Solved HDR on or off

I don't have any HDR games, I don't even think I have any HDR video. However, I do use a photo slideshow screensaver (JPEG Saver). Does having HDR turned on improve the number of colours or shades of colour in non-HDR content like photos?

I've switched HDR on and off and I think I can see a small (very small) improvement, but that might just be my imagination.

Is there any point in having HDR turned on in Windows 11 without HDR content?

I don't use it as it can distort your games. Video cards already have enough
options to play with. Maybe on static photos but, as for moving images, I
wouldn't turn it on. This is only my opinion. Best for you to maybe play
around with it to see IF you can justify it.

As far as I know, HDR is enabled automatically in games that support it, if of course your monitor also supports it. I once enabled it in my friends computer and the colors on the desktop were too vivid and the text wasn't clear and didn't look nice. Once I disabled it all colors were back to normal and the text was clear again. So I wouldn't enable it globally, only inside specific games. You can try though and see how it looks on your own monitor.

Yes, it can make the desktop (and everything else) look worse, as in my friend's case. Just enable it and see the result. If you don't like it, leave it disabled.

Well, I've been playing with it both off and on and trying to compare the results. Truthfully, I could hardly notice any difference between the two.

But here is where I found a problem. Taking a screenshot (print screen button) trying to select an area of the screen to capture, the result was a white-out with HDR on. Where with the Standard screen, Windows darkens the image and the area you select is normal. In other words, HDR breaks the Windows screen capture app.

So HDR is off from now on.

If your TV supports wide color gamut, you can configure 10-bit or 12-bit per color channel to get more colors in videos and games. This is easily done from nVidia or AMD control panel. See the display section. In nVidia check to override the default color settings and use nVidia instead in order to see the RGB/YCbCr and bits per color settings. No need to enable HDR. If you are using Photoshop there is a setting to enable 10-bit per color channel for images that have more colors than 16M.

Using it with 3x 4K monitors that support HDR so I leave it on. It makes my games, for the most part, look much, much nicer than with it off.

Some games won't allow me to enable HDR via in-game menu if Windows has it turned off.

What I have done, though, is go back and disable it for some games (like basic card games) because those do get washed out still, as they were not meant to be used with HDR.

JPEGs are in 8 bit color.

If your hardware permits, you can use 10 bit color outside of HDR. (I have my systems set up that way. nVidia graphics cards permit that, for the GTX 10X0 series and newer, if memory serves.)

My hardware is also HDR capable, but I rarely turn it on. In SDR mode my system is color calibrated, but the desktop colors are obviously way off when HDR mode is enabled.

Yes, you can enable 12-bit per color channel in HDMI or 10-bit in DP if your monitor supports them. No need to enable HDR.

I like HDR

There is an app from Microsoft that allows for color calibration for your monitors to be developed with HDR on.


As well as a Display HDR Test app from VESA:


I used the first to set custom color profiles for my 4K monitors.

Flashorn said:

I don't use it as it can distort your games.

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HDR isn't just plug-in-and-turn-on. If HDR looks terrible, then the monitor/screen needs adjustments, mainly brightness. There are settings to adjust, so the brightest spots aren't so bright. I do know that the Samsung Odyssey G40B needs fine-tuning with the brightness and contrast. Also the colors, because the reds are so saturated.

I don't think it is only a matter of brightness or something. As far as I remember turning on HDR in my friend's computer made some colors too vivid and the text was rather low contrast (cannot describe it exactly) and difficult to read. Of course I had also turned on HDR from the TV. Turning off HDR from Windows returned the colors at their normal values and the text was solid clear and readable. I know if I would try some settings I would probably make it better but I had already spend too many hours to build his PC with dual graphics cards and water cooling and to install Windows 10 from scratch, I wouldn't like to spend another minute there. It had two nVidia GTX 1080 Ti cards in SLI mode and a curved 4K TV with HDR connected via HDMI. I switched on HDR on the TV and then in Windows. When I saw the weird washed out image I didn't had the courage to troubleshoot, so I just turned off HDR and left. Since then I didn't have the opportunity to experiment with HDR again, so I cannot help any further, sorry.

spapakons said:

I don't think it is only a matter of brightness or something. As far as I remember turning on HDR in my friend's computer made some colors too vivid and the text was rather low contrast (cannot describe it exactly) and difficult to read.

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Sounds like a combination of too much brightness and the contrast needing to be turned down some.

A big mistake, is also not getting the Windows HDR Calibration app.

I would happily investigate at my own pace at my own time if I had an HDR TV. But I had already spend too much time at my friend's house I didn't want to troubleshoot it at the moment. So I just turned HDR off and left. My bad, I blew the chance to learn about HDR, but I value my free time and my sanity most than this knowledge. Maybe next time...

RJARRRPCGP said:

HDR isn't just plug-in-and-turn-on. If HDR looks terrible, then the monitor/screen needs adjustments, mainly brightness. There are settings to adjust, so the brightest spots aren't so bright. I do know that the Samsung Odyssey G40B needs fine-tuning with the brightness and contrast. Also the colors, because the reds are so saturated.

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Tried it on this notebook (360Hz) and my 32" MSI monitor (165Hz) and didn't like the way it looked even after trying to adjust for colour and brightness. I keep it off. Didn't mentioned that it looked terrible just that, I didn't like it. Also asked that the OP try it.

There is a reason that HDR is only enabled in games. This is because in a game environment you appreciate the vivid colors and there is hardly any fine text to read. In Windows it looks awful by default, unless you can tweak some settings. If it was perfect in most monitors, Microsoft would have enabled it automatically and there would not be a setting in games. If HDR was on it would be used by the game, no setting necessary.

A good idea I would like to see in future Windows 11 versions or in Windows 12 would be HDR not to be applied on the whole desktop. It would not affect text and icons, apply it only on images. So everything else looks normal and images or video would look better in HDR. Can this be done? Come on Microsoft, I know you can!

bobkn said:

JPEGs are in 8 bit color.

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It's 8 bits per color, making 24 bit in total.

spapakons said:

in a game environment you appreciate the vivid colors

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We all appreciate good and vivd colours in games and movies or whatever you are watching.
The fact remains that, no one eye is the same as the next person's. I don't like the way it looks
either in games or in movies hence, off. Doesn't mean that the next person will not like it. This
is why I specified that he/she try it to see if it fits.

spapakons said:

There is a reason that HDR is only enabled in games. This is because in a game environment you appreciate the vivid colors and there is hardly any fine text to read. In Windows it looks awful by default, unless you can tweak some settings. If it was perfect in most monitors, Microsoft would have enabled it automatically and there would not be a setting in games. If HDR was on it would be used by the game, no setting necessary.

A good idea I would like to see in future Windows 11 versions or in Windows 12 would be HDR not to be applied on the whole desktop. It would not affect text and icons, apply it only on images. So everything else looks normal and images or video would look better in HDR. Can this be done? Come on Microsoft, I know you can!

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Categorically disagree.

Video streams from sources like Netflix and other streaming apps make great use of it as well. It's not just for gaming.

Furthermore, HDR is a new technology. Just like 4K and higher resolution displays, necessitating the use of DisplayPort 1.2 (at a bare minimum) and HDMI 2. It's why the standards keep evolving, why DP is at 2.0 with staggering amounts of bandwidth compared to 1.2, and why HDMI 2.1 is now the de facto standard for 4K and higher resolution display devices.

Windows 10's implementation of HDR leaves a lot to be desired. Windows 11's implementation has gotten better and better over time, from the initial days of simply enabling it to now enabling it and having it automatically turn on when something actually makes use of it (and if Windows turns it on in an app where it thinks it should but it messes with the colors, you can selectively disable that app from using HDR - works for normal and store-installed apps).

I have a triplet of 4K monitors that make use of HDR very well, and it makes all the difference in the world. If your hardware doesn't support it (or you don't have it set up properly to support it) it won't look right. If you try to force a 4K resolution on a display device that doesn't support 4K, it also won't look right (if it works at all).

But I'm not in any way saying you were at fault in your friend's situation - limits are easily reached, and there has been a lot of research and tinkering with HDR in the last few years, to the point where there are all sorts of utilities like the HDR calibration tool I mentioned, Blur Buster's tools, and so much more - but if you don't have the capacity to use it, then, yes, turning it off is a good idea. I would have done the same in your situation as well. Now that I know a lot more about HDR, I may have tinkered with it if I knew all of the components in the build would make use of it - but being Windows 10, it still probably would have looked ugly, because Windows 10's implementation of HDR is crap.