known issue MFD exported viewport brightness & contrast - critical on TGP

[ZACHI]

I've been using Cubesim monitors for my MFD viewports for quite a long time.

I always noticed that the MFD image brightness & contrast on the Cubesim screens is much worse than the image in the cockpit on the main monitor - obviously, I thought it's the monitor quality.

This is becoming critical in the TGP page, where it's tough to see, detect, and identify targets, finding myself always increasing the MFD brightness to max and playing around with the contrast (using the Viper's MFD controls) to somehow get a better image, while the image in the cockpit gets burned out.

I just tested the exported MFD viewport on the main screen, and was surprised to see that the same issue occurs there too (no mods) - see attached images for reference.

Is anyone else experiencing the same?

Thanks!

[Mapi]

it is an old problem für the export users ...

[ZACHI]

22 hours ago, Mapi said:

it is an old problem für the export users ...

Thanks @Mapi.

I hope that ED would have a plan to fix that in the near future…

[rob10]

1 hour ago, ZACHI said:

Thanks @Mapi.

I hope that ED would have a plan to fix that in the near future…

They are aware of the issue and have said that there is no easy fix for it, so I wouldn't expect in the near future.  I do have hope that some day out of the blue they will figure out a solution and drop it.

[BIGNEWY]

Hi, we have had an open request for some time and no solution yet. The problem is the export isnt HDR like the in game one. 

I will raise it with the team again, but I can not make any promises. 

thank you 

[ZACHI]

2 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi, we have had an open request for some time and no solution yet. The problem is the export isnt HDR like the in game one. 

I will raise it with the team again, but I can not make any promises. 

thank you 

Thanks @BIGNEWY!

Perhaps the Vulkan implementation could help

[BIGNEWY]

18 minutes ago, ZACHI said:

Thanks @BIGNEWY!

Perhaps the Vulkan implementation could help

Maybe, that is my hope also 

[Renko]

4 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi, we have had an open request for some time and no solution yet. The problem is the export isnt HDR like the in game one. 

I will raise it with the team again, but I can not make any promises. 

thank you 

I would like to offer some advice on this matter, as I have some knowledge in this area.
Maybe this will help the team get on track to resolve this issue.

First of all i will make one assumption on those colour spaces, because those may deviate from the Rec.709 & Rec.2020 specs.
We have some sort of HDR Color Space in the game primary display, lets call it HDR. And the export display is some sort of SDR Color Space, lets call that SDR.
So if thats the case you will only need to transform from one Color Space to the other. In this case you will need to transform that SDR to HDR, in the values that DCS uses.

This is nothing special. In the industry converting from one Color Space to another is a pretty common thing to use on daily basics.

So the only thing ED will need to provide is a Trasnformation Matrix for that SDR to HDR color space. Probably should be pretty straight forward to do a custom LUT (Look-Up Table).
Or use an existing one if it complies with Rec.709 and Rec.2020 specifications.

And you could provide one. Where? Well just like you have that drop-down menu called "Color Grading" that are just LUTs ( a LUT is a Trasnformation Matrix).
There you can have one at least that transforms from SDR to HDR values but it will only affect the export display you choose. So you will solve this issue with that.

This user here has done a Colour Space Transform without knowing by using Reshade. 
And you can see that works well enough, and its is just that. Transform SDR values to a similar HDR ones from the primary display.

So if DCS supports having some LUTs for "Color Grading". It should be able to give in the same manner a LUT that transforms SDR to HDR values and only affect export display.

If the team wants to find more info on how this technical Colour Space Transforms works they can google "Color Space Transform HDR to SDR".
They should be able to find good info.

As I mentioned earlier, if DCS already supports LUT, this feature could be applied just to exports from a technical standpoint.

Hope it helps

Edited 5 hours ago by Renko

[BIGNEWY]

Hi, 

I have passed on the comments to the team. 

thank you 

[Renko]

3 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi, 

I have passed on the comments to the team. 

thank you 

BTW I just realised one thing that could make the solution more easy for you guys, but im not 100% sure. I cannot try because i dont have display export in DCS.
Seeing the AMPCD from the thread i quoted it seems that the solution could be achieved with only working in the Luma channel. Because the map colours seems to be okay.
So if you dont need to transform the colours and only need the luma, that makes things way easier.
If thats the case you could achieve a solution by just adjusting with a custom curve or with gamma values.

Here is an example with one of the OP screenshots and a quick custom curve i just did in some external software. I tried the same in Photoshop with a similar curve.
And both make those two almost identical, the priamry display and the external one.

[Yeti42]

Use this:

ReShade

And follow these instructions:
 

 

[MAXsenna]

Use this:

ReShade

And follow these instructions:
 
 

That's only a workaround. We would like an in-game fix!

It was also posted above.

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Hi, 
I have passed on the comments to the team. 
thank you 

Thank you!

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