important, Forza sometimes looks flat out weird (on the sunny day levels), I think because it takes too many mid tones down with it.

But then there is also that issue of HDR10/Dolby vision being "too dim" for consumers setups, which is widely documented in the video world.

PUBG is very similar, it presents a native HDR image, mastered to 1000nits but allows no adjustment. Just as a UHD movie would, users also complain it is too dim.

However the image actually looks really natural

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Well...that's interesting . I found PUBG HDR to be horrible in practice, but as you've pointed out, it's actually "accurate" from the screen above.

 

[Miniature Kaiju]

Developers really, really should consider dark adaptation when going through their grade. While it's cool that you now can reproduce detail at realistically low luma levels, most people aren't in environments that will allow eyes to adapt and perceive the detail. Doubly so since most games have UI, menus and a bunch of other stuff that is much brighter and ruin the adaptation really fast.

 

[Noema]

This post's so good it made it to Arstechnica.com.

 

[Smokey]

EvilBoris

Can you comment on LGs HDR Game Mode where they completely changed it and claimed it was for tone mapping accuracy, but the overall picture is now a lot more dim than say HDR Standard on the TV.

 

[Dark1x]

Holy shit, this is a great thread. Well done EvilBoris!

 

[Orioto]

I'd like to try all that but no ps4 pro or xbox x and my pc can't output hdr .. Only hdr i can see is Netflix, amazon prime and youtube!

 

[Booker.DeWitt]

Holy shit. Can you now translate that into plain English for ignorant people like myself ?

 

[MazeHaze]

I'd like to try all that but no ps4 pro or xbox x and my pc can't output hdr .. Only hdr i can see is Netflix, amazon prime and youtube!

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Do you have a regular ps4?

 

[Zappy]

EvilBoris

Can you comment on LGs HDR Game Mode where they completely changed it and claimed it was for tone mapping accuracy, but the overall picture is now a lot more dim than say HDR Standard on the TV.

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Yeah. That mode has to be tone mapping far more aggressively than the curves in this thread shown thus far.

 

[EvilBoris]

Developers really, really should consider dark adaptation when going through their grade. While it's cool that you now can reproduce detail at realistically low luma levels, most people aren't in environments that will allow eyes to adapt and perceive the detail. Doubly so since most games have UI, menus and a bunch of other stuff that is much brighter and ruin the adaptation really fast.

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Yeah, which is why we are lucky to have a brightness slider to mitigate this. The key is in how these in game adjustments actually adjust the output and does it maintain the artists intent.

I'm going to do a little more research on some specific games to better understand the type of adjustment that is happening. Although in certain games I have reffered to adjusting the black/white point, what I actually think may be happening is that there is an S curve being applied which simply makes the occurance of 0 and 1023 more frequent.
This would have the effect of boosting contrast, which would explain both the blacks and whites looking "better" in HDR but the mid tones being adjusted too much in a game like Forza Horizon. This would be particuarly relevant and explain a lot if they have applied this S Curve across the full 0-1024 range, which is far less linear than in an SDR image.

As I mentioned in the OP, Deus Ex is doing something with curves, which actually reduce the highlights much faster than it should do, which results in these weird inverse whites

It raises lots of questions as to whether your TV should even be "correct" in HDR as it creates all kinds of problems for the vast majority of people.
With the 360, MS deliberately used a different gamma curve, so that with the majority of users who have already got elevated black levels actually saw a nicer image out of the box.

 

[Orioto]

Do you have a regular ps4?

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Yes, is there some hd hdr content on it ? But you kinda need both, 4k and hdr to be wowed i think. Only crazy hdr i saw was some 8k shot documentary on youtube with super natural lights.

By the way if you guys don't know it i would advise 4k hdr channel on youtube, full of amazing vids, great to showcase the tv.

 

[EvilBoris]

Well...that's interesting . I found PUBG HDR to be horrible in practice, but as you've pointed out, it's actually "accurate" from the screen above.

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Yeah, "accurate" is the word. If you play in low light you quickly adapt to it and you really get a lovely natural image , particuarly at that time of day as the Peak brightness only occurs in the places you would expect.
I'd imagine with time that exposure compentation and eye adaptation will be more closely linked with the HDR settings for the game.

If you take Halo 3 as an example of a game that has always been rendered in HDR behind the scenes, they are HDR to SDR conversions but also use an Eye adaptation and exposure compensation to ensure that the game always looks glowey and beautiful , no matter scene.

Now the game is actually outputting an HDR image to the display, you could possible argue that less agressive eye adaptation or exposure compensation should be used as the display can actually represent more of the Dynamic range than when we were playing on 360 and our eyes will actually be doing their thing themselves.

 

[Expy]

Yes, is there some hd hdr content on it ? But you kinda need both, 4k and hdr to be wowed i think. Only crazy hdr i saw was some 8k shot documentary on youtube with super natural lights.

By the way if you guys don't know it i would advise 4k hdr channel on youtube, full of amazing vids, great to showcase the tv.

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All PS4 HDR content works on the regular PS4.

I just need raw images from the game or raw video. I may be able to find something on youtube I suppose.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZvphjRu8bE

 

[MazeHaze]

Yes, is there some hd hdr content on it ? But you kinda need both, 4k and hdr to be wowed i think. Only crazy hdr i saw was some 8k shot documentary on youtube with super natural lights.

By the way if you guys don't know it i would advise 4k hdr channel on youtube, full of amazing vids, great to showcase the tv.

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All hdr ps4 games also display hdr on the regular ps4, and they look stunning regardless of 4k

 

[Orioto]

All PS4 HDR content works on the regular PS4.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZvphjRu8bE

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All hdr ps4 games also display hdr on the regular ps4, and they look stunning regardless of 4k

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Well i'll try today then that's nice to know thx! Are there 2D games in hdr ?

 

[MazeHaze]

Well i'll try today then that's nice to know thx! Are there 2D games in hdr ?

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I can't think of any currently, but I'm sure there will be. There is animated HDR on netflix.

 

[Mandrion]

Awesome work OP!

I have one thing to add:
I currently use a HDFury Linker(here) to inject custom metadata for my LG C7. This is needed because both PS4 and Xbox One are sending empty metadata to the TV. (at least that is what my Linker is receiving) Normally this would mean that the TV wont do any tonemapping, but unfortunately the LG OLEDs are trying to tonemap the full HDR range (which means 10000nits!) to the capabilities of the TV. This is the reason why the HDR game mode appears dim: It literally reduces the brightness of the whole image. (basically the blue/green/yellow color coded parts of your images will be displayed much dimmer on an LG OLED than intended)
Also this means that the HDR brightness sliders in games wont do anything for the LG OLEDs.

My solution is to send custom metadata (1000nits peak brightness) via the linker, so that APL (Average Picture Level) for the "SDR" part of the image is retained.

 

[Petran]

Best HDR titles I've played are GT Sport, Horizon Zero Dawn and Ratchet & Clank.

GT Sport really does stand above the rest. It looks a different game with HDR.

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I second that GTS HDR is superlative, even better than Forza 7 which is already excellent. With Gears 4 they the best HDR games ive seen so far.
One game where im fairly dissapointing with HDR is FIFA, is kind of no existent, other than on kickoffs.

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I dunno.... just flicking channels here and it seems that GT Sport has the color turned up to 11.
GT Sport, even when I played it in SDR has the color intensity on the cars turned up real high. In HDR the effect is even more pronounced, and when comparing for total variance of light, it seems way more ...washed out compared to Forza 7, which also manages the rich reds and blues and greens while on the same time seems to offer more dark, producing an overall more natural and weighted image.
I wouldnt comment on this before, but now it seems we have a way to actually kinda measure these things :)

I think only because it looks nice and they've published a bit more information about the HDR side of their rendering which led everyone to believe it was somehow unique.

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I agree.
Now that we got you and your method, maybe you can ...shed lights :D

 

[MAX PAYMENT]

Assassins Creed and Frostbites games can be used to great effect for calibration in the Absense of HDR test patterns.

Look up your TV's peak brightness, set the game to match, then adjust your TV's Brightness and contrast so that the peak value you have selected is the first white to clip.
Make sure you disable any dynamic contrast options.

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Are there any adverse effects to setting the game higher than your tv's capabilities?

 

[Belvedere]

Would love to see metrics like this for Altered Carbon. DV for that show is absolutely phenomenal and is easily one of the best showcases for HDR.

 

[Dark1x]

Awesome work OP!

I have one thing to add:
I currently use a HDFury Linker(here) to inject custom metadata for my LG C7. This is needed because both PS4 and Xbox One are sending empty metadata to the TV. (at least that is what my Linker is receiving) Normally this would mean that the TV wont do any tonemapping, but unfortunately the LG OLEDs are trying to tonemap the full HDR range (which means 10000nits!) to the capabilities of the TV. This is the reason why the HDR game mode appears dim: It literally reduces the brightness of the whole image. (basically the blue/green/yellow color coded parts of your images will be displayed much dimmer on an LG OLED than intended)
Also this means that the HDR brightness sliders in games wont do anything for the LG OLEDs.

My solution is to send custom metadata (1000nits peak brightness) via the linker, so that APL (Average Picture Level) for the "SDR" part of the image is retained.

Click to shrink...

I've been thinking of picking one of these up for just that reason but, for the price, was afraid to take the risk. Nice to know that it's working for you.

I do have one question about it - it's supposed to support scaling from lower resolution sources, right? Do you know what sort of algorithm it performs on the signal when doing so? I'm looking for a way to scaler using integer, nearest neighbor scaling for razor sharp pixels (1080p -> one pixel becomes four pixels at 4K). Even if it doesn't support that, does it at least produce an image less soft than the OLED does by default?

 

[EvilBoris]

Awesome work OP!

I have one thing to add:
I currently use a HDFury Linker(here) to inject custom metadata for my LG C7. This is needed because both PS4 and Xbox One are sending empty metadata to the TV. (at least that is what my Linker is receiving) Normally this would mean that the TV wont do any tonemapping..

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Are you saying that both of those consoles aren't sending anything, so that is why you've bought the HDFury, or that you've observed the linker saying there is no metadata since you got it?

 

[dallow_bg]

Awesome work OP!

I have one thing to add:
I currently use a HDFury Linker(here) to inject custom metadata for my LG C7. This is needed because both PS4 and Xbox One are sending empty metadata to the TV. (at least that is what my Linker is receiving) Normally this would mean that the TV wont do any tonemapping, but unfortunately the LG OLEDs are trying to tonemap the full HDR range (which means 10000nits!) to the capabilities of the TV. This is the reason why the HDR game mode appears dim: It literally reduces the brightness of the whole image. (basically the blue/green/yellow color coded parts of your images will be displayed much dimmer on an LG OLED than intended)
Also this means that the HDR brightness sliders in games wont do anything for the LG OLEDs.

My solution is to send custom metadata (1000nits peak brightness) via the linker, so that APL (Average Picture Level) for the "SDR" part of the image is retained.

Click to shrink...

This is crazy.
So it's either buy this $180 device, or downgrade the FW of my LG OLED to retain the brighter image?
Why would the metadata be empty from PS4 and XBOX?

 

[Deleted member 4970]

Well i'll try today then that's nice to know thx! Are there 2D games in hdr ?

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Pyre is one, I believe

 

[Deleted member 31960]

Hitman has a quirk, but try this and see if it helps.

Disable HDR and boot the game. Adjust the Gamma slider to 0.8 , save quit and then boot with with HDR enabled.
Then readjust the HDR slider in game. I think when it is set to the lowest in HDR mode it's outputting 800nit values, that set has less than that, so hopefully the TV will deal with it.

As the TV doesn't have wide color and caps out at 200nits, I would personally just turn it off altogether, you aren't gaining anything and a few games do weird things in HDR anyway :)

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Cool I'll give that a shot next time I've got a chance. I definitely notice a difference with HDR in Forza Horizon 3, but it's really hard to tell if Hitman is actually doing anything.

 

[Multiverse Moo]

That isn't to do with HDR though. The settings they give you to adjust HDR are excellent. But there isn't anything unique about their HDR implementation. The things they do well complement HDR but would also show up in SDR - lighting models etc.....

Click to shrink...

This, It's an artist's tool. My images only show how the lighting is being used, it does not show the artist's intent. A pretty game is a pretty game, HDR or not.

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I wasnt specifically saying it's unique, rather than the color data that is resolved through HDR is exceedingly accurate and lifelike on the cars and tracks due to the way they scanned the materials and their engine can produce them.

Basically it was me asking to have the game analyzed, as myself and other media production folks in TV, film, and game industry were surprised at how well they achieved this during runtime.

EDIT - Mobile has weird autocorrect choices and errors :P

 

[UCFJake]

Just read through this thread and learned a lot. Cheers!

 

[EvilBoris]

I wasnt specifically saying it's unique, rather than the color data that is resolved through HDR is exceedingly accurate and lifelike on the cars and tracks due to the way they scanned the materials and their engine can produce them

Basically it was me asking to have the game analyzed, as myself and other media production folks in TV, film, and game industry we're surprised at how well they achieved this during runtime.

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It's difficult as :
the PS4 doesn't do any HDR capture
I don't have a PS4

I'm currently trying to get some files off youtube I can use,but they require a lot of conversion to be useable first.

 

[Mandrion]

I've been thinking of picking one of these up for just that reason but, for the price, was afraid to take the risk. Nice to know that it's working for you.

I do have one question about it - it's supposed to support scaling from lower resolution sources, right? Do you know what sort of algorithm it performs on the signal when doing so? I'm looking for a way to scaler using integer, nearest neighbor scaling for razor sharp pixels (1080p -> one pixel becomes four pixels at 4K). Even if it doesn't support that, does it at least produce an image less soft than the OLED does by default?

Click to shrink...

I havent actually played around with all possible features the HDFury provides, but i plan to test some more things the coming days. Unfortunately the user manual doenst mention integer scaling.

Are you saying that both of those consoles aren't sending anything, so that is why you've bought the HDFury, or that you've observed the linker saying there is no metadata since you got it?

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Well the linker receives real metadata from every other device I have (Windows 10/UHD-Bluray player;Windows 10 is always sending 1000nits maxCll). So I am pretty confident that both consoles arent sending any metadata.

This is crazy.
So it's either buy this $180 device, or downgrade the FW of my LG OLED to retain the brighter image?
Why would the metadata be empty from PS4 and XBOX?

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Beats me, you have to ask Microsoft/Sony.
But as i have said, normally a TV wouldnt do any tonemapping if there is no metadata. This means the HDR brigntess slider in each game would make sense, because you can set the peak brightness to the clippng point of your TV.
LG for some reason thinks differently and just assumes that the displayed content uses the full HDR range.
BTW when using the HDR standard mode the LG OLED doesnt tonemap, but the input lag is a bit high.

 

[Multiverse Moo]

It's difficult as :
the PS4 doesn't do any HDR capture
I don't have a PS4

I'm currently trying to get some files off youtube I can use,but they require a lot of conversion to be useable first.

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Oh, I totally understand that you have some source-based barriers at the moment. Perhaps Dark1x could help you out :)

 

[EvilBoris]

Well the linker receives real metadata from every other device I have (Windows 10/UHD-Bluray player;Windows 10 is always sending 1000nits maxCll). So I am pretty confident that both consoles arent sending any metadata.

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Which seems unlikely as nobody would be seeing anything in HDR.