HDR is broken and extremely washed out

[Jellybrain]

I've seen a few people reporting this issue months ago but I'm getting it now despite the update that supposedly fixed HDR. The Peak Brightness slider does almost nothing and HDR looks extremely washed out and grey UNLESS I unfocus the game window. Doing that raises the contrast and saturation to an expected level and not an overblown image. RTX HDR is disabled, Auto-HDR is disabled, I have an accurate Windows 11 colour profile + up-to-date Windows 11 version and drivers, I have tried disabling HDR in-game and in Windows and turning it back on with or without the game open. No dice.

It won't look nearly as representative of the issue as it does in real life, but hopefully this video gives a rough idea https://youtu.be/7E6FAjH9w8g?si=Q79voNx9kt_xCH6y

Any solutions would be greatly appreciated


Edit: I found not a solution but a workaround until the issue is fixed properly. Going into Windowed mode causes HDR to function as intended, and this carries over into Exclusive Fullscreen mode. However, the moment I leave the game or interact with anything but the game, it will break again and I have to go into Windowed mode and back into Exclusive Fullscreen. Hopefully this helps any other folks with the issue until it's fixed in a patch

[GRUNDLESTILTSKIN]

what monitor? with the specs you can just input them into the game ( after using windows HDR calibration)

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/dell/alienware-aw2725df

use the sustained 2% -973 which it looks like you are very close to with your (971)
and the sustained 100% window - 249 which can be increased on your end (218)
leave shadow alone
on highlight boost go higher than 0 for more pop

there are also settings in nvidia control panel / amd adrenaline to turn on 10 bit and run RGB 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 (bandwidth limitations might apply) @ 60 hz you can do RGB 4:4:4 but at max Hz maybe only 4:2:2 ( i dont know what your monitors compression capabilities are)

[Jellybrain]

Originally posted by GRUNDLESTILTSKIN:

what monitor? with the specs you can just input them into the game ( after using windows HDR calibration)

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/dell/alienware-aw2725df

use the sustained 2% -973 which it looks like you are very close to with your (971)
and the sustained 100% window - 249 which can be increased on your end (218)
leave shadow alone
on highlight boost go higher than 0 for more pop

there are also settings in nvidia control panel / amd adrenaline to turn on 10 bit and run RGB 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 (bandwidth limitations might apply) @ 60 hz you can do RGB 4:4:4 but at max Hz maybe only 4:2:2 ( i dont know what your monitors compression capabilities are)

Thanks for the reply. The use of Peak 1000 was just to make it easier to notice the image via video. Usually I stick with 400 True Black. My monitor is the AW2725DF, though I know perfectly well this display's capabilities and how to set HDR settings. I already use 10-bit and full colour. Unfortunately everything you said is general "for best results" advice and nothing that attributes to the problem itself.

[Cesitar257]

same here, i hope fix soon

update: it solved when i change from HDR GAME to HDR in monitor panel (AORUS FO32U2)

[iamcll]

I never found a true fix for this, I've noticed it also happens in spiderman and miles, death stranding, tombraider, etc.. i wonder whats bloody doing it

[Quasinerdo]

Have you run the windows HDR calibration? That's a good start point. Then I would advise leaving the game in Fullscreen window mode.

I also use a reshade to correct the horrible yellow tint. There are a few very good HDR ones on Nexus mods.

[Hydra_360ci]

shrug... HDR has always been broken on PS games.

[Bdestiny]

Never had problems with HDR on any PS game on PC.

https://youtu.be/5cjk9yuCt48

[STiLL ( ￣-￣) SaNE CS.ARMY]

Originally posted by iamcll:

I never found a true fix for this, I've noticed it also happens in spiderman and miles, death stranding, tombraider, etc.. i wonder whats bloody doing it

.
Yo bro, i foud a post of yours where you said to remove subtitles to fix the bad textures in Horizon Zero dawn and it actually Fixed it man lol. Imagine the Game's textures being ruined coz of subtitles. Thank for that suggestion

[Soüp]

I've been dealing with this exact issue - very washed out color that suddenly looks normal when the game window isn't focused. I did seemingly manage to fix it on my system last night though while fiddling around with the HDR settings. When I set the peak brightness to exactly 472 nits, suddenly it looks correct. Any other number, it looks super washed out. It doesn't make any sense but the behavior is consistent through another game session today. Unfortunately it seems to render correctly when taking a screenshot, so those look the same no matter what and I can't show what it looks like easily.

[Zazzone]

disable hdr in game and use NVIDIA RTX HDR is incredible

[Soüp]

Originally posted by ⓀⒾⓦⒾ‰:

calibrate your monitor with the windows hdr calibration tool
it does make a difference

You know you could try actually reading the OP before replying. It's not a calibration issue, the game only renders correct color when the game window is NOT focused. Obviously this problem doesn't affect everybody or there would be a hell of a lot more complaints about it.

My suspicion is that it has to do with multi-plane overlay (MPO) support in the Windows DWM failing to handle HDR tonemapping for more than one window at a time (which may depend on the monitor being used, since the number of overlays supported can apparently depend on the monitor.) I was thinking more about my workaround of setting the game's brightness to 472 nits and realized that Windows reports my monitor's HDR max brightness as 470 nits, with 472 being the closest you can get to 470 without being lower since it only adjusts by increments of 3. That suggests that this setting is making the game window tonemap to the same brightness value as the rest of the desktop, so it doesn't need a separate plane to render properly, hence fixing it.

So my suggestion for anyone experiencing this problem, go into the Advanced Display settings in Windows with HDR on and check the HDR max brightness reported, then try to match that with the game settings (the closest you can get equal or greater to the number reported by Windows) to see if that fixes it.

[Game Genie by Galoob]

Chiming in to say that I'm dealing with the same thing. Image looks very gray unless I run in windowed mode. Exclusive fullscreen doesn't work in my case. In my case I'm on windows 10, using a 4070.

[Soüp]

So a weird update on my side... After a CPU upgrade (same GPU, same monitor) and a fresh Windows install, I now have to set the brightness to either 282, 649, or 1016 for the game to not look washed out. It makes absolutely no sense.

[Resalius...]

I never got problems with HDR in any game.
Win10 + LG OLED 55"