Since last Patch the game is DARK and unplayable

[Sulucion]

Since the last patch the game at night is almost completely Black! - I crank the brightness settings as high as it can go and it does Nothing. During daytime looks like night time use to last week. What the ♥♥♥♥ did they do, and are other people experiencing this? Playing on a 3900X and 1080TI FE.

[DEMONHUNTER457]

I bought this game yesterday and I am having the same issues. Tried googling around and didn't find anything matching this. I have tried adjusting the brightness and paper white settings and even at max its not bright enough and the colors look messed up as well.

Since I bought it yesterday it was like this from the start though, and I haven't been able to play the game really yet. Under paper white settings it says adjust until you can see the logo and at max you still can't see it.

Starts right from the get go. Launch screen ultra dark you can barely see the red shells that are loaded in the intro. Even the steam and Rockstar overlays are ultra dark.

[ΗΞΧATαηταlνs]

I just installed and played RDR2 on PC for my first time yesterday and the HDR setting in the graphics menu is clearly very broken. I have a certified HDR-10+ 4K UHDTV with WCG that runs other HDR-10 content very well, but RDR2 with HDR set to "on" in the menu looks very flat, dull, greyish, and super washed out with very very low brightness. With HDR set to "off", it's like I'm staring into the center of a nuclear fusion explosion or the surface of the sun since everything is extremely over-saturated, overexposed, overly bright, etc...

[Argstein]

this game has always been dark and a souls-like

[DEMONHUNTER457]

Alright so after some further testing I noticed something interesting. I tried taking a screenshot for evidence of what the display problems looked like and exited the game. Looking at the screenshot it looks totally normal like you would expect the game to look like. So I thought maybe its not really the game but what its being displayed on. I've been using a 4K tv with HDR capability.

I pulled out an older tv not capable of HDR and sure enough the game runs as it should without the intense darkness. Not a fix, but at least it pin points the issue I believe and I can actually play the game.

For everyone who has this issue are you currently playing on a HDR tv? Turning it off in game doesn't fix anything but when its running on something that can't use HDR it doesn't even give options for HDR.

[[PBS] 🆃🅷🅾🆂🅳🆁🅰🆇]

My game is dark when I start to play it, needed to restart for 5 times

[ΗΞΧATαηταlνs]

Originally posted by DEMONHUNTER457:

Alright so after some further testing I noticed something interesting. I tried taking a screenshot for evidence of what the display problems looked like and exited the game. Looking at the screenshot it looks totally normal like you would expect the game to look like. So I thought maybe its not really the game but what its being displayed on. I've been using a 4K tv with HDR capability.

I pulled out an older tv not capable of HDR and sure enough the game runs as it should without the intense darkness. Not a fix, but at least it pin points the issue I believe and I can actually play the game.

For everyone who has this issue are you currently playing on a HDR tv? Turning it off in game doesn't fix anything but when its running on something that can't use HDR it doesn't even give options for HDR.

I'm running the game on a Samsung UN40-MU7000 4K UHDTV (it's an HDR-10 ~600 nits display).

[ΗΞΧATαηταlνs]

The game is unplayable with the "HDR" setting turned "on" or "off" in the display settings menu. When "HDR" is set to "OFF", the game is so overexposed and oversaturated that I literally cannot play due to snow being so bright white and oversaturated that nearly the entire screen is a pure white glow, and dark/shadowy areas are so ridiculously dark, that you can't see any details. With "HDR" set to "OFF", there is almost no difference between bright and dark areas and the color is extremely flat and dull, to the point that it's hard to distinguish any sort of detail in a bright or dark area/scene in-game. I'm running Windows 10 Pro with "HD Color" turned on in the Control Panel. I have a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti with the latest Nvidia drivers installed. Also, there's zero visual differences between Vulkan or DX12 rendering modes.

[Sulucion]

So every 10th time i load in, the graphics will be normal - I don't understand what is happening and why only sometimes the graphics load in correctly and the colors are bright.

[Sunbow]

I noticed this also. I thought that it was just the gamma and was going to fix it when I could be bothered then I read this. I like it dark though, especially at night, it's more realistic.

[kodex]

You can try opening Nvidia control panel and then navigating to 'Display settings - Change resolution' and then Check Nvidia color settings and set the dynamic range to limited.
https://prnt.sc/rj02jz

[Hakgova]

I had the same issue when I first installed and played the game. I had to use the options in game and change a couple of video setting to get it to display correctly. I think it was under the "advanced" settings that I changed either from vulcan to dx12 or vice versa. Also changed one of the anti-aliasing setting as well.

[ΗΞΧATαηταlνs]

I just figured out how to get RDR2 to display in a normal SDR (BT.709) color space with normal brightness, contrast, gamut, gamma, so the game is playable again. First I had to open RDR2, go to the in-game display settings menu and turn off "HDR" completely.

Then, I had to go into the Windows 10 Control Panel and into the Display settings and turn OFF "Windows 10 HD Color". Turning that off in the Win.10 Control Panel > Display settings menu will just completely disable any HDR or Wide Color Gamut signal from being output to your display/TV.

After that, I simply started RDR2 again and the color space and all visual characteristics appeared in normal SDR (Standard Dynamic Range), and while it looks much worse than true HDR-10 WCG content, it looks way, way better than the two broken "HDR" modes in RDR2 with Win.10 HD Color turned on. I hope this helps others until Rockstar actually fixes their horrible "HDR" implementation in RDR2 on PC.

[Sunbow]

Just to summarise what others have been saying then:

To use HDR, your monitor must have HDR technology built in to it. Then you need to configure HDR properly in that case.

If your monitor doesn't have HDR, then you need to limit the 'Dynamic Range' of your colour settings for your graphics card. On nVidia cards this can be found on the nVidia control panel under the 'Change Resolution' setting. After that, go to 'Display Settings' in RDR and set the brightness as required.

[ΗΞΧATαηταlνs]

Originally posted by Sunbow:

Just to summarise what others have been saying then:

To use HDR, your monitor must have HDR technology built in to it. Then you need to configure HDR properly in that case.

If your monitor doesn't have HDR, then you need to limit the 'Dynamic Range' of your colour settings for your graphics card. On nVidia cards this can be found on the nVidia control panel under the 'Change Resolution' setting. After that, go to 'Display Settings' in RDR and set the brightness as required.

Also, even if your monitor/TV DOES have HDR capabilities, then you also have to disable "HD Color" in the Windows 10 Control Panel > Display settings menu before launching the game because the "HDR" setting in this game is fundamentally broken on PC.

[Agent GARD]

Originally posted by Ari:

You can try opening Nvidia control panel and then navigating to 'Display settings - Change resolution' and then Check Nvidia color settings and set the dynamic range to limited.
https://prnt.sc/rj02jz

Sorry for Necroing, but this is still an issue to this day. I wish this could be something they would fix.
Your solution did the trick for me and I hope any others find this as well!