Spider-Man Remastered on PS5 is too dark in places

AtomicShroom · Dec 4, 2020

Why is Spider-Man Remastered on PS5 so dark in places? Some objects/areas (mostly during rainy weather) are very dimly lit to the point where all shadow detail is crushed into pure black.

Take a look at this capture for example:

The lighting on the pedestrians is so dark that it's impossible to make out any details. It's just a pure black blob. What's causing this? Some other users say they don't have this issue. But I find this odd because this is a capture from the Share function, so this is what the console is rendering. My TV has nothing to do with this. Why is the render so dark? And why don't others have this issue?

My PS5 HDR settings are as follow:
First screen: One notch below maximum.
Second screen: One notch below maximum.
Third screen: Two notches above minimum.

Everything else is set on Automatic. My TV is not HDMI 2.1, so Color Format is YUV422.

Game video settings are all Default (Contrast 10, Brightness 50)

Het_Nkik · Dec 4, 2020

I felt the game was too dark and I don't even have HDR. Miles was fine, though.

ngower · Dec 4, 2020

did you post this elsewhere or am I having a stroke?

I suspect some errant setting is the culprit here, since it isn't a widespread issue. Have you recorded gameplay?

squidyj · Dec 4, 2020

I don't know if this is caused by the same issue but I remember that HDR setting thread talking about Miles Morales improperly handling YUV signal for HDR resulting in lower peak brightness.

Paz · Dec 4, 2020

I've felt this in other aspects of the visuals too, the redone lighting system certainly didn't seem to have been given the artistic care of the original.

I wish there was a patch for the PS4 game to enable 60fps.

AtomicShroom · Dec 4, 2020

ngower said:
did you post this elsewhere or am I having a stroke?

I suspect some errant setting is the culprit here, since it isn't a widespread issue. Have you recorded gameplay?

I posted it in the PS5 Troubleshooting thread, but it doesn't look like many people read it anymore. I don't have a recording of this no. I'll try and get one?

DC5remy · Dec 4, 2020

it doesn't look like that for me.

ohitsluca · Dec 4, 2020

I had this issue in Valhalla and had to turn up the in game "exposure" setting a few notches (tv brightness/backlight was maxed on an LG Oled). Miles was fine for me, haven't tried Spider-Man Remastered yet though

Era Uma Vez · Dec 4, 2020

Are you playing in Fidelity mode?
I also found the game too dark in places, weirdly enough because of the ray-tracing. When I changed to performance, it didnt seem so bad.

ngower · Dec 4, 2020

AtomicShroom said:
I posted it in the PS5 Troubleshooting thread, but it doesn't look like many people read it anymore. I don't have a recording of this no. I'll try and get one?

I work in tech support and would ask for a screenshot of your systems HDR settings/in game settings or a video going through to verify what everything is set to if I were at work. Assuming it's not your tv since you said it isn't happening with other games.

KORNdog · Dec 4, 2020

Mine doesn't look like that 🤔

OneThirtyEight · Dec 4, 2020

Het_Nkik said:
I felt the game was too dark and I don't even have HDR. Miles was fine, though.

There is a mission in Miles wirh a power outage. It was PITCH BLACK for me and i have a feeling that was a glitch even though it was supposed to be dark as hell. The rest looks superb though.

ChoklitCow · Dec 4, 2020

There were definitely quite a few areas depending on the time of day where I felt it was too dark and had similar questions as OP. I had moved this year so I went ahead and went through an entire reset process including my receiver, TV modes, picture settings, and console settings to make sure there were no handshake issues and that HDR was displaying as well as it could on my TV.

After seeing little changes, I realised there was still good black detail during those times in most cases, it was just so dark it took away from me being able to truly enjoy the scenery and zone design in areas.

I even turned off HDR off at the console level and ran my PS5 through a different input just in case as well. Still super dark, so I'm assuming it was an artistic choice for setting up the scene or to exaggerate HDR highs and lows.

sujay · Dec 4, 2020

squidyj said:
I don't know if this is caused by the same issue but I remember that HDR setting thread talking about Miles Morales improperly handling YUV signal for HDR resulting in lower peak brightness.

This could be it. OP, are you able to set it to RGB Full or Limited manually, and see if that makes a difference?

Deleted member 16908 · Dec 4, 2020

I really really doubt this remaster got the attention it deserved from Insomniac. Unless you simply must have 60fps/ray-tracing, I think the original PS4 version is still the one to play.

Steiner_Zi · Dec 4, 2020

Have you checked your settings to make sure you don't have crushed blacks?

ciddative · Dec 4, 2020

The Remaster's new lighting definitely had some downsides and weird moments, as mentioned in the DF video.
Miles Morales was built with the new lighting in mind so doesn't seem to have the same issues

RayCharlizard · Dec 4, 2020

Your image is not suffering from black crush.

This is the image the levels cranked way up in Photoshop. You can see the recovered detail in the shirt under the jacket of the character on the left, and the arm and folds in the shirt on the character to the right. If the darkest parts of the image were "crushed" to black, this detail would not be recoverable. So what you're seeing is the near black not being represented well on your display.

I'm thinking you have the HDR settings setup incorrectly on the PS5, because if you're got brightness set to one tick above max, you're telling the PS5 to output HDR at nearly 10000 nits, and forcing your TV to tonemap that down to 1000 nits (or whatever the peak luminance of your display is as determined by its internal tonemapping). This could be affecting everything in the SDR range (sub 100-200 nits) to be darker than they should be as the TV is trying to keep all of the details in the HDR range you've defined (300-10000 nits).

Pai Pai Master · Dec 4, 2020

Definitely not like that on my end. Adjust your HDR settings maybe.

TechMetalRules · Dec 4, 2020

My setup is well calibrated where the vast majority of games and movies don't need further tweaking, but Miles looked ever so slightly dark in certain instances. Luckily the game has a contrast setting separate from brightness, so I notched it down one to balance it out a bit and now it looks great!

I don't have the remaster, so I'm sure it's worse than Miles (or maybe it's just your setup), but it does seem like the Spidey games have a bit heavier contrast for styles sake... not quite to the degree of Infamous Second Son, haha!

Deleted member 73264 · Dec 4, 2020

I had the same issue until I went into the game's settings and cranked the brightness to 85. Oddly, it looked fine after that.

Stalker · Dec 4, 2020

Looked fine when I played.

Syriel · Dec 4, 2020

RayCharlizard said:
Your image is not suffering from black crush.

This is the image the levels cranked way up in Photoshop. You can see the recovered detail in the shirt under the jacket of the character on the left, and the arm and folds in the shirt on the character to the right. If the darkest parts of the image were "crushed" to black, this detail would not be recoverable. So what you're seeing is the near black not being represented well on your display.

I'm thinking you have the HDR settings setup incorrectly on the PS5, because if you're got brightness set to one tick above max, you're telling the PS5 to output HDR at nearly 10000 nits, and forcing your TV to tonemap that down to 1000 nits (or whatever the peak luminance of your display is as determined by its internal tonemapping). This could be affecting everything in the SDR range (sub 100-200 nits) to be darker than they should be as the TV is trying to keep all of the details in the HDR range you've defined (300-10000 nits).

This. AtomicShroom you need to adjust your settings. Then the game will look better o your TV. As for the capture, it's likely trying to tonemap HDR into SDR for the capture.

Falus · Dec 4, 2020

Yeah. Turned the contrast to 5 instead of 10. Felt better but not perfect. No issue with miles

Nero3000 · Dec 4, 2020

RayCharlizard said:
I'm thinking you have the HDR settings setup incorrectly on the PS5, because if you're got brightness set to one tick above max, you're telling the PS5 to output HDR at nearly 10000 nits, and forcing your TV to tonemap that down to 1000 nits (or whatever the peak luminance of your display is as determined by its internal tonemapping). This could be affecting everything in the SDR range (sub 100-200 nits) to be darker than they should be as the TV is trying to keep all of the details in the HDR range you've defined (300-10000 nits).

This, your HDR settings have been set wrong.

TechMetalRules · Dec 4, 2020

pixelfucker said:
I had the same issue until I went into the game's settings and cranked the brightness to 85. Oddly, it looked fine after that.

If you haven't, you should try putting the brightness back to default then bring the contrast down a notch or two (I think it defaults to max). You can still up the brightness if you like the look, but you might find that you don't need it quite as high.

Feel free to completely disregard this as I know every setup is different and what works for me might not work for you.

StrayDog · Dec 4, 2020

AtomicShroom · Dec 4, 2020

RayCharlizard said:
Your image is not suffering from black crush.

This is the image the levels cranked way up in Photoshop. You can see the recovered detail in the shirt under the jacket of the character on the left, and the arm and folds in the shirt on the character to the right. If the darkest parts of the image were "crushed" to black, this detail would not be recoverable. So what you're seeing is the near black not being represented well on your display.

I'm thinking you have the HDR settings setup incorrectly on the PS5, because if you're got brightness set to one tick above max, you're telling the PS5 to output HDR at nearly 10000 nits, and forcing your TV to tonemap that down to 1000 nits (or whatever the peak luminance of your display is as determined by its internal tonemapping). This could be affecting everything in the SDR range (sub 100-200 nits) to be darker than they should be as the TV is trying to keep all of the details in the HDR range you've defined (300-10000 nits).

I mean I don't see how it could be badly calibrated. I'm doing what the calibration screen tells me to do. At one notch below maximum, I still see the sun icon well. It's only at maximum that it completely disappears. It looks like my TV correctly supports this many nits (It's a QLED, and the backlight gets blindingly bright at maximum). I would expect it to push many more nits than the OLED screens that most everyone around here seems to have.

Edit: Hell if it was to follow the directives of the video posted above, I would set it to maximum, because that's when the sun icon disappears!

dallow_bg · Dec 4, 2020

AtomicShroom said:
I mean I don't see how it could be badly calibrated. I'm doing what the calibration screen tells me to do. At one notch below maximum, I still see the sun icon well. It's only at maximum that it completely disappears. It looks like my TV correctly supports this many nits (It's a QLED, and the backlight gets blindingly bright at maximum). I would expect it to push many more nits than the OLED screens that most everyone around here seems to have.

Edit: Hell if it was to follow the directives of the video posted above, I would set it to maximum, because that's when the sun icon disappears!

Sounds like your standard TV settings are also out of wack.
Have you adjusted those before or which preset are you using?

Skittles · Dec 4, 2020

It's your tv cause i don't have problems seeing things on mine

StrappingYoungLance · Dec 4, 2020

I can't say I ever felt this way in my playthrough.

dep9000 · Dec 4, 2020

Is it possibly a glitch?

RayCharlizard · Dec 4, 2020

AtomicShroom said:
I mean I don't see how it could be badly calibrated. I'm doing what the calibration screen tells me to do. At one notch below maximum, I still see the sun icon well. It's only at maximum that it completely disappears. It looks like my TV correctly supports this many nits (It's a QLED, and the backlight gets blindingly bright at maximum). I would expect it to push many more nits than the OLED screens that most everyone around here seems to have.

Edit: Hell if it was to follow the directives of the video posted above, I would set it to maximum, because that's when the sun icon disappears!

Do you know the model of your TV off hand? And do you have any sort of dynamic tonemapping option enabled in your TV settings? Even the brightest QLED TVs cap out around 2000 nits for the 10% window the PS5 displays during calibration which is why the luminance setting sounds wrong. It could also be that you're setting the black point too high or too low, even though you're following directions, depending on your viewing environment. It's recommended to set the black point to the lowest setting, so that black is output as true black, but if you can't get shadow detail you want there with the proper luminance settings you could increase the black point even higher, which will raise the brightness of all of the near black detail that you're seeing as crushed on your TV. It really all depends on how your particular TV handles tonemapping. PS5's recommendations on screen are trying to be a "one size fits all" solution so there's still a bit of adjustment that may be needed.

Also, this is all combined with other users recommendation of lowering the contrast in-game which should brighten up the darkest parts of the image, leading to less "pop" in bright colors but better shadow detail.

Edit: Also, the HDTVTest video that was posted is not for your TV, the recommendation of setting luminance until the sun disappears completely is only for HGIG enabled TVs, which are currently just the LG 9 and X series OLEDs. Vincent clarifies in that video that if you are not using HGIG you should disable dynamic tonemapping (if possible) and then follow the on-screen instructions.

S1kkZ · Dec 4, 2020

miles morales looks fine on my lg b9 oled, but i had to change the setting for the remaster (brightness much higher and contrast down) still looks weird.

Shoshi · Dec 4, 2020

Is it possible to change the HDR settings while the game is running?

EvilBoris · Dec 4, 2020

Shoshi said:
Is it possible to change the HDR settings while the game is running?

No, but you shouldn't need to, they should be set once.

Spider-Man Remastered is definitely more contrasty than it was, I'd imagine MM is setup in the same way too, but I didn't have any problem playing it.

You can increase the in game brightness to lift the blacks if you are struggling to see in a bright room.

But as a note, the black adjustment in the OS should be set to minimum regardless of what it says

flipswitch · Dec 4, 2020

EvilBoris said:
No, but you shouldn't need to, they should be set once.

Spider-Man Remastered is definitely more contrasty than it was, I'd imagine MM is setup in the same way too, but I didn't have any problem playing it.

You can increase the in game brightness to lift the blacks if you are struggling to see in a bright room.

But as a note, the black adjustment in the OS should be set to minimum regardless of what it says

Much but blacks, better contrast and HDR than Spider-Man PS4 2018 which I thought was more dull looking, the HDR wasn't that great imo.

Between the two versions, what do you think?

EvilBoris · Dec 4, 2020

flipswitch said:
Much but blacks, better contrast and HDR than Spider-Man PS4 2018 which I thought was more dull looking, the HDR wasn't that great imo.

Between the two versions, what do you think?

It's really nice . I want enamoured with it first time round, but this new version does look amazing. Especially at night , where it looked spider-meh in the PS4 game

Edge · Dec 4, 2020

Mine doesn't look like that and I did hundreds of screenshots, mostly already shared here.

Looks like your black level settings are wrong.

This is one of the absolute rare games where you don't have to change a single setting and the hdr and colors are absolutely perfect out of the box.

Yibby · Dec 4, 2020

Could be a bug? I had a Roxxon Lab which was too dark to see and i had to restart the game.

pswii60 · Dec 4, 2020

Somewhat related, is it just me or does the outdoor lighting in Miles seem a little "flat" compared to Spider-Man PS4. I thought I was losing my mind on that so went back to play the PS4 game and I definitely think the lighting looks better. Could just be they toned things down given the winter season, but it does look a little flat at times. Lighting in the indoor sections is incredible though.

RayCharlizard · Dec 4, 2020

EvilBoris said:
But as a note, the black adjustment in the OS should be set to minimum regardless of what it says

This was what ended up fixing my issues with HDR in Black Ops Cold War. Was getting raised blacks even on the black bars on the top and bottom in cutscenes and figured the game was bugged. But after readjusting after Vincent's video, it's perfect black as intended on my OLED.

ZeroX · Dec 4, 2020

You're not imagining things. I don't have HDR on and I'm finding it too dark in places. Mostly at night but even during the day some of the shadows are really harsh and high contrast. Had to crank up the brightness in Demons Souls too which I didn't love. Haven't tried Miles yet.

don't think it's my machine or TV either as my PS4 games are fine.

AtomicShroom · Dec 4, 2020

RayCharlizard said:
Do you know the model of your TV off hand? And do you have any sort of dynamic tonemapping option enabled in your TV settings? Even the brightest QLED TVs cap out around 2000 nits for the 10% window the PS5 displays during calibration which is why the luminance setting sounds wrong. It could also be that you're setting the black point too high or too low, even though you're following directions, depending on your viewing environment. It's recommended to set the black point to the lowest setting, so that black is output as true black, but if you can't get shadow detail you want there with the proper luminance settings you could increase the black point even higher, which will raise the brightness of all of the near black detail that you're seeing as crushed on your TV. It really all depends on how your particular TV handles tonemapping. PS5's recommendations on screen are trying to be a "one size fits all" solution so there's still a bit of adjustment that may be needed.

Also, this is all combined with other users recommendation of lowering the contrast in-game which should brighten up the darkest parts of the image, leading to less "pop" in bright colors but better shadow detail.

Edit: Also, the HDTVTest video that was posted is not for your TV, the recommendation of setting luminance until the sun disappears completely is only for HGIG enabled TVs, which are currently just the LG 9 and X series OLEDs. Vincent clarifies in that video that if you are not using HGIG you should disable dynamic tonemapping (if possible) and then follow the on-screen instructions.

It's a Samsung Q80R. I can't find any option that has any name close to tonemapping. No idea what it could be called. What does that do, usually?

RayCharlizard · Dec 4, 2020

AtomicShroom said:
It's a Samsung Q80R. I can't find any option that has any name close to tonemapping. No idea what it could be called. What does that do, usually?

Sometimes it's combined with any Dynamic Contrast options, but it doesn't seem like there's an exposed setting for you. I'd try following this setup guide for your TV settings, https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/q80-q80r-qled/settings. It sounds like the Brightness +5 and Contrast Enhancer options might be what you'd want.

Doctre81 · Dec 4, 2020

AtomicShroom said:
Why is Spider-Man Remastered on PS5 so dark in places? Some objects/areas (mostly during rainy weather) are very dimly lit to the point where all shadow detail is crushed into pure black.

Take a look at this capture for example:

The lighting on the pedestrians is so dark that it's impossible to make out any details. It's just a pure black blob. What's causing this? Some other users say they don't have this issue. But I find this odd because this is a capture from the Share function, so this is what the console is rendering. My TV has nothing to do with this. Why is the render so dark? And why don't others have this issue?

My PS5 HDR settings are as follow:
First screen: One notch below maximum.
Second screen: One notch below maximum.
Third screen: Two notches above minimum.

Everything else is set on Automatic. My TV is not HDMI 2.1, so Color Format is YUV422.

Game video settings are all Default (Contrast 10, Brightness 50)

Set your hdmi black level to low on the tv and ps5 instead of automatic and see what happens

Spider-Man Remastered on PS5 is too dark in places

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