Did NVIDIA Rig Its Computex Demo?

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monkeymagick

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At Computex 2017, NVIDIA demonstrated the differences between gaming with HDR and SDR. According to PCGamer, Dmitry Novoselov of HardwareCanucks was given access to the monitor setup used for the demo after noticing the dullness of the image. Checking the monitor himself, he was able to determine that the settings were questionable. Using Mass Effect: Andromeda or the testing, it turns out his doubts were correct, the brightness and contrast were set at less than ideal settings. Quack...quack never changes.

As with all new technologies-in this case, HDR for gaming-it’s best to let the issues get ironed out before you run out and make a purchase. The fact that the SDR display had to be adjusted to make the HDR display look "better" is a telling sign. Right now, your best bet for a good gaming display is to focus on panel quality, latency, and refresh rate.
 
I don't see what the fuss is about. He proved them right. By increasing the contrast, he increased the dynamic range and proved that Higher Dynamic Range looks better. Duh...
 
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"...HDR monitors don't matter for gaming, just yet."

Is Mass Effect the only game right now that supports HDR? I ask because, the people that screwed Mass Effect up don't know how to do HDR any better than they do facial expressions and this guy writes off HDR for games? I think a one sample conclusion is kind of idiotic. If that is the case though, I guess I can't blame nVidia for doing this.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
nVidia tried to con people by lowering the contrast and brightness of the non-HDR monitor to make it look worse.
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That's the crux of the argument: not that HDR is not an improvement, but that it's not quite the improvement that nVidia is touting.
 
prime2515102 said:
"...HDR monitors don't matter for gaming, just yet."

Is Mass Effect the only game right now that supports HDR? I ask because, the people that screwed Mass Effect up don't know how to do HDR any better than they do facial expressions and this guy writes off HDR for games? I think a one sample conclusion is kind of idiotic. If that is the case though, I guess I can't blame nVidia for doing this.
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Nvidia could have chosen Shadow Warrior 2 to demo as that was sponsored by them and was the very first HDR game to come out if I remember right. Changing the SDR monitor to look terrible so that the HDR monitor looks like a huge upgrade is NEVER a good marketing point as it is now considered a doctored test. Companies do it, but it is never fine.
 
Samsung does it. LG does it. They've been doing it for many years.

And many current HDR contents (videos) look way too unnatural as if they're trying too hard to exaggerate dat 'HDR hightlight.'
 
Usually same thing that a lot of the TV manufacturers do tbh; as they would say to make it easy to 'accentuate' the differences :)
Yeah I know BS excuse by any of them.

One thing though, he complains about the HDR monitor being a bit too dark/'washed out' (his initial complaint about the SDR viewing) relative to the SDR once it was reset but he did not adjust its settings *shrug*.
Fair to say even the HDR was not set ideally, but instead of resetting SDR monitor he should had matched the settings as it is pretty clear the SDR has some higher values after the reset compared to the HDR.
And tbh it looks like the SDR after the reset is now too high with contrast/brightness and that can create an artificial perception of improvement (one reason many audio-visual shops turn these settings way up).
Cheers
 
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Go to any major electronics retailer and they do something similar (Best buy I'm looking at you)... if you have multiple displays standing side by side, the more expensive one is always made to look better even if that means making the less expensive ones look crappier on purpose.
 
As I have said here before, nVidia are a morally bankrupt company. Just like Intel and modern Microsoft.
 
Stimpy88 said:
As I have said here before, nVidia are a morally bankrupt company. Just like Intel and modern Microsoft.
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And AMD?
AMD-Polaris-16.jpg

perfwatt_1920_1080.png


And Apple, and Samsung, and LG, and Sony, and Qualcomm, and so on and on.
 
Shintai said:
And AMD?
AMD-Polaris-16.jpg

And Apple, and Samsung, and Qualcomm, and so on and on.
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Wow, you seem to have a bit of a thing for AMD don’t you?

All companies are guilty of this, but some companies push it just that little bit further and on a more regular basis, with Intel and nVidia being by far the worst offenders when it comes to flat out lying or rigging the system in their favour via questionable and often illegal business tactics.
 
Stimpy88 said:
All companies are guilty of this, but some companies push it just that little bit further and on a more regular basis, with Intel and nVidia being by far the worst offenders when it comes to flat out lying or rigging the system in their favour via questionable and often illegal business tactics.
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If you think that you are way too one sided.

Not long ago someone compared Pro cards with pro drivers to a gaming card with gaming drivers for pro applications. Aka no hardware support without pro drivers. Ring a bell?
 
Shintai said:
If you think that you are way too one sided.
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Who exactly are you shilling for today? I find it suspicious that you are acting so butt hurt, and so over the top aggressive.

You just cannot be so stupid as not to know about the multiple times nVidia has done shady stuff and tried to lie, even when they have been caught red handed? Also how can you not have herd about Intel being dragged through the courts for illegal business practices? They still do much of the same shit today!

And why do you automatically assume that I’m pro AMD? I’m not, and thanks for asking!
 
Stimpy88 said:
Who exactly are you shilling for today?

You just cannot be so stupid as not to know about the multiple times nVidia has done shady stuff and tried to lie, even when they have been caught red handed? Also how can you not have herd about Intel being dragged through the courts for illegal business practices? They still do much of the same shit today!

And why do you automatically assume that I’m pro AMD? I’m not, and thanks for asking!
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Your first comment and last comment. Think about those 2.

You act like Nvidia and Intel are the evil of the world. Yet hands AMD and who else a free card? ;)

Standards are good, double standards twice as good?
 
Shintai said:
Your first comment and last comment. Think about those 2.

You act like Nvidia and Intel are the evil of the world. Yet hands AMD and who else a free card? ;)

Standards are good, double standards twice as good?
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You obviously have some kind of axe to grind against AMD. I never mentioned AMD because I really can’t remember them being dragged through courts and being found guilty of illegal practices, or paying customers off because of class action lawsuits due to lying to customers, but maybe I’m wrong, please educate me if I am.

For what it’s worth, my system does not have one single AMD component in it. I am certainly not Pro AMD.

And I salute you for only having one standard, attacking anyone that doesn’t love the company you obviously shill for.
 
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Shintai said:
And AMD?
AMD-Polaris-16.jpg

perfwatt_1920_1080.png


And Apple, and Samsung, and LG, and Sony, and Qualcomm, and so on and on.
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Ignorance galore... That demo is obviously locked at 60fps so your biased chart has not a damn thing to do contradicting the first one. Nor has any chart or graphic ever really been indicative of REAL WORLD usage from any company, truths in lieu of truths.
 
prime2515102 said:
"...HDR monitors don't matter for gaming, just yet."

Is Mass Effect the only game right now that supports HDR? I ask because, the people that screwed Mass Effect up don't know how to do HDR any better than they do facial expressions and this guy writes off HDR for games? I think a one sample conclusion is kind of idiotic. If that is the case though, I guess I can't blame nVidia for doing this.
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Outside of PC gaming there are a handful of HDR titles I know of. Some of them I didn't care for the change actually, but Ratchet and Clank was spot on and looks far more vibrant.

While I'm obviously not an expert I find myself to be capable of adjusting my TV settings to be pretty accurate. And SDR vs HDR is a pretty big change.
 
prime2515102 said:
"...HDR monitors don't matter for gaming, just yet."

Is Mass Effect the only game right now that supports HDR? I ask because, the people that screwed Mass Effect up don't know how to do HDR any better than they do facial expressions and this guy writes off HDR for games? I think a one sample conclusion is kind of idiotic. If that is the case though, I guess I can't blame nVidia for doing this.
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Resident Evil 7 uses HDR better than Mass Effect does. Since it's a dark game to begin with, the additional brightness from light sources really makes an impact. I'm still not sold on HDR as being a massive game changer (it's minimal, IMO, and I've tinkered with it a lot) but it's at least worthwhile at times. Normal content with increased contrast and brightness mimics the effect better than the real thing to me.
 
Domingo said:
Normal content with increased contrast and brightness mimics the effect better than the real thing to me.
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This is what I was thinking, wouldn't the HDR effect be just as easy to do in production rather than relying on specific hardware to accomplish things, I mean we're talking about video games, the dev can pretty much make it look however they want. Want a dark game with brighter lights? Make the lights brighter, jobs a good one.
 
Stimpy88 said:
As I have said here before, nVidia are a morally bankrupt company. Just like Intel and modern Microsoft.
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Show me a company that isn't morally corrupt...they all cheat at marketing....there aren't enough of them getting slapped with a false advertising suit to keep them in line anymore.
 
What excellent reporting! I like it when people journalists really do solid investigation like this.

I will have to watch more of his videos.
 
rgMekanic said:
This is what I was thinking, wouldn't the HDR effect be just as easy to do in production rather than relying on specific hardware to accomplish things, I mean we're talking about video games, the dev can pretty much make it look however they want. Want a dark game with brighter lights? Make the lights brighter, jobs a good one.
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It may not look as natural that way. Part of what HDR does is make the picture look more natural with a larger color and contrast range. I have an LG OLED C6 and when I crank up the contrast and OLED Light on SDR content it starts to look overly bright and blown out. With HDR content the TV defaults to having the contrast and OLED Light maxed out and not only does the picture look vibrant and eye popping the colors still look more natural and not blown out like they would when cranking up the contrast and OLED Light on SDR content.
 
Shintai said:
And AMD?

And Apple, and Samsung, and LG, and Sony, and Qualcomm, and so on and on.
Click to expand...


Until AMD listed their competition in that graph, you can't accuse them of lying about the performance improvement now can you? Hell for all we know they might have been comparing it to a 780 or a titan which used a lot of memory and been frame locked at 60 fps.

While not a good scientific measurement, AMD isn't blatantly adjusting the other card to use more power than they have to. (Or in this case intentionally handicapping the comparison monitor to make themselves look better.)

HDR monitors that can exhibit the difference with the required contrast and brightness levels really don't exist yet. The HDR standard is really beyond current MFG tech. So seeing it is...difficult at best. You might notice better gradients for things like skies and low level blacks. But true seeing full range HDR is impossible without some uber expensive projectors that are in labs.

NVIDIA would have been better off to demonstrate where it can be seen (low level blacks and sky gradients) than juicing the other monitor.
 
GameLifter said:
It may not look as natural that way. Part of what HDR does is make the picture look more natural with a larger color and contrast range. I have an LG OLED C6 and when I crank up the contrast and OLED Light on SDR content it starts to look overly bright and blown out. With HDR content the TV defaults to having the contrast and OLED Light maxed out and not only does the picture look vibrant and eye popping the colors still look more natural and not blown out like they would when cranking up the contrast and OLED Light on SDR content.
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I think the guy's point is that the HDR display was actually worse on shadows. HRD is supposed to make the shadows more detailed and not darker. The SDR actually looked better on that aspect.
 
It would be more of an amazing thing if it was "NV Didn't Rig It's Computex Demo"

Of course companies lie, they do it ALL THE TIME, with tiny, almost nonexistent sprinkles of truth buried under it.

If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself.
 
I'm not even sure I like HDR. When I turned on HDR and watched Netflix Marco Polo on my TV it just looked really fucking dark. Maybe it's because I just had a regular Samsung 4k HDR and not an OLED? I don't really know, I just know I didn't like it.
 
Damar said:
It would be more of an amazing thing if it was "NV Didn't Rig It's Computex Demo"

Of course companies lie, they do it ALL THE TIME, with tiny, almost nonexistent sprinkles of truth buried under it.

If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself.
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Agreed. There is a name for these types of 'lies': Marketing.
 
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collegeboy69us said:
Go to any major electronics retailer and they do something similar (Best buy I'm looking at you)... if you have multiple displays standing side by side, the more expensive one is always made to look better even if that means making the less expensive ones look crappier on purpose.
Click to expand...
ehh I find that they all have cranked brightness/contrast in their demo modes.
 
prime2515102 said:
"...HDR monitors don't matter for gaming, just yet."

Is Mass Effect the only game right now that supports HDR? I ask because, the people that screwed Mass Effect up don't know how to do HDR any better than they do facial expressions and this guy writes off HDR for games? I think a one sample conclusion is kind of idiotic. If that is the case though, I guess I can't blame nVidia for doing this.
Click to expand...
Resident Evil VII and Shadow Warrior 2 both support HDR10, off the top of my head. A beta version of Dolby Vision was just added to Mass Effect Andromeda in the latest patch for PC.
 
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