Is there any way to use a game's built-in HDR with borderless full screen or windowed full screen?

d3moliti0n · 5 Jun 2024 at 17:48

Hi there,

I've got an MEG 342C (3440x1440), and I've tried playing a couple of games today (Immortals of Aveum and Lords of the Fallen, the new one) and enabling the in-game HDR settings with HDR enabled in Windows, I use this screen with HDR enabled pretty much exclusively, as everything looks better. But when I set the in-game HDR to 'on', it goes back to full screen mode, but then the full screen mode is squashed into a small window with two black bars down either side, like watching an old 4:3 aspect ratio TV show on a new TV.

Is there any way to fix this? Either to allow a game's built-in HDR to be used in borderless full screen, or windowed full screen mode, or to make exclusive full screen the correct size, and not squashed into a Window.

Thank you.

Varys · 5 Jun 2024 at 22:53

Your screen is displaying the wrong aspect ratio. If I remember correctly (assuming Nvidia) change "Adjust desktop size and position" settings in nvidia control panel. Might need to select the overscan option

Gray2233 · 5 Jun 2024 at 23:57

You do not need to enable HDR via Windows, it causes more issues than it's worth and is a spectacularly poor implementation.

HDR is essentially passthrough data, as long as the end product is reading it, it will work.

will13 · 6 Jun 2024 at 06:10

You really shouldn't be using HDR all time, only time it should be on is when a game supports it

wunkley · 6 Jun 2024 at 16:13

Lots of 'internet wrong' going on in some of these replies.

To the OP if I may....

1. PC games with in-built HDR support can and do work in fullscreen borderless yes but I believe those that are what I call "native" HDR (like Far Cry 5) ie games that 'trigger' HDR into action on your display themselves need to be run in fullscreen.

2. You absolutely do need HDR to be on in Windows for those HDR supported games that require that to be the case. Very few PC games these days 'trigger' HDR to activate automatically like Far Cry 5 and I presume the 2 games you refer to. In my collection I'd say 90%+ of games now require HDR to be on in Windows before you launch the game. If not either the HDR option in game will be greyed out, or not there at all.

There are various reasons for this and now I have an automated way to activate HDR - before game launch - for those games that need it (I use Playnite) it is actually better this way as you have more granular control over various stuff.

3. You can actually use HDR all the time, if you want to.
And it's not bad at all these days in Win11 - it's best to set the "SDR content brightness" slider in the HDR section of Windows Display settings to something low (10-20%) and this is roughly the equivalent to c120nits in SDR, so you're not running your screen too bright when using SDR content. Obviously you can adjust it up to your liking though. If using HDR content this slider has no effect on that. You really should set up your icc colour profiles correctly though (HDR - or Advanced Colour as windows calls it, and SDR), and if you want to chop and change between SDR and HDR a lot - and you have more than 2 screens (like I do) - then Windows isn't good at keeping icc profile assignments in place at all. It's complicated.

4. The way your screen is behaving when you switch to HDR sounds v odd - will need more info from you to help out but @Varys is on the right track there potentially. In the NV control panel go to "adjust desktop size and position" and tell us what radio button is selected in the Scaling tab, and is scaling being performed on GPU or display in the dropdown?
Also, your monitor's own OSD/settings might have options for aspect ratio and scaling behaviour, so you may need to look into that too....

Noxia · 6 Jun 2024 at 16:49

This is useful for the games that do not switch it on for you, because as @wunkley correctly stated, even if a game has HDR, it doesn't mean it will switch it on for you. This is a useful app I use to add the games I want to use HDR with and switch it on for me hassle free: https://github.com/Codectory/AutoActions

HDR is great, I enable it for most games and I still maintain the naysayers have no idea how to set it up correctly (as evidenced in this very thread)

wunkley · 6 Jun 2024 at 17:05

Noxia said:
This is useful for the games that do not switch it on for you, because as @wunkley correctly stated, even if a game has HDR, it doesn't mean it will switch it on for you. This is a useful app I use to add the games I want to use HDR with and switch it on for me hassle free: https://github.com/Codectory/AutoActions

HDR is great, I enable it for most games and I still maintain the naysayers have no idea how to set it up correctly (as evidenced in this very thread)

Yup, I'm something of an HDR enthusiast/ nutter these days. I use Special K HDR, Reshade, and tweak everything to death these days if a game doesn't have it, or has it but it's a poor implementation. I've gone out of my way to enable it for almost everything now, even including tweaks for running all my emulation games (you should see Breath of the Wild running in HDR on OLED with a custom reshade and RTGI, it's amazing)

I used to use the AutoActions app too, but it started causing an odd bug with my system so I abandoned it when Playnite introduced an HDR 'trigger' option on a per game basis about a year ago. Playnite is so good for a free app, I can't state that enough.

Huge fan as I am I think HDR on PC is waaaay more confusing and fiddly than it ought to be though, and I see a lot of ignorance towards it, and people complaining about it who really haven't gone to the trouble of making sure it's all set up correctly. Though as I say, ideally it should all be a lot easier and just work.
Even game devs don't seem to understand HDR, even now, which really really annoys me. The number of new games that launch with flat out broken or a dog **** HDR implementation blows my mind.

Noxia · 6 Jun 2024 at 17:08

wunkley said:
Yup, I'm something of an HDR enthusiast/ nutter these days. I use Special K HDR, Reshade, and tweak everything to death these days if a game doesn't have it, or has it but it's a poor implementation. I've gone out of my way to enable it for almost everything now, even including tweaks for running all my emulation games (you should see Breath of the Wild running in HDR with a custom reshade and RTGI, it's amazing)

I used to use the AutoActions app too, but it started causing an odd bug with my system so I abandoned it when Playnite introduced an HDR 'trigger' option on a per game basis about a year ago. Playnite is so good for a free app, I can't state that enough.

Huge fan as I am I think HDR is waaaay more confusing and fiddly than it ought to be though, and I see a lot of ignorance towards it, and people complaining it about it who really haven't gone to the trouble of making sure it's all set up correctly. Though as I say, ideally it should all be a lot easier and just work.
Even game devs don't seem to understand HDR, even now, which really really annoys me. The number of new games that launch with flat out broken or a dohsgit HDR implentation blows my mind.

I'll have a gander at Playnite but I think SpecialK may be pointless for me as I can use RTX HDR and you can tweak stuff through that and the digital vibrancy wotsit, not that I do, I'm generally a turn it on and off I go type.

d3moliti0n · 6 Jun 2024 at 20:44

wunkley said:
4. The way your screen is behaving when you switch to HDR sounds v odd - will need more info from you to help out but @Varys is on the right track there potentially. In the NV control panel go to "adjust desktop size and position" and tell us what radio button is selected in the Scaling tab, and is scaling being performed on GPU or display in the dropdown?
Also, your monitor's own OSD/settings might have options for aspect ratio and scaling behaviour, so you may need to look into that too....

This is what my Nvidia control panel is set to at the moment:

Varys · 6 Jun 2024 at 22:50

You need to tick the "override the scaling mode set by games" option. Your problem is nothing to do with HDR

wunkley · 7 Jun 2024 at 13:23

d3moliti0n said:
This is what my Nvidia control panel is set to at the moment:

First thing to try - in the dropdown "perform scaling on" set it to GPU and apply and then try the games that were having issues again. This might show if it's a setting in your actual monitor settings at play here.

The "override the scaling mode set by games" has zero effect on anything in my testing over the years, but it's worth a shot so try that too in another test.....

Also, it needs to be asked but your are choosing 3440x1440 in game aren't you? And do those 2 games have an aspect ratio setting too (I don't have either of these games so no idea) - a lot of games have an "auto" aspect ratio setting but also have 16:9, 16:10, 21:9 etc as well. If they have 21:9 try that obviously.

[FnG]magnolia · 10 Jun 2024 at 10:49

wunkley said:
Playnite is so good for a free app, I can't state that enough.

Thank you so much for the heads up. I absolutely love it.