Control Resonant (PC) HDR Analysis

[KoKlusz]

Technical Info:

• Northlight Engine
• HDR available in the windowed mode
• No apparent sRGB/G2.2 EOTF mismatch in HDR
• Defaults to the peak brightness provided by EDID/OS calibration

Note

Peak brightness can be overridden with m_fHDRMaxOutputNitsOverride command in the renderer.ini file, located in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Remedy\CONTROLResonant

HDR Settings:

• HDR Brightness - screen brightness / paper white

Note

HDR Brightness can be overridden with m_fHDRGamePaperWhiteNits command in the renderer.ini file, located in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Remedy\CONTROLResonant

• HDR UI Brightness - self-explanatory

Note

Same values as above

Note

HDR UI Brightness can be overridden with m_fHDRUIPaperWhiteNits command in the renderer.ini file, located in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Remedy\CONTROLResonant

Review:

I've been very much impressed with the HDR presentation in previous Remedy titles, and while Resonant inherits a lot of their positive elements (like the options menu, or the ability to overwrite values with .ini commands), it takes a massive step back in the most crucial area.

The main issue stems from the devs switching to an offshoot of the increasingly popular AgX tonemapper. The problem is, AgX does not support HDR natively, so it has to be added by the devs themselves. Sadly, Remedy has opted not to do that, and instead used a per-channel (red, green, and blue channels separately) inverse tonemapping algorithm (I will refer to it as ITM from now on) to stretch the SDR image to the HDR display's capabilities.

If that sounds a lot like AutoHDR or RTX HDR to you, it's basically the same idea, though better integrated into the engine. What that means is the game retains the SDR clipping point, artificially stretching the brighter parts of the image up to whatever peak brightness value is provided. Meanwhile, per-channel color unnaturally distorts characters' skin tones, leading to oversaturation and hue shifts.

The good news is that the game's color grading LUTs are actually created with a wide color gamut in mind. The bad news is, the wide gamut from the LUTs is clipped in the AgX input, resulting in the clipping of colors going outside the SDR gamut. Color banding is sadly still an issue, though the game's film grain shader does dither the transitions to a degree, improving the situation somewhat.

Overall, whether the HDR presentation looks good here is highly contextual; some scenes can look excellent, while others look very deep-fried. I would say it's still usable, especially if you tone down the peak brightness, but seeing as most major dev studios have finally started to treat HDR seriously this year, Remedy getting it so wrong this time is a major disappointment.

Update Oct 1st:

Patch 1.4 has been released, promising to address the oversaturated highlights with HDR enabled. And it does exactly that.

Sadly, it's still ITM, so expect huge chunks of the image to be undetailed blobs of light. But now, instead of using per-channel mapping like previously (which oversaturates brighter parts of the image) or per-luminance mapping like The Witcher 3 Remastered (which desaturates brighter parts of the image), the game is using max-channel mapping, which tries to preserve the original colors as much as possible.

Overall, it's more usable now, especially at lower peak brightness, but it's still a far cry from what it should be.

Comparisons

Warning

In order to view them correctly on Windows, you must use a Chromium browser with Windows HDR enabled and the brightness slider set to the value of 31

SDR Defaults, sRGB option in game (203 nits, sRGB EOTF)
SDR Defaults, 2.2 option in game (203 nits, Gamma 2.2 EOTF)
SDR Defaults, 2.4 option in game (203 nits, Gamma 2.4/BT.1886 EOTF)
HDR Defaults

Highlights comparison

SDR Defaults, sRGB option in game (203 nits, sRGB EOTF)
HDR Defaults
HDR Defaults - patch 1.4

[doblumart-hash]

Mmh let's hope Renodx could somewhat improve the situation

[tweety3d]

I would add that the game, even on brightness set to zero, fires over 400 nits in bright scenes, like looking at the sky, which makes it unplayable at night without mods.
And of course lowering brightness makes shadows bit too dark, so overall huge contrast makes it unusable for playing in dimmed room.

[EthanBlazkowicz]

1.4 Update is out, they mentioned some fixes for over saturation with the AgX tonemapper. Please have a look again? Love your work!

[KoKlusz]

Added information about Patch 1.4 and the highlights comparison screenshot.

[musicarch66-collab]

HDR is more impressive than all these ray tracing stuff but devs just don't care about it. We need games that are made HDR in mind from the ground up. Not a second thought.