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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

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Snoopkirby Nov 20, 2024 @ 4:18pm
Is HDR broken?
It looks darker than intended, as if it was fake HDR
edit: It appears HDR's handling of contrast is broken, and both HDR and SDR have raised blacks.
SDR raised black can be "fixed" by increasing contrast but it results in an image that looks broken similarly to HDR. HDR has no fix i could find for raised black issue.
edit: The cause of the raised floor issue for SDR and HDR was found at least, see this post for a HDR workaround : https://steamcommunity.com/app/1643320/discussions/0/4626980689722554555/?ctp=2#c4626981956824887530
edit: new workaround for HDR : https://steamcommunity.com/app/1643320/discussions/0/4626980689722554555/?ctp=2#c592882772895447337
Last edited by Snoopkirby; Dec 7, 2024 @ 5:54pm
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Showing 1-15 of 91 comments
iamcll Nov 20, 2024 @ 6:26pm 
Do you have a real HDR Screen ? Only saying cause it doesn't seem darker than it should to me if anything the black level is raised on OLED's theres no 0 nits in the games hdr.
#1
cioran Nov 20, 2024 @ 6:29pm 
I find HDR for this game working as intended, the game is dark indeed (intended I guess) but nowhere near not to see stuff. Like others said, in really dark places, uses the flashlight (L, or middle mouse).
#2
Snoopkirby Nov 20, 2024 @ 7:44pm 
Yes i have a real HDR screen.
The HDR has both crushed whites and blacks, i can't get the game to generate turned off pixels(i can in SDR) and most scenes have crushed blacks and whites because of the exposure adaptation, the blacks get crushed to a grayish color...
This can't be actual HDR, the default gamma also uses a weird 2.05xxx value rather than the normal 2.2(and setting it to 50% from the menu sets it to 2.201001???)
It's broken i think, it looks like SDR in HDR container kind of broken. SDR looks far more playable.
#3
JDumbz Nov 20, 2024 @ 7:45pm 
It was like that with the OG stalker, especially with interiors in the recent console releases. It's intended.
#4
Skubaben Nov 20, 2024 @ 7:54pm 
Have to use fullscreen in game
#5
cerealkeller Nov 20, 2024 @ 7:56pm 
I was wondering about HDR as well, it seems off to me. The game looks fine with it off in my opinion, and they dropped the ball by not having some sort of image for adjusting HDR. I have it on, I just bumped up the brightness a bit to make it easier to see at night without needing a flash light 100% of the time. I have an LG C2 OLED.
#6
cioran Nov 20, 2024 @ 7:58pm 
Originally posted by Skubaben:
Have to use fullscreen in game
Options/Display/Screen Mode
#7
Snoopkirby Nov 20, 2024 @ 9:07pm 
Originally posted by Skubaben:
Have to use fullscreen in game
Yes, i'm already in fullscreen(exclusive)
Originally posted by cerealkeller:
I was wondering about HDR as well, it seems off to me. The game looks fine with it off in my opinion, and they dropped the ball by not having some sort of image for adjusting HDR. I have it on, I just bumped up the brightness a bit to make it easier to see at night without needing a flash light 100% of the time. I have an LG C2 OLED.
in Appdata/Local/Stalker2 folder you can find additional settings to tweak, and maybe fix the broken gamma.
GSC put weird defaults and there is an undocumented parameter HDRContrast, no idea what it does exactly but it is set to 1.2.
Don't trust the sliders, they're fundamentally broken, you put 25 HDR Brightness and expect to get 25, but you get 25.737703
#8
Pixie Nov 20, 2024 @ 9:30pm 
Originally posted by Snoopkirby:
Yes i have a real HDR screen.
The HDR has both crushed whites and blacks, i can't get the game to generate turned off pixels(i can in SDR) and most scenes have crushed blacks and whites because of the exposure adaptation, the blacks get crushed to a grayish color...
This can't be actual HDR, the default gamma also uses a weird 2.05xxx value rather than the normal 2.2(and setting it to 50% from the menu sets it to 2.201001???)
It's broken i think, it looks like SDR in HDR container kind of broken. SDR looks far more playable.
running an oled and blacks definitely aren't greyish for me. if anything, too much is black. but hdr is working. black is pure and bright stuff is.. bright.

how do you see this hdr video?
https://youtu.be/K1VhUZsK_e4
maybe if you have an oled phone screen or something, you can compare. but yeah, there should be plenty of pure blacks.
#9
Slackerdude74 Nov 20, 2024 @ 9:34pm 
It seems that running windows with it's hdr on, and turning on hdr in-game makes it look like way dark really colorful.
So turn off either and then leave the other one on. Imo the windows hdr looks better than the in-game hdr.
#10
Pixie Nov 20, 2024 @ 9:42pm 
Originally posted by Slackerdude74:
It seems that running windows with it's hdr on, and turning on hdr in-game makes it look like way dark really colorful.
So turn off either and then leave the other one on. Imo the windows hdr looks better than the in-game hdr.
you can't run a game in HDR with it turned off in windows. enabling hdr in windows allows you to run the game in HDR. if it looks whack from that, then you need to look at your settings. whatever graphics card settings you have/windows color profile/monitor settings. there is a lot that can go wrong.
#11
Warmen Nov 20, 2024 @ 9:44pm 
Originally posted by Snoopkirby:
It looks darker than intended, as if it was fake HDR

I mean along with everything else that has been stated,if your HDR is indeed working, the game does have gamma, contrast and HDR brightness sliders to make it less dark. Whats the issue? Unless your monitor's calibration is completely off or you have entirely screwed up your windows HDR calibration , those sliders in game options should allow you to achieve less dark game.
#12
Slackerdude74 Nov 20, 2024 @ 9:53pm 
Originally posted by Pixie:
Originally posted by Slackerdude74:
It seems that running windows with it's hdr on, and turning on hdr in-game makes it look like way dark really colorful.
So turn off either and then leave the other one on. Imo the windows hdr looks better than the in-game hdr.
you can't run a game in HDR with it turned off in windows. enabling hdr in windows allows you to run the game in HDR. if it looks whack from that, then you need to look at your settings. whatever graphics card settings you have/windows color profile/monitor settings. there is a lot that can go wrong.
Well it works that way for me with Win11, and it works good imo.
#13
Pixie Nov 20, 2024 @ 9:54pm 
Originally posted by Slackerdude74:
Originally posted by Pixie:
you can't run a game in HDR with it turned off in windows. enabling hdr in windows allows you to run the game in HDR. if it looks whack from that, then you need to look at your settings. whatever graphics card settings you have/windows color profile/monitor settings. there is a lot that can go wrong.
Well it works that way for me with Win11, and it works good imo.
oh, well i don't know windows 11.
#14
Snoopkirby Nov 20, 2024 @ 9:55pm 
Originally posted by Pixie:
running an oled and blacks definitely aren't greyish for me. if anything, too much is black. but hdr is working. black is pure and bright stuff is.. bright.

how do you see this hdr video?
https://youtu.be/K1VhUZsK_e4
maybe if you have an oled phone screen or something, you can compare. but yeah, there should be plenty of pure blacks.
I can't get HDR to work on the video, it's as if it wasn't recorded in HDR.(i tried other hdr videos and they do toggle HDR)
But i can get the video to have turned off pixels, but maybe that's just the tonemapping.
I'm using an OLED display too and in darker scenes i can consistently see the screen won't completely turn off pixels in HDR, analyzing a screenshot in paintdotnet reveals the black is floored slightly above RGB 2,2,2, repeating the process in SDR it's obvious shadow detail is preserved and the display actually does turn off pixels when it should.
Maybe it's something to do with windows 10 and 11?


Originally posted by Slackerdude74:
It seems that running windows with it's hdr on, and turning on hdr in-game makes it look like way dark really colorful.
So turn off either and then leave the other one on. Imo the windows hdr looks better than the in-game hdr.
It just breaks the image, unfortunately Unreal Engine requires windows hdr to be turned on unlike every other game with hdr support, you can force it to do hdr like you explained with windows hdr off after toggling on HDR in the game but then the colors are even worse, if you do windows hdr ON and in game hdr OFF you will just get sdr tonemapped to hdr, which looks worse on every monitor and tv i've ever tried this on.
It seems to be an unreal engine thing sadly, i wonder if GSC can even fix this.
#15
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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl > General Discussions > Topic Details
Date Posted: Nov 20, 2024 @ 4:18pm
Posts: 91

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