HDR mode in POE 2 appears to be either broken or a FAKE HDR, False Advertising from GGG?
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I had high hopes for POE 2 especially when I saw on steam page it supported HDR
Upon my discovery was that this game doesn't actually support real HDR, so when I enable HDR in the menu nothing special happens the image still looks bad and washed out there isn't a real HDR signal being sent it specifically pops up with "This game is optimized for Auto HDR please enable it" The game remains dim and colors washed out. I know my monitor's HDR mode works because if I enable HDR in windows 11 the entire color will be washed out as it should be since windows itself doesn't send a HDR signal for desktop use. Once I pull up a real HDR youtube video on Chrome "It wont work on firefox btw" the colors are extremely bright and vivid you can see what real HDR looks like it's mind blowing. And if you adjust the SDR slider in the HDR Menu in windows display setting it will have 0 effect on the HDR content as it should be this is how HDR works. When I launch POE 2 and enable HDR in the menu there is a very small change in quality, image still grossly washed out and adjusting windows SDR Slider in HDR display settings will change the brightness of POE 2, this would NOT happen if POE 2 was sending a real HDR signal. The windows pop up menu then appears telling you this game supports Windows AUTO HDR please enable it, Windows AUTO HDR isn't actual HDR it's a emulation, a low quality version of Nvidia RTX HDR. And while it does technically work when you enable windows Auto HDR it doesn't mean it supports real HDR and the quality is inferior to actual real HDR signals My Monitor is a QD-OLED 34" Ultrawide, I have a RX 6800 GPU so sadly I have no access to Nvidia's RTX HDR "a high quality AI powered emulation" Specs Ryzen 5700 X3D Radeon RX 6800 16GB "latest drivers" 16GB RAM Windows 11 PRO "latest update" AOC AGON PRO QD-OLED 34" ultrawide curved HDR Monitor. Path of Exile on Steam (Not sure if that matters" Connected via display port 10 bit color 175HZ 3440x1440 resolution. HDR works perfect when displaying a youtube HDR video in Chrome Browser. Last bumped on Jan 12, 2025, 7:37:46 PM
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" I just read all this and you are completely incorrect. Your problem is the HDR implementation with your GPU and monitor. It's a known issue that in some HDR modes that monitor looks washed out. You need to calibrate it and set that profile. I have HDR set in game and it works completely fine. Also has the ability to set the peak brightness of the scene different to the menu which is really good. You're banging on about false advertising when you haven't got a clue what you're talking about. This post was sponsored by me.
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I have a 6900xt and a Samsung ultrawide OLED monitor. HDR works fine on mine. Game is dark btw. HDR doesnt mean they crank the brightness up. Dark scenes will still be and should be dark. it is high dynamic RANGE. which means the range of deep black to bright highlights are expanded. You need dark shadows to accomplish this look as well.
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I agree with you. This game doesn't actually support HDR. I got that pops up with "This game is optimized for Auto HDR please enable it" popup too, and Windows SDR slider directly affects the game even HDR enabled on the game. Those who say "works fine" probably don't even know what HDR is.
Last edited by Ancali#5618 on Dec 13, 2024, 12:11:32 PM
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Game is just too dark in most place period. ive never enjoyed this in games, and i dont care if its part of the theme. Im being forced to play in the dark and you think thats fun!?
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Works fine for me. the sunset login image... when HDR is on there's much more information/range in the brightest sunlight area. When HDR is off that same area gets washed out and dim. Whatever the technique, it's working.
I agree that you need to properly calibrate your HDR monitor, but that's an entirely different discussion and rabbit hole. :) |
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SteamDeck OLED switched to HDR mode (we can see HDR badge on system settings) but game look awful, low contrast and greyish.
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I reached the same conclusion. I have auto HDR turned on in windows 11, which means that when HDR is unticked in PoE, auto HDR kicks in, meaning I can do a live and instant comparison with one click.
The difference between PoE’s HDR and Windows’ auto HDR is mind boggling big, the colors are washed out and very, very subtly better than SDR. Barely any difference. I’ve been tinkering with this for the past couple of days, I thought I’m losing it. |
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" Wash-out secenes means there is very low dynamic range. Their brightness mode is actually reduces dynamic range of colors while makingbright colors white. Literally every boss fight is even in dark or tear-your-eye single color so the visual cues for attacks would be invisible. It's by degree worse in PoE2. Also in PoE2 it means you cannot win. That's sole reason I find PoE2 utterly unplayable in current state. Btw, for whatever reason HDR, sharpness and DLSS are disabled on my system, even in login menu. Last edited by EllAnteres#7194 on Jan 12, 2025, 7:20:38 PM
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" Well, if it's false advertizing, then by hardware\driver developers, not GGG, as they called "HDR" now a completely different tech which once was known as wide gamut color correction and was a specific of studio monitors and GPUs(like these used by design studio, color typography designers, etc). Just 10 years ago HDR was referring to very concrete DSP process, a post-processing routine which could enhance fidelity of image. And that process was decently hardware-agnostic. fully shader-based, i.e. software. So if you had calibrated monitor, it worked fine. Non-wide gamut monitors usually didn't require calibration. They are too bad to do it, anyway. That includes alot of old gaming monitors where speed of response was result of sacrificing dynamic range. Calibration is costy. You need not-a-cheap device (cheapest _true_ devices cost starts around 500 USD) to do it. Thankfully we no longer need propietary software, there is open-source project for that. |
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