Non HDR content (SDR) will fill the HDR colour space so looks over saturated, your monitor should have a sRGB mode for normal content.
Depends how well it is used to how good it looks, some HDR is done great, most HDR is ok, some HDR is done really poor, a lack of defining standards doesn't help.

Originally posted by NukeFonKillazz:

colors start become greyish but i read on google that this is intended

Nope not sure what the problem is but they should look fine, some setting somewhere not quite right maybe.

I can't help with gaming, but for videos I hear you. I just tonemap it to SDR on my monitor because when HDR officially kicks in, I get what you're talking about.

Originally posted by wing0zero:

Non HDR content (SDR) will fill the HDR colour space so looks over saturated, your monitor should have a sRGB mode for normal content.
Depends how well it is used to how good it looks, some HDR is done great, most HDR is ok, some HDR is done really poor, a lack of defining standards doesn't help.

Originally posted by NukeFonKillazz:

colors start become greyish but i read on google that this is intended

Nope not sure what the problem is but they should look fine, some setting somewhere not quite right maybe.

do i need to tune anything when you just get HDR monitor? i havent tinkered with any setting its all stock settings

Originally posted by NukeFonKillazz:

Originally posted by wing0zero:

Non HDR content (SDR) will fill the HDR colour space so looks over saturated, your monitor should have a sRGB mode for normal content.
Depends how well it is used to how good it looks, some HDR is done great, most HDR is ok, some HDR is done really poor, a lack of defining standards doesn't help.


Nope not sure what the problem is but they should look fine, some setting somewhere not quite right maybe.

do i need to tune anything when you just get HDR monitor? i havent tinkered with any setting its all stock settings

Is HDR turned on in the monitor, some it's off as default, I'm guessing you have it on in Windows and have adjusted the SDR brightness bar to your liking?

Some profile might be more accurate vs another in HDR like Cinema vs Gaming profile, only a review from some place like RTings or Monitors Unboxed will tell you that.

Originally posted by wing0zero:

Originally posted by NukeFonKillazz:

do i need to tune anything when you just get HDR monitor? i havent tinkered with any setting its all stock settings

Is HDR turned on in the monitor, some it's off as default, I'm guessing you have it on in Windows and have adjusted the SDR brightness bar to your liking?

Some profile might be more accurate vs another in HDR like Cinema vs Gaming profile, only a review from some place like RTings or Monitors Unboxed will tell you that.

i have enabled smart HDR on monitor settings and HDR on windows 11 but i cant tune any color settings if HDR is enabled cant switch between any profile becuz it says i need to disable HDR to tune those settings

Windows won't allow you to do this because it thinks you'll spoil the party . Try the monitor presets

Originally posted by smallcat:

Windows won't allow you to do this because it thinks you'll spoil the party . Try the monitor presets

well i can use presets if i dont use HDR but i wanted to use HDR tho

You want an answer there are a few

1 HDR is a mess

2 lots of monitors cant do real hdr

3 you dont understand it


That leads to a crappy hdr experience and washed out images a classic hdr on pc mistake. What to do?


Can your monitor do at least hdr peak 1000? Can you find a game with non windows hdr its called native hdr. And from there you might be able to see some real hdr. What is real hdr you ask? Its exactly the same image you know and love but small areas can be allowed extreme brightness. So imagine being blinded by the sun or a flashlight in a movie thats hdr but when done wrong you get a washed out messed up image.

Yeah that's a point I'm just assuming OLED, yeah if you have a single or edge backlit IPS for example you don't actually have a HDR monitor but a monitor that accepts a HDR signal and it will just look bad no matter what.

hdr is a fix for a problem that should not exist

if the display cant show brights next to darks, the display is not calibrated correctly from the factory

hdr just limits the color range the display is showing
instead of 0-254 per color, its like capping min/max at 10-244
better off just adjusting brightness/contrast til its good enough for you

Try Ori Indiana Jones or Resident Evil 4 disable auto hdr in windows and use the ingame native hdr instead. It is still a mess though as you need to set your black level and your peak brightness etc. And so if you have a 1000 nits HDR monitor you need to set peak brightness to whatever left or right click means 1000 nits some games do not even tell you the correct numbers and require compensation (hdtvtest) and for black level you set to 0 if you are on an oled as the display can essentially turn off a pixel for perfect blacks so 0 and 1000 in this scenario would be required knowledge.

sRGB setting isn't bad to make stuff look like regular non hdr.

There might be user settings on youtube or websites that give you some settings.

You can calibrate your monitor in nvidia control panel , youtube videos, press windows key and type calibrate then calibrate monitor there. You might not like a properly calibrated monitor. If so then your stuck fiddling with settings. Go to a dark area of a modern game see stuff there and change modes/settings.

There might be a dark stabilizer setting in the monitors menu.

HDR on PC is terrible and pointless.

Better suited for Consoles.

You are much better off using one of the omboard Monitor profiles and tweak them, one for low light, one for general everyday Desktop use and one for Gaming.

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

HDR on PC is terrible and pointless.

It can be great if a dev does a decent job in game, like everything it's down to effort and console has tons of poor HDR too, I'll quote something about some of the good ones.

"For the best PC HDR, look to stunning ports like Horizon Forbidden West & Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and recent hits like Alan Wake 2 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, alongside technically impressive titles such as Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Cyberpunk 2077, and Resident Evil Village, with games like Dying Light praised for near-perfect calibration options"

Every single time I have used HDR it has terrible brightness/contrast/gamma

Also keep in mind, if you use NVIDIA GPU, you'll want to go into NVIDIA Control Panel > change screen resolution > and change the color type and output range... usually on most screens, it's usually best to set to RGB + FULL

What's very annoying is I can't just have HDR enable for a game. Because Win10/11 is glitchy about that and once you ALT+TAB out the HDR turns off but won't turn back on once go back to the game again so I have to exit the game and enable HDR at the Drsktop level then it works. But again it's too dark and terrible.

If you play any game that has a realistic night time then HDR sucks unless you play in a completely dark room. Such as Red Dead, Kingdom Come, Thief, Arma, DayZ, STALKER2