High Dynamic Range Video Output

HDR video output would be an incredible boost for flight sims like DCS. This isn't the same thing as HDR in computer graphics or photography. It's a specification for video that oncorporates a larger color gamut and increased contrast.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2490643,00.asp

The challenge of being able to see distant aircraft, the visibility issues that are such difficulty in these games is much the product of the reduced color range and contrast of a monitor vs the real world. Basically HDR takes a screen from 16.7 million colors to 1 billion

This standard for Ultra HD is already available in current UHD TVs and monitors.

No idea what it would take for the game to output to this standard, or if it already can, but it would be amazing.

how many GPUs Currently Support the HDR Standard for HDMI?

Pascal And Polaris,

Maybe Maxwell,

Then you have to have a Screen capable of HDR.

Screens are already capable of HDR. My GPU has a 10-bit color output, vs 8-bit, for the wider color space. So it's already here in the world of video. What about games?

This is the new standard for Ultra-HD video. Blu-ray discs, Amazon and Netflix have it. In a short time it will be universal as 1080p is today. 1080p though uses rec 709 (16.7 million colors) indeed what most reviewers say is they weren't impressed by the 4K resolution alone, when it was introduced. Extra pixels don't matter so much in home video for a TV you're 10' away from. But HDR is a big boost. Now 4K becomes really appealing because it actually has better picture quality. Same thing in gaming, 4K is nice and sharp but it's not an improvement in video quality otherwise. The issue of spotting targets will be improved as much or more by improvements in color and contrast than anything else. This question is not an "if" but "when" really.

Pascal has it.

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-pascal-goes-full-in-with-hdr-support-for-games-and-4k-streaming-for-movies/

Games with HDR include

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Paragon

Shadow Warrior 2

The Witness

Lawbreakers

The Talos Principle

Obduction

"modern games typically already render HDR and generally what needs to be done is to update the tone mapper to make it HDR aware, and then integrate some API calls so that the game can detect the HDR display and put it in HDR mode."

Self bump. Just got one of these monitors and it’s fantastic. HDR would be great for DCS. It would go a long way towards addressing all the visibility issues.

I wonder how many people even use regular monitors for gaming anymore? 4K+HDR TVs are so cheap now and all the consoles and games in HDR look fantastic on them.

+1

DCS would really benefit from HDR support.

Doesn't DCS already have HDR support? I swear I saw an HDR option in the graphics settings some time ago. Also, doesn't HDR limit you to 30 fps as well?

It’s actually a different HDR than the one used in computer graphics.

It’s a video specification

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_video

Wow did I write that OP two years ago?!

HDR is everywhere now. Virtually all 4K UHD TVs are HDR and the current game consoles support HDR. Nearly every mainstream game is in HDR

Even though DCS doesn’t support HDR it looks really good running on an HDR display

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=228541

Because the monitor itself can produce those colors.

Because the monitor itself can produce those colors.

The monitor can’t upconvert SDR to HDR. DCS just looks really good because HDR displays inherently have good contrast and color. When running DCS or any SDR content the HDR setting is better turned off in Windows.

In order to get the full wider color gamut, the source would have to be authored using it. You can see the real difference with games that support HDR.

Even though DCS doesn’t support HDR it looks really good running on an HDR display

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=228541

I think this statement is a bit misleading.

Since there is so much confusion about HDR (with the general public), i think it is important to be very precise about the matter:

DCS running on an HDR monitor in HDR colour mode, should in theory look quite bad, because of the stretched color space with exagerated contrast and colours.

I understand that you run it in SDR mode, which should be equivalent to sRGB color space, which is covered well enough by most modern monitors.

Therefore a similar result to yours should be archievable with any decent monitor that is calibrated for sRGB (all modern IPS panels should do 100% sRGB with ease these days).

I would guess that your old monitor was just performing underwhelmingly for you to notice such an improvment with your new one.

The monitor can’t upconvert SDR to HDR. DCS just looks really good because HDR displays inherently have good contrast and color.

That is true. A well calibrated sRGB monitor however should perform similarly in DCS.

This is until we get HDR support for DCS some day!

I think this statement is a bit misleading.

Since there is so much confusion about HDR (with the general public), i think it is important to be very precise about the matter:

DCS running on an HDR monitor in HDR colour mode, should in theory look quite bad, because of the stretched color space with exagerated contrast and colours.

I understand that you run it in SDR mode, which should be equivalent to sRGB color space, which is covered well enough by most modern monitors.

Therefore a similar result to yours should be archievable with any decent monitor that is calibrated for sRGB (all modern IPS panels should do 100% sRGB with ease these days).

I would guess that your old monitor was just performing underwhelmingly for you to notice such an improvment with your new one.

Correct. I was confused myself at first. And yes the improvement I’m seeing is simply due to this monitor outperforming my old one in SDR

Bump. This would be the single best thing ED could do to help with all the visibility issues.

It's lovely but to early for that. The only thing ED can do is prepare infrastructurally for that transition abit ahead of time to have less/easier work later.

It's lovely but to early for that. The only thing ED can do is prepare infrastructurally for that transition abit ahead of time to have less/easier work later.

I don’t know whether it’s too early. Many other games have HDR, nearly all current AAA titles. Game consoles, disc players, streaming video, all current HDTVs. It’s basically universal outside of PC gaming which seems to have lagged behind. I’m sure a large base of DCS as well as gamers in general use 4K HDR TVs as their display. These have become so cheap recently.

I have no idea what it takes to implement this but the results in a flight sim would be amazing.

It's lovely but to early for that. The only thing ED can do is prepare infrastructurally for that transition abit ahead of time to have less/easier work later.

I don’t know whether it’s too early. Many other games have HDR, nearly all current AAA titles. Game consoles, disc players, streaming video, all current HDTVs. It’s basically universal outside of PC gaming which seems to have lagged behind. I’m sure a large base of DCS as well as gamers in general use 4K HDR TVs as their display. These have become so cheap recently.

I have no idea what it takes to implement this but the results in a flight sim would be amazing.

In theory, HDR should play very nicely with PBR (physically based rendering), which we have in DCS since 2.4 or 2.5 (i forgot).

Internally it should already render with more or less unlimited dynamic range with the final output being down converted to fit into the standard dynamic range.

However from what the engines looks and behaves like, i suspect that parts of it still are not yet truly PBR: The skybox and indirect lighting f.e. ...

I think anothe problem, that would need solving is light pop-in at night. I assume one reason, why the distant lights at night are so muted, is because if they would increase the contrast (even within SDR) the limited render distance of lights would show even more.

With that being said, i think the engine would need some work to properly support HDR, but all the changes would also benefit the SDR image, because right now night lighting in DCS won't even saturate a SD range.

A true PBR renderer however could be easily tuned to get the most out of SDR and HDR output.