SDR Brightness?

[sswilson]

Playing with my new toy, and happy to see that enabling HDR on this unit does not seem to have the negative effect on SDR content that I remember from earlier (HDR 10) screens I've tried it on. Previously, I found that enabling HDR caused all non-HDR content to look washed out which rendered it useless.

Is this improvement just due to this unit being HDR 400 capable instead of the bare bottom implementation on the other units?

Has the SDR Brightness slider been there all along as well? I don't remember it at all from my earlier attempts at HDR.

edit: While I'm at it, I presume native HDR is preferred to the "Auto HDR" setting in windows?

 

[lowfat]

I prefer to have sdr in desktop and just use hdr for games that support it. This app allows you to automatically enable hdr when certain apps open. I think it's fantastic.

GitHub - Codectory/AutoActions: Application-based actions to change Windows settings ( display, audio) or run any program or action

Application-based actions to change Windows settings ( display, audio) or run any program or action - Codectory/AutoActions

github.com

The sdr brightness slider has been around since at least 2020.

 

[JD]

edit: While I'm at it, I presume native HDR is preferred to the "Auto HDR" setting in windows?

I would think so, otherwise it's just Windows attempting to make non-HDR content look like HDR?

Make sure you also install the Windows HDR Calibration app and run that, helps a bunch too.

 

[sswilson]

I would think so, otherwise it's just Windows attempting to make non-HDR content look like HDR?

Make sure you also install the Windows HDR Calibration app and run that, helps a bunch too.

I had a look at that, but it looks like it just creates a new colour profile? That would seem to defeat the purpose of throwing my spyder X on it, or does it use two different profiles (one for HDR, one for SDR content)?

 

[Lysrin]

The auto-HDR, if I am thinking of the same thing you're referring to, should only enable for games that don't support HDR. I don't think I've see it do anything for video content. When I start up a game that doesn't support HDR directly, I get a popup that Windows has enabled auto HDR. I've found it looks good in all the games I play and I haven't noticed any negative impact on SDR content.

Some games even if they say they support HDR still don't work well. Dragon's Dogma 2 springs to mind for example, at least the last time I loaded it a while ago. Visuals were very washed out and you had to alt+tab to sort of trick it into loading the view correctly, weird. I have also found some games I can't quite get the HDR settings right -- the brights are too bright and the darks are too dark meaning the game looks cool with a cinematic feel, but I can't actually see well enough to play it. Who knows, that could be something odd with my monitor that I haven't figured out yet. That is the minority situation though.

When it all comes together and works well -- beautiful!! If you want a showcase game for HDR I'd still likely put Horizon: Zero Dawn near the top of that list. That game looks spectacular.

Also Windows 11 is much improved for HDR support over Windows 10. I think you are on Windows 11 on your new build. If that's the case you could be seeing better HDR handling because of that as well. I noticed a difference and that was one of the main reasons I moved to Windows 11.

That's a pretty cool looking app @lowfat . Didn't know about that one. Thanks!

 

[gingerbee]

as long as I can remember there has been a brightness slider for SDR, I only have one HDR TV and I don't think it reaches peak brightness to have HDR10

 

[sswilson]

Might as well throw this in here as well.....

I'm new to the ultra-wide format, how do you folks manage your windows? I had been generally opening my browser full screen (with the associated blank spaces on all websites these days) but am thinking that having it open in the center of the screen with the default website width at the edges is probably the way to go.

 

[Lysrin]

Might as well throw this in here as well.....

I'm new to the ultra-wide format, how do you folks manage your windows? I had been generally opening my browser full screen (with the associated blank spaces on all websites these days) but am thinking that having it open in the center of the screen with the default website width at the edges is probably the way to go.

Yes, when I was ultrawide I did the same. Centred windows for single app content, and then snapping/tiling for multiple apps at the same time. The issue is the same with my current large 16:9 4K, I just have a lot more vertical real estate.

 

[Izerous]

Side not enabling HDR on windows desktop can really screw with quest 2 when using steam link and such. Not sure if still an issue with quest 3s/3

 

[JD]

I had a look at that, but it looks like it just creates a new colour profile? That would seem to defeat the purpose of throwing my spyder X on it, or does it use two different profiles (one for HDR, one for SDR content)?

You can't really use the SpyderX with HDR, none of the calibrations tools out there will produce the right profile as far as I know. Your SpyderX's ICC profile could be used on SDR, but then you need to disable HDR whenever you want to use it.

Generally what I've read is that you can use the colorimeter to manually adjust the in-monitor settings accordingly, if accessible. Basically how you'd calibrate a TV. I had made some attempts and wasn't too happy with my outcomes, so I've gone back to the "default" profiles in the monitor. Probably just need a much larger time commitment to get right.

The Windows HDR Calibration tool mostly just helps get the HDR? correct. In my case, I'm assuming HDR400 as that's where I set the slider to make the white boxes to "disappear", whereas the default was HDR1000. Also gives you a saturation/vibrancy slider for SDR content too.

I'm new to the ultra-wide format, how do you folks manage your windows? I had been generally opening my browser full screen (with the associated blank spaces on all websites these days) but am thinking that having it open in the center of the screen with the default website width at the edges is probably the way to go.

I definitely have some OCD tendencies, but at least Chrome/Edge generally remember your given window size/position. I use this: https://www.brianapps.net/sizer4/ to set it to exactly 1720 (half 3440) pixels wide and centered. Everything else I'll resize and drag around accordingly but since the browser is the main thing open usually, I like it perfect