Another benefit of Using DX11 Over Dx12 (HDR)

[OmniRizzo]

This may be common knowledge, but the DirectX 11 launcher supports Windows 11 Auto HDR feature. This may be a game changer for those with HDR capable displays and windows 11. Kinda lame that there are Native HDR settings in the dx12 .ini file, but no way to turn them on.

[Viol3ntAtimo]

I use this guys settings on my C2 Oled and it looks good.
https://youtu.be/wcDDzbBrZik

[Deus Ex Angel]

Originally posted by The_GarlicBread:

Originally posted by Deus Ex Angel:

It's just me, but I can tell the
....
3090RTX, Ryzen 5950x. Ultra settings.

Try near a Water Body. Disable RT Reflections and take a Screenshot and then enable it. You may even record a video. The difference is astonishing with RT On.

Hairworks is also great in DX11. In DX12.. you are right.. looks a bit weird. DX11 looks like L'oreal Paris while DX12 looks like Lifebuoy.. :kratos_eyebrow::Geralt:

But settings MSAA at 8X for Hairworks makes it look better.
Also.. use mods like Hairsworks for everyone except Geralt. Geralt hairs looks much better without Hairworks. This mod also helps in gaining few FPS.

Thanks - I'll try those after the next patch hopefully. I did a full day testing on DX11. Gameplay runs fine for hours, no fuzzy screen after a while like on DX12 and no weird elongated artefacts rising from the water. So for me, it looks like 4.01 introduced some weird DX12 graphical glitches.

[SeeNoWeevil]

Originally posted by maul:

It has *native* HDR in DX11 or DX12, there just aren't options in-game.

Don't use Windows auto HDR for this game.

"All of my games in Windows 10 run in "always on" HDR and look phenomenal."

This is painful to hear, that you're just straight up running SDR games in an HDR container... but do what you want, I guess. Windows really needs to have an option to only enable HDR when it's supported in-game. As it is right now, I enable and disable HDR on an individual basis depending on whether it's natively supported.

Completely agree, I do the same - at least they gave us a keyboard shortcut for it at least. The thing about the SDR into a HDR container conversion, by default it's configured to be very bright so I imagine it causes a lot of confusion with users seeing a very bright HDR signal and thinking it's legit HDR.

[SeeNoWeevil]

Originally posted by Landragon:

Originally posted by maul:

It has *native* HDR in DX11 or DX12, there just aren't options in-game.

Don't use Windows auto HDR for this game.

"All of my games in Windows 10 run in "always on" HDR and look phenomenal."

This is painful to hear, that you're just straight up running SDR games in an HDR container... but do what you want, I guess. Windows really needs to have an option to only enable HDR when it's supported in-game. As it is right now, I enable and disable HDR on an individual basis depending on whether it's natively supported.

Doesn't it get tiresome to have to change up configuration on a game by game basis? To some others, that might be a more "painful" approach.

It's not the end of the world when using the keyboard shortcut (ctrl+shift+B) but still kinda annoying. You can actually experiment with the SDR conversion brightness slider in Windows HDR options so that SDR converted to HDR should look roughly the same brightness as if it wasn't converted (e.g peak around 100 nits). By default it's set really high so you get an overly bright image. Many screens have pretty poor accuracy in their HDR modes though so converted SDR can look a bit of a mess with off colours (on a good screen it should look identical). Plus LCD screens have completely different backlight algorithms in HDR mode i.e backlight is going to be ramped to max, which isn't ideal for SDR content.

FWIW I believe the PS5 did do the same 'always on' SDR>HDR conversion but they patched it out.

[wtiger27]

Originally posted by Viol3ntAtimo:

I use this guys settings on my C2 Oled and it looks good.
https://youtu.be/wcDDzbBrZik

Using DX12, DLSS set to Qaulity, Sharpness to High and the Gamma corrected for my taste, my game looks just as good as this video shows using HDR. Actually a little better, because of the sharpness being set to High. Plus I dislike how Bloom is displayed in just about every game I have played. So I turn that off.

But it boils down to personal preference when it comes to visuals. Also the monitor or TV you are using. Like when I watch videos of the Witcher 3 in 4k or 8k, It does not look any better viewing it on my 1080p HD montor than when I play the game.

[wtiger27]

Originally posted by Deus Ex Angel:

Originally posted by The_GarlicBread:

Try near a Water Body. Disable RT Reflections and take a Screenshot and then enable it. You may even record a video. The difference is astonishing with RT On.

Hairworks is also great in DX11. In DX12.. you are right.. looks a bit weird. DX11 looks like L'oreal Paris while DX12 looks like Lifebuoy.. :kratos_eyebrow::Geralt:

But settings MSAA at 8X for Hairworks makes it look better.
Also.. use mods like Hairsworks for everyone except Geralt. Geralt hairs looks much better without Hairworks. This mod also helps in gaining few FPS.

Thanks - I'll try those after the next patch hopefully. I did a full day testing on DX11. Gameplay runs fine for hours, no fuzzy screen after a while like on DX12 and no weird elongated artefacts rising from the water. So for me, it looks like 4.01 introduced some weird DX12 graphical glitches.

I get hardly no glitches using DX12. The only big difference I notice when using RT, is the water reflections. Which do look better. But, overall, that one single benefit is not worth the performance lost for what I want.

Plus, using RT, the colors sometimes, do not look right. Like when it shows Geralt having blonde hair. :P. But I guess it is trying to pick up any color reflections from surrounding objects. But it looks dumb to me.

[ahsanford]

HDR vid on how to set it up and tune it using INI files. It's not perfectly tune-able and there's no typical in-game HDR slider setup, but it is doable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcDDzbBrZik