[SOLVED] Turning on HDR in Windows makes it dim

[King Mustard]

I have a Gigabyte AD27QD monitor (HDR400-compliant), an RTX 2080 (latest drivers) and Windows 10 (May 2019 Update).

When I go to Settings > System > Display > Windows HD Color and turn on 'Play HDR games and apps', Windows goes very dull.

My monitor's brightness is already at 100% and adjusting the 'SDR content appearance' slider in the Windows HD Color dialog washes everything out even further.

Games like Metro Exodus only display the HDR setting in-game if 'Play HDR games and apps' is enabled in Windows.

Games themselves do not look dull with 'Play HDR games and apps' enabled (whether HDR is enabled in-game or not).

I have the monitor running in RGB output color format/ Full dynamic range/ 10 bcp output color depth in the NVIDIA Control Panel.

Any ideas?

 

[Moot_Senpai]

If by dim you mean washed out, many people are having this problem with Windows.

According to Microsoft, it's the display manufacturer's fault.

Microsoft's answer (see 'Colors do not display correctly on an external HDR-capable display. '): "Many HDR-capable displays support a wider color gamut than sRGB. When Play HDR games and apps is turned on, the HDR display should correctly reproduce the sRGB colors used in desktop apps. However, some HDR-capable displays don’t do this correctly. When shopping for an HDR-capable display, look for displays that are VESA Certified DisplayHDR and read reviews that discuss color accuracy. "

I am using a certified DisplayHDR 600 monitor (LG 32UL750) and have the same problem. I just turn HDR off in display settings when not viewing HDR content.

 

[JaMMy_JaM]

I have this same issue and turning off HDR does fix the problem. However, I also found that the applications that I have this problem with have a GPU acceleration option that defaults to "on". For example, PDFs in Chrome and the entire Microsoft Teams application is dim looking when HDR is turned on for Windows. Disabling GPU accelerations in both MS Teams and Google Chrome fixes the issue in both applications. I have an Nvidia RTX 2060 Super.

 

[kerberos_20]

i have samsung q led 2018 and no issues since few win updates ago
not sure which win update fixed it (for me)
but atm windows hd colors are enabled, if im on desktop, TV reports its running normal UHD, if i watch something with HDR, it switches to HDR UHD
before it was perma HDR enabled