Wrong RGB information signal to external display

[The Green Nerd]

It seems (some/most) TV's won't detect that the output of the HDMI signal is Limited RGB, while the output is actually Full RGB. Colors are therefore saturated and have crushed blacks. Changing the HDMI setting of the TV to Full RGB, fixes the issue. I tested this with my Sony and LG. My TV also won't detect it as an game device. I guess this information is missing to from the signal?

Also a good measuring tool is at looking at settings --> Display --> Nightmode --> Look at the grey scale. The two left blocks should be a different color, if not = wrong RGB setting.

This occurs with both my official Steam Deck Dock, as my cheap dock.

p.s. seems I am not the only one: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/0/3319737272513115983/ But strange that this bug is only noticed now.

To illustrate the issue I made some pictures:
TV set to Auto mode = Wrong, look at the two black blocks. One should be lighter.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2874279265
TV set to Full RGB = Correct, look at the two left black blocks. One is a bit brighter.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2874279369

I also made an Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/y3r3ys/change_your_rgbrange_setting_on_your_tv_always/) post for this, to help people with this issue. It seems more people thought it looked off when connected to the TV. But more people had issues determining the correct setting. If it's not possible to fix this by an update, maybe add a disclaimer?

[europa]

Can confirm, same issue with the official dock—my Philips TV doesn’t let me select the proper color range for the HDMI inputs, however the issue will only present itself when scaling to 4K. Selecting any other resolution, or leaving the default resolution option to “automatic” will send proper RGB values to the TV. Slightly annoying

[The Green Nerd]

Originally posted by europa:

Can confirm, same issue with the official dock—my Philips TV doesn’t let me select the proper color range for the HDMI inputs, however the issue will only present itself when scaling to 4K. Selecting any other resolution, or leaving the default resolution option to “automatic” will send proper RGB values to the TV. Slightly annoying

I just tested the auto resolution setting (latest beta firmware), but this had no effect. I tried this though my receiver and connecting it directly to my TV.

Can you confirm that when you are using the automatic resolution setting, the grey scale is like my second picture?

[europa]

Originally posted by The Green Nerd:

Can you confirm that when you are using the automatic resolution setting, the grey scale is like my second picture?

I can confirm that using auto resolution fixes the issue but limits output to 1080p; setting 4k results in a limited RGB output

[The Green Nerd]

Originally posted by europa:

Originally posted by The Green Nerd:

Can you confirm that when you are using the automatic resolution setting, the grey scale is like my second picture?

I can confirm that using auto resolution fixes the issue but limits output to 1080p; setting 4k results in a limited RGB output

Interesting. My Deck won't do this. My Sony X900E stays in 4K and won't detect the Full RGB. Maybe there is some information in the signal after all?

I am not sure if this is an job for Valve or for AMD to fix this. It can be a driver issue. Looking also at:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=259929
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=260190

I guess we could change it with a XRANDR command. I guess could test that this week. Valve could (I think) easily add a RGB setting, like they did with the resolution thing.

[europa]

Haven't tried running xrandr, I'd assume it would fix it; however, not so practical to be perfectly honest. Would much rather have the folks at Valve gives us a toggle, should be a fair approach

[Shaggy Mass]

I can confirm this problem as well -- I was streaming some TV shows/movies and I thought the colour grading was really weird, with crushed blacks and hyper-saturated blues in the dark colours, until I realized it wasn't supposed to look that way. My PC hooked up to the same input with the same cable on the TV properly sends full range RGB, but the steam deck has weird/crushed dark colours. Unfortunately my TV (Toshiba 55L510U18) doesn't seem to have any settings to manually set the RGB range so I'm SOL for now.

[Mancado22]

I can confirm, at first I was wondering why the colors were weird as some stuff were much darker than they actually should, sadly my monitor doesn't have an option to select the RGB range, so I am limited to a limited RGB sadly...
I searched everywhere in the menus on steam deck on desktop mode and nope, nothing remotely close to a RGB toggle.

[m0]

I have the same problem. My TV doesn't provide an option for a manual fix.

[Guzzy Time 222]

I can confirm this problem as well, in dark areas it’s practically impossible to see such as the caves in Elden Ring or when it’s nighttime in Red Dead Redemption 2. This also appears to be a bug on some docks, since other people with docks do not have this issue but everyone in this thread unfortunately has this issue.

[Needs Loomis]

Can confirm, crushed blacks making many games unplayable on my Vizio, which has no full RGB mode. Even my integrated gpu laptop has an option to set limited rgb...

[RPG Gamer Man]

This also might be related to my HDMI keeps turning on while connecting to my tv and interrupts my tv watching. Happens once every hour and not sure why it is happening. I use a HDMI switcher box because my 12 inch tv only has one HDMI port on it.

[McGibbon]

Also getting crushed blacks on LG OLED no matter what I set any of the above settings to.

[The Green Nerd]

Ywou should change the input on your LG to PC mode. You can do this by renaming the input to PC. That is the only way on LG TV's. This guy made a full step tutorial in my reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/y3r3ys/comment/isdgryt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Hitting the input button on your remote

Go to the left box, 'Home Dashboard'

Click the 3 dots in the upper right corner

Click the first option, 'Edit'

Click 'Edit Inputs'

Now, go down to whichever input your Steam Deck is connected to, and click the icon next to the input name (usually an HDMI icon, or controller icon for a game system)

Select PC from the list, and you're done

[kurouzu]

Sadly not fixed with the last update and I can’t change the rgb option from my tv, so basically I can’t use the dock.

[BMWKante]

I would also be happy about a solution of this problem. A setting in steam OS would be nice.