Auto HDR does not work in games with Proton/Wine native Wayland driver

[doomperfect]

Hi,

I've been following the discussion in #10968 which seemed related at first, but I think my issue here is actually pretty different. Basically, I want to be able to use cm = wide (SDR) on the desktop, and have it auto-switch to HDR in fullscreen games and videos.

This is meant to be enabled by #9785, but while it works in mpv with HDR auto-enabling in fullscreen HDR videos, it does not work in fullscreen Steam games, using proton-cachyos with the native wayland driver. The only way to get games to be HDR that I can find, with the Wayland driver, is to use cm = hdr or cm = hdredid.

I am using an Alienware AW3423DW OLED, with these hyprland config monitor settings. The HDR-related settings I leave as is when I change cm to hdredid (they don't make any difference in non-hdr cm modes, as expected).

monitorv2 {
	output = DP-3
	mode = 3440x1440@143.97Hz
	position = 0x0
	scale = 1
	transform = 0
	bitdepth = 10
	cm = wide
	sdrbrightness = 0.9
	sdrsaturation = 1.1
	vrr = 0
	supports_wide_color = 1
	supports_hdr = 1
	sdr_min_luminance = 0.005
	sdr_max_luminance = 275
	min_luminance = 0
	max_luminance = 1000
	max_avg_luminance = 400
}

I also have this in my config, of which I believe cm_fs_passthrough = 0 and cm_auto_hdr = 2 is required for auto-HDR to function according to the PR:

debug:full_cm_proto=true
experimental:xx_color_management_v4=true
render:send_content_type=true
render:direct_scanout=1
render:cm_fs_passthrough = 0
render:cm_auto_hdr = 2
cursor:no_hardware_cursors = 2

And finally, here are my Steam launch options for games, which I use to enable the native Wayland driver in proton-cachyos:

PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 ENABLE_HDR_WSI=1 DXVK_HDR=1 game-performance mangohud %command%

The symptom I see is that, with these launch options, games will not display HDR with cm = wide or cm = srgb. In Assassin's Creed Shadows, I am able to force HDR output in the settings even with cm = wide, but when I do the brightness level is very clearly not HDR and the colours are washed out (with cm = hdredid it looks correct both colour and brightness-wise). In other games, the HDR option usually gets greyed out in the game settings with cm = wide.

The only consistent way I've found of enabling HDR in games using the native Wayland driver is by using cm = hdredid (or cm = hdr) instead of wide/srgb, but that also has the unfortunate side-effect of having the desktop also be in HDR, which doesn't look that great.

Any suggestions? It seems like the issue might be that somehow the "HDR" suggestion from hyprland is not being passed down to the game, or that maybe hyprland fails to detect games as HDR capable, possibly because the native Wayland driver doesn't advertise the games correctly. Total shot in the dark, not an expert by any means on how this all works.

hyprctl systeminfo:

Hyprland 0.49.0 built from branch main at commit 6375e471f33bf1a008a005e963c57a12c7ff0e94  (config: disable new_render_scheduling by default).
Date: Thu Jul 10 02:13:57 2025
Tag: v0.49.0-160-g6375e471f, commits: 6258
built against:
 aquamarine 0.9.1
 hyprlang 0.6.3
 hyprutils 0.8.1
 hyprcursor 0.1.12
 hyprgraphics 0.1.4

no flags were set

System Information:
System name: Linux
Node name: desktopx8664
Release: 6.15.5-2-cachyos
Version: #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sun, 06 Jul 2025 09:31:02 +0000

GPU information:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GB202 [GeForce RTX 5090] [10de:2b85] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX Open Kernel Module for x86_64  575.64.03  Release Build  (notroot@)  Sun Jul  6 09:48:52 UTC 2025

[UjinT34]

debug:full_cm_proto=true marks scRGB HDR as supported which it isn't. If the game/vulkan layer (nvidia requires something like https://github.com/Zamundaaa/VK_hdr_layer) selects this form of HDR then it won't be recognized as HDR by HL. Most of the games work fine with PQ HDR. HDR stuff is mostly developed for wayland-enabled wine/proton. If cm = hdr helps then it's likely an incorrect HDR which may or may not look like it's intended. Try starting steam from the terminal and look for something like this after starting the game

[HDR Layer] Created HDR surface
[HDR Layer] Enabling format: 64 colorspace: 1000104008
...
[HDR Layer] Creating swapchain for id: 33 - format: VK_FORMAT_A2B10G10R10_UNORM_PACK32 - colorspace: VK_COLOR_SPACE_HDR10_ST2084_EXT

[doomperfect]

Thanks for the reply and explanation! The part about cm proto makes sense - although it doesn't make a difference to auto-HDR working or not with AC Shadows, at least (on/off has same behaviour).

I had it on because I was also testing out gamescope, which I think for some games seemed to require that for HDR (I do have that VK_hdr_layer installed). But since gamescope actually worked with auto-HDR with cm=wide (and --debug-hdr-force-output in gamescope) in this game, I guess it can't be using scRGB?

Alas, I don't actually want to use gamescope (at least not in this game) because FPS and smoothness are significantly worse than native wayland-enabled proton on at least one game that I tested so far.

Good suggestion re: Steam logging - in AC Shadows I get this on every HL setting, regardless of debug:full_cm_proto=true or not. There are no other log lines with the word "HDR" in them other than this one.

[HDR Layer] SetHdrMetadataEXT: Swapchain 0 does not support HDR.

The HDR in game does get enabled and looks correct when I have cm = hdr(edid) set however (at least it looks the same as it does on Windows 11, and looks reasonably saturated and definitely with wide dynamic range, generally just how HDR should look, based on other games). I'm not sure what this message means though... will dig more later today with other games, maybe they will report something different (Cyberpunk may be a good one to test next).

[doomperfect]

Interesting findings from the Steam logging, tested across many more games:

Gamescope on Cyberpunk for reference, with or without debug:full_cm_proto=true:

[Gamescope WSI] Creating swapchain for xid: 0x6e00040 - oldSwapchain: (nil) - provided minImageCount: 4 - minImageCount: 4 - format: VK_FORMAT_A2B10G10R10_UNORM_PACK32 - colorspace: VK_COLOR_SPACE_HDR10_ST2084_EXT - flip: true

From this point on I set debug:full_cm_proto=false and cm = wide. Other settings are still as before.

Native wayland proton in Control (working HDR detection but wrong colours when switching to HDR):

[HDR Layer] Enabling format: 97 colorspace: 1000104005
[HDR Layer] Creating swapchain for id: 42 - format: VK_FORMAT_R16G16B16A16_SFLOAT - colorspace: VK_COLOR_SPACE_EXTENDED_SRGB_LINEAR_EXT

Native wayland proton in Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Outlaws, Monster Hunter Wilds, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, Elden Ring, Stellar Blade, Dragon Age Veilguard, STALKER 2, The Witcher 3 (working HDR in game and correct HDR colours/brightness):

[HDR Layer] Enabling format: 97 colorspace: 1000104005
[HDR Layer] Creating swapchain for id: 69 - format: VK_FORMAT_A2B10G10R10_UNORM_PACK32 - colorspace: VK_COLOR_SPACE_HDR10_ST2084_EXT

Note that for Elden Ring, you actually have to load into the game for it to switch to the correct HDR10 colorspace, and I think Reshade also messes with HDR detection/display... probably just an Elden Ring quirk, because they don't let you adjust HDR settings without loading into the game either.

DA: Veilguard and STALKER 2 both required going into fullscreen exclusive mode from the in game settings to allow HDR, but worked after that.

--

So, tldr: Most games actually work okay in HDR, except Control which I'm guessing requires at least #10558 and some more work on top, and AC Shadows which is doing something totally zany, and these two just happened to be the ones I tested first.

Any way to find out why AC Shadows in particular requests something that causes Proton (or the Wayland driver) to indicate that HDR is not supported at all? I thought with debug:full_cm_proto=true it should at least indicate support in the log and try to do something, even if the colours aren't right?

[UjinT34]

Control is scRGB only. scRGB might seem to be working but it's not handled correctly. Cyberpunk has a switch to set PQ or scRGB HDR (only PQ works with framegen iirc).
Gamescope adds another layer between HL and the game and might change some behaviors. Some games require HDR mode to be active prior to starting the game. DXVK_HDR=1 usually handles this quirk but with gamescope you might need to add --hdr-debug-force-output to it's options.
Note that with any debug/force settings you might be tricked into thinking that HDR is working (monitor switches to HDR and the colors look ok) while in fact you'll get some sort of fake HDR with suboptimal quality.

[doomperfect]

Makes sense! I did see that Cyberpunk would allow me to enable HDR PQ only with both gamescope and wayland native proton (on Windows it allows both scRGB and PQ), probably because I had framegen enabled in both cases as you said.

Some games require HDR mode to be active prior to starting the game.

Right - I did have to use the DXVK_HDR=1 option in every game I tested here (and for gamescope HDR I had to use that extra debug force setting, indeed). I guess what I'm after is, why doesn't the same DXVK_HDR=1 and associated settings work for AC Shadows while it works for basically all others (even for Control, which technically isn't supported properly yet)?

Note that with any debug/force settings you might be tricked into thinking that HDR is working (monitor switches to HDR and the colors look ok) while in fact you'll get some sort of fake HDR with suboptimal quality.

But yeah I think you might be right here. The AC Shadows HDR image with cm=hdredid to force HDR looks generally quite good, but I didn't think it was anything mindblowingly better than SDR, even though the colours are normal and it is definitely in some sort of HDR mode (the sun on the image calibration settings page is pretty eye searing, for example, which my monitor only allows in actual HDR mode) - so it's possible it's not working fully as intended. Or maybe it really is just a meh HDR implementation, some games are just like that.

If you have any other ideas to dig deeper into this, I'm game to try them! Otherwise for now, since this issue is actually just with one game, I am ok with just using a simple script I wrote that monitors HL IPC socket for the AC Shadows window opening event, then switches the cm to hdredid mode (and switches back to wide when the window closes). Either way, thanks for your expertise!