Turning on HDR in Windows makes it dim

King Mustard · 25 Jun 2019 at 01:47

I have a Gigabyte AD27QD monitor (HDR400-compliant), an RTX 2080 (latest drivers) and Windows 10 (May 2019 Update).

When I go to Settings > System > Display > Windows HD Color and turn on 'Play HDR games and apps', Windows goes very dull.

My monitor's brightness is already at 100% and adjusting the 'SDR content appearance' slider in the Windows HD Color dialog washes everything out even further.

Games like Metro Exodus only display the HDR setting in-game if 'Play HDR games and apps' is enabled in Windows.

Games themselves do not look dull with 'Play HDR games and apps' enabled (whether HDR is enabled in-game or not).

I have the monitor running in RGB output color format/ Full dynamic range/ 10 bcp output color depth in the NVIDIA Control Panel.

Any ideas?

robfosters · 25 Jun 2019 at 10:01

That’s just the way HDR works I’m afraid. I only switch it on when I’m using HDR content.

What would be good is if a little toggle could be placed on the taskbar or something as a quick way of toggling it on or off.

King Mustard · 25 Jun 2019 at 11:46

robfosters said:
That’s just the way HDR works I’m afraid. I only switch it on when I’m using HDR content.

What would be good is if a little toggle could be placed on the taskbar or something as a quick way of toggling it on or off.

Then HDR gaming on PC is rubbish

fantasticCG · 25 Jun 2019 at 18:07

Hold on don't some games just let you switch it on in the options? Like far cry new dawn.

I get the same thing on my x27 if I turn on hdr in windows it dims and greys out some of my monitor settings.

It's very confusing

peahead · 26 Jun 2019 at 07:26

fantasticCG said:
Hold on don't some games just let you switch it on in the options? Like far cry new dawn.

I get the same thing on my x27 if I turn on hdr in windows it dims and greys out some of my monitor settings.

It's very confusing

Yes some games like far cry new dawn let you enable HDR in the options menu but some others you will need to enable the silly play windows in HDR toggle first to get them to play back in HDR like Hitman 2.

It's all a bit silly really.

Ice Tea · 26 Jun 2019 at 07:30

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/can-users-try-this-monitor-black-test-link.18842491/

Does the above test change with it on or off?

aoaaron · 26 Jun 2019 at 07:53

its weird as i prefer HDR off sometimes. (rise of the tomb raider as an example). unless you have an oled display, you take a hit on black levels which I don't think make up for highlights.