About HDR in Remnant 2 (Developers, please read)

[alexyenov]

I tested HDR in this game on Windows 11 on a Samsung G8 Oled monitor (1000 Nit calibrated). In general, the picture has become noticeably juicier than in SDR mode. The dark became darker and the light became brighter. This is good.
But it could be even better!
Developers, please don't ignore the fact that native in-game HDR settings are needed for your game - this was previously ignored by the developers of Warhammer 4000: Darktide. You have a great game tenically, a lot of different upscale settings. But you need to tighten up a little more in terms of image quality - and the introduction of native HDR settings will greatly contribute to this!

[Daytrader]

How you test, game don't support hdr, fake hdr don't count.

[alexyenov]

Very simple.
First I played SDR.
Then turned on HDR, played again. After turning on HDR, you need to reduce the brightness in the game relative to the value that was in SDR. The picture gets better, as I wrote above.
But this, of course, is not enough, for maximum quality you need the native HDR settings available in the game.

[alexyenov]

In this case, I have nothing to do with it.
The point is that the game has a high potential for full HDR support, especially on high-quality HDR displays.
I hope the developers have plans to implement HDR in the game!

[MrRiXter]

Have you tried SpecialK HDR?

[FireForged]

Originally posted by MrRiXter:

Have you tried SpecialK HDR?

Yes special K is great for remnant 1.


Just note that while special K adds some nice bright mids and some highlights, afaik it's only accurate to about 480nit peak. If you turn the sliders higher than that in special K you are going to go away from reference and raise the whole picture. That means raised black levels from reference, raised white point, etc which can blow things out, clip brights, and lose details overall compared to reference.

Wintows autoHDR (on games that support it) can hit the peaks of a display once either calibrated using the hdr calibration tool, or using cru edit. Either will inform windows of the peak nit capability of the display but cru is more exact. I'm not sure if windows auto HDR is breaking away from reference and ruining the curve when it goes to the peak nit of the display though, over ~ 500nit. Special K does so idk if windows would too.

Special K at 480nit or so still looks way better than reference SDR though, especially on an OLED in a dim to dark room. I'm playing remnant1 now with it since I got remnant 1 on humble bundle recently.

Still a shame in 2023 that many popular games don't have proper native HDR. To me it's like being stuck at 30hz or 60hz, or like being confined to 1080p. The difference with HDR is more dramatic than 4k.

I was very glad that elden ring had HDR as that was GoTY for me and I spent a lot of time in that world. There are a bunch of others with native HDR that are great.

[FireForged]

Originally posted by usaerah:

Historically, Special K was the best way to get filmic hgig accurate HDR in Remnant 1. I cannot get special k to work with remnant 2. Special K throws an error that the application uses "nvidia streamline" causing a conflict. Some kind of auto, windows forced hdr would be something though....standard definition just doesn't pop brites enough. Black are fine in sdr in R 2.

There might be a workaround replacing the streamline dll in the game's directories but it could screw up playing online potentially if they have modified files filtering/banning like blizzard/battle-net has. Remnant doesn't seem that competitive to me but rather a fun co-op game with some difficulty levels to it so they might not scan for it. (Not saying it can't be difficult or require skill, like vermintide 2's highest difficulties and mod items for example - just that it's not laddered or persistent world or anything like that).

Use at your own risk, but there are a few mods for remnant 2 already including a higher trait cap so the file replacement might work fine.

Informational link on the wiki also has links to the replacement file:

https://wiki.special-k.info/en/Compatibility/Streamline

The file in question has something to do with upscaling, DLSS, frame generation, etc (aka "Frame amplification tech")

. . . . . .

Nvidia Streamline is an open-source solution for developers that simplifies integration of the latest upscaling/super resolution technologies from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia by using a plug-and-play framework through a single integration with the game or application. Instead of implementing and integrating multiple different upscaling SDKs separately, game developers just need to integrate Streamline and then enable the different upscaling plug-ins as desired.

. . . .

In some cases, the game may still launch with Special K after pressing the OK button. Alternatively, you could try a global injection delay or try Special K with local injection (either method could also get rid of the Special K Incompatibility pop-up message). However, while the game may still launch with Special K in some cases using global or local injection, replacing the game’s Streamline interposer file might be needed for Special K’s scRGB HDR to work.

[usaerah]

FireForged. Thank you. I have also read and discovered how to use special K in R2 via streamline mod. I am successfully using it now. It is quite good. I am on a calibrated c2 oled and find the peak brightness set to 800 to be quite good with very little black raise/crush. My c2 is calibrated to taste though (dark area adjustment and black stabilizer). If i notice image crush or wash I will use 480 limit you suggested. I am also sliding the sdr-hdr slider to 1.227 (in special k).

System wide auto hdr does not work guys. any changes you are seeing are palcebo. Want to test hit "alt g" auto hdr game enhancement mod for win 11. adjust hdr intensity is greyed out. Thus no auto hdr systemically. only option thus far is special k with streamline mod. Please note streamline mod removes the ability to use dlss3.0 (frame generation). You can still however use dlss 2 in game settings. I have found that using dlss quality @ 4k with all else on ultra allows 65-85 fps with 4090, 13900k ultra rig. so if you dont have a 4090 good luck with hdr (as you will need streamline frame generation).

[Sygmaelle]

Originally posted by FireForged:

Originally posted by MrRiXter:

Have you tried SpecialK HDR?

Yes special K is great for remnant 1.


Just note that while special K adds some nice bright mids and some highlights, afaik it's only accurate to about 480nit peak. If you turn the sliders higher than that in special K you are going to go away from reference and raise the whole picture. That means raised black levels from reference, raised white point, etc which can blow things out, clip brights, and lose details overall compared to reference.

Wintows autoHDR (on games that support it) can hit the peaks of a display once either calibrated using the hdr calibration tool, or using cru edit. Either will inform windows of the peak nit capability of the display but cru is more exact. I'm not sure if windows auto HDR is breaking away from reference and ruining the curve when it goes to the peak nit of the display though, over ~ 500nit. Special K does so idk if windows would too.

Special K at 480nit or so still looks way better than reference SDR though, especially on an OLED in a dim to dark room. I'm playing remnant1 now with it since I got remnant 1 on humble bundle recently.

Still a shame in 2023 that many popular games don't have proper native HDR. To me it's like being stuck at 30hz or 60hz, or like being confined to 1080p. The difference with HDR is more dramatic than 4k.

I was very glad that elden ring had HDR as that was GoTY for me and I spent a lot of time in that world. There are a bunch of others with native HDR that are great.

While I fully agree with you, HDR gets automatically broken when turning on DLSS (its never been fixed)

so unless you can run this game native there's virtually no point. Also, compared to consoles using HGIG, HDR on pc is more often than not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if its not in dolby vision (im not even sure it even is a thing on that platform)

[Tarjan]

Originally posted by Sygma:

Originally posted by FireForged:

so unless you can run this game native there's virtually no point. Also, compared to consoles using HGIG, HDR on pc is more often than not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if its not in dolby vision (im not even sure it even is a thing on that platform)

HDR in pc is requires the right settings, and windows loves to choose the wrong ones. You can have "HDR Enabled" but have 8bit set for color options which means you are absolutely not getting hdr no matter what. This ends up with a mess and you don't get the appropriate luminance curve nor the wider color gamut.

Make sure you go to nvidia control panel (or amd) and change it from 8 to 10bit color. This can be found under resolution, then below where it says use default or nvidia color and change output color depth to 10bit.

If your screen is older it may not have 4k/60/4/4/4 support, so if the 10bit doesnt show up, change it from rgb or ycbcr444 to ycbcr422. Apply and come back then 10bit will be available, don't worry about output dynamic range being limited.

Once enabled and when playing a game with actual HDR support (NOT AUTOHDR) it should be a tremendous change on the objects that have a high luminence like lights or flames. Its a huge difference if the game takes advantage of it.

For remnant 2, no amount of changing on the user side is going to create a major effect. , autohdr and the specialk system are just applying a different luminace map to existing calculated values that should make it look slightly brighter and give more ramping to help tamp down the "sameness" of some screens (fog). The devs need to go back to actually have it compute out better luminance and color rendering for objects and allow items to be both brighter and darker. This is *not* computationally expensive for a cpu or gpu, but it does take a fair bit of work on the backend side as they optimized the visual experience for non-hdr.

Devs: Please release an actual HDR patch, not just autohdr support. Its hugely important in a game like this. The part with the crows comes to mind for dark colors/luminance that could be WAY more interesting.

[usaerah]

Well said Tarjan! 100% agree and you know what you are saying. But until they recode the game in rec 2020 or some other native hdr gamut, Special K (with quite a bit of adjusting software and monitor calibration wise) is a marketable image enhancement over what was delivered stock in sdr.