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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

LtMatt

LtMatt

LtMatt

Caporegime
Joined
12 Jul 2007
Posts
43,202
Location
United Kingdom
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.

Currently using a Vesa Certified DisplayHDR 1000 display for testing.

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Question at 7:22.

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

Options:

HDR 10
Ray Tracing
 
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As it stands, HDR. For me HDR was a bigger upgrade than going to 4K.

As time goes on though I feel Ray Tracing will be the better.
 
Matty8787 said:
As it stands, HDR. For me HDR was a bigger upgrade than going to 4K.
Click to expand...
HDR is a significant upgrade and once you've tried it you can never go back.

That said, if you've never tried it i think it is one of those things that you can be blissfully ignorant of. You don't know what you're missing out on. :p
 
Will side with HDR for me too. I do look forward to affordable displays that take advantage of all the modern cons (HDR, VRR, HDMI 2.1 etc).

Hope you dont have to be a Matt to post here? :confused:
 
With HDR there is a massive difference between HDR Video and HDR gaming. There is a big positive impact for HDR Video but HDR gamming is often completely messed up looks way worse.

In my expreince HDR is on the whole is rubbish for gaming due to poor implantations though there are a tiny amount of exceptions. For most people Ray Tracing will have a bigger impact. But it does depend on what games you play. Destiny is one of the very few games that seems to look better with HDR and doesn't benefit from Ray Tracing. Yet other HDR games like Division 2 look way worse with HDR as they go all washed out and horrible.
 
LtMatt said:
HDR is a significant upgrade and once you've tried it you can never go back.

That said, if you've never tried it i think it is one of those things that you can be blissfully ignorant of. You don't know what you're missing out on. :p
Click to expand...
The problem is HDR is just as often a major downgrade as it is a significant upgrade. Its so hit and miss you never know if its going to make things look better or worse at least from a gaming point of view. Its a significant upgrade for HDR video but not always a significant upgrade for gaming.
 
They are both fantastic, use both.

LtMatt said:
HDR is a significant upgrade and once you've tried it you can never go back.

That said, if you've never tried it i think it is one of those things that you can be blissfully ignorant of. You don't know what you're missing out on. :p
Click to expand...

Same can be said of RT when used well. I've been playing RTX supported titles since my 3080 showed up and now notice SSR shimmer much more now when RT is off in a game. Fingers crossed Cyberpunk will implement a decent amount of RT effects.
 
Pottsey said:
With HDR there is a massive difference between HDR Video and HDR gaming. There is a big positive impact for HDR Video but HDR gamming is often completely messed up looks way worse.

In my expreince HDR is on the whole is rubbish for gaming due to poor implantations though there are a tiny amount of exceptions. For most people Ray Tracing will have a bigger impact. But it does depend on what games you play. Destiny is one of the very few games that seems to look better with HDR and doesn't benefit from Ray Tracing. Yet other HDR games like Division 2 look way worse with HDR as they go all washed out and horrible.
Click to expand...
With both next gen consoles supporting it and more TVs coming with HDR, hopefully this as well as the HGIG (HDR gaming interest group), will be a push for developers to get their act together.
 
you can have poor mans HDR with reshade, and it makes a massive difference, the downside is that it perhaps isnt a big a difference as hardware HDR, and you have to configure it manually every game so obviously also only a PC thing.

On the upside though, you can do it on a sRGB screen, and dont need to worry about things like sRGB content been over saturated.

I can post screenshots of PC vesperia with reshade on/off comparison if people are interested. You will see it gives the appearance of higher contrast and more vibrant colour.
 
Ray tracing for me. Not HDR gamed as my monitor is only HDR 400 and (I think) if you turn on HDR you cant use VRR on minw.

I do like HDR on my OLED TV but unless you are watching original source material then REMUXed video can still have graduation in dark colours.

SO for gaming I'd say ray tracing. With DLSS 2.0,. Control ran very well and Ray tracing added a lot of depth to the environments.

Now to have both is the key!
 
HDR10

thenproblem it's expensive, you need a $1.5k TV to see proper HDR

ray tracing you can see with a much cheaper cost but it's not as impressive
 
rallyslag said:
My monitor has HDR 400. It's worse than useless..
Click to expand...

the poll asks for hdr10 - your monitor is not hdr10 certified that's your problem. Your monitor would need to get another 3 times brighter and have full array local dimming to meet HDR10 certification
 
Proper ray tracing, not just token effects, blows away HDR for what it can bring though proper HDR on top of that takes things to another level again.

I find most current implementations of HDR I can see the deficiencies due to things like limited number of zones rather than per-pixel quite quickly then it is ruined for me.
 
HDR is well better than ray tracing!!!!!!!!

It does need a decent screen, a dark room and a some knowledge of what settings to use but it's amazing.

Borderlands handsome jack dlc is mind blowing!!

Edit: Hdr is where these samsung full array tv's really shine, I think they can do like 2000 nits but less in game mode. But I have to have the tv maxed out to get the propper effect so cant imagine HDR is very good on a lesser screen.
 
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HDR vs ray tracing is completely pointless debate. it's like arguing over which is better, anisotropic filtering or backlight strobing. one is a display specification, the other is a rendering technique.

which is better, the the colour blue or tuesdays? elephants or immanuel kant's "groundworks of the metaphysics of morals"?
 
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