HDR makes most games look worse.
- Thread starter bentanchorbolt
- Start date
- Opinion
Imtjnotu
Member
Give me OLED or give me death
stitch1
Member
RIGHT!?
I play in a dark room. Does it get as bright as my LED TV? No. But it gets bright enough for my needs. That contrast though!
Nikana
Go Go Neo Rangers!
Saying OLED has a brightness issue is like saying a Koenigsegg Agera has a speed issue.
Methos#1975
Member
That simply isn't true. I own both a LG C8 and a Sony 950H and the reality is that many times HDR is better looking on the C8, the contrast and pixel perfect HDR rendition just remains a cut above even with its supposed lower nits
Rikkori
Member
For me only RDR 2 was a bad experience with HDR, everything else that I played through was good pretty much. The Division 2 in particular is probably my favourite showcase, especially with neutral lighting on.
Granted, I don't count things like The Medium where HDR was broken but so was the whole game in DX12, and still is for me. That shit just gets an uninstall & bye.
Granted, I don't count things like The Medium where HDR was broken but so was the whole game in DX12, and still is for me. That shit just gets an uninstall & bye.
MiguelItUp
Member
I think it honestly depends on how it's implemented. There have been moments where I notice myself turn HDR on and off depending on a number of variables. The type of display can definitely impact the intensity of the HDR as well, but if it's poorly integrated, it's poorly integrated. Meaning nothing can really save it.
Seems to be pretty subjective for a lot of people though. I think the last time I had HDR on was with Demon's Souls on PS5, and that was about it, lol.
Seems to be pretty subjective for a lot of people though. I think the last time I had HDR on was with Demon's Souls on PS5, and that was about it, lol.
StateofMajora
Banned
Ever seen Crash team racing in HDR? Just washes out everything and makes things blinding.
Good HDR is something else, but it's kind of the minority atm.
I will say though, some seem to have issues with RE engine games in HDR, but I never really saw a problem with them. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough but nothing jumped out at me when I played Re7, Re2 and DMC5. DMC5 was the most impactful though.
Good HDR is something else, but it's kind of the minority atm.
I will say though, some seem to have issues with RE engine games in HDR, but I never really saw a problem with them. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough but nothing jumped out at me when I played Re7, Re2 and DMC5. DMC5 was the most impactful though.
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MadPanda
Banned
HDR in rdr2 is amazing after they patched it. I've completed the game twice, once before and once after, and after they patched it it's much better. There are many other examples with great hdr. A few poor implementations don't make hdr universally bad for games. Most developers were unfamiliar with it as there's no industry wide standard like there is for movies and TV and that's how you get some bad results, but it should be much better as the time goes on, especially with hgig.
bentanchorbolt
Banned
Don't get me wrong. I think HDR is better than SDR, for sure --- but right now there seems to be a lot of games that are tacked on and it ends up degrading the image quality, happens all the time with a lot of games.
VFXVeteran
Banned
I returned the game which is too bad. I loved the demo but will not game in non-HDR settings.
HDR is extremely important. Not only as a post process that many people see, but in the lighting equation too. Maybe one day I'll give a talk on HDR and how important it is to rendering.
bentanchorbolt
Banned
My setup is fine since all the games people laud for having stellar HDR look great while the ones we all know have poor or broken implementations look bad.
VFXVeteran
Banned
They are broken. That is all. HDR is 100% better than SDR in every single case. These games are breaking the algorithm somewhere and that's why they don't look good. It should be considered a bug.
Yselacrey00
Banned
I know that but how can phone manufacturers calibrate every single screen? There are a lot more phones than tvs. Can you imagine Apple selling monitors, laptops or iPhones without being properly calibrated?
Fulcizombie
Banned
Yeah this. Just about every HDR enabled game that I have played, on every console (Ps4pro, Xbox one x, XSX) that I have owned (from the most recent ones) looks fantastic, way more photorealistic to me, with games like RE7 reaching perfection. I get that some people want the ultra sharp videogames look. Of course I own an LCD Tv and a quite bright one at that (Samsung ks8000) so I don't know what settings oled TVs need for HDR to look good.
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HDR (TV HDR, not photography) is a scam.
The problem is that you have to tell people with very expensive TVs that they spent thousands of dollars on tech that doesn't even have a standard, of course they get defensive about their dumb expensive purchase.
The fact that you have to calibrate individually for each game should tell you that this is not ready for mass consumption.
The problem is that you have to tell people with very expensive TVs that they spent thousands of dollars on tech that doesn't even have a standard, of course they get defensive about their dumb expensive purchase.
The fact that you have to calibrate individually for each game should tell you that this is not ready for mass consumption.
bentanchorbolt
Banned
Not accurate at all. Every TV that I've owned since I was a kid has been calibrated and I always go through each games menu to set the in-game brightness and other values to exactly what the developers intended. I know what a good image is supposed to look like, and there are a TON of games that implement HDR is a way that is so poorly done it makes the image look far worse, and yes, washed in a lot of cases. Outriders is one of the worst offenders I've ever seen of this, for example. Blacks in that game w/ HDR set to ON end up looking grey and washed out, when in SDR and other HDR enabled games, the blacks are terrific.
kingpotato
Ask me about my Stream Deck
Every room is different with the amount of light, natural and artificial, which can drastically alter the settings to make an image look "right". Any time you venture into higher quality video or audio, you need to consider calibration. Same is true with speakers. If you are playing on your TVs shitty built in speakers you don't have to calibrate them, but once you graduate to home theater you have to expect to tailor it to the environment.
I think the witcher 3 uses some faux method similar to xbox auto hdr which is why it is sub par to the others.
LG C7 OLED here. Give me HDR or give me death. Games without it look flat.
Allnamestakenlol
Member
On PC, I had so much trouble trying to get it to look good that I no longer bother. Dunno if it was just the games I tried, my monitor, Windows, or all of the above, but it was way too much hassle for me.
onnextflix5
Banned
Not all games, rdr2 look shit in hdr, alot of devs just dont want spend the time to master it properly,
Kuranghi
Member
I didn't know that they did calibrate every phone screen. If they do then maybe its due to them being much smaller and lighter so they can calibrated by a machine which does loads at once and its part of the general manufacturing process. Thats not really possible with TVs because they are so big.
Do you have a source for them doing that because I'd like to read about it, honestly.
kruis
Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
Night scenes look particularly bad in Valhalla with HDR on. Daylight scenes look fine, sunsets are beautiful but when it's night, it's like England is covered in fog. The animated scenes when Eivor faces a killed enemy also are completely washed out.
I know HDR can look great, Sony games have excellent HDR implementation and the previous two AC games also looked fine in HDR (although that really took some finetuning). But I can't make AC:V look great.
alabtrosMyster
Member
If the implementation is often bad... Well as the end user it becomes a problem.
CatLady
Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
It was a gray mess on my Series X too. I read this thread, turned it off and it looks SOOOO much better. WTF?
digitaltrance
Member
HDR has never worked great for me, that's with a calibration tool.
Ev1L AuRoN
Member
It's depend on your TV. A lot of cheap TV's that claim support for HDR aren't really capable of displaying it properly.
For HDR your TV set must have:
10-bit panel or better
At least 1500 nits top brightness
Local dimming array
Some TV's color tune HDR content but with some dubious result.
For HDR your TV set must have:
10-bit panel or better
At least 1500 nits top brightness
Local dimming array
Some TV's color tune HDR content but with some dubious result.
Roberts
Member
Auto-HDR makes so many games look so much richer. Because your beloved console doesn't have that feature, doesn't mean it's shit.
bentanchorbolt
Banned
Yes, but also some games have shipped w/ broken HDR and have yet to be fixed. I don't understand why this is such a tough pill for people to swallow.
NomenNescio
Dual Sense Edger and Blower
HGIG needs to be set as a standard. That's were the solution lies.
I have a CX and a base PS4, HGIG On and all the settings and console under Vincent's recommendations for the PS5 (as there's no PS4 recommended settings video from him). Initially TLOU2 looked so dark, I was having crushed blacks, loosing so many details in shadows, and we're talking about a pretty dark game, where visibility is crucial. Even scenes in broad daylight looked unnaturally dim. Then I got into the game's internal calibration settings and realize that by lowering the contrast by 5 points I was regaining the clarity and details I should've since the beginning.
That kind of gives you the picture of how fucked up some default settings are for some TV's, as there is simply no standard for HDR in games, so developers kind of end up doing whatever they want with it with no frame of reference to comply.
I have a CX and a base PS4, HGIG On and all the settings and console under Vincent's recommendations for the PS5 (as there's no PS4 recommended settings video from him). Initially TLOU2 looked so dark, I was having crushed blacks, loosing so many details in shadows, and we're talking about a pretty dark game, where visibility is crucial. Even scenes in broad daylight looked unnaturally dim. Then I got into the game's internal calibration settings and realize that by lowering the contrast by 5 points I was regaining the clarity and details I should've since the beginning.
That kind of gives you the picture of how fucked up some default settings are for some TV's, as there is simply no standard for HDR in games, so developers kind of end up doing whatever they want with it with no frame of reference to comply.
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Darlingcognito
Member
Not wrong on my TCL it's friggen horrid. Might be different if I bought a better tv, who knows.. but yeah it definitely is overrated.
Kuranghi
Member
The good:
Jedi Fallen Order is one of the best implementations I've seen, when it wanted to be pitch black it was really dark and nice and highlights like those red laser field thingies were amazing, like an HDR demo. The cutscenes looked pre-rendered when you play at 4K with Temporal AA + HDR.
Ghost of Tsushima too, the unlit interiors being soo dark but detailed along with the blinding light coming in through the windows looks pretty amazing on my set, the fires at night and then sunlight coming through a forest was so much more dynamic as well. Days Gone seemed very good from the short amount I played, but I have to play more to make a good judgement.
Crackdown 3 is like an HDR showpiece, too bad the game is mince.
Borderlands 3 was fantastic on PC, really brilliant use on the neon lights and fires/explosions although it was a finicky to get working.
The bad:
Hellblade could've been amazing because it adds great depth to the image but I always had terrible black levels or crushed shadows (depending on how I set the sliders) so I gave up eventually, I have a feeling thats one they didn't test on many panel types, prob looks better on OLED, wouldn've been so amazing to just have her on the screen talking to camera and pitch black around her but often it was just a swimming mass of bad gradients and greyness.
RE2 & 3 Remake
Again it adds tons of depth, makes highlights look really bright and nice (But doesn't reveal more highlight detail unfortunately, with RE engine-based Resident Evil titles they seem to be going for that look though and its in line with the SDR) and stops crushed shadows when the game is trying to look really contrasty, but you have to tweak the sliders to specific settings that aren't intuitive (You need to ignore most of what its telling you on the calibration screen to make it looks correct in-game, example if you set the 2nd screen to anything other than minimum the blacks will be elevated, ie grey when they mean to be black, any other setting but minimum is only there for fixing problems the panel/TV's image processing has), but the colour looks way better to me in SDR and if you tweak SDR it can look better than HDR ever can imo, but I spent literally hours on it, I'm not joking like 6 hours of back and forth across both titles. It has two "colour space" settings and they have wildly different gamma curves so you need to massively turn down the 3rd screen for sRGB to look right. I still don't know what it should really be set at, because I have no frame of reference for what they want the contrast to be, I just ended up making it look like the trailers, by eye.
The ugly:
Ori & The Will of the Wisps
Look at default settings for contrast in HDR (1.0 on a scale of 0.5 to 1.5):
Why is 1.0 the default when it looks like that? Maybe on a low contrast screen that looks good but its terrible for me, like you've just turned contrast up to 900%. When I turn down contrast to 0.5 it looks much better for me but there is still some detail lost in the shadows and in the highlights, so I prefer the SDR image overall.
I wish it went below 0.5 on the slider but it doesn't so I just played in SDR, and its not as dull as it looks in the SDR screenshot when I'm playing it, its just as bright as the HDR image in practice especially if I turn up the backlight - my TV keeps the shadows dim but not crushed and pitch black backgrounds look... pitch black.
YMMV ofc, as others have said its determined by the screen and how its setting are set as much if not more than how they implement it. If you have a low contrast screen then maybe the blacks just as good in HDR as SDR but now everything is brighter due to backlight being maxed so it looks better for you, also on OLED elevated blacks are less of a problem because an OLED will crush it down at a certain point to avoid near-black flashing so it might not be a problem for you in this case.
Jedi Fallen Order is one of the best implementations I've seen, when it wanted to be pitch black it was really dark and nice and highlights like those red laser field thingies were amazing, like an HDR demo. The cutscenes looked pre-rendered when you play at 4K with Temporal AA + HDR.
Ghost of Tsushima too, the unlit interiors being soo dark but detailed along with the blinding light coming in through the windows looks pretty amazing on my set, the fires at night and then sunlight coming through a forest was so much more dynamic as well. Days Gone seemed very good from the short amount I played, but I have to play more to make a good judgement.
Crackdown 3 is like an HDR showpiece, too bad the game is mince.
Borderlands 3 was fantastic on PC, really brilliant use on the neon lights and fires/explosions although it was a finicky to get working.
The bad:
Hellblade could've been amazing because it adds great depth to the image but I always had terrible black levels or crushed shadows (depending on how I set the sliders) so I gave up eventually, I have a feeling thats one they didn't test on many panel types, prob looks better on OLED, wouldn've been so amazing to just have her on the screen talking to camera and pitch black around her but often it was just a swimming mass of bad gradients and greyness.
RE2 & 3 Remake
Again it adds tons of depth, makes highlights look really bright and nice (But doesn't reveal more highlight detail unfortunately, with RE engine-based Resident Evil titles they seem to be going for that look though and its in line with the SDR) and stops crushed shadows when the game is trying to look really contrasty, but you have to tweak the sliders to specific settings that aren't intuitive (You need to ignore most of what its telling you on the calibration screen to make it looks correct in-game, example if you set the 2nd screen to anything other than minimum the blacks will be elevated, ie grey when they mean to be black, any other setting but minimum is only there for fixing problems the panel/TV's image processing has), but the colour looks way better to me in SDR and if you tweak SDR it can look better than HDR ever can imo, but I spent literally hours on it, I'm not joking like 6 hours of back and forth across both titles. It has two "colour space" settings and they have wildly different gamma curves so you need to massively turn down the 3rd screen for sRGB to look right. I still don't know what it should really be set at, because I have no frame of reference for what they want the contrast to be, I just ended up making it look like the trailers, by eye.
The ugly:
Ori & The Will of the Wisps
Look at default settings for contrast in HDR (1.0 on a scale of 0.5 to 1.5):
Why is 1.0 the default when it looks like that? Maybe on a low contrast screen that looks good but its terrible for me, like you've just turned contrast up to 900%. When I turn down contrast to 0.5 it looks much better for me but there is still some detail lost in the shadows and in the highlights, so I prefer the SDR image overall.
I wish it went below 0.5 on the slider but it doesn't so I just played in SDR, and its not as dull as it looks in the SDR screenshot when I'm playing it, its just as bright as the HDR image in practice especially if I turn up the backlight - my TV keeps the shadows dim but not crushed and pitch black backgrounds look... pitch black.
YMMV ofc, as others have said its determined by the screen and how its setting are set as much if not more than how they implement it. If you have a low contrast screen then maybe the blacks just as good in HDR as SDR but now everything is brighter due to backlight being maxed so it looks better for you, also on OLED elevated blacks are less of a problem because an OLED will crush it down at a certain point to avoid near-black flashing so it might not be a problem for you in this case.
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Putonahappyface
Member
I did the same with RDR2, played it for days with broken HDR and then watched a HDTVTest video showing more accurate colours and shadows with SDR so switched over.
Gold_Loot
Member
Speaking of PC. How has the HDR implementation been there? A friend of mine had many problems with it last year. Any improvements?
TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
Svengoolie007
Banned
Interesting take! I've been struggling with HDR from the outset because it always made games look worse for me. I figured it was because I have a cheap tv though. It does have that HDR10 that you mentioned as well. Yet the critics say that HDR is what makes everything so much better, way more important than 4K.
MR ARCADE FOREVER
Member
The problem with hdr is that most tvs aren't bright enough. It's underwhelming for a lot of people. Also, it sucks to have to be calibrating all the time. What a pain
LordBlodgett
Member
Ori and the Will of the Wisps looks incredible in HDR, sounds like you have a poorly calibrated TV, or a TV with poor HDR in general.
And this right here is really the problem with HDR. Lots of shitty TVs have "HDR", but there is no standard for HDR at all. This means that many lower end TVs with HDR settings may not even be able to sustain the required brightness, or may have washed out colors, and terrible contrast. There really needs to be a HDR standard for TVs that is worth a darn. I also wish TVs had better color settings out of the box so they did need so much tweaking......but that is another topic entirely
R6Rider
Gold Member
It's highly dependent on the game. The auto HDR on PS5 is bad for SDR content so I turn it off in those cases. Ghost of Tsushima and especially Demon's Souls looked amazing in HDR. Movies look fantastic with it too.
Immortals Fenyx Rising has terrible HDR at least when I tried it last.
Immortals Fenyx Rising has terrible HDR at least when I tried it last.
LordBlodgett
Member
You have an OLED, which is part of the reason why. LG's OLEDs are decently calibrated out of the box and their strong blacks and excellent color accuracy usually makes everything in HDR look good. If a game looks bad in HDR on a newer OLED then it is probably a bad implementation in the game
