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Poll: Which is the better visual upgrade, HDR 10 or Ray Tracing?

Which is the better visual upgrade, HDR 10 or Ray Tracing?

  • HDR 10

    Votes: 95 65.1%

  • Ray Tracing

    Votes: 51 34.9%
  • Total voters
    146
Voted HDR but does hardly any PC games properly support it? To me HDR is a great thing on consoles. When I had my PS4 Pro some of the games looked awesome because of my OLED TV and HDR.

But how many of us have a proper HDR monitor? I.e. an OLED or one of the monitors that has a fan it it to cool the backlights which costs nearly two grand? Less than 1% probably.
 
varkanoid said:
Controversial but I can do without either.
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I agree with you.

Ive got an RTX card and an OLED so I feel that I can do a fair comparison of both, and honestly, I wouldn’t say HDR looks *amazing* like so many people say - it would be interesting to see some people are wowed simply because the display is brighter in HDR mode


In movies, I’d much rather have a higher bit rate 1080p film than a low bit rate 4K HDR
 
Pottsey said:
I don't understand how you can prefer that left hand side washed our horrible HDR look and dislike bright and colorful right hand side SDR look. At least in Division and a lot of games that is how it is for HDR gaming. My SDR games look like the right hand side and HDR games look like the left hand side. Barely any game seem to get it right. Destiny is the only game I have found so far that looks better in HDR. The Division 2 always goes washed out and horrible looking x10 worse like that left hand side.

HDR video is amazing. HDR gaming is very hit and miss at the moment.
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If it looks worse in HDR then some of the settings must be wrong on the TV.

HDR gaming on pc has been pretty decent for a long while now.

Remember as soon as you switch to HDR all the TV settings will reset to default. Not all games use the same gamma and this has to be set right as well as the colour pallet and also backlight has to be turned right up.

As soon as you change the gamma all the paper white and everything needs re adjustment. HDTest has a video on nearly every game showing how to set it best.
 
Rroff said:
If properly implemented ray tracing can bring a similar level of advancement to the visuals - I can't really do it justice with the limitations of the Quake 2 engine and the limits of my own artistic abilities but the little touches like scattered light off chrome surfaces and indirect lighting bring a whole new dimension. I would definitely take a proper ray tracing implementation over HDR 100% of the time though ray tracing + HDR takes things to another level yet again.

gXJhZZo.jpg


EDIT: For the record I have a Philips 436M6 and tried The Division with neutral lighting.
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We are talking about today though. All the titles to date offer very little. I know because I tried them. In the future when we get proper RT hardware and games things will be different, but by then we should have both RT and HDR gear.
 
MrRockliffe said:
I agree with you.

Ive got an RTX card and an OLED so I feel that I can do a fair comparison of both, and honestly, I wouldn’t say HDR looks *amazing* like so many people say - it would be interesting to see some people are wowed simply because the display is brighter in HDR mode


In movies, I’d much rather have a higher bit rate 1080p film than a low bit rate 4K HDR
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I have an LG OLED C9 and I can see HDR enhances the picture but its like RT in games, for 5 seconds it looks nice then you continue blasting away. You dont really in game pause for 5 seconds mid battle and think oh that puddle looks nice or look how the light cascades of that wall and reflects on the floor. No its blast shoot fire.

Fortnite for example on my son's PC he's got a RTX 2060 Super and we turned on RT and it does make the graphics look more colourful and you can tell a difference as its really a bright sunny game most of the time and the shadows etc look great but then ask him after 30 minutes whether its made a difference and he just shrugs and says yeah it looks a bit better and continues on blasting. Now you might think Fortnite & RT its a waste and pointless yet if you are saying that as an RT advocate then its a bit of hypocrisy creeping in there.
 
MrRockliffe said:
I agree with you.

Ive got an RTX card and an OLED so I feel that I can do a fair comparison of both, and honestly, I wouldn’t say HDR looks *amazing* like so many people say - it would be interesting to see some people are wowed simply because the display is brighter in HDR mode
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The display is actually much darker in HDR mode until you look at something bright like the sun.

I would say HDR on full backlight is about same as SDR on half backlight.

If I watched SDR on full backlight it would burn my eyes out.
 
varkanoid said:
I have an LG OLED C9 and I can see HDR enhances the picture but its like RT in games, for 5 seconds it looks nice then you continue blasting away. You dont really in game pause for 5 seconds mid battle and think oh that puddle looks nice or look how the light cascades of that wall and reflects on the floor. No its blast shoot fire.
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I think you’ve nailed it there - it’s so dependent on the game you’re playing
 
MrRockliffe said:
I think you’ve nailed it there - it’s so dependent on the game you’re playing
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I play single player games at my own pace. When I will be playing Cyberpunk 2077 soon I will be exploring and taking it slow. Will play on my monitor first, but may take the pc down and hook it up to my OLED tv for my 2nd playthrough so I get both RT and HDR :D
 
TNA said:
I play single player games at my own pace. When I will be playing Cyberpunk 2077 soon I will be exploring and taking it slow. Will play on my monitor first, but may take the pc down and hook it up to my OLED tv for my 2nd playthrough so I get both RT and HDR :D
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Cyberpunk nights and neons without HDR? Do yourself a favor and move it now for your own good! ;)
 
chris85oc said:
Cyberpunk nights and neons without HDR? Do yourself a favor and move it now for your own good! ;)
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I wouldnt do it yet still time for it to get delayed again. They must be a little concerned that due to lack of hardware on console and PC will affect their sales.
 
HDR without a doubt but more importantly, HDR on an OLED, only way to achieve the best/proper implementation of HDR and what it has to offer.

Fire up the likes of COD, gears 5 and so on and it is literally like playing an older game back on the ps 2/3 when you compare it to the HDR version. When I switched COD back onto my 34" 1440 IPS monitor, at first I thought the monitor was broke or gamma etc. settings were messed up but nope, it was just because of the crappy nature of LCD and SDR.

Windows and PC gaming works great too, if it is crap then chances are you haven't got it all setup correctly or/and the game doesn't support it well.

chris85oc said:
Most of the people never had proper HDR sets with actual well implemented HDR games to compare so what are we talking about again? Most also still dont understand what HDR really is and think it’s that half life lost coast ‘bloom’ effect. Others think its ‘super bright super vivid super contrasty image’, again not the case. Even funnier is showing HDR to a person who likes to put on dynamic contrast, vivid everything and max brightness colors on their ****** tvs and tell them why HDR is better .. good luck with that.

Also another problem. You can show someone raytracing on youtube, you cant show HDR on a non HDR / crappy HDR TV.

Personally, both. Ps5 on my oled / 2080 in some pc games. Wouldnt want to give anything up. Too bad that on PC even top end monitors costing more than OLED tvs still offer worse HDR perf than the previously mentioned so... for my PC i ended up with a ultrawide 3440x1440 gsync 120hz monitor. Not using it for much tho, just work, wow and diablo.

Everything else goes on my OLED. Almost every new game supports HDR and makes the image look tons better. Then with RT on top yummy.

If i really had to choose cause.. idk.. then id go with HDR
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Couldn't have put it better.

So many people don't realise how good HDR is because they are basing their opinions on "fake" hdr monitors etc.
 
Pottsey said:
Which is why I hate those fake screenshots as the left hand side represents what many HDR games look like. SDR games never look washed out and horrible like that left hand side but some HDR games do. Its not my screen as HDR video and some HDR games like Destiney look great. Division 2 though looks like that washed out left hand side. If I get chance later I will take a screenshot of both side by side. Its all over the forums when people turn on HDR its like the black level is raised to high, much higher then SDR and so everything goes washed out. Which is why I have all but given up on HDR for games at the moment.

Plus there are all the problems with how badly windows handles HDR and struggles to switch between SDR and HDR gaming. So you end up with worse looking SDR games and worse looking HDR games as windows gets muddled up.
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What you are saying only happens when the display used is not properly capable of controlling the light output (so either no local dimming, or edge lit) or the settings of both TV & HDR calibration are badly mismatched. I do not see what you're describing in The Division 2 at all, else I'd not use it as a benchmark of great HDR. As for windows, the issue is easy enough to resolve - you never turn HDR on in windows unless you are going to go into a game that requires it to be on in order for HDR to work (usually Microsoft games, but more and more, as DX12 doesn't have proper full screen anymore; but not Ubisoft games usually), or if you want to watch youtube HDR videos. For other type of videos you can have an app like MPC-BE x64 go into "HDR mode" automatically once you full screen the application.
 
LtMatt said:
Hardware Unboxed feel that HDR 10 is the better visual upgrade and I'm inclined to agree having used both. There's also the fact that HDR does not have a performance cost.


Question at 7:22.

Please can the holy dons/mods turn this into a Poll.

Options:

HDR 10
Ray Tracing
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Can't wait for windows to implement HDR properly.
At the moment HDR is just a side show when playing games.
 
I wonder who is voting Ray Tracing? I feel they either did not understand the question or have not seen what proper HDR looks like.

We are not comparing it to what RT is capable of guys. Surely you need to look at what is available on the market today when answering the question? Lets look at one of the latest games that have it, Watch Dogs Legion. You are telling you would prefer having the RT offered there over proper HDR?

I guess if we are to compare it to a HDR 400/600 monitor then yeah, I would take the limited RT implementation on a title like Watch Dogs Legion also :p
 
Definitely HDR, by such a margin I’m surprised this is ever a question.

For those saying 4K and ray tracing are bigger jumps, are you using poor implementations such as HDR 400 / HDR 600?
 
One you need a 2000 series or later graphics card (3000 series if you want to run the panels native resolution @ 120hz on OLED), the other a £1000+ monitor/TV for full HDR. Seeing as most apparently still game at 1080p there will be very few that have both.

For many playing the game is the enjoyment and without HDR and Ray tracing, most of the attraction of a game will be the immersiveness in the game itself.

HDR - seeing the amount of 2nd hand OLED on auction sites with issues means that many who even have OLED's and therefore assume that they have perfect picture quality - probably don't - just looks better than what it replaced. Before OLED it was folk paying £100's to have their LED's calibrated. Most likely from reading forums telling them they need to chuck more money at it.

The next advancement in OLED will have another raft of people claiming the old OLED was rubbish because of X & Y. Less than a decade ago, there was no 4k, HDR, high refresh etc etc. Managed without it then. Consumerism at full tilt requiring the next thing a salesman tells you, you must have. OLED quality will be common place and cheap in a year or two when everyone can afford it and it will be better implementation than the over priced attempts currently. I remember when 50 inch plasmas were £10k.

To get an OLED at it's native resolution for the full and proper experience you need a 3000 series GPU with HDMI 2.1. (why would you buy a 4k TV and run it at a lower resolution?) Gfx cards now come with ray tracing as standard or an implementation of it. HDR you need to spend an extra £1000 over a non HDR panel. Ray tracing and full HDR comes with a £1-2000 cost over a system without. 99% wont see the need to spend that much extra to enjoy a pooter game or two.
 
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