Today I decided to download the HDR Calibration app. I am on a PC with a LGC1. So after tuning the HDR in the app and setting my saturation to 50 I launched msfs. I was honestly blown away at how incredibly realistic the sim looked. The colors were melting my eyes. Seriously anyone who has a decent HDR tv/monitor should use this app to calibrate your display for HDR gaming. Also do not leave the saturation value to default. The sweet spot is somewhere between 40 to 60 depending on your game.

On 2/1/2023 at 10:01 PM, Noel said:

The Windows HDR Calibration App is for Win 11 only

Is there a Win 10 option either built in or for DL?

1 hour ago, bbuckley said:

Is there a Win 10 option either built in or for DL?

Win 10 has its own routine but I don't know if the Win 11 app does anything significantly different.   There are so many controls now for saturation, brightness, gamma, contrast I'd be real surprised if HDR on can do any better for MSFS than off using the various filters available thru GF Experience, in particular the Detail filter provided the display your using is able to respond to those.  I've tried every permutation of adjustments and HDR on generally just overcooks the contrast component to the point of not being natural looking.   

I set the contrast to 100 in NCP and black level to low on my screen settings.

sp

I set the contrast to 100 in NCP and black level to low on my screen settings.

sp

3 hours ago, Noel said:

Win 10 has its own routine but I don't know if the Win 11 app does anything significantly different.   There are so many controls now for saturation, brightness, gamma, contrast I'd be real surprised if HDR on can do any better for MSFS than off using the various filters available thru GF Experience, in particular the Detail filter provided the display your using is able to respond to those.  I've tried every permutation of adjustments and HDR on generally just overcooks the contrast component to the point of not being natural looking.   

Thanks. I discovered my 4K TV does not support HDR after all. I played around with the FreeStyle GEForce In-Game filters and and so far have setup the brightness/contrast filter so that things look pleasing to me at low level clear day coastal. If you don't mind a couple questions..

1. Are those settings persistent as long as you enable In-Game Overlay or is that even necessary?

2. Do you notice any performance impact with In-Game Overlay on?

3. After playing with the settings for a filter I wanted to reset it to default settings but can't figure out how,

8 hours ago, bbuckley said:

1. Are those settings persistent as long as you enable In-Game Overlay or is that even necessary?

2. Do you notice any performance impact with In-Game Overlay on?

3. After playing with the settings for a filter I wanted to reset it to default settings but can't figure out how,

There is no performance impact whatsover with GFE Detail filter (it's the only one I use and these are post-processing so shouldn't have an impact I don't believe) and that is verified by CapFrameX.  Alt-F3 is the default keystroke to bring up the GFE filters.  I'm pretty sure the filters must be openable in order for them to function so if the assigned keystroke doesn't bring them up they won't be operating.  However, if you have GFE overlay to automatically be openable the prior filter settings are conserved and will load up automatically vis a vis in MSFS.  You will see the Nvidia logo on the upper right of the display as MSFS is initializing.  

On 2/2/2023 at 8:22 PM, flyinion said:

Just tried out that app.  Works pretty nice, unfortunately didn't do much for my poor HDR400 monitor.  Did a test with late afternoon + a few clouds and if the camera wasn't aimed right at the sun and low to the ground, highlights were still just totally blown out.  I do need to double check that I didn't have two color profiles interfering with each other though.  Apparently the app makes and "advanced" color profile and so both it and the standard one from DisplayCal can be active together in the Color Management window, but it's not obvious if both are loaded when a game is in HDR mode.  So I'll do it again but remove my calibrated non-hdr one and close out DisplayCal's loader tool first.  I'm pretty sure HDR400 just doesn't have enough range to properly map the tones in HDR mode in the sim in a usable manner.

Try a lower saturation to chill out the highlights. I've been at 40 for the last couple of flights and it's close.

I think 30 is going to be where I end up. The lower saturation also helps to turn the blue haze whiter and more natural looking.

On 2/3/2023 at 2:09 PM, Baber20 said:

I was honestly blown away at how incredibly realistic the sim looked. 

Totally agree, however I never really got a good setting that is also comfortable and good looking outside MSFS and switching HDR on (and off) for each MSFS session is simply too annoying, that is why I do not use HDR currently. Does the Win 11 HDR calibration app also result in good looking non-MSFS content? Like desktop, MS Word, internet browser and so on? I guess I have to try it once. 

3 hours ago, AnkH said:

Totally agree, however I never really got a good setting that is also comfortable and good looking outside MSFS and switching HDR on (and off) for each MSFS session is simply too annoying, that is why I do not use HDR currently. Does the Win 11 HDR calibration app also result in good looking non-MSFS content? Like desktop, MS Word, internet browser and so on? I guess I have to try it once. 

Yes, crucially it allows you to set the non-HDR content brightness/luminance or whatever the term is to make it much less blinding.

5 hours ago, AnkH said:

Totally agree, however I never really got a good setting that is also comfortable and good looking outside MSFS and switching HDR on (and off) for each MSFS session is simply too annoying, that is why I do not use HDR currently. Does the Win 11 HDR calibration app also result in good looking non-MSFS content? Like desktop, MS Word, internet browser and so on? I guess I have to try it once. 

Should have also said that you can use Windows Key + Alt + B to switch between HDR and non-HDR without going into any menus.  

30 minutes ago, Chiliuk said:

Should have also said that you can use Windows Key + Alt + B to switch between HDR and non-HDR without going into any menus.  

Good to know, thanks. But my problem is that whatever HDR profile I use, be it calibrated with the Windows 11 tool or setup manually, it is way too bright with HDR on for non-HDR content and I need to go into AMD Adrenalin to lower the brightness of the screen (or via OSD of the monitor). And if I turn off HDR, I have to revert those brightness settings again. To much hassle.

Besides this, there are many games where HDR on leads to fuzzy, non-crisp text (Battlefield all versions as an example). And some games to not play well with my Windows HDR settings and need to be configured individually.

All in all to much effort for the little effect HDR has in 90% of my cases. For MSFS it would be great, sure, but thats it.

Thing I found out about HDR is it only takes subtle chances to get it right.  Things to tweek are the Windows HDR/SDR adjustment, NVidia CP color settings and of course your panel settings.

First of course you need to turn ON HDR10 in the Win 10 Display settings.

For my Samsung panel I turned on auto Game Settings and game setting HDMI Black Level to Low as this is needed because the nVidia contrast will need to be upped to about 70% to adjust for the washed out look of HDR.  I also upped the nVidia CP brightness up to 55% instead of 50%.

Also I upped the sharpness a tad on my Samsung panel to 12 instead of 10.

Finally in the Windows HDR color settings on Win 10 I turned that up to 100 for SDR.  Yea this is not a small change but it evens the desktop out.

Note that Gamma can stay at default on both the screen and nVidia setting.

To add a bit off color you can set the Digital Vibrance to 55% on the nVidia CP.  All Done.

These settings got me really really close to enjoying HDR.

Cheers

sp

Edited February 6, 20233 yr by Sky_Pilot071