HDR colors are dark and desaturated on TV

[icicle22]

So first of all I am a professional video editor and as such have a good understanding of SDR vs HDR. I have a Samsung Ks8000 and watch HDR content and game in HDR on my Xbox One all the time. The issue I am seeing is probably a Madden PC issue or a Windows 10 issue but when I hook up my PC to the Ks8000 it looks great in SDR. As soon as I launch Madden it forces HDR and the image is quite dark and colors are bland.

I have been able to experiment with Reshade and bring the levels back up and add color and make the image "pop" quite a bit. In fact when I toggle it on/off it looks like night and day.

So I pause the game and load my Madden 19 EA Access on my Xbox One X and it looks fantastic compared to the PC version. The colors are crisp, the lighting for the same exact game/time of day/weather is significantly brighter. Heck it almost seems to pop "too much".

Is anybody else seeing this? If I play the game on my PC monitor (no HDR) it looks pretty good but maybe a little dark. Colors are fine though. I wish I could force the HDR off but Madden is the boss and turns it back on in Windows as well as forcing the TV to change despite me explicitly turning of "deep color mode" on the specific HDMI port.

Also...I have a cheap LG 40" 4K I use as a test monitor that has HDR and it acts exactly the same so this is probably not a monitor issue.

Sorry for the rant. I want to love the PC version but I hate having to jump through hoops to get it to look decent (simply talking colors and brightness.....graphics look great on 1080ti maxxed out).

Thanks.

[Tomba]

Quote: Originally Posted by icicle22

So first of all I am a professional video editor and as such have a good understanding of SDR vs HDR. I have a Samsung Ks8000 and watch HDR content and game in HDR on my Xbox One all the time. The issue I am seeing is probably a Madden PC issue or a Windows 10 issue but when I hook up my PC to the Ks8000 it looks great in SDR. As soon as I launch Madden it forces HDR and the image is quite dark and colors are bland. I have been able to experiment with Reshade and bring the levels back up and add color and make the image "pop" quite a bit. In fact when I toggle it on/off it looks like night and day. So I pause the game and load my Madden 19 EA Access on my Xbox One X and it looks fantastic compared to the PC version. The colors are crisp, the lighting for the same exact game/time of day/weather is significantly brighter. Heck it almost seems to pop "too much". Is anybody else seeing this? If I play the game on my PC monitor (no HDR) it looks pretty good but maybe a little dark. Colors are fine though. I wish I could force the HDR off but Madden is the boss and turns it back on in Windows as well as forcing the TV to change despite me explicitly turning of "deep color mode" on the specific HDMI port. Also...I have a cheap LG 40" 4K I use as a test monitor that has HDR and it acts exactly the same so this is probably not a monitor issue. Sorry for the rant. I want to love the PC version but I hate having to jump through hoops to get it to look decent (simply talking colors and brightness.....graphics look great on 1080ti maxxed out). Thanks.

you could try forcing the hdr off through maybe nvidia inspector?

[TheBleedingRed21]

The problem is PC HDR is a lot different than consoles as far as setup goes. You’re gonna have to adjust settings on your PC to account for it. Not ideal but is what it is.

[icicle22]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheBleedingRed21

The problem is PC HDR is a lot different than consoles as far as setup goes. You’re gonna have to adjust settings on your PC to account for it. Not ideal but is what it is.

I am willing to do that but where are these settings? Are we talking about just the color adjustments in windows itself? With video editing there are specific formats and LUTs that you can load to make specific monitors and cameras match to get the best look without just "tweaking a bunch of settings" and hoping it looks better. Is there somewhere that I can set Windows to output a specific HDR LUT that matches an actual HDR TV?

I realize that game consoles are inherently better at having HDR just work right out of the box...but there must be some way to get a PC to match that.

[icicle22]

Quote: Originally Posted by Tomba

you could try forcing the hdr off through maybe nvidia inspector?

Is this something you are theorizing or something you know works? I;m asking because I have never used nvidia inspector and when researching it see nothing about HDR in the documentation I could find. Before I start down this rabbit hole I was wondering if you are using it to accomplish this or if was just a theory. Thanks.

[badazzleroybrown]

if your wanting to load luts then you would need a few things to acomplish it
like a 4k capture card like elgato 4k as it is the only one that i know that does 10 bit recording and it does not support HDR so you would then use adobe premier or davinci resolve or some other video editing software that allows you to use live stream or game play while attempting to edit your work flow wich would be madden then you can inject a lut that would alter your monitor or tv to look like the lut , or you could buy something called Atomos Ninja inferno and hook it from the out of your video card to the monitor and load the lut onto the Atomos and it will show on your monitor or you can buy a Monitor that supports loading custom luts to get certain color profiles , is your screen is too dark ? using display port is darker than using hdmi if you use display port you can get 10 bit color depth if you use hdmi then you can only get 8 bit color no matter if it is hdmi 2.0 or not if i were to spend money i would get a asus hdr monitor that supports all the color gamuts there professional series does that but they only support 60p there gamming series has higher refresh rates

[icicle22]

Quote: Originally Posted by badazzleroybrown

if your wanting to load luts then you would need a few things to acomplish it like a 4k capture card like elgato 4k as it is the only one that i know that does 10 bit recording and it does not support HDR so you would then use adobe premier or davinci resolve or some other video editing software that allows you to use live stream or game play while attempting to edit your work flow wich would be madden then you can inject a lut that would alter your monitor or tv to look like the lut , or you could buy something called Atomos Ninja inferno and hook it from the out of your video card to the monitor and load the lut onto the Atomos and it will show on your monitor or you can buy a Monitor that supports loading custom luts to get certain color profiles , is your screen is too dark ? using display port is darker than using hdmi if you use display port you can get 10 bit color depth if you use hdmi then you can only get 8 bit color no matter if it is hdmi 2.0 or not if i were to spend money i would get a asus hdr monitor that supports all the color gamuts there professional series does that but they only support 60p there gamming series has higher refresh rates

I actually understand everything you are saying but I obviously don't want to have to go to that kind of level to get my video games to look good from my PC. Heck....i deal with all that video tech in my day job....I don't want to do that in my gaming downtime!

I just was hoping there is a way to get Windows 10 and my Nvidia 1080ti to display properly on my HDR tvs. I was thinking there might some hidden windows setting that forces HDR off or makes the windows output proper HDR format for the TV.

Thanks anyway.

[badazzleroybrown]

i just now read your first post lol i guess i did not realize you had a hdr samsung tv i too have my pc hooked up to my Samsung js9500 and it looks amazing to bright actually i have to lower it alot maybe get a cable that is display port to hdmi 2.0 then you can get to work or go into windows 10 advance settings to see if hdr is active i too had issues until i went into my video card i have the same as you except mine is Aorus 1080 ti 11gb you have to change even your video setting to allow the video card to process graphics instead of the application then get it off rgb and use one of the other color spaces then in your samsung settings make sure the hdmi port you are using that the uhd color is active for that hdmi port . rgb make the game look way too dark also what hdmi are you using is it rated 2.0 or above i am using belkin hdmi 2.1 cable wich you can buy at a apple store for 40 bucks works like a charm and the only 2.1 hdmi cable that i know of.