How To Reduce Glare and Brightness

[Cpt_Piett 4,700]

I find the image can look somewhat overexposed when using HDR. Apparently MSFS is outputting around 10,000 nits which is ridiculous. Almost no monitor can punch out such a luminance level. My relatively recent OLED TV can barely manage 1000 nits in HDR10.

What I've done is to reduce highlights by around 30% and increase contrast to ~15% using the GeForce Experience overlay. That'll make the sky "pop" a bit more, reducing the "washed-out" look. 

 

[MrBitstFlyer 3,875]

I think we spend too much time making one tweak after another which often leads to poorer results in the long run.  It has to be accepted that the sky in MSFS will always look bright when looking partly or fully into the cockpit, you are not going to change this.  If you try and dial this out with NVidia filters, you will just ruin colours, shadows and brightness elsewhere.

When I changed my monitor from SDR to HDR600, I again experienced problems.  A lot of us have probably used NVidia colour filter to reduce the temperature of the display because it is too yellow. However, when using HDR, this tweak made my display much too blue. Having only recently returned to airliners, I also found the Raleigh Scattering effect far too blue at high altitude which bleached out all colours on the ground.  I took the obvious route and added Nvidia filters to try and dial out the blue, but this just leads to other problems with colour and brightness.

I fixed this mess by turning off HDR and calibrating my monitor in SDR with an XRite i1 Display Pro.  Now I had the monitor correctly calibrated and looking good in SDR, I switched HDR back on and loaded MSFS - I turned off all Nvidia Filters and the display now looked great in HDR.  At altitude the Raleigh Scattering effect looked natural. Colours on the ground still looked realistic and not washed out.  Shadows looked good and not too dark when flying under the clouds. Cloud shadows on the ground & Sea looked very good when above the clouds.

I think it has to be accepted that a monitor that isn't hardware calibrated will most likely to lead to poor colours and shadows.  Buying a calibrator like the the Datacolour SpyderX or XRite i1 Display Pro is the only way to get your display looking right all the time.

Edited June 7, 2022 by MrBitstFlyer

[Cpt_Piett 4,700]

7 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I think we spend too much time making one tweak after another which often leads to poorer results in the long run.  It has to be accepted that the sky in MSFS will always look bright when looking partly or fully into the cockpit, you are not going to change this.  If you try and dial this out with NVidia filters, you will just ruin colours, shadows and brightness elsewhere.

Sure. And while I appreciate your point of view (my TV is not hardware calibrated by the way), I think it is possible to find some preferred settings by tweaking usercfg.opt, GE and the like. Having said that, it's also very easy to "over-tune" and end up with a worse result. 

[MrBitstFlyer 3,875]

4 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I think it is possible to find some preferred settings by tweaking usercfg.opt, GE and the like.

My point exactly - possible I guess, but not probable for most people.  Non of this tweaking is required if the screen is calibrated correctly.  In my experience, tweaking a couple of settings to fix one problem will just have unintended consequences elsewhere.

[Roy Warren 426]

Happens to me all the time.  I'm no Geek so I just change the time of day by an hour or two. Not a fix, but solves my problem.

Roy

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

When they first released MSFS its was great - all down hill since then - not a fan anymore - where's REX when you need them we need a decent payware to fix it especially night - Tim you listening 🙂 

[Sunshine13 234]

there seems to be many topics about brightness and over exposure/ and this has been going on for quite a while.

[Simicro 247]

Thank you all, I understand that there is no simple perfect solution at this time.

[Sunshine13 234]

my solution is just to fly later in the day, but that is not a fix.

[michaelray 236]

I have HDR enabled and a HDR600 monitor.

My solution was to set color grading to 0 in the user config and leave eye adaption to 1.

At the brightest time of day for me this reduces the difference between outside and the panel. It is the best compromise I have found.

Since day 1 they has been so much talk around this subject that I think the only solution is a slider so people can adjust to their liking. We all have different monitors, we all perceive what is close to reality differently. Let us have control over this very important aspect of the simulator.

Worth mentioning for me that in Windows 10 I could not find any working solution for HDR. It all looked rubbish. Going to Windows 11 has made this now useable for me. I still think it could be better though.

[tonksa 2]

The answer is bleedingly simple.  Asobo should consider implementing a feature equivalent to putting on a pair of sunglasses.  Make it a toggleable binding, or similar, with a user adjustable option for the level of tint on their simulated sunglasses.

We are flying in a sim that does its best to emulate real world conditions, without providing us the ability to implement the most simple solution available to a pilot.

Edited June 8, 2022 by tonksa
syntax

[JYW 2,984]

1 hour ago, tonksa said:

The answer is bleedingly simple.  Asobo should consider implementing a feature equivalent to putting on a pair of sunglasses.

Yes, X-Plane has this.   However, you know what threads and posts would follow that though? ...

.... "Don't you think the sunglasses effect is too strong?   I can't see anything!".  

😄

[Roy Warren 426]

5 hours ago, tonksa said:

The answer is bleedingly simple.  Asobo should consider implementing a feature equivalent to putting on a pair of sunglasses.  Make it a toggleable binding, or similar, with a user adjustable option for the level of tint on their simulated sunglasses.

We are flying in a sim that does its best to emulate real world conditions, without providing us the ability to implement the most simple solution available to a pilot.

This happened to me six months or more.  I opened up my cockpit view and was looking through a pair of sunglasses.  It only lasted for a few seconds and has never happened since and as far as I know, no one has ever reported it happening to them.  Maybe it's already in there and not been implemented.

Roy

[MrBitstFlyer 3,875]

8 hours ago, michaelray said:

We all have different monitors, we all perceive what is close to reality differently. Let us have control over this very important aspect of the simulator.

We may have different monitors, but they can all be calibrated to the same standard. A calibrated monitor does not require multi NVidia filters.

[tonksa 2]

4 minutes ago, Roy Warren said:

This happened to me six months or more.  I opened up my cockpit view and was looking through a pair of sunglasses.  It only lasted for a few seconds and has never happened since and as far as I know, no one has ever reported it happening to them.  Maybe it's already in there and not been implemented.

Roy

This is an issue where you're looking through the 3d pilot model.  Sadly, absolutely not what I'm asking for.