No HDR in fullscreen

[POckelford]

I bought an HDR capable monitor from LG. I can see vibrant HDR when flying in windowed mode, but the colours revert to SDR when in fullscreen. If in fullscreen it will even flick back to HDR when I press the Windows key or anything takes over the foreground. But as soon as the focus is back in fullscreen MSFS it reverts to SDR.

Excuse phone pics but I don’t know how to take HDR screenshots:

Windowed:

Full:

Do you have any add-ons in your Community folder? If yes, please remove and retest before posting. No.

Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it? No.

Brief description of the issue: As above

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered: As below

Detail steps to reproduce the issue encountered:
Run the game with HDR on in both Windows and MSFS, switch between fullscreen and windowed either via options or alt+return

PC specs for those who want to assist (if not entered in your profile) RTX 2080 Super on latest Nvidia drivers

Did you submit this to Zendesk? If so, what is your ticket #? Not yet.

[NeoKingRthur]

Have you enabled windows HDR?

[POckelford]

I have indeed. I discovered a temporary fix on another forum that uses an auto hotkey script to remove the frame in windowed mode. That works to keep the SIM in HDR by keeping it windowed as far as Windows is concerned, but making it appear the same as fullscreen. Still don’t fully understand why HDR doesn’t work for me when the SIM is in full screen AND the main focus. It’s so odd that it is HDR when fullscreen and in the background, and HDR at all times when windowed.

[moxiejeff]

Not sure this is an Asobo issue. Maybe your nvidia settings? Or windows hdr settings?

[POckelford]

I’ve been through all of the settings I can find and have read about. Where can I tell any of the associated programs how to treat the colours of windowed versus fullscreen applications differently? And why would it suddenly show the SIM in HDR in fullscreen when not the focus? IE. If in open task manager or anything else over the top of it I can see MSFS in HDR in the background…

Tbh until they fix the eye adaptation/whiteout in HDR and I can actually look out of the cockpit and see anything except bright white light I’m going to give hdr a pass…

[EdamllamaB]

I experimented with HDR for a bit. For some weird reason the only setting that worked OK was HDR turned on in Windows but turned off in the game.

HDR turned on in Windows but turned off in the game for some reason gave a better result than turned ON in both places or OFF in both places.

[moxiejeff]

No idea what’s going on. I have HDR 10 and it works perfectly fine in full screen

[EdamllamaB]

That may be part of the issue. Most reasonable priced PC HDR screens are only HDR400.

[POckelford]

Ha, maybe when I inevitably need to reinstall the entire thing in the next few months it’ll fix itself… As I mentioned until they allow me to switch off or limit eye adaptation there’s no point in me flying HDR anyway. Do you have issues with not being able to see any definition when looking out of the front directly at the horizon? I can sort of fix with the Geforce shaders, but it makes the rest of the SIM look too dark.

[POckelford]

Thinking about it, the screen can accept HDR 10 but isn’t the best - and doesn’t have local dimming. I’ll just fly in SDR until Asobo might give us more control over the colour settings. Thanks all for reading!

[NeoKingRthur]

I think HDR is still dependant on the display hardware itself. Even on two HDR supported monitor, they both could look differently depending on how it was built and the features it provided.

I fly on a 4K HDR TV, and both modes look great for me.
The only issue I have is when Windows HDR and MSFS HDR doesn’t match.

So, Windows HDR On + MSFS HDR10 On = Great HDR image.
Windows HDR Off + MSFS HDR10 On = Overexposed bleached image.
Windows HDR On + MSFS HDR10 Off = Oversaturated image.
Windows HDR Off + MSFS HDR10 Off = Great SDR image.

I do find it interesting is that, on the Windows itself, whether I turn Windows HDR on or off, it doesn’t make a difference in my image. Even though my TV is receiving HDR or SDR signal depending on how it’s switched. It looks like my TV can do post-processing to avoid overexposed or oversaturated image on windows itself. But not when MSFS and Windows HDR setting doesn’t match.

But I heard some people that on Windows itself, even on HDR supported monitor, they can’t turn on Windows HDR because it will make the image overexposed/oversaturated. So I think it depends on the monitor itself.

While I really love flying in HDR mode, I keep it off because I also livestreamed my flights, and GeForce Experience doesn’t allow HDR livestreaming.

[EdamllamaB]

@Neo4316

While I really love flying in HDR mode, I keep it off because I also livestreamed my flights, and GeForce Experience doesn’t allow HDR livestreaming.

I think OBS does but not sure how that would work if the viewers are not using HDR.

[NeoKingRthur]

Well, YouTube can do a HDR to SDR post-processing. So I have a few 4K HDR 60fps recordings that GeForce experience can support. On an HDR display with Windows HDR turned on, the YouTube videos plays in HDR. But with Windows HDR turned off, the video is downscaled to SDR mode and it looks just like flying in SDR mode. Like this for example. If you have HDR monitor and have Windows HDR turned on, you should be able to watch this video in HDR mode. Otherwise, it will show in SDR mode.

RNAV Approach to St Maarten - A320 - MSFS (2020)

I’m not sure if the same HDR to SDR processing can apply when broadcast live to YouTube.

[EdamllamaB]

It is worth noting that the game provides some very limited control of saturation by setting ColorGrading to 0 or 1 in the config files (same place you adjust sharpening).

[NeoKingRthur]

Based on official YouTube guidelines, the Live HDR is only supported by Mirillis Action. So I’m trying to livestream using this from now on.

Hopefully this is better than GeForce experience as a whole as well. Because GFE keeps logging me out of my stream, sometimes in the middle of my stream.

[EdamllamaB]

The main reason I stopped using GeForce Experience is it would be working fine and then randomly decide to start streaming or recording one of my other screens for no apparent reason I could fathom.

[NeoKingRthur]

That means you need to open the Privacy Setting and turn off the Desktop Recording. Usually when you’re recoding something out of focus, it asks you if you want to record the desktop, so naturally if you click yes, it will store that answer and tend to record everything.

[Vibstronium]

I seem to have the opposite problem – I see what seems to be good HDR in fullscreen mode, but if I switch to windowed mode, or move focus to another window, all the bright areas are blown out.

Windows HDR: on
MSFS HDR: on
Monitor: says HDR is on

Switching focus back to the fullscreen MSFS restores the image to ok quality, with details and colors visible in bright areas again.

RTX 2070 Super
LG 34GP83A monitor (3440x1440, HDR400 capable)
HDMI cable, 85 Hz refresh rate

(Looking at OP’s screen shots I think the description on the original post is backwards, and describes what I’m seeing as well. Windowed mode has blown-out brights meaning we are not getting proper HDR display; fullscreen shows detail in those bright areas, indicating HDR is working.)

Note that the windowed-mode or background-focus view is also what I get in video captures from the GeForce Experience overlay, which swears it supports HDR and creates .mp4 files that are labeled with the colorspace and bit depth parameters for HDR10, but have all the bright areas blown out.

Here’s a scene with Windows HDR on, and MSFS HDR off. The sun is barely visible through the clouds, and there’s plenty of visible detail in the clouds.

Now with Windows HDR on, and MSFS HDR on, in full screen view; the sun is much more clearly visible, a lot brighter than the clouds in front of it. The clouds retain the same level of detail as the non-HDR image.

But if I go to windowed mode, the entire cloud-sun region is completely blown out, with loss of details:

As far as I can tell, the second image is what I want – brighter brights, with the same or better level of detail as I have always gotten. The first image doesn’t take advantage of the HDR display, and the third image is clearly incorrect.

The third image is also what I get when I play back video captures made of the HDR view recorded with GeForce Experience’s overlay. I can restore the detail in VLC at playback time by using the image enhancement controls to adjust brightness and constrast, but default playback in both VLC and the Windows 10 Videos/Photos viewers has the brights blown out.

Uploading a capture to YouTube results in a pretty decent SDR version with only slight blow-outs in the bright areas, but the HDR version has the same massive blow-outs at bright areas that viewing it locally shows:

HDR test in Flight Simulator

Note HDR playback only seems to work in Chrome, not in Firefox. And I assume you need the window to be on a suitable display.

[NeoKingRthur]

These differences are so small… But probably because the photo is taken in SDR, and my screen is in SDR when I’m reading this post. In that case, just keep it in Fulscreen Mode then?

[Vibstronium]

These differences are so small… But probably because the photo is taken in SDR, and my screen is in SDR when I’m reading this post.

The differences are small, yes! They are subtle. Good HDR is an enhancement to detail of the brightest and darkest parts of the picture, not something flashy.

In that case, just keep it in Fulscreen Mode then?

It’s not just leaving fullscreen mode, it also does this when:

• switching focus to another window (perhaps on another monitor entirely)
• opening the Start menu
• opening the ATC dialog (for several seconds, then the picture returns to normal)