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HDR games Analyzed pt.2 (now with some PS4 exclusives)
- Thread starter EvilBoris
- Start date
OP
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It probably won't happen, unless there is a demo or a trial. If you want to loan me an account for a game share, then I'll take a loook.
Maybe I should set up a patreon
EvilBoris
So I'd like to do a complete 180 on what I said about changing the black levels on the Sony X800D! I was in a hurry during my initial trials of your suggestions! After a dedicated session of testing a crap ton of games, I can agree that turning the black levels down to 30 instead of 50 does wonders for HDR. Here's some quick comparisons of 50 black level vs 30 black level:
As you can see (and already know, of course!), the highlights and black levels are way more detailed! Obviously, the difference is even larger in person, but I think the pictures get the point across of how bad things can look with HDR at the TV's default settings.
One thing I did discover, btw, is that the details of the highlights actually are exactly the same between switching the contrast to 86 and setting the black level to 30. Don't know if it's something you noticed while testing! So for all of my games with HDR, I've been keeping the contrast to it's max setting and turning the blacks down to 30. It gives the same results plus the added benefit of the blacks looking way less washed out.
Thanks again for taking the time and looking at this TV! I think the YouTube video idea you had is a great idea; there should definitely be one for this TV set!
What are your exact settings on your TV? Gamemode on?
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I'm sure he will reply, but when I looked at my friend's TV. Game mode was on, everything else was off.
Contrast at 86 was the key setting you needed for highlights to be correct and 30 on black level was correct to make sure blacks weren't elevated.
The black level setting was only correct for HDR, you may choose to leave it on he default setting or somewhere in between.
Everything else made smaller differences when enabled .
Gamemode is on, yep. Everything EvilBoris mentioned as well. As for every other setting, I use what RTINGS reccomends:https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/x800d/settings
Thank you!
Edit: and thank you evilboris! I dunno how to multiquote lol
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I had a quick look, he sun itself hits 1500nits, but I couldn't see anything that was making use of HDR outside of that.
I've got a few more things to look at to see if I can see any specular highlights
Great stuff EvilBoris!! Did you see the white paper from DICE on HDR in Frostbite? Its very technical but interesting!
https://www.ea.com/frostbite/news/high-dynamic-range-color-grading-and-display-in-frostbite
https://www.ea.com/frostbite/news/high-dynamic-range-color-grading-and-display-in-frostbite
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Thanks for that!
There are a few interesting points in there, specifically saying how HDR is the reference version and SDR version comes from that work.
Which fits in with why the frostbite games all looked really great and as I had pointed out all had really great built in tone mappers that allow you to go all the way from 10k nit HDR to 100nit SDR within the same game.
That also clears up why the HDR support is only as there is a (tiny weeny) performance hit of doing some of the backend stuff to get to HDR10 and the Xbox One suffers a little bit more than the PS4 would have due to it being overall lower specced.
Microsoft had said this, but many haven't been able to get their head around it.
They also talk about how this can also impact performance earlier on
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It looked darker as you would expect from any piece of HDR vs SDR comparison, but from the very quick look I look, the image itself doesn't seem to be particularly contrast anyway, so there is not a huge amount of dynamic range in the content anyway.
I would possibly speculate That the lightning engine itself it very simple and there isn't any real-time lighting as such, so HDR doesn't really fit, but they've retrofitted a little into certain things such as the sun.
But when you might expect to see some reflected light in water for example, but that is not there
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It's really on the first island when you start to see contrast fall apart, because the sky is a foggy white that seems insanely bright. Even once you move off that island (about an hour into the game), the skies are so bright that the average picture level stays more in the HDR range than I feel like you'd want. That said, I will try dropping into SDR and seeing if lowering that a bit helps sort that out some. Thanks for taking a look at it.
Addendum: I went into SDR and changed from the default black level. Think I ended up 5-6 clicks from the left on mine. Then went back into HDR and made sure it was on default. This makes a HUGE difference. The skies are toned down to a more normal range, the sun still maintains good HDR brightness, and now you can see specular highlights on your hands if you're wearing the leather gloves (whereas before, it was just all bright). It also lends much better contrast to the trees in the game and in-game shadows. You can see the difference as soon as you hit A on the opening loop screen. It goes from gray shadows in the bottom left corner of the screen and a washed out sky to much darker shadows and a more blue sky but with a nice bright sun. I'll have to see how things look once the time of day changes to night, but so far, this makes the game look insanely better. Thanks again for checking this one out. I think you've found the solution here (though I wish all games had granular controls like CoD:WWII or AC: Origins).
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I actually think that's intentional, I found that once that fog had cleared it looked as expected. The game itself clearly is a little less contrasty as it's going for a fimlic look, when I look at the histograms it also looks like the blacks are raised a little, which I would still attribute in this case to it being an artistic choice.
It really looks like this at night time
Everything is blue and nothing ever achieves full black, I will use the same effect in my photography if I'm trying to do the same.
Even in a daylight shot you can see it working as it should, the image is still daylight, but those neon tubes are still pumping out high brightness.
This is the problem I suppose with videogames, which offer customization to the way the image looks, both the viewer and the TV are second guessing what the creators are trying to achieve for the aesthetics of their games, however I do think in this situation that the intention is never to have true blacks.
1. I know the fog effect at the beginning was intentional. I don't think, however, that the APL should be that high once you're out of that area. Perfect example is your daytime shot, wherein (if I had to guess) more than 70% of the screen is at or above expected paper white (120 nits).
2. It makes sense to have that effect at night, since it's basically mimicking how your eyes adjust. The question is more about DAYTIME scenes, where the APL is so high that you lose the contrast needed to have defined specular highlights (for example, bright light sources, reflections off of water, or the reflections off of your gloves that I mentioned in my previous addendum).
3. I have no problem with there being that much near-black luminance. I'm assuming that you took these shots at the default SDR brightness setting. For point of comparison... can you take similar shots in SDR, at both the default and adjusted black level settings? I ask because you say you think it's their intention to never have true blacks, but I wonder if they DO have true blacks in SDR, which would make their absence in HDR kinda' interesting.
4. For the record, once I adjusted black level in SDR and then put HDR's paper white back to default, it fixes the much of the problem I'm talking about here. APL comes down and suddenly highlights are back in a very impressive way (and the blue hue of skies returns more). Even when they adjust the contrast in-game (such as the bloom occurring when you move from an indoor area to an outdoor area in daylight), it looks far better than if you leave the SDR black level at its default. I really think the problem here is that developers need to look more into standards for average picture level and come up with a more defined standard based on visual acuity. The AMD talk from GDC 2016 that I sent you by PM goes into some of that. Without that, I wonder how they're controlling their "intended look" unless they're all on the same workflow (the way cinema has workflow standards and calibrated displays).
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The data doesn't show that to be an issue it looks very much in line with other titles I've looked at (I've adjusted the gradient scales for this to help identify 1500nits) , but without knowing the metadata and a TVs specific method of tone mapping, it's hard to identify what exactly may cause an issue.
As you say , going into SDR and turning down the brightness is one very easy way to mitigate it if you are experiencing something off.
As you say , going into SDR and turning down the brightness is one very easy way to mitigate it if you are experiencing something off.
Cool, man. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity. It was worth it just to find out you can dial back black level in SDR. Keep up the great work!
EvilBoris great thread and maybe you are the person to help, or at least ease my mind.
I bought a 4K LG 55inch LCD with HDR last xmas, it was a promo and since then I have learned that not only are LG lcds shit, this model is probably shittier lol (well it was only like 500€, as opposed to like 2500€ I see smaller LEDs go for).
That being said, am I right to assume that HDR usually gives a more "realistic" picture, even if that means its darker or less colorful, in a shit tv or in a good one?
I fiddled with my game setting on TV to a point where im happy with it, I guess, but every game ive tried so far with HDR (MHW, Titanfall 2, Infamous Second Son and now recently AC Origins) I always have the same "problem". Picture is usually too drk so I have to crank the brightness, and everything is more... muted? Realistic if you will? The funny thing is, if I switch HDR off in the games, and then use some other setting on the tv, like the "standard" setting for example (since ive calibrated the game setting for HDR so without HDR it... breaks lol), games look more like "games" I guess, certainly more colorful, but I usually end up going back to the HDR mode, ive kinda gotten used to and enjoy the more muted "realistic" looks.
So yeah, for ease of mind, is that what HDR is supposed to do, be it on a good tv or a bad one, like the effect at its most basic level?
I bought a 4K LG 55inch LCD with HDR last xmas, it was a promo and since then I have learned that not only are LG lcds shit, this model is probably shittier lol (well it was only like 500€, as opposed to like 2500€ I see smaller LEDs go for).
That being said, am I right to assume that HDR usually gives a more "realistic" picture, even if that means its darker or less colorful, in a shit tv or in a good one?
I fiddled with my game setting on TV to a point where im happy with it, I guess, but every game ive tried so far with HDR (MHW, Titanfall 2, Infamous Second Son and now recently AC Origins) I always have the same "problem". Picture is usually too drk so I have to crank the brightness, and everything is more... muted? Realistic if you will? The funny thing is, if I switch HDR off in the games, and then use some other setting on the tv, like the "standard" setting for example (since ive calibrated the game setting for HDR so without HDR it... breaks lol), games look more like "games" I guess, certainly more colorful, but I usually end up going back to the HDR mode, ive kinda gotten used to and enjoy the more muted "realistic" looks.
So yeah, for ease of mind, is that what HDR is supposed to do, be it on a good tv or a bad one, like the effect at its most basic level?
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If you've got it set up correctly then you'd probably notice that it looks darker overall.
It shouldn't be any more or less saturated in colour.
The goal of HDR in the gaming sphere is to be able to make areas of the screen brighter without affecting darker areas
This requires a few extra pieces of hardware to make use of it.
If you've got a basic TV that supports HDR, I would possibly question whether or not you are actually getting any benefit at all. 4K TVs can often display the HDR format, but not actually make use of the extra data it offers. This is simply so the Tv could playback a UHD Blu Ray or something similar which will often be HDR and 4K.
It may be that HDR content simply looks different rather than objectively better on your set
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Hellbladeon Xbox One S/X is looking like it will be a great example of HDR if the trailer is anything to go by. Most of what we will be seeing falls well within the range of a premium HDR TV
1500 seems to be the very highest that is typically seen, however the game breaks into 10k nits for one scene in this trailer.
1500 seems to be the very highest that is typically seen, however the game breaks into 10k nits for one scene in this trailer.
I need some help with understanding what "paper white" means with regards to in-game HDR settings.
I just started playing Assassin's Creed: Origins, on a PS4 Pro connected to a 2017 LG OLED, and I've never been satisfied with where I've set the "paper white" setting. The peak luminance slider makes total sense, even though I ended up setting it a little higher than my television's peak brightness (set to 1000 instead of around 700). But the "paper white" setting stumps me. Setting it too high means I have to bump the in-game brightness setting down to basically 0, and setting it too low makes the whole game look really flat.
So how am I to determine what I'm to set my "paper white" setting to?
I just started playing Assassin's Creed: Origins, on a PS4 Pro connected to a 2017 LG OLED, and I've never been satisfied with where I've set the "paper white" setting. The peak luminance slider makes total sense, even though I ended up setting it a little higher than my television's peak brightness (set to 1000 instead of around 700). But the "paper white" setting stumps me. Setting it too high means I have to bump the in-game brightness setting down to basically 0, and setting it too low makes the whole game look really flat.
So how am I to determine what I'm to set my "paper white" setting to?
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NVM I had my info wrong... DF did have how to adjust the settings for this game in one of their videos, but I cant find it atm
found the video where they talk about it
https://youtu.be/hm1NsxHKgVA?t=9m58s
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Having the brightness down near to zero is technically correct for AC, although the HUD suffers
The TV is probably tone mapping from the 1000 value, which is why you have preferred it.
Ubisoft's instructions are
Ubisoft said:
This doesn't always work right if your TV is already doing significant tone mapping.
However as a couple of examples, a cinema like surrounding would be calibrated for paper white of 80-100 , an office like environment would be closer to 300.
That clears up a few things for me, thanks. In my case, would it be recommended to set the peak luminance value back down to around 700, where the 2017 LG OLEDs actually peak? The reason I ended up setting it to 1000 was the sun in the test image that AC:O uses would display these really ugly compression artifacts around it until just under 1000. That always struck me as odd since it seems like you'd want to set that as close to the peak brightness your TV supports without going over.
Thanks! I saw your reply and was actually digging around for the particular video you were talking about, cause I remembered watching that video in the past. So thanks for finding that!
EDIT: Looks like in that DF video addresses exactly what I was talking about with setting the peak luminance higher than what your TV technically supports, so that answers that!
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I can set AC Origins very differently on my LG UH850V depending whether I'm using a regular or game HDR setting. The newer HDR Game mode - which many don't like but it's good if you understand what it's doing and how to work with it - has a different tone mapping that does a better job rolling off the highlights. So you can set AC Origins to 4000/300 and it'll still look good. If I used the regular HDR mode I'd have to set 1000/120. Because the HDR Game mode shows more highlight details if you set it to the real-world peak brightness of the TV it doesn't look great, you must set it much higher for the best results.
Some games don't offer the same control though. For example Forza Motorsport 7 can be too dark in HDR Game because there's not enough control in the game's graphics menu. For games with less control I can brighten the TV by adding some Dynamic Contrast in HDR Game. But thankfully there seem to be more and more games that offer enough control in game.
I believe these things are pretty much the same for quite a few 2016/2017 LG sets both LCD and OLED.
Some games don't offer the same control though. For example Forza Motorsport 7 can be too dark in HDR Game because there's not enough control in the game's graphics menu. For games with less control I can brighten the TV by adding some Dynamic Contrast in HDR Game. But thankfully there seem to be more and more games that offer enough control in game.
I believe these things are pretty much the same for quite a few 2016/2017 LG sets both LCD and OLED.
Interesting. The LG OLED's game mode does indeed do the same thing as you're describing, so I'll give setting the peak brightness much higher a shot and see if that improves the highlights.
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If a TV is rolling off the upper brightness, it is rolling it off towards where the data is going to end, trying to achieve a , usually at the display's maximum capability, that doesn't mean it's compressing highlights or displaying things it cannot physically display. It's just trying to make the cut off a little less severe.
The 2017 OLEDs deviate quite far from the HDR EOTF when presented with 4000nit data, HDTV test recommend engaging active HDR for this content as it helps it to track better.
You can see that in both cases of 1000nit metadata and 4000 nits that they are both rolling off towards the max level capability of the display.
However when given 4000 nit data, it starts the roll over a lot soon and adjusts the curve to increase the contrast, so 4000nit data might appear brighter vs something at 1000nit, but is in fact just more contrasty.
This is also explain why you thought the values higher looked better, as the imagine that the overall image will be brighter (and closer to the HDR standard to a point)
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It wasn't so much I thought one looked better than the other. More that in HDR Standard at 1000/120 the test scene avoids the clipping sun that one gets setting too low, and to make the scene look the same in HDR Game I need to set 4000/300.
However in game there is a difference. There's more contrast between shadows and highlights in HDR Game.
However in game there is a difference. There's more contrast between shadows and highlights in HDR Game.
Will I have to buy Halo 3 to get HDR, or can I use MCC version that I own ?
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The outputs would be the same, as it isn't any different in that regard.
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There no display mapping settings and the engine hard clips highlights above a certain threshold meaning you technically lose detail.
I thought I'd posted some images, but I can't actually find them, so I must not have.
Maybe I'll take a better look at it now there is renewed interest
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kanuuna
So with the Witcher 3 it looks like either the lightining engine itself doesn't support some of the back end stuff to let HDR work it's magic (or perhaps it's simply not graded right?)
What I am often seeing is a very flat essentially SDR image, here this shot of the moon is all within SDR ranges. The glow from the campfire is also essentially SDR at this point.
But it's dark
We see almost the same thing here, except a tiny bit of 1000nit data on the moon, but nothing else we could consider being within the HDR range, notably the specular highlights in the water not reflecting anything even vaguely bright. You can also see a 1000nit torch in the background
Now if we start to look at some other conditions, here we can see that this fire is actually brighter than the sun, this is really causing a loss of impact and again we essentially have an SDR image.
And in daylight we are seeing weird things, facing the sun here Geralt's face is hitting 1000hits, as are a few rocks and items in the background. He actually looks pretty ghostly. But again, an SDR image with some misplaced bright spots.
And again, looking straight at the sun, a whole load of detail is missing where I would expect to see it, however even as an HDR screenshot it looks very similar....
One thing I noticed as I was putting together this post was that my tonemapped image (which is a really quick and dirty uncomplicated representation of the HDR image in SDR) looked much closer to the actual in game images than any other game I have looked at before.
Now what we are seeing is a very sharp curve from when something is SDR to when it is suddenly HDR, as if once a specific 8bit colour threshold is reached it's pumping it straight to 1000nits.
This would explain the overall low dynamic range image we are seeing, as well as these sharp brightness ramps which bypass almost everything between 150-1000 nits.
So to confirm this I tried to get the same shot within the game when running in SDR and HDR, I then took the SDR shot and did a quick and dirty image adjustment to move the SDR image into an HDR-like code value range.
I then ran my filter across the top of them...
Nearly identical.
So I believe the game is taking that 8bit SDR image and automatically kicking out 1000nits as soon as anything approaches 255 white in SDR.
So what I think we are looking at with the Witcher 3 is essentially a quick and dirty pseudo-HDR effect, almost in the form of a post processing filter.
So with the Witcher 3 it looks like either the lightining engine itself doesn't support some of the back end stuff to let HDR work it's magic (or perhaps it's simply not graded right?)
What I am often seeing is a very flat essentially SDR image, here this shot of the moon is all within SDR ranges. The glow from the campfire is also essentially SDR at this point.
But it's dark
We see almost the same thing here, except a tiny bit of 1000nit data on the moon, but nothing else we could consider being within the HDR range, notably the specular highlights in the water not reflecting anything even vaguely bright. You can also see a 1000nit torch in the background
Now if we start to look at some other conditions, here we can see that this fire is actually brighter than the sun, this is really causing a loss of impact and again we essentially have an SDR image.
And in daylight we are seeing weird things, facing the sun here Geralt's face is hitting 1000hits, as are a few rocks and items in the background. He actually looks pretty ghostly. But again, an SDR image with some misplaced bright spots.
And again, looking straight at the sun, a whole load of detail is missing where I would expect to see it, however even as an HDR screenshot it looks very similar....
One thing I noticed as I was putting together this post was that my tonemapped image (which is a really quick and dirty uncomplicated representation of the HDR image in SDR) looked much closer to the actual in game images than any other game I have looked at before.
Now what we are seeing is a very sharp curve from when something is SDR to when it is suddenly HDR, as if once a specific 8bit colour threshold is reached it's pumping it straight to 1000nits.
This would explain the overall low dynamic range image we are seeing, as well as these sharp brightness ramps which bypass almost everything between 150-1000 nits.
So to confirm this I tried to get the same shot within the game when running in SDR and HDR, I then took the SDR shot and did a quick and dirty image adjustment to move the SDR image into an HDR-like code value range.
I then ran my filter across the top of them...
Nearly identical.
So I believe the game is taking that 8bit SDR image and automatically kicking out 1000nits as soon as anything approaches 255 white in SDR.
So what I think we are looking at with the Witcher 3 is essentially a quick and dirty pseudo-HDR effect, almost in the form of a post processing filter.
What a shame, as there are so many parts of the Witcher 3 that would benefit immensely from a true HDR presentation.
Seems a real disappointment, particularly with the blown out sky. I had also imagine the HDR upgrade would do away with the very flat look of Toussaint (intended no doubt, not all that flattering), but that seems to be off the cards.
Thanks again for all your work.
Thanks again for all your work.
Would love to see God of war HDR and how well they implemented it. Can't wait for that.
Thanks for your work
Thanks for your work
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Well I suppose that the image is meant to be mainly SDR as I have described in my initial posts, but you can see that the parts of the image that are HDR aren't having any real impact on the overall lighting of the image.
On the plus side, the image isn't broken or wildly different in HDR mode.
It would be interesting to confirm if this output is a technical limitation of the game itself or is simply just the way that it has been graded.
I suspect it is the former and they have tried their best to give some form of HDR support to the game and to be fair, that is better than no support at all, you are still going to see those bright torches and sunspots.
I knew something was off when I booted the game yesterday and didn't notice much difference. I'm really disappointed with CDPR's recent updates on this game.
Thanks for this analysis. I hope CDPR will make further adjustments based on your results but I have no idea if it's likely. Maybe other developers will do this sort of analysis with their future releases so that the overall IQ will continue to improve. HDR done well is so good.
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I don't think that they will, I think that games really need to be made with it in mind.
I'll post some images of a game that does it amazingly well and you can see it all over the game. Hellblade
I wonder if the implementation of HDR is the same on both X and Pro, because I definitely see a difference on the X. The sun will blind you, and fire really pops off the screen.
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Yeah and it will do, the game is telling those things to do that. My issue was that I wasn't seeing these things elsewhere and it appeared that these HDR components had appeared to have been shoehorned into an SDR image rather than being a more fundamental part of the way the lighting worked in the game.
I will try and find some more areas in the game to look at , but that was my overall impression.
I'm not saying that the image is bad or broken , just that the actual HDR components are really limited to very specific effects such as fire and the sun.
This is in stark contrast to Hellblade or Tomb Raider where the HDR is present as part of the whole image , a lot of the time.