I’m so done with win11, and currently 12 of my 15 machines are linux anyway, but AFAIK HDR (on nvidia gpu) is still impossible? Are you guys all on AMD or just not using hdr for gaming/media? So instead of relying on outdated info, just asking the pros :)
We’re definitely not all on AMD but most of us are.
Personally I don’t understand what all the hubbub is about HDR anyway. It always makes the picture look all washed out and desaturated so I keep it off. I’m obviously missing something.
This is a typical symptom when part of the HDR pipeline is working but not all of it. The HDR image is getting (poorly) converted to SDR before it’s being displayed.
Actual HDR is richer colors than SDR. Note that you basically need an OLED monitor to display it properly. On most LCD monitors that advertise “HDR” support, it won’t look very different.
I have an OLED.
Then you definitely have some settings wrong.
Make sure the monitor is set to HDR mode (in the monitor’s built-in settings), and the OS is set to treat the monitor as HDR. Depending on the OS there may be other things to play with. E.g. I was getting the issue with things looking washed out after the latest bazzite update until I manually installed VK_HDR_LAYER
Here is a site I usually use to test that HDR is working correctly: https://www.wide-gamut.com/test (you may need a chrome based browser, Firefox doesn’t always render it correctly)
Yes, you seem to be missing actual HDR :-) It looks washed out and desaturated if you’d view SDR content while HDR is enabled. Or the monitor can’t. Or whatever else. I even have problems with jellyfin on windows to get it right. That things needs a separate app to actually work. So HDR’s the only good thing about win11, as it mostly works.
I really wanna finally ditch that horrorshow, but going back to SDR feels like going back from 4K to 480p.
I suggest you strip Windows to the bone (including Defender), dual boot Linux, and delegate Windows as a “HDR media OS”
This is what I do, and it works well. Sufficiently neutered, Windows if really quick and out of the way.
It’s already neutered, but dual-booting really isn’t an option. As long as win remains a bootable option, why even add another one, i see no benefit in running both and wasting time switching regularly. Soon i wouldn’t even switch and ditch HDR :)
Washed out and desaturated is the opposite of what it should do. Sounds like you may be looking at SDR (non HDR) content with HDR enabled?
Is Linux not able to switch HDR on and off as necessary?
I usually do this in-game so why would a non-HDR game have an HDR toggle?
You may have to enable HDR for Linux on each monitor individually from the display settings, and then enable HDR for the game itself from within its own settings.
I only have 1 (large) monitor. I toggle it on and everything looks like butt. Then toggle it off and it looks normal again. It’s an HDR OLED display.
If you’re on KDE, you can use the “sRGB color intensity” to quickly test if your content (e.g. via mpv or Proton) is really in HDR.
If the content changes while going from minimum to maximum in “sRGB color intensity”, it’s SDR, if it does not change, it’s HDR.
I also have an OLED monitor and HDR looks fantastic on KDE.