HDR games analysed

EvilBoris · Jan 11, 2019

scitek said:
When HDR is turned on in the Windows display settings, doesn't Windows tonemap the desktop so SDR content is supposed to look correct? I know I've seen the option to adjust SDR white levels in the options. Also, games that don't support HDR just change back to SDR as long as they support Exclusive Fullscreen. So, what I'm asking is is it not possible to just keep HDR on all the time? That would get rid of all the switching back and forth when playing games.

I think if you turn HDR on in the display settings this is what triggers the HDR flag to the display. The screen becomes dim because the format of the desktop is entirely different, so it gives you the option to boost the overall brightness to make things useable again.

Meanwhile anything that is HDR compatible in borderless window i.e. Windows Store games can sit quite happily on the desktop, the colours are correct as they detect HDR is enabled in windows and are not affected by the increase in brightness you have applied.

Full Screen Exclusive Dx11 games take responsibility for triggering the HDR and booting up with the correct settings.
You'd like to think that if HDR is already running, then this will also be happy and you can just leave the Windows settings on all the time.

Best thing to do is find a game that has HDR support, runs full screen exclusive and boot it and look in the video settings to see if your HDR calibration options are still there. If so, then you should be able to leave it on all the time.

One1stepahead · Jan 11, 2019

DOTDASHDOT said:
Having just played the Resi demo, 100% these blacks are completely messed up, firstly you can see the HDR highlights are there, speculars are everywhere, the problem is those blacks, you can see that's not how they are supposed to be, from the very first cutscene, when you duck under the metal shutter, the blacks are jet black, then he moves around with the camera, and bang, like a light switch they go milky grey, but obscenely so, and again you can see all the speculars but with lessened impact because of the greys, I'm convinced this is a patch fix.

Yeah! That moment under the metal shutter is like going from OLED to an LCD of 2005, lol. That can't be right! Lowering the brightness of your TV helps but than you crush blacks in other areas, it's not ideal at all. I hope it's fixed it for the release.

AMDfanTO · Jan 12, 2019

Tbh resident evil looks quite good, and intentional. It gives a foggy look in most areas in the dark. The output looks comparable in sdr mode too. As soon as you can turn on a light switch, the black levels get deep and the image looks amazing.

The other games I've mentioned earlier never look right, and do not match the grading of their sdr output. Hdr should never look worse or have a lower dynamic range to sdr. Hdr is not just brighter whites, but also deeper blacks, more precision, less banding, and wider colour gamut support. The irony is that most games have increased banding and worse contrast in hdr - specifically farcry 5, rdr2, Assassin's creed origins and odyssey, tomb raider, and even pre rendered video in bfv & battlefront - just to name a few

Aztechnology · Jan 12, 2019

Has there been any actual mapped testing of the HDR on the RE2 PC and PS4 Pro demo?

DOTDASHDOT · Jan 12, 2019

AMDfanTO said:
Tbh resident evil looks quite good, and intentional. It gives a foggy look in most areas in the dark. The output looks comparable in sdr mode too. As soon as you can turn on a light switch, the black levels get deep and the image looks amazing.

The other games I've mentioned earlier never look right, and do not match the grading of their sdr output. Hdr should never look worse or have a lower dynamic range to sdr. Hdr is not just brighter whites, but also deeper blacks, more precision, less banding, and wider colour gamut support. The irony is that most games have increased banding and worse contrast in hdr - specifically farcry 5, rdr2, Assassin's creed origins and odyssey, tomb raider, and even pre rendered video in bfv & battlefront - just to name a few

It's very inconsistent though, two areas pitch black and foggy, depending on the view? That's not right or intentional, if it is then, that's an unbelievably bad grading.

MosquitoSmasher · Jan 12, 2019

EvilBoris said:
the darkest paper white setting gives you a very similar image to the unadjusted SDR image (those SDR images just give you more opportunity to cursh and compress the blacks)

I personally don't see it as an error and it looks as I expect it to look, but it's certainly greyer (and often bluer).
There is the possibility there is some kind of gamma error in HDR, You can however adjust the gamma setting down on your TV and still retain the benefits of the HDR.

I can play the demo again and it's time to give this HDR another shot.

The paper white setting is that the first one (Max brightness (HDR) or the second one with the blue, white and red bars?

I assume it's the former, I need to set that all the way to the left? (darker) completely? Which makes the inner grey box completely visible.

Yautja_Warrior · Jan 12, 2019

I thought RE2 looked pretty good in HDR on my Sony Bravia. Blacks weren't fully inky back but it was still nice and dark, I didn't think there was anything wrong with the image tbh. (PS4 Pro)

Vishmarx · Jan 12, 2019

EvilBoris said:
the darkest paper white setting gives you a very similar image to the unadjusted SDR image (those SDR images just give you more opportunity to cursh and compress the blacks)

I personally don't see it as an error and it looks as I expect it to look, but it's certainly greyer (and often bluer).
There is the possibility there is some kind of gamma error in HDR, You can however adjust the gamma setting down on your TV and still retain the benefits of the HDR.

Pretty much this. Set the gamma on my tv to the lowest value and increased black levels and its significant improvement. For it not being purely black , i dont think its intended to have full deep blacks even if sdr allows it be that way.
Fyi this also improves hdr in other re engine games . I just push the brightness to the max ingame with max-brightness calibrated properly

EvilBoris · Jan 12, 2019

DOTDASHDOT said:
It's very inconsistent though, two areas pitch black and foggy, depending on the view? That's not right or intentional, if it is then, that's an unbelievably bad grading.

Aztechnology said:
Has there been any actual mapped testing of the HDR on the RE2 PC and PS4 Pro demo?

I guess maybe wait for the full game, it may be they they have amped up the style for that first area to channel the look and feel of the older games.

MosquitoSmasher said:
I can play the demo again and it's time to give this HDR another shot.

The paper white setting is that the first one (Max brightness (HDR) or the second one with the blue, white and red bars?

I assume it's the former, I need to set that all the way to the left? (darker) completely? Which makes the inner grey box completely visible.

Paper white is the red/blue bars. I have mine 3 from the lowest

MosquitoSmasher · Jan 12, 2019

Ok I'm playing it again and the difference is striking. The odd thing is, when you walk to the area with the women's restroom but go past it, don't enter it. There's a dead end, the contrast is perfect here.

Go to the area before trying to rescue the cop, that room is perfect in terms of contrast too. I wish it was like that everywhere because that looks good.

MosquitoSmasher · Jan 12, 2019

EvilBoris said:
I guess maybe wait for the full game, it may be they they have amped up the style for that first area to channel the look and feel of the older games.

Paper white is the red/blue bars. I have mine 3 from the lowest

I've tried this but SDR still looks better to me, a big difference actually.

I'm inside one of the rooms now and it's dark and with HDR it looks washed out, grey and I lose a lot of detail on Leon. Then I go straight into the Xbox video settings, disable HDR (game still running) and I go back to the game and it looks so much better.

Deleted member 4970 · Jan 12, 2019

Discovered an oddity with Resi 2 HDR when comparing the PS4 version and PC version.

On the PS4, I had to crank the peak brightness all the way to the max to get the calibration square to be barely visible. On the PC, I have to only go about 3/4ths of the bar to get the same result.

Don't know which one is displaying correctly although I'd have to believe that the PS4 would be in this case. Will have to learn what amount of nits represent each step of the calibration!

ItIsOkBro · Jan 12, 2019

in the age of HDR devs really need to stop with the all white screens. every time i use a warp gate in god of war i am blinded

MosquitoSmasher · Jan 12, 2019

This is odd as hell and this is also the first time this is happening.

I can't really get the RE2 demo to look right when I have HDR10 enabled on Xbox One X. But neither can I when I disable it and start the demo. However....

If I have HDR10 enabled on X, I start the demo and in the middle of the demo, without closing the demo, I go back to the X settings and disable HDR10. Then it looks really close to how you would expect these black levels to be. But I can't get it looking like this with HDR on or off right from the start.

Odd as hell.

Kyle Cross · Jan 12, 2019

Yeah, confirmed earlier myself that this seems to be an artistic choice. Some rooms have perfect contrast, others have a foggy look. Don't know why they wanted it to look like this, but it very much seems intentional now.

EvilBoris Might I ask why you suggest to turn the Blue/White/Red way down? I trust your advice, but I'm curious why Capcom says to adjust it so the blue and red bars are equal size. And which bar should be the biggest that you then click three points on, blue or red?

Karspankey said:
Discovered an oddity with Resi 2 HDR when comparing the PS4 version and PC version.

On the PS4, I had to crank the peak brightness all the way to the max to get the calibration square to be barely visible. On the PC, I have to only go about 3/4ths of the bar to get the same result.

Don't know which one is displaying correctly although I'd have to believe that the PS4 would be in this case. Will have to learn what amount of nits represent each step of the calibration!

What display you got? If it's an LG 7 series, it tonemaps down consoles as consoles don't send metadata, so the HDR is dimmed. PC does send metadata tho, so it's brighter.

lowhighkang_LHK · Jan 12, 2019

One1stepahead said:
Yeah! That moment under the metal shutter is like going from OLED to an LCD of 2005, lol. That can't be right! Lowering the brightness of your TV helps but than you crush blacks in other areas, it's not ideal at all. I hope it's fixed it for the release.

Yeah. It made the blacks look washed out.

Deleted member 4970 · Jan 12, 2019

Kyle Cross said:
What display you got? If it's an LG 7 series, it tonemaps down consoles as consoles don't send metadata, so the HDR is dimmed. PC does send metadata tho, so it's brighter.

I have the TCL R617! If PC tonemaps, then that probably answers it! My set seems to tone map up to 4000nits before it starts clipping so that must be why I need to jam the nits up on PS4. Perhaps the peak brightness of Resi 2 is less than 4000 nits?

EvilBoris · Jan 12, 2019

ItIsOkBro said:
in the age of HDR devs really need to stop with the all white screens. every time i use a warp gate in god of war i am blinded

Kyle Cross said:
Yeah, confirmed earlier myself that this seems to be an artistic choice. Some rooms have perfect contrast, others have a foggy look. Don't know why they wanted it to look like this, but it very much seems intentional now.

EvilBoris Might I ask why you suggest to turn the Blue/White/Red? I trust your advice, but I'm curious why Capcom says to adjust it so the blue and red bars are equal size.

What display you got? If it's an LG 7 series, it tonemaps down consoles as consoles don't send metadata, so the HDR is dimmed. PC does send metadata tho, so it's brighter.

I'm not sure why they make the recommendation that they do beyond to perhaps being a throwback to older TVs and that 4000nit tonemapping thing .
But basically that bar is an HDR specific general purpose brightness slider.

The higher you set the peak brightness , the brighter it is trying to make you adjust the image, which in turn raises black levels (the brightness control in red Dead is essentially locking paper white and peak white at the same value and this issue was pronounced). The reality of it is that the main part of the image should be broadly the same regardless of what type of display you are on. Given that people are complaining of raised blacks, the obvious answer is to give instructions to make sure you do not artificially raise them further.

I'll know more when the full game comes as 30 minutes of access (and wanting to play the game!) did not give me huge amounts of time to investigate fully

Kabuki Waq · Jan 12, 2019

damnit another big game with broken hdr?

Kyle Cross · Jan 12, 2019

EvilBoris said:
I'm not sure why they make the recommendation that they do beyond to perhaps being a throwback to older TVs and that 4000nit tonemapping thing .
But basically that bar is an HDR specific general purpose brightness slider.

The higher you set the peak brightness , the brighter it is trying to make you adjust the image, which in turn raises black levels (the brightness control in red Dead is essentially locking paper white and peak white at the same value and this issue was pronounced). The reality of it is that the main part of the image should be broadly the same regardless of what type of display you are on. Given that people are complaining of raised blacks, the obvious answer is to give instructions to make sure you do not artificially raise them further.

I'll know more when the full game comes as 30 minutes of access (and wanting to play the game!) did not give me huge amounts of time to investigate fully

There's a trainer that allows you to permanently disable the timer, if you'd like me to send it to you.

So, am I suppose to make the blue bar big and then click it three points, or the red?

EvilBoris · Jan 12, 2019

Karspankey said:
I have the TCL R617! If PC tonemaps, then that probably answers it! My set seems to tone map up to 4000nits before it starts clipping so that must be why I need to jam the nits up on PS4. Perhaps the peak brightness of Resi 2 is less than 4000 nits?

It's 4000 nits.

Somebody in the thread that the NVIDIA driver pushes out metadata, which may affect that roll off or clipping point.

Depending on the metadata my display receives ( or doesn't ) I have found there are 3 variations of clipping points and roll offs. 2 at 1000nits and 1 at 4000.
I'm sure that is the same for many displays

DOTDASHDOT · Jan 12, 2019

Kabuki Waq said:
damnit another big game with broken hdr?

At least it's designed with true HDR10 in mind, not a SDR to HDR10 hack job.

Deleted member 4970 · Jan 12, 2019

EvilBoris said:
It's 4000 nits.

Somebody in the thread that the NVIDIA driver pushes out metadata, which may affect that roll off or clipping point.

Depending on the metadata by display receives( or doesn't ) I have found there are 3 variations of clipping points and roll offs. 2 at 1000nits and 1 at 4000.

Ohhhh, ok! Thanks for explaining!

A fun note I discovered with my specific set is that the correct HDR setting to use is one called "dark HDR" with calibration usually ending up at 4,000 nits. However, the second (of three) options, "normal HDR", changes the PQ EOTF (by brightening/overshooting it) and calibrations instead end up at 1,000 nits. It really confused me when I first got the set since 1,000 nits is of course about where my set can display so I thought that option was the correct one.

EvilBoris · Jan 12, 2019

Karspankey said:
Ohhhh, ok! Thanks for explaining!

A fun note I discovered with my specific set is that the correct HDR setting to use is one called "dark HDR" with calibration usually ending up at 4,000 nits. However, the second (of three) options, "normal HDR", changes the PQ EOTF (by brightening/overshooting it) and calibrations instead end up at 1,000 nits. It really confused me when I first got the set since 1,000 nits is of course about where my set can display so I thought that option was the correct one.

The 1000nits one may be more appropriate, as the display is trying to fit more in if you select the 4000 nits version. I think my display actually applies more contrast across the image to make up for it, so the image looks punchier with a 4000nit tone map, but is actaully just dropping blacks down and increasing the luminance faster.

What you may find that games with no adjustable peak brightness may actaully look better for you with the other setting (as they've likely been configured on a display that is doing exactly the same type of thing that 4000nit setting is doing)

Deleted member 4970 · Jan 12, 2019

EvilBoris said:
The 1000nits one may be more appropriate, as the display is trying to fit more in if you select the 4000 nits version. I think my display actually applies more contrast across the image to make up for it, so the image looks punchier with a 4000nit tone map, but is actaully just dropping blacks down and increasing the luminance faster.

What you may find that games with no adjustable peak brightness may actaully look better for you with the other setting (as they've likely been configured on a display that is doing exactly the same type of thing that 4000nit setting is doing)

I do prefer the brightness of the normal hdr setting, but it does also change the color saturation to a point where the image becomes oversaturated! I've seen HDR on other sets and the colors all match the dark hdr setting that goes to 4000nits. Yellows become orange and so forth! Shame becaus again I find the brighter PQ curve to be more enjoyable.

FuturaBold · Jan 12, 2019

Does the X still have that raised gamma issue? Reason I ask, I played RE2 on both the X and the Pro. The Pro appears to have better contrast and a little more HDR pop. Perhaps is my imagination but the X looked a little more washed out.

Alo81 · Jan 13, 2019

I don't know why everyone is calling the HDR in RE2 broken. It really seems like a deliberate stylistic choice. The tone mapping is changing all over the place as you jump between areas. Some areas you don't get full deep blacks, others you do. But it is very hard lined and defined points where it changes. The options are HDR is selectively broken by room, or its deliberate style choice. This type of tone mapping has been done in games trying to set a specific tone for a while, this feels like more of that.

Igorth · Jan 13, 2019

Alo81 said:
I don't know why everyone is calling the HDR in RE2 broken. It really seems like a deliberate stylistic choice. The tone mapping is changing all over the place as you jump between areas. Some areas you don't get full deep blacks, others you do. But it is very hard lined and defined points where it changes. The options are HDR is selectively broken by room, or its deliberate style choice. This type of tone mapping has been done in games trying to set a specific tone for a while, this feels like more of that.

Some areas of The Last of Us have the same "issue", I don't like grey blacks but it must be by dev choice so...

burgerdog · Jan 13, 2019

Hopefully the rest of the game doesn't mess around too much with those greys.

MosquitoSmasher · Jan 18, 2019

Jump Force

Not yet sure what to think of the HDR in the beta. It's definitely more dim than SDR and I don't see a lot of benefits. Whereas with SDR it's a great deal brighter which is really nice for those awesome looking special effects.

EvilBoris · Jan 18, 2019

MosquitoSmasher said:
Jump Force

Not yet sure what to think of the HDR in the beta. It's definitely more dim than SDR and I don't see a lot of benefits. Whereas with SDR it's a great deal brighter which is really nice for those awesome looking special effects.

I've booted it, but typically it's undergoing maintenance. I can see from the titlescreen that's it's keeping close to SDR luminance range here

MosquitoSmasher · Jan 18, 2019

EvilBoris said:
I've booted it, but typically it's undergoing maintenance. I can see from the titlescreen that's it's keeping close to SDR luminance range here

You can play it offline though, against the cpu :)

You're right, not even getting the option for offline play.

guacamole party · Jan 18, 2019

Recently discovered this thread, and would like to add my 2c on an HDR title(s) ive been playing. Fired up Shadow of the Tomb Raider and set the HDR point to the max slider it would allow and boy is this game divisive in its HDR. The first few levels are okay, but right before the first campfire sleeping scene it got really sort of washed out and muted color/brightness wise. After that, and following afterwards everything was crisp and bright. Especially in the first 'tomb' where there is a lot of fire and underground items burning/light sources. IT really does look stunning and vivid, glad i stuck with it because I was a little disappointed in the beginning, knowing that my set can crank out the brightness (Vizio PQ set which has tested/rated at 2000 nits + brightness ). Random other question, are there any WCG games?

EvilBoris · Jan 18, 2019

guacamole party said:
Recently discovered this thread, and would like to add my 2c on an HDR title(s) ive been playing. Fired up Shadow of the Tomb Raider and set the HDR point to the max slider it would allow and boy is this game divisive in its HDR. The first few levels are okay, but right before the first campfire sleeping scene it got really sort of washed out and muted color/brightness wise. After that, and following afterwards everything was crisp and bright. Especially in the first 'tomb' where there is a lot of fire and underground items burning/light sources. IT really does look stunning and vivid, glad i stuck with it because I was a little disappointed in the beginning, knowing that my set can crank out the brightness (Vizio PQ set which has tested/rated at 2000 nits + brightness ). Random other question, are there any WCG games?

Gran Turismo Sport is truly WCG Bt2020

Most other games don't have the additional width of colour, but have increased height, which increases the volume volume over standard SRGB/REC709

Kyle Cross · Jan 18, 2019

EvilBoris said:
Gran Turismo Sport is truly WCG Bt2020

Most other games don't have the additional width of colour, but have increased height, which increases the volume volume over standard SRGB/REC709

So only Gran Turismo Sport supports WCG? Okay, what about 10bit color? That's every HDR game, right? As HDR requires 10bit?

guacamole party · Jan 18, 2019

EvilBoris said:
Gran Turismo Sport is truly WCG Bt2020

Most other games don't have the additional width of colour, but have increased height, which increases the volume volume over standard SRGB/REC709

Interesting. I'll have to fire up my Pro and download the demo to see if I can see a difference. Thanks for the heads up!

Deleted member 4970 · Jan 18, 2019

The HDR in Everybody's Golf is good! Pleasantly surprised!

Edit:

Also, god damn. Local dimming rocks so much

DOTDASHDOT · Jan 19, 2019

EvilBoris said:
Gran Turismo Sport is truly WCG Bt2020

Most other games don't have the additional width of colour, but have increased height, which increases the volume volume over standard SRGB/REC709

Most games target DCI P3, not the full rec2020 colour space, cause anyhow, what are they gonna master on?

EvilBoris · Jan 19, 2019

DOTDASHDOT said:
Most games target DCI P3, not the full rec2020 colour space, cause anyhow, what are they gonna master on?

Most are actually just targetting REC709/RGB, Which makes sense.

There are a bunch of displays that have decent rec2020 coverage, but it's more than colourspace coverage, there is alsotbe volume coverage

asd202 · Jan 19, 2019

So RE2 remake. Good HDR? Fake like RDRII? Is it worth it?

SirMossyBloke · Jan 19, 2019

Karspankey said:
The HDR in Everybody's Golf is good! Pleasantly surprised!

Edit:

Also, god damn. Local dimming rocks so much

Well, I mean that top picture looks downright broken lol

Kyle Cross · Jan 19, 2019

asd202 said:
So RE2 remake. Good HDR? Fake like RDRII? Is it worth it?

Good HDR, not fake. People are complaining about elevated blacks, but turns out this isn't the result of poor HDR but an artistic decision by Capcom, it changes with each room. Tho EvilBoris does recommend not listening to the instructions on the final part of the calibration which tells you to make the Blue and Red bars equal size. He instead suggests moving the slider 3 clicks from the furthest left.

DOTDASHDOT · Jan 19, 2019

EvilBoris said:
Most are actually just targetting REC709/RGB, Which makes sense.

There are a bunch of displays that have decent rec2020 coverage, but it's more than colourspace coverage, there is alsotbe volume coverage

What I meant was, the ones that do go wide target P3, like 99% of movies.

EvilBoris · Jan 19, 2019

DOTDASHDOT said:
What I meant was, the ones that do go wide target P3, like 99% of movies.

Oh yeah, they'll just go wide and eyeball the volume or do it mathematically. Then they'll do a final tweak on an consumer display. As I theorise , they are often doing this on a display that is then tonemapping.
Hopefully with the advent of some almost reference like displays from Panasonic and displays with a much larger degree of control over their tonemapping, we will see in game quality improve overall.

J75 · Jan 19, 2019

Karspankey said:
The HDR in Everybody's Golf is good! Pleasantly surprised!

Edit:

Also, god damn. Local dimming rocks so much

That's impressive. My x900f has local dimming but i found by itself it's not that big of a deal. However, Local Dimming combined with the X-Tended Dynamic Range option it's a game changer.

NateDog · Jan 20, 2019

Anyone have any idea about PES2019's HDR? I just got my first 4K TV and have been playing only RDR2 and that on it so far. I know of people's issues with blacks in particular with RDR2 (and I agree about that) but after a few normal days with PES2019 lately I've had an issue with light flickering on it, brighter and darker and brighter and darker. Is this an issue with its HDR or does that sound more like my TV? I assumed it was my TV and was worried especially as changing to different HDR modes made no difference but once I exited the game and got to the home menu it stopped.

Antsa · Jan 20, 2019

Windows 10 HDR faded and washed out colors

I have GTX 1070 and Samsungs KS8000 TV and I am trying to game with HDR. However with any game that I launch I get very faded and washed out colors. I have gone trough all settings in TV side but nothing seems to help. I have enabled HDR on Windows display settings.
In Nvidia control panel there are some color gamut and color bit settings so am I supposed to tinker with these? I also bought this "Monster" HDMI cable which did cost a fortune but also did not affect anything: https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Platinum-Ethernet-Performance-Indicators/dp/B00O3R1UO6
I have tried following games with all the same washed out colors:
- Hitman
- Shadow Warrior 2
- Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Origins
- Far Cry 5
I have searched this problem from google and found out several topics but nothing so far has given

Kris1977 · Jan 20, 2019

Karspankey said:
The HDR in Everybody's Golf is good! Pleasantly surprised!

Edit:

Also, god damn. Local dimming rocks so much

What game is this?

MosquitoSmasher · Jan 20, 2019

That's gotta be Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

And yes holy crap. The clouding is insane on first picture.

SimpleCRIPPLE · Jan 20, 2019

KrisReyn77 said:
What game is this?

I think its Shadow of the Tomb Raider

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