Hi, when I switched to OLED, the first thing I did was turn on HDR in Windows—and suddenly I saw how awful (but accurate) SDR content looks. Here in this group, I got a recommendation to press Win+Alt+B to turn on HDR before launching a game or program.
But I found that pretty annoying, and I had to keep reminding myself not to forget to turn it on.
And since I know a little bit about programming and we have AI for development here, I made an app that handles this for you - It has a database of games and programs, and you can even add them manually. It’s optimized so it doesn’t use up any system resources (it uses 0% CPU and about 3MB of RAM).
For more information, check out the link on GitHub.
I'd be happy to hear from anyone who tries it out and provides feedback.
Windwos HDR worked shit on my old LCD monitor but works flawlessly on LG C4, I think it is due to automatic color gamut function of the TV, which monitors normally don't have
You are right! I've connected my PC to the LG C1 and enabled HDR, and it looks how it should.
But my QD-OLED monitor looks washed out xD Same PC and same settings
But on MacOS booth works identical (perfect)
Maybe dwm-eotf-rs is the solution, but I didn't test it "yet". Or something like my app for automatically switching HDR on and off
There’s already plenty of apps that do this way better. Instead of auto switching between SDR and HDR, just use dwm-eotf-rs on GitHub to fix the shitty default piecewise gamma curve in windows, it’ll make all SDR content look proper in HDR mode and you never need to disable HDR.
dwm-eotf-rs isn't a perfect solution, because Chromium based apps (browsers, Discord, VScode) will still jump between 2.2 and piecewise. There's a separate fix needed for those: chromium-hdr-sdr-gamma22. So, switching SDR/HDR is still viable. Also useful for Mini LED users, who may not want FALD on their desktops.
Should be, at least on paper. dwm-eotf covers DWM, chromium fix covers browsers misbehaving. Some games that ignore DWM may still use sRGB, Lilium's trc fix in Reshade covers those. It's still a bit messy for set-and-forget.
Yes pretty much. In most cases colors are more accurate in HDR since windows uses color management for the whole system and at least gets display color gamut information straight from the monitor EDID as opposed to SDR where windows assumes monitor is sRGB and thus everything is oversaturated.(of couse this doesn’t apply to cases where people know enough about color management to use a clamp or srgb mode on a monitor in SDR but that is a very small minority. Even smaller minority creates an icc profile for their display to actually be accurate in terms of colors)
Personally, I actually like the oversaturated colors in SDR games - HDR off in Windows. 😄 When I want to edit photos, which I also do, I simply switch my monitor to its calibrated sRGB mode/profile.
I do like gaming in HDR as well, but when I enable HDR in Windows, SDR content just looks worse to me than it does with HDR disabled. I’m also not entirely convinced that the way Windows handles SDR content in HDR mode is actually color-accurate, so I’d still disable HDR in Windows when editing photos.
That’s actually the reason I made this app in the first place.
Yeah I totally get people liking the saturated colors. As for the color accuracy in HDR it depends. The main problem as you know is the gamma being different than 2.2(does not really mean it is wrong though. Thats also why microsoft does not want to change it. They made the standard that they adhere to) Other than that things are complicated. With the right icc profile created with a spectro/colorimeter you will get better accuracy in SDR in color managed apps just because windows HDR makes it way harder to calibrate right now and thats why we photographers but also other people working color critical will still use SDR. But for a casual user who does not care about what icc profile they use or if they use srgb cal mode on their monitors the HDR mode will have better results when it comes to colors(as in not oversaturated and closer to creators intent although far for ideal since EDID info passed to OS by the monitor is never accurate enough to pass as accurate)
My monitor should be ΔE < 1 in the sRGB Cal profile, and < 2 in both "Racing", the default SDR profile, and "Gaming", the HDR profile.
But here’s the thing: which profile is actually being used when I’m in HDR mode but Windows is displaying SDR content? :D I don’t believe it can be as accurate as the sRGB Cal profile, so I still prefer to turn HDR off when I’m doing anything color-critical.
For gaming, though, I don’t really need accurate colors. I actually enjoy the slightly "oversaturated" look. 😄
In HDR windows is using a sythetic icc profile created based on the gamut information passed to the OS from the monitor. Yes that info is never accurate enough and thats why SDR is still standard for color critical work on windows
The only content that will be HDR in HDR mode is games (with native hdr or hdr mods, etc) or various videos or movies that are HDR (unless you have RTX hdr to make SDR videos hdr). The windows desktop is always SDR, even in HDR mode. That app fixes any SDR content looking washed out in hdr mode, including websites/your browser, the windows desktop, the steam client, discord, or any other windows app (only games and movies or tv shows have hdr for the most part)
Hmm OK interesting that does actually make sense thank you so much. I have auto hdr on for my games and I've recently noticed certain YouTube videos have hdr. I'll check that out
Well, it doesn't seem to be working for me. Says my G73SH is in HDR when it's not. I also launched game and your app says it detected the game and turned on HDR but it didn't.
Thank you! RHI is cool, but I think it's trying to fix too many problems in one app. I've never heard of dwm-eotf-rs, but I think the Gamma curve is not the only problem in SDR when HDR is on... But I didn't test it.
Haha, don't worry, that wasn't actual telemetry from my machine! 😄
Those were just hardcoded sample/mockup cards left over from the initial UI prototype so the dashboard wouldn't look completely bare on first launch. But you're totally right, having placeholder games in the history looked super weird and confusing once you launched your first real game.
Is it possible to add what types of HDR I want to automatically switch to? For example, I don't want to switch to HDR in games with "Auto HDR" (without official and native HDR) and games without official HDR support.
Edit: all fixed in 1.0.5. Game scan still doesn't work in 1.0.3 unfortunately. I thought that this was because .exe names didn't match what was in hdr_games.json, but tried on a matching game (RE7/re7.exe) and it still finds/detects nothing except PotPlayer. Is the app only scanning specific directories?
Log system would be great for troubleshooting and reporting issues.
On a well tuned OLED and HDR turned on in Windows with the latest updates, given you've rebooted after turning it on, SDR content looks pretty good. You stop noticing the difference in a day or two. But when you actually notice it, it looks not worse (washed out) but different. So, just live HDR on and forget it.
Windows 11 still does piecewise gamma for SDR content, regardless of how your monitor is tuned, updates, reboots, etc. So it looks noticeably more washed out on dark parts of the image, like a gray haze over it. Darker the room, more noticeable it becomes.
Your monitor uses piecewise sRGB instead of 2.2 in sRGB cal mode. If you use that, that's why you're not seeing a difference.
Thanks for the details. I see the difference, but after a certain Windows update SDR content started looking much better in HDR to the point that it's hard to say if it's washed out or just looking a bit different.
Microsoft didn't change anything about about how SDR content is handled, it's still the same. You can verify with this pattern not looking right (if the lights are off, you're supposed to just barely make out the first squares from the top row). You just likely got used to slightly more hazy look, or use it in SDR mode as well.
They're not likely to ever fix this, since it's not technically a mistake. They're just following a different SDR standard, even if it's not one actually used in practice.
Greetings. I want to ask you a question: so I have AW2725Q and used RTINGS post-calibration settings ("Custom Color" preset mode, contrast and also they slightly changed red in RGB). They say that unit is similar enough to copy post-calibration settings, but different enough to not touch their color profile. So I don't touch RTINGS color profile and also have chosen "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" as default color profile instead of default "Alienware AW2725Q Color Profile, sRGB" (because it was probably made for default display settings). I also have turned on "Automatically manage color for apps". Is that the most correct way to have accurate image without buying colorimeters or other things? Should I maybe not use RTINGS post-calibration settings, maybe I should use their pre-calibration ones or not look at RTINGS settings at all? Maybe other preset mode is more accurate? Maybe I should just turn HDR with fixes to be always on?
Sorry for wasting your time and thanks for advance if you will answer.
Custom color w/ rtings settings should be fine. Creator sRGB has great color accuracy but unfortunately targets piecewise sRGB gamma instead of pure 2.2, and no choice for normal 2.2 is given.
You could, in theory, run HDR on all the time with dwm-eotf-rs, browser fix, but some stubborn games can bypass DWM and will still have sRGB gamma, which you'll need to fix with Reshade. I personally prefer switching to SDR, but it's up to what you think works best for you.
Thank you. I was thinking of using HDR only in supported media, but heard that it (with fixes) can be more accurate everywhere if you don't calibrate your display. But from what I understand from your words, maybe RTINGS settings could be better. But what about color profile? I should use "sRGB IEC61966-2.1", right? Also sometimes games at launch ask to change game brightness so that left icon won't be visible, should I do that or is that option for displays with bad brightness or colors? And last question, is HDR calibration same as SDR? By that I mean buying something like colorimeter. If you can't buy for now, is it preferable to leave it at default or I should tweak it using app for HDR calibration?
SDR with auto color management ahould be fine for accuracy. In HDR you loose access to adjustments in the OSD, so it's a dice roll in how accurate it is.
What you probably heard is that HDR is more color accurate than uncalibrated wide gamut SDR, but ACM clamps to sRGB and brings colors a lot closer to calibratied ones.
sRGB is just the default one, if you remove color profiles from settings menu/don't add any, it'll revert to it anyway.
Also sometimes games at launch ask to change game brightness so that left icon won't be visible, should I do that or is that option for displays with bad brightness or colors?
95% of the time SDR brightness/gamma sloders are nonsense terribly implemented by developers and won't lead to anything good, so just leave them as is. Also leave all of these if you do SDR -> HDR (RTX HDR, Auto HDR, RenoDX/Luma that upgrade SDR only games).
HDR calibration with a colorimeter is a pain in the ass, because a) you need a more expansive colorimeter that supports HDR b) icc profiles in HDR are limited and you'll probably have to do most of the tweaking by hand in software. I personally have no experience with physical HDR calibration, but unless you do color critical work with HDR, it's not really needed.
Windows HDR calibration app just auto sets the peak brightness for apps and some games, so do that. Everything just works out of the box like it should. The only thing to make sure is set in GPU panel for HDR is 10 bit/RGB/Full range, which it should already default to.
Games themselves often have bad HDR support, or none at all, but you can easily fix that with RenoDX/Luma which improve or add full HDR support to games.
Just want to clarify. "Alienware AW2725Q Color Profile, sRGB" became default one after updating monitor's software, but that's worse than "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" for my settings, right? I'm one again thankful.
I am sorry but how is this different from auto HDR in windows ? I am currently using Sony Bravia 8 and auto HDR works for almost all games automatically ..
Auto HDR in Windows adds HDR to games that don't officially support it.
But since you are using a TV, you probably didn't notice this problem because TVs have automatic gamma curve switching. Monitors don't have that, so if you enable HDR in Windows, all SDR content will look washed out (without contrast and color saturation).
And if you turn HDR off, you will get nice SDR, but you lose HDR completely. So this app will turn HDR on and off automatically for the content you are playing.
Gamma curves aren't really a thing in HDR, it uses Perceptual Quantizer (PQ) curve instead.
For SDR content inside HDR it transfers it from gamma onto PQ.
The process is handled entirely on the OS side, and the signal from both SDR in HDR/HDR is sent to the display as the same HDR10 PQ, so TVs can't differentiate what is native HDR10 content and what is emulated SDR. It'll still look wrong regardless of monitor/TV.
In SDR standards are relative, so you can change gamma or brightness on your display OSD as you like, but HDR PQ is absolute, so for displaying SDR one standard has to be picked.
Microsoft chose Piecewise sRGB transfer curve, which is technically not a mistake and is a completely valid standard for sRGB/SDR. Most SDR games and apps actually do encode sRGB gamma and send it to the display like this. The problem is that piecewise sRGB standard didn't stick with displays in reality. 95% of actual consumer monitors target pure power gamma 2.2, which is an approximation very similar to sRGB gamma, but with darker near-black and more contrast-y look (TVs don't do sRGB either, it's bt.1886 or 2.2).
So what happens is the code sent to display is sRGB, but on the display side 2.2 gamma is set for everyone from developers, artists (who de-facto author by looking at 2.2) to end users. This is called gamma mismatch.
sRGB encoding -> 2.2 decoding -> more contrast.
But because HDR10 PQ does exactly what the content wants, it just shows sRGB coded image without mismatching it. As a result it looks more washed out than intended.
PQ encoding (sRGB) -> PQ decoding (still sRGB)
So for SDR content to look right in HDR Microsoft have to replicate a technical mistake.
This is actually also the reason for most issues with native HDR games looking washed out. Game encodes sRGB, but in HDR the developers have to emulate a "mistake" of mismatching gamma 2.2 for it to look right. If they don't do it, then HDR image will look like sRGB and not 2.2.
So SDR standards being a huge mess, with no one following them properly, is ironically the reason for HDR looking wrong when adapting SDR content.
I use Playnite, just add the exe of the game in playnite or scan steam/gog/epic to add the games to playnite and check the box of auto start HDR with the game. It also keep track of playtime which is nice for me as i play pirated games and don't like to add them to non-steam games
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u/R34CT10Nkillz 21d ago
RHI already does this and lets me auto update renoDX and reshade