Red Dead Redemption 2's HDR Isn't Really HDR

AlphaAtlas

AlphaAtlas

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While Red Dead Redemption 2 is a technical achievement by many measures, Eurogamer found that the game's "HDR support" appears to be little more than an upscaled SDR image. That might not sound so bad, but SDR streams lack the information needed to properly display HDR content. For example, white is white on an 8-bit SDR display. The brightest parts of snow, the sun, and white text in the game's UI would all be displayed using the same color: white. And that looks fine on SDR displays, which are supposed to top out at about 100 nits of brightness. But white is not white on an HDR display. The sun should shine significantly brighter than the snow or in game text, even if all those objects have a similar hue and appear "white" to human eyes. In Red Dead Redemption 2, there is no such distinction. Depending on your display and the in-game brightness sliders, and you would either get a blindingly bright UI, or get an image that looks exactly like an SDR display. But that's just one specific example. There are many issues with such an HDR implementation, and I'm not sure why Rockstar chose to include it.

You've got nothing to lose by turning on HDR in Red Dead Redemption 2 but nothing to gain either and this begs the question - what's the point in it being there? It all comes as somewhat of a disappointment within a game that is a technical tour-de-force. This is compounded by the fact that various other titles in the last few weeks have delivered absolutely phenomenal results from their HDR implementations. And what's really disappointing here is that the potential for a stunning HDR implementation is there - in this game world with its stunning lighting and physically-based materials, Red Dead Redemption 2 should be up there with the best - it's just a shame it has fallen short. And by extension, as the highest profile title to deliver an underwhelming or non-existent HDR implementation, Red Dead Redemption 2 is somewhat of a mystery.
 
PC version should be good with adjustable settings. As far as HDR Samsung does it best with Qled quantum dots.
 
After playing the game for a few hours last night in HDR on my OLED TV I can say I'm not surprised by this. I immediately noticed that the snow in brighter environments looked a little too bright and blown out. The finer details and contrast of the snow were harder to pick up like in other HDR games that have snow. The HDR effect also seemed more subtle in general and now I know why. It didn't look terrible by any means and the game is still gorgeous otherwise but the less than stellar HDR mode stood out to me especially right after playing Forza Horizon 4.
 
Sircolby45 said:
I actually turned HDR off on RDR2. The only thing HDR does is wash out the picture.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I would do. Aside from messing up hue/brightness with whatever post processing RDR does, as counter-intuitive as it sounds, you should theoretically get less banding in SDR mode.

It depends on the TV though. Some LCD TVs pump up the backlight in HDR Mode, which can make them look better.
 
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Comixbooks said:
PC version should be good with adjustable settings. As far as HDR Samsung does it best with Qled quantum dots.
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OLED, my friend, is the best.
Quantum dots still do not handle blue yet. Soon though, and I'm sure Samsung will be best
 
Is there an in-game HDR toggle for RDR2? With most things related to the Xbox you have to disable them at the system level don't you?
 
Man all I can add to this is this game is a masterclass in gaming design. Wow. I was floored when BOTW came out from the sheer amazingness of it, but this game gives me the same vibe of scale but with graphics that make me not regret all all buying a PS4pro. I won't be touching my PC to play games for a while me thinks.
 
What? We already have to deal with shitty contrast ratio IPS paneled fake HDR screens with no active backlights, and now we get to deal with games outputting fake HDR too!?
 
trentchau said:
Man all I can add to this is this game is a masterclass in gaming design. Wow. I was floored when BOTW came out from the sheer amazingness of it, but this game gives me the same vibe of scale but with graphics that make me not regret all all buying a PS4pro. I won't be touching my PC to play games for a while me thinks.
Click to expand...
I actually bought a ps4 pro just for this game. I have avoided consoles for years.

I’m not holding my breath for it to come out on pc but if it does I’ll pick it up also.
 
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Kalabalana said:
OLED, my friend, is the best.
Quantum dots still do not handle blue yet. Soon though, and I'm sure Samsung will be best
Click to expand...
Do you have evidence of this?
I have a Samsung Q9FN TV which is very well reviewed and gives a fantastic image.
No claims of problems with blue, in fact it has an extremely good colour volume throughout the brightness range.
And unlike OLED it can reach nearly 2000nits with HDR.
 
AlphaAtlas said:
While Red Dead Redemption 2 is a technical achievement by many measures, Eurogamer found that the game's "HDR support" appears to be little more than an upscaled SDR image. That might not sound so bad, but SDR streams lack the information needed to properly display HDR content. For example, white is white on an 8-bit SDR display. The brightest parts of snow, the sun, and white text in the game's UI would all be displayed using the same color: white. And that looks fine on SDR displays, which are supposed to top out at about 100 nits of brightness. But white is not white on an HDR display. The sun should shine significantly brighter than the snow or in game text, even if all those objects have a similar hue and appear "white" to human eyes. In Red Dead Redemption 2, there is no such distinction. Depending on your display and the in-game brightness sliders, and you would either get a blindingly bright UI, or get an image that looks exactly like an SDR display. But that's just one specific example. There are many issues with such an HDR implementation, and I'm not sure why Rockstar chose to include it.

You've got nothing to lose by turning on HDR in Red Dead Redemption 2 but nothing to gain either and this begs the question - what's the point in it being there? It all comes as somewhat of a disappointment within a game that is a technical tour-de-force. This is compounded by the fact that various other titles in the last few weeks have delivered absolutely phenomenal results from their HDR implementations. And what's really disappointing here is that the potential for a stunning HDR implementation is there - in this game world with its stunning lighting and physically-based materials, Red Dead Redemption 2 should be up there with the best - it's just a shame it has fallen short. And by extension, as the highest profile title to deliver an underwhelming or non-existent HDR implementation, Red Dead Redemption 2 is somewhat of a mystery.
Click to expand...

If you have an HDR TV it likely has an option to turn on fake HDR with an SDR image.
My TV does a pretty good job of it, perhaps better than the games fake HDR.

Shame on Rockstar for not doing it properly.
 
Nenu said:
If you have an HDR TV it likely has an option to turn on fake HDR with an SDR image.
My TV does a pretty good job of it, perhaps better than the games fake HDR.

Shame on Rockstar for not doing it properly.
Click to expand...

The Xbox One and PS4 both force HDR mode on my TV whenever you open the Netflix or DVD/BD apps. I have to use my HDR color settings or otherwise it looks horrible. With the right settings, it's basically "fake" HDR. Extra bright light sources, but otherwise it just looks the same.
 
Sounds to me like they had to cut corners to get things out on time because they couldn't keep people there any longer than they already were.
 
Nenu said:
Do you have evidence of this?
I have a Samsung Q9FN TV which is very well reviewed and gives a fantastic image.
No claims of problems with blue, in fact it has an extremely good colour volume throughout the brightness range.
And unlike OLED it can reach nearly 2000nits with HDR.
Click to expand...
There are no problems, they just are using blue LEDs to supplement lack of having a quantum dot that produces blue wavelengths.
I could be wrong. Evidence to the contrary will change my viewpoint. You don't seem familiar with what I brought up, so, by all means, your own research may yield better results.
 
Kalabalana said:
There are no problems, they just are using blue LEDs to supplement lack of having a quantum dot that produces blue wavelengths.
I could be wrong. Evidence to the contrary will change my viewpoint. You don't seem familiar with what I brought up, so, by all means, your own research may yield better results.
Click to expand...
That isnt what I asked.
Your specific statement, if true, will have evidence to back it up.
Or you can retract it?
 
Nenu said:
If you have an HDR TV it likely has an option to turn on fake HDR with an SDR image.
My TV does a pretty good job of it, perhaps better than the games fake HDR.

Shame on Rockstar for not doing it properly.
Click to expand...

Yeah, upconversions can look OK, especially with some kind of LUT or something optimized for the TV itself.

The issue is that games have a quirk those algorithms aren't designed for: UIs.
 
AlphaAtlas said:
Yeah, upconversions can look OK, especially with some kind of LUT or something optimized for the TV itself.

The issue games have a quirk those algorithms aren't designed for: UIs.
Click to expand...
Aye, it can be shocking to the eye opening a game menu with fake HDR.
Same as using the TVs options with fake HDR enabled, it makes me squint.
But it it can be a decent feature on a TV. I use it more often than I imagined I would.
It works well on media that doesnt have ridiculously tweaked colours already.
 
Oh so not 10 bit hdr, the colors looked pretty decent to me, except the dark are too dark.
I do like how they set up the lighting so when you walk into a room it's like your eyes are adjusting to less light. Over all the lighting/color in the game is fine where it is at, I don't think I have seen lighting like that before in a game.

But then again I have an old "super" 32" Panasonic TV that looks really good even though it is 720p, it's almost like an old CRT, it is the best TV I have ever owned.
 
filip said:
Oh so not 10 bit hdr, the colors looked pretty decent to me, except the dark are too dark.
I do like how they set up the lighting so when you walk into a room it's like your eyes are adjusting to less light. Over all the lighting/color in the game is fine where it is at, I don't think I have seen lighting like that before in a game.

But then again I have an old "super" 32" Panasonic TV that looks really good even though it is 720p, it's almost like an old CRT, it is the best TV I have ever owned.
Click to expand...

That's called eye adaptation, and it's an oooold game effect. Most games have a pretty shoddy or subtle implementation though. RDR2 is definitely going for a "cinematic" feel, so I'm not surprised they put some effort into it.


Technically it is a 10-bit HDR format, and that's the issue... For lots of complicated reasons, Rockstar would've been better off feeding TVs 8-bit SDR and letting them deal with the upconversion. At the very least, they could've written in a UI mask as a simple shader, but they didn't bother with that :/
 
Most people don't even have true HDR TV to.begin with. To much of the fake HDR shit out there.
 
Dion said:
Technically no one has a True HDR TV.. Everything is still tonemapped :/
Click to expand...
No light source or panel is perfect throughout the range, they all have to be tone mapped.
What is your point?
 
AlphaAtlas said:
That's called eye adaptation, and it's an oooold game effect. Most games have a pretty shoddy or subtle implementation though. RDR2 is definitely going for a "cinematic" feel, so I'm not surprised they put some effort into it.

Technically it is a 10-bit HDR format, and that's the issue... For lots of complicated reasons, Rockstar would've been better off feeding TVs 8-bit SDR and letting them deal with the upconversion. At the very least, they could've written in a UI mask as a simple shader, but they didn't bother with that :/
Click to expand...

I'm thinking maybe development on the game began long enough ago that all that present day, bleeding edge bullshit wasn't even a consideration.
 
There is an in game hdr slider recommended 100 for LCD and 300 for plasma/oled I set mine to 500. Nothing special either way. In still looking forward to PC release so I can enjoy this at a real frame rate and resolution.
 
Domingo said:
The Xbox One and PS4 both force HDR mode on my TV whenever you open the Netflix or DVD/BD apps. I have to use my HDR color settings or otherwise it looks horrible. With the right settings, it's basically "fake" HDR. Extra bright light sources, but otherwise it just looks the same.
Click to expand...
That would annoy me greatly.

I found a problem with the new tomb raider on PC.
When not in exclusive full screen it turns on HDR without changing the colour palette when using my HDR screen (I'm on Win7 if that matters).
The colours become way over the top, its unplayable.
HDR cannot be enabled or disabled on Windows 7 for this game, it is greyed out and set to off.
Lucky it stops doing it in exclusive mode.
 
Still waiting on my copy of Red Dead, but this story makes me a bit sad. I have an OLED, and I was looking forward to how this looks with the HDR format. It appears I'll probably be turning this function off as well. I'd like to compare though first.
 
We've still got a ways to go before the HDR ecosystem has settled into something reliable. Are the tools there, yes. Are there so many options that both dev's, hardware manufacturers, and consumers are left to fend for themselves, yes. At this point it really is a to each their own kind of thing. Depending on your display, what it's connected to, how it's connected, there can be many different valid perspectives on individual preferences. It is a shame RS took a cheap shortcut with this but I agree with Alpha that if dev's are going to go this root they should just keep the code more straightforward and let the hardware do the up-scaling work. In my experience the display doing any kind of signal alteration is usually better than on the fly shortcuts from software on a console or PC. Only real exceptions I've seen are a select few disc players.
 
Nenu said:
I found a problem with the new tomb raider on PC.
When not in exclusive full screen it turns on HDR without changing the colour palette when using my HDR screen (I'm on Win7 if that matters).
The colours become way over the top, its unplayable.
HDR cannot be enabled or disabled on Windows 7 for this game, it is greyed out and set to off.
Lucky it stops doing it in exclusive mode.
Click to expand...

Interesting. In Windows 10 HDR is controlled entirely by the Windows desktop HDR setting in SotTR. HDR is forever disabled and the box can't be checked in the menu or in the game if you don't have desktop HDR on. Mass Effect Andromeda was similar. Most games just use their own in-game HDR toggle.
 
Nenu said:
That isnt what I asked.
Your specific statement, if true, will have evidence to back it up.
Or you can retract it?
Click to expand...
I have not taken apart all quantum dot displays, and used a microscope to verify their composition no.
Does this mean I have to retract a statement?
 
Kalabalana said:
I have not taken apart all quantum dot displays, and used a microscope to verify their composition no.
Does this mean I have to retract a statement?
Click to expand...
Interesting you think that necessary to know what you are talking about.
 
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