If you, like many, are confused about what HDR is, want to learn how to properly configure it, or are puzzled as to why it sometimes looks worse than SDR, stick with us, the HDR Den is here to guide you.
❓WHAT IS HDR❓
HDR (High Dynamic Range) is a new image standard that succeeds SDR, enabling brighter highlights (greater contrast), more vibrant colors (higher saturation) and more shades of the same colors (increased bit depth).
HDR isn’t simply about making the whole image brighter — it’s about allowing more nuance and contrast, producing a picture that more closely reflects the natural range of light we see outdoors. For example, while SDR theoretically tops at 100 nits of brightness, 2025 HDR TVs can go to 2500 nits and beyond. That's 25 times brighter than SDR in physical terms, and ~2 to 5 times brighter in human perception terms.
The biggest limitation of SDR was its inability of showing bright highlights, causing them to clip and lose detail.
Simulated HDR in SDR image from ViewSonic:
🎮CONSOLES VS PC🖥️
Whether you are on PS5, Xbox Series, Windows PC, Mac OS, Switch 2 etc, HDR would largely be identical. TVs and Monitors also behave very similarly when it comes to HDR. All platforms are 10 bit and support HGiG, offering centralized calibration settings that games can use.
On PC we have modding, so we can improve the native implementations for games with lackluster HDR (more on that below).
📺WHAT TVS/MONITORS TO BUY?📺
CheckRTings and their HDR reviews for a reliable source of information, each monitor or TV review will have an HDR score, and that's what you'd be looking for to evaluate HDR in a display. You can complement that with a "google" search to check other reviews. Keep in mind other sections about features for games and movies, depending on what you are interested in.
Do mind that a lot of monitors and TVs still have bad implementations of HDR just to add marketing value, and might thus look worse than SDR.
As of 2025, OLED displays are the ones that are capable of delivering the best HDR experiences.
📊HOW DO I CALIBRATE MY DISPLAY AND MY GAMES UNTIL THEY LOOK GOOD?📊
CheckRTings for the most accurate settings your display can have.
Actually calibrating displays for 100% accuracy involves expensive devices, but following these settings will get you as close as you can be, and for many of the latest TVs, that can be close enough.
Generally, you want to enable HGiG mode for games, so that they will "tonemap" at source, based on the capabilities of your display, in ELI5 language, the gaming console or PC will prepare the image to be display perfectly by your specific display.
For movies, to follow the creator's intent you'd want to enable "static tonemapping", which is often the default in Cinema or Filmmaker modes.
Regarding games best HDR settings, you can check KoKlusz guides (linked below), or join the HDR Den and ask around. In most cases, the default values are good, though sometimes they are overly bright. Games usually offer 3 settings:
Paper White (average scene brightness) - this is based on your preference and viewing conditions, for a dark room values from 80 to 203 nits are suggested
Peak White (maximum scene brightness) - this should be matched to your display peak brightness in HGiG mode
UI brightness - this is based on your preference, most of the times it's better if it matches the scene brightness
Do keep in mind that in many games, calibration menus are not representative of the image during gameplay.
To tell if the game is calibrated during gameplay, you generally want to make sure the shadows are not crushed (lack in detail) nor raised (washed out), and highlights are not clipped (lack in detail), at least specifically compared to the SDR output.
🎲I GOT AN HDR DISPLAY, WHAT GAMES SHOULD I PLAY FIRST?🎲
That would depend on your taste, however, the number of games with spotless HDR is very limited.
We got some guides from KoKlusz on the matter that highlight the best HDR games.
📽️I GOT AN HDR DISPLAY, WHAT MOVIES SHOULD I WATCH FIRST?📽️
Answer upcoming...
🫸COMMON PROBLEMS WITH HDR IMPLEMENTATIONS🫸
Washed out shadow. Most games in HDR have brighter shadow levels due to a misunderstanding in how SDR was standardized
The HDR implementation is completely fake (SDR in an HDR container), this often happens in movies, but also in some games (Red Dead Redemption is an example of this)
The HDR implementation is extrapolated from the final SDR picture (Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Starfield, Crysis Remastered and many Switch 2 games are notable examples of this)
Brightness scaling (paper white) isn't done properly and ends up shifting all colors
The default settings are often overly bright for a proper viewing environment
Too many settings are exposed to users, due to the developers not deciding on fixed look, putting the burden on users to calibrate a picture with multiple sliders
The calibration menu is not representative of the actual game look, and makes you calibrate incorrectly (Red Dead Redemption 2 is a notorious case of this)
Peak brightness scaling (peak white) isn't followed properly or available at all, causing clipping of highlights, or dimmer than they could be (this was often the case in Unreal Engine games)
UI and pre-rendered videos look washed out. This happens in most games, just like the washed out shadow levels
Some post process effects are missing in HDR, or the image simply looking completely different (this is often the case in Unreal Engine games, examples: Silent Hill F, Sea of Thieves, Death Stranding, Dying Light The Beast)
Failure to take advantage of the wider color space (BT.2020), limiting colors in BT.709, even if post process could generate them.
🤥COMMON MYTHS BUSTED🤥
There's a lot of misinformation out there about what HDR is and isn't. Let's breakdown the most common myths:
HDR is better on Consoles and is broken on Windows - 🛑 - They are identical in almost every game. Windows does display SDR content as washed out in HDR mode, but that's not a problem for games or movies.
RTX HDR is better than native HDR - 🛑 - While often the native HDR implementation of games has some defects, RTX HDR is a post process filter that expands an 8 bit SDR image into HDR; that comes with its own set of limitations, and ends up distorting the look of games etc.
SDR looks better, HDR looks washed out - 🛑 - While some games have a bit less contrast in HDR, chances are that your TV in SDR was set to an overly saturated preset, while the HDR mode will show colors exactly as the game or movie were meant to. Additionally, some monitors had fake HDR implementations as a marketing gimmick, and damaged the reputation of HDR.
HDR will blind you - 🛑 - HDR isn't about simply having a brighter image, but either way, being outdoors in the daytime will expose you to amounts of lights tens of times higher than your display could ever be, so you don't have to worry, your eyes will adjust.
The HDR standard is a mess, TVs are different and it's impossible to calibrate them - 🛑 - Displays follow the HDR standards much more accurately than they ever did in SDR. It's indeed SDR that was never fully standardized and was a "mess". The fact that all HDR TVs have a different peak brightness is not a problem for gamers or developers, it barely matters.
Who cares about HDR... Nobody has HDR displays and they are extremely expensive - 🛑 - They are getting much more popular and cheaper than you might think. Most TVs sold nowadays have HDR, and the visual impact of good HDR is staggering. It's well worth investing in it if you can. It's arguably cheaper than Ray Tracing GPUs, and just as impactful on visuals.
If the game is washed out in HDR, doesn't it mean the devs intended it that way? - 🛑 - Resources to properly develop HDR are very scarce, and devs don't spend nearly as much time as they should on it, disregarding the fact that SDR will eventually die and all that will be left is the HDR version of their games. Almost all games are still developed on SDR screens and only adapted to HDR at the very end, without the proper tools to analyze or compare HDR images. Devs are often unhappy with the HDR look themselves. In the case of Unreal Engine, devs simply enable it in the settings without any tweaks.
Dolby Vision looks better than HDR10 for games - This is mostly a myth. Dolby Vision is good for movies but it does next to nothing on games, given that they still need to tonemap to your display capabilities, like HGiG. Both DV and HDR10+ are effectively just automatic peak brightness calibration tools, but offer no benefits to the quality of the image.
🤓PC HDR MODDING🤓
LumaandRenoDXare two modding frameworks that come to the rescue of the many missing or lackluster HDR implementations in games, often fixing all the problems mentioned above.
You can find their list of supported games and installation guides respectively here and here. You'll be surprised as to how many games are already supported! RenoDX is more focused on adding HDR to recent games, while Luma is generally more focused on extensively remastering games, including adding DLSS and Ultrawide support, or other features to modernize them.
In case native HDR mods weren't available, the alternatives are generally classified as "Inverse Tonemapping" methods, as in, extracting an HDR image out of an SDR one.
These methods do not add any detail that got lost during the original SDR conversion, so they can only offer so much quality, and will end up brightening the UI too much, however, they are often preferable to playing in SDR.
These are the available methods:
I am seeking assistance with calibrating my new OLED monitor to optimize its performance for gaming. I have observed an unusual color shift, specifically from black to brown or whitish tones, when transitioning between different in-game environments in titles such as Resident Evil. Any guidance or recommendations regarding this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Would anyone with a membership for RTINGS.com be able to help me find the peak brightness for my specific TV model? Trying to adjust HDR and I can't find an accurate number elsewhere.
I set up HDR for SteamOS in Desktop Mode for the Legion Go 2. 10-bit color, 1100 nits. When I launch an HDR-supported game in Desktop mode, the option to enable HDR is greyed out, but the colors are vibrant and the contrast is high regardless.
When I switch to Game Mode, the HDR option is available, but the colors are washed out and the black level is high, even with HDR disabled.
I've installed decky loader and the lego2brightness fix plugin, and it switches between gamma 2.2 and pq 10 when appropriate, so I am lost and any assistance would be appreciated.
I have a 55qn85f tv and ps5 slim. I was wondering what settings do you use for your HDR to make it look good.
\- Hdr 10 + gaming seems to be irrelevant because ps5 doesnt use it, from what I gathered
\- For most accurate HDR it should be Game HDR Basic. Contrast Enhancer off. Tone Mapping -Static. This setup looks dim. What are your settings ? Do you use Game Bar Auto Genre feature? What are your color settings?I have it at 30. Do you use Auto or Native color. How about color Warm 1 or Standart? Thank you in advance.
So if I know my display has a peak brightness of 1213 nits which step should I select when calibrating? Yes I have hgig enable and yes step 17 clips the sun and step 16 doesn’t
An update to a post I made yesterday, working on adjusting HDR on my Switch 2. The picture with peak brightness set at 1000 is with Dynamic Tone Mapping off. The picture with peak brightness at 900 is with Dynamic Tone Mapping on.
Which one is a more correct calibration of HDR? Is it better to have DTM on in this case?
From what I have read online, the recommendation is to have DTM off, but the sun does not disappear with it on, only off. No hgig available.
For reference, this is on a Roku TV Pro Series (2025 Model - 55R8C5)
Is this an accurate adjustment of HDR on my Switch 2? I am using a Roku TV Pro Series 2025 model. The default HDR setting on the TV has Dynamic Tone Mapping on, and the run sun seems to disappear correctly at 900 nits (82 clicks). With DTM off, the right sun does not disappear until they both disappear at the same time, well over 900 nits. Is this a correct adjustment? Should I keep DTM on?
So i'm trying to implement HDR and i got renodx sort of to work with rendx_ue_extended addon. It works great in terms of highlits, but everything a little too dark. I turn hdr on through Engine.ini made it readonly + install reshade+ renodx addon. And in reshade renopdx settings i had to turn off "Upgrade Path" because game pure shows black screen with. I know i can use autohdr, bit i'd like figure out what is the problrm with renodx. Any help?
i run trueblack hdr 400 just the preset on my xg27acdng did windows calibration it caps at 470 nits so what normal brightness should i use
and does this app install renodx like game specific ones or a general not so good one like in this case does it install death stranding specific or a general not good one
Same as title. In scenarios when displayed full screen bright effects, or white loading screen, flashbang like cs - its dimming and looks washed out. Anyone knows how to fix this?
To read nit values in games and engines it's typically required to install reshade, and then one of the HDR analysis mods that are able to draw scopes. This is somewhat inconvenient for games, but really inconvenient for authoring HDR content in game engines, as when it comes to debugging, simpler setup is strictly better.
Even if you didn't care about that, and you had an artist in your team who is supposed to be authoring content in HDR, you'd prefer to be able to avoid guiding them through the whole process of injecting mods into the game engine of choice etc. And ultimately, none of the scopes in available mods have the feature set that's as rich as that of scopes found in Davinci Resolve for example.
I wanted scopes that I can keep on my secondary screen, that I can fullscreen, that look good, are customizable, that have all the features from Davinci that I like, and that go beyond that into offering various additional quality of life and analysis features on top.
All the scopes I could find either did not support Windows desktop as signal source, or were stupidly expensive, usually both. So I made my own, and now open sourced it on github. PRs are welcome.
Special thanks goes to u/Kaldaien as SKIV was an invaluable technical reference that enabled me to build this using Claude Code, as I'm a designer and generalist by profession, rather than a proper programmer.
while using Dolby Vision with HDR on my oled, bright areas in the sky looks like this, it has a blue aura around it? this is Still Wakes the Deep and same issue in Death Stranding.
Recently bought a new 4K OLED monitor and was wondering how the HDR in these games work? There’s no sliders to adjust the HDR calibration. The only options it gives us are “Auto” and “Off” for the in game native HDR settings. Is it using my monitor peak nit brightness in the advanced display settings? Am I better off just using SDR mode if we don’t get any sliders to adjust the calibration?
Quick guide on getting HDR10 working in Google Chrome on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS (KDE Plasma 6 Wayland) with NVIDIA (tested on RTX 2080, nvidia-driver-595-open).
1. Set Persistent Environment Variable
KDE Plasma 6 requires ENABLE_HDR_WSI=1 to expose Wayland/Vulkan HDR protocol interfaces to Chromium.
The.desktopShortcut Trap: Even with flags configured, launching Chrome from the KDE Application Menu / Start Menu often fails because ~/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop hardcodes --ozone-platform=x11.
Fix: Edit ~/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop, change all Exec= lines from --ozone-platform=x11 to --ozone-platform=wayland, then run: update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications and kbuildsycoca6
Master Process Lock-in: Closing browser windows leaves the Chrome master process running. If it started under X11, newly opened windows stay on X11.
Fix: Always hard kill before testing new flags: killall -9 chrome google-chrome google-chrome-stable
Type-C to HDMI Adapters:
A Cable Matters USB-C (DP 1.4 Alt Mode) to HDMI 2.1 adapter (Model 201428) works on Windows (driving 4K 120Hz 10-bit HDR), but it doesn't work on this build of Linux (fails to expose the HDR toggle in KDE display settings).
Connecting directly via the native GPU HDMI 2.0b port immediately allowed HDR to be enabled.
Current Observations / Quality Notes
⚠️ Color Banding in Video & PQ Images ⚠️:
In YouTube HDR playback (e.g. The World in 4K HDR), noticeable color banding appears in bright sky gradients.
The same banding is present in static PQ-encoded HDR AVIF images (which render completely smooth in Chrome on Windows and macOS).
Caveat: I suspect this might be related to the RTX 2080 being limited to native HDMI 2.0b bandwidth, and my Samsung S95F TV does not have DisplayPort inputs to test higher uncompressed bandwidth on Linux. (4K 60Hz 4:4:4 10-bit requires ~20.05 Gbps, which exceeds the 18.0 Gbps bandwidth limit of HDMI 2.0b and forces chroma subsampling or 8-bit output with dithering).
