Just stumbled across the HDR feature within SpecialK and it’s pretty damn incredible. I was surprised that it even has luminance/paper white settings.
Could anyone please explain or compare how this works vs native hdr patches by developers?
You’re in luck as I have the video just for you
Special K v Native HDR - Side by Side comparison - YouTube
Settings I used for SK are at the start of each clip
TL;DW:
On average SK HDR is able to meet existing HDR presentations, in some titles it falls short, others it’s better.
Perfect! Thanks for this video- makes it so clear! Halo MCC is so much better now… can finally replay all the campaigns on pc!
I chose the 8bit because when I hovered over each one, the 8bit had the highest number of objects found. Is that the right way of deciding which one to use? (8bit/10bit/11bit)
Also are there any lists of recommended settings? Like I’m not sure if passthrough rgb with 80/80 is better or sdr>hdr with 800/200 is better or what the best settings would actually be. Tried asking in the discord but no response/ppl started talking about other stuff lol
They remaster different shaders so enable as many as possible, basically. If something breaks or doesn’t work, disable one or more of them until the issue goes away.
As for recommended settings, it’s not passthrough 80/80 since that basically disables SK’s HDR processing.
Right now in the Discord these are @JDSP’s go to settings:
Closer to Native HDR presentation:
Enable FULL HDR Luminance = Un-check
Bypass sRGB Gamma = Un-check (If game is very dark, check this)
Peak White Luminance = Max Slider
Paper White Luminance = 250 to 350. You can adjust if you want the game brighter or dimmer, treat this as a brightness slider. (Native HDR titles use very high paper white values)
Tonemap Mode = Passthrough
SDR → HDR Gamma = 1.20 (You can play with this, I prefer 1.3 but native titles tend to use lower values)
Slightly muted, less contrast:
Enable FULL HDR Luminance = Un-check
Bypass sRGB Gamma = Check (If game requires this in the first place, you can’t really make use of these values)
Peak White Luminance = Max Slider
Paper White Luminance = 150 to 250. You can adjust if you want the game brighter or dimmer, treat this as a brightness slider. (Native HDR titles use very high paper white values)
Tonemap Mode = Passthrough
SDR → HDR Gamma = 2.2 to 2.4 (You can play with this, I prefer 2.4 but native titles tend to use lower values)
Thanks so much man, the enable full hdr luminance and gamma settings were what I was missing. The full hdr didn’t seem to make much of a diff on/off so I left it off but gamma made it perfect! Removed that “washed out” feeling.
One last thing, my max value for gamma is 1.524 regardless of the bypass setting, not sure why. Would you say max gamma at 1.524 is overkill tho? Or just depends on how I like it to look?
Ultimately it all comes down to subjective opinion, but yes, 1.524 sounds a bit high