Enabling HDR gives washed-out, dull colors

[King Mustard]

I have Windows 10 with the latest NVIDIA drivers for my RTX 2080 and a HDR400-compliant Gigabyte AORUS AD27QD monitor (latest firmware).

Enabling HDR mode in Windows 10's Settings makes Windows look terrible, so I don't do that.

I should still be able to enable it on a game-by-game basis, though.

When I enable HDR mode inside GRIP: Combat Racing, the game's colors are very washed out and grey-looking.

Any ideas?

[codemonkey]

We're quite confused by your effective settings here H3llf1re, as these same settings are already used by game and are set by the logic of the engine itself. The only difference is the UI level which is set to 0.5 which produced the best result on our test rig here and thought it would elsewhere too. Perhaps we can add that as a slider in the graphics options.

I hate to ask such an obvious question but you guys are definitely switching HDR on in the Video options, right?

[King Mustard]

Opprinnelig skrevet av TheShape:

Why are we still waiting for HDR to work, i'm getting fed up.

I'm in agreeance.

[TheShape]

Opprinnelig skrevet av codemonkey:

We're quite confused by your effective settings here H3llf1re, as these same settings are already used by game and are set by the logic of the engine itself. The only difference is the UI level which is set to 0.5 which produced the best result on our test rig here and thought it would elsewhere too. Perhaps we can add that as a slider in the graphics options.

I hate to ask such an obvious question but you guys are definitely switching HDR on in the Video options, right?

Yes i have HDR enabled in game and my monitor switches to HDR mode & is working fine. On your game though it looks like an SDR mode with the gamma pumped really high giving a washed out look.

I put these settings into the Engine.ini file

[SystemSettings]
r.HDR.EnableHDROutput=1
r.HDR.Display.OutputDevice=5
r.HDR.UI.CompositeMode=1
r.HDR.Display.ColorGamut=2
r.HDR.UI.Level=1.5

It now looks right and is not washed out anymore. If i change the UI level it still looks fine only the brightness of the UI parts go up in nits so you just put in a figure that looks nice personally. This seems to of fixed the issue at hand so it looks like a normal game in HDR. Not saying it's a great HDR look as i haven't tested a race yet but at least it's not looking weird. I will go back and compare SDR vs HDR to see if it looks good in HDR or not now.

[TheShape]

I deleted the settings i added above & tried SDR and now the game has gone odd & is too dark with HDR and looks all wrong like gamma is too low by far. Don't know how to get it back so the fix worked. I wish I had just left everything alone now. Aahhhhhhh!, so annoying. I might try deleting the game & starting again.

[TheShape]

I have reinstalled the game after deleting the config files & everything. The game is now fine in SDR but HDR i guess due to patches now looks like SDR on the title screen not washed out. Trouble is -
1. The UI is really dim
2. Although it is not washed out it does not look like an HDR image like with fixes I did before. it looks like an SDR game running within an HDR package.

So enabling HDR makes it look the same as SDR but with a dim UI parts and some transition screens. As my monitor is a 1000nit proper HDR screen I can tell right away that it is not giving out a proper HDR image even though it's running in HDR. The highlights look the same brightness as SDR. I will try messing with the config again.

I recommend anyone to reinstall & delete all the grip config files in appdata in your files to start messing around again to get a fix. Wish i had left mine alone as i now have to fix it again from a different starting issue.

[TheShape]

So i went through the ini changes again and after messing around i got it to look right again. I went through each one for output device settings and starting with the 0 sRGB (LDR) (default) one.

[SystemSettings]
r.HDR.Display.OutputDevice=5
r.HDR.Display.ColorGamut=1

These two changes in the Engine.ini file are the ones that make it look correct
Choice 5 because ACES 1000-nit ScRGB (HDR)
Choice 1 because DCI-P3, D65

This now has the correct look about it brightness wise but HDR is giving out bright highlights & the colours don't look oversaturated or anything. This now looks correct, granted it's not the most amazing HDR game i've played but at least it now functions like it should.

Not sure why the developers are having issues when the Unreal Engine HDR page posted by someone earlier lays out the options to use.

Anyway at least I have got it working again in HDR proper.

[H3llF1re]

Opprinnelig skrevet av codemonkey:

We're quite confused by your effective settings here H3llf1re, as these same settings are already used by game and are set by the logic of the engine itself. The only difference is the UI level which is set to 0.5 which produced the best result on our test rig here and thought it would elsewhere too. Perhaps we can add that as a slider in the graphics options.

I hate to ask such an obvious question but you guys are definitely switching HDR on in the Video options, right?

To take a wild guess, there might be some difference in configuration between your shipping builds and debug builds. Perhaps it only affects some configurations, I'm not sure. Either way, those Engine.ini settings definitely work for me (I work with UE4 too, so I feel your pain :))

I definitely found that a higher UI level setting produced more accurate HUD colours whilst in game - more closely matching that of SDR. It may have washed the main menu interface out a bit, though.

[Knight of Ni]

Tried editing the config with those settings, looked very dim, tweaked all the options available in game and got it something like but there was always a compromise. Hoping for a fix soon.

[rbmdragon]

Still issues with washed out colors with HDR on.

[King Mustard]

I've given up. Frustrated that I can't claim a refund. It was an advertised feature.

[codemonkey]

Opprinnelig skrevet av TheShape:

Not sure why the developers are having issues when the Unreal Engine HDR page posted by someone earlier lays out the options to use.

We've followed the instructions given in the SDK documentation to the letter. It's a mystery to us why it's not working for some out of the box as it does work for our HDR rig here. Effectively if you switch HDR on, r.HDR.Display.OutputDevice is set to 5 or 6 depending on your HDR brightness value in the Video settings, and r.HDR.Display.ColorGamut is set to 2 by the engine itself - setting it to 1 is the default for Mac only, although you are correct in saying that mode is for DCI-P3.

There's really not a lot we can do as developers here, it's just a single function call to the engine to configure this stuff, it's then down to the engine itself to give you the goods. All we can do from here is work with our publisher to see if we can test on a wider variety of equipment and ensure the correct data is being passed around.

[King Mustard]

Opprinnelig skrevet av codemonkey:

Opprinnelig skrevet av TheShape:

Not sure why the developers are having issues when the Unreal Engine HDR page posted by someone earlier lays out the options to use.

We've followed the instructions given in the SDK documentation to the letter. It's a mystery to us why it's not working for some out of the box as it does work for our HDR rig here. Effectively if you switch HDR on, r.HDR.Display.OutputDevice is set to 5 or 6 depending on your HDR brightness value in the Video settings, and r.HDR.Display.ColorGamut is set to 2 by the engine itself - setting it to 1 is the default for Mac only, although you are correct in saying that mode is for DCI-P3.

There's really not a lot we can do as developers here, it's just a single function call to the engine to configure this stuff, it's then down to the engine itself to give you the goods. All we can do from here is work with our publisher to see if we can test on a wider variety of equipment and ensure the correct data is being passed around.

I appreciate the response and I'm sure it's frustrating for you as developers but HDR works in many other games and I have a popular monitor (AD27QD) so I'm not sure what the issue could be.

[rbmdragon]

Hi codemonkey.

I'm going to ask a couple of questions, and I guess you have looked into them already, but here goes:

In the Unreal Engine documentation on the HDR feature, they mention hardware and setup considerations.

1.: Do you use HDMI cable in your HDR rig? (I'm running with DisplayPort)
2.: Is your GPU and monitor in you HDR rig HDCP enabled? (Mine is, and they mention PS4 issues, with HDCP enabled)
3.: Under "Notes and limitations" they mention film-mapping curves being disabled. Could a later initialization of the film-grain be overwriting some variables that could cause issues in some rigs?

The only one I can test myself is the HDMI cable switching, so I may try that, #3 doesn't seem that likely, but the PS4 seems a little curious to me.

I'll try testing it with HDMI to see if that works, but considering such a wide hardware and software variation, it is unlikely to solve much (considering my display is nowhere near 1000 nits)

[VaeliusNoctu]

@Codemonkey
I know this is offtopic. Do you plan to fix the AI in the game?

I now need (starts at Part 6) hours for a level. This has nothing to do with the fact that the game is challenging due to an intelligent gameplay. It's because the AI attacks so aggressively.

I can't drive a few seconds without getting hit one or more times. I can only solve a level by driving it until I am lucky.

This works if you are not shot five, six times on the finish line in the last round or by luck that the AI uses less bad items in the last round and you therefore have a short break at the right time. I certainly don't have to say how often you have to "roll the dice" until all the factors match at the right time.

Races, arenas and levels where you have to win with points, you can do well. But the classic races are not possible in the normal way, only with the "throwing dice" "technique".

Speaking of which, what can I not unlock by the way because I gave up the campaign? Would be good to know. I heard with level 30 everything would be unlocked anyway.

Nevertheless, I have to leave my review negative, because a very substantial part of the game is simply bad and broken. Mainly regarding AI and a few levels that need to be revised, general and also Airblade compatible.

[rbmdragon]

Opprinnelig skrevet av rbmdragon:

Hi codemonkey.

I'm going to ask a couple of questions, and I guess you have looked into them already, but here goes:

In the Unreal Engine documentation on the HDR feature, they mention hardware and setup considerations.

1.: Do you use HDMI cable in your HDR rig? (I'm running with DisplayPort)
2.: Is your GPU and monitor in you HDR rig HDCP enabled? (Mine is, and they mention PS4 issues, with HDCP enabled)
3.: Under "Notes and limitations" they mention film-mapping curves being disabled. Could a later initialization of the film-grain be overwriting some variables that could cause issues in some rigs?

The only one I can test myself is the HDMI cable switching, so I may try that, #3 doesn't seem that likely, but the PS4 seems a little curious to me.

I'll try testing it with HDMI to see if that works, but considering such a wide hardware and software variation, it is unlikely to solve much (considering my display is nowhere near 1000 nits)

I did some testing with the Engine.ini file.
I seem to be able to reproduce the "dull" gamma when setting the r.HDR.Display.OutputDevice to anything else than 5 or 6.

Considering my display is not within the range of 1000-2000 nits, it seems that the Unreal Engine overwrites the desired nits output setting of 1000-2000 nits available in the settings.

However, even with the "correct" settings it seems dark on my display, which is not unexpected, considering it is closer to 400 nits capable.

Hope this is partially useful.