Topic-Free Mega Thread - v 1.11.2020

JonasBeckman · December 11, 2020, 11:54am

Wonder if CyberPunk 2077 has some issues with it’s HDR implementation currently.

Via Guru3D something about SDR->HDR conversion and issues.

Problems with the in-game [HDR Settings]:

Increasing [Maximum Brightness] will scale entire HDR picture and brighten the midtones plus shadows in an almost linear manner, leading to an overexposed picture with little depth;

Reducing [Tone-Mapping Midpoint] is essential to achieve deeper blacks, but doing so will also darken midtones (and if excessively, the highlights) and shadows, causing an unnatural transition from shadows/ midtones to bright highlights.

Using [Black Level] “Low” on TVs (video range) together with [RGB Range] “High” or “Full” on consoles would make blacks inky, but would also crush a significant amount of shadow detail, and so is not an acceptable solution.

For the best picture quality while playing Cyberpunk 2077 (CB77), we strongly suggest playing the game in SDR.

I’m not 100% on the tech here and implementation but that might be useful and thus the games HDR to off and using SpecialK for scRGB HDR could give better results although require a fair bit of more in-depth calibration via the SK HDR widget.

EDIT: Not 100% on what the PC version does for HDR either could have multiple implementations like AC Valhalla (There it’s FreeSync2 HDR and HDR10 as it’s supported by AMD, for NVIDIA I suppose you’d get NVAPI HDR and/or HDR10) or it could be just the standard Microsoft HDR10 one without the other implementation methods.

Would be a bit interesting of XBox Auto HDR surpasses the games HDR implementation too as a result for the console version here.

Think Red Dead Redemption 2 on console (Unsure about the later PC port again.) had similar concerns but it got patched so there’s either a different method or users can choose the HDR variant depending on preference now.

EDIT: Hmm.