• Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Oct 27, 2017
3,980
Beside IQ and performance, are there differences in graphics/post processing effects/lod between using supersampling mode and native 1080p in a HDTV?
 

Kabuki Waq

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,881
Anyone with a KS8000 try HDR with dynamic contrast enabled? It supposed to act differently for HDR content than SDR and I've seen users on the AVSForum suggest using it at Low or Medium for HDR content


I have recently converted to the dynamic contrast off crew. I basically have decided to go with 250 hdr brightness and dynamic contrast off.
 

New Fang

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,542
The checkerboard rendering on the Pro is bad, and DF said it in the video in a nice way. What people in this thread are unhappy about is that the checkerboard rendering is so bad that it gives the Pro a soft image, to the point where it actually looks sharper and better on a base PS4.

I think the game looks amazing on the Pro.... in 1080p. That's how I set mine and it'll stay that way until they release a patch. I'll play this game and love it either way, but the Pro version is disappointing.
I have yet to see definitive evidence that the game looks sharper on a base PS4.
 

Deleted member 34239

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 24, 2017
1,154
I have yet to see definitive evidence that the game looks sharper on a base PS4.
I can't speak about the base ps4 but I can confirm that the pro version looks bad. This is the the first time I've stopped playing a game due to its visuals. It really is a blurry mess especially when there's lots of foliage on screen. It's very poor by Rockstar and I'll be waiting for a patch.
 
Last edited:

New Fang

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,542
In the stills posted a ways back in this thread that compared all 4 platforms, the base PS4 looked sharper than the pro, albeit a bit more jaggy.
Yes, but those pics were from Digital Foundry who played all the versions and said nothing about the game looking bad on Pro, and made no suggestion what so ever the game looked sharper on the base console.
 

Deleted member 34239

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 24, 2017
1,154
That video shows it well when he switches to 1080p output. I'm honestly just thankful that setting it to 1080p is an option. Otherwise, I'd be bothered by the Pro blurriness.
In this video, the blurriness of the pro version cannot be ignored. I seriously cannot even understand what Rockstar were thinking. If this was a marketing deal thing with Sony, they should have added in two modes. The pro version looks terrible.
 

chandoog

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,104
In this video, the blurriness of the pro version cannot be ignored. I seriously cannot even understand what Rockstar were thinking. If this was a marketing deal thing with Sony, they should have added in two modes. The pro version looks terrible.

The video also shows that it's because the base PS4 (or Pro when running in 1080p) adds a Sharpening option in the display settings that's not there when you're running the game in 4K for some reason. It's that filter that gives the appearance of sharper grass etc in the immediate foreground. You're still losing the huge resolution boost which will help resolve things mid to farther distance away.

A quick solution would be if R* can add the sharpness slider in the 4K mode too, that way people can decide how sharp they want it to be.
 

Mr Punished

Member
Oct 27, 2017
600
OUTER HEAVEN
Thought I'd chime in here regarding HDR considering I have an OLED TV. My SDR and HDR settings are about as calibrated as they can get without going that extra mile and hiring a calibrator, which much couldn't be done for the game modes anyway due to their limited settings. I have a 2016 C6 OLED on an older firmware that had a brighter HDR tonemapping at the sacrifice of some highlight detail. I enjoy this balance and have kept my TV as such.

Most HDR games I play are fine, but being an OLED TV means that some HDR games with raised black levels stick out badly. From personal experience, RE7 was particularly rough. That game was washed out badly on my OLED, the solution being turning my TVs brightness down, or playing in SDR. RE7 stuck out due to all those wasted perfect blacks, and I'm more or less seeing the same thing here in Red Dead Redemption 2.

There is no texture quality difference, or actual visual drawbacks to HDR on RDR2, but merely the game is rather washed out to the point where shades of black are instead shades of grey. This seems to be a recurring problem with bad HDR implementations on the OLEDs in particular. I don't really know why this continues to happen, but I do remember reading someone hypothesise that a lot of developers are tonemapping the HDR on PC monitors with really aggressive local dimming, the result being raised blacks for people with high end TVs.

The solution to the HDR problem in RDR2 is really easy. Just go to your TVs brightness setting and notch it down a few until the shades of black are actually black, all that colour and contrast will return, along with some slightly better highlight detail. I've just been playing in SDR because I play a lot of HDR games and it's just too frustrating to be making this adjustment every time going into Red Dead.

Also, I'm playing on the Pro. I do have an X but stuck with the Pro for this release, my friend bought it on both. Although the Pro version does look soft, and the X does look considerably sharper, the Pro version still holds up fine. He has the exact same OLED as myself, and the X version also suffers from a washed out HDR implementation. One thing I appreciate with my PS4 version of the game is the ability to turn off HDR in-game, that is oddly missing from the X version. I've got another friend with a 2018 OLED that I was curious to see how the game looked on, but he's got some pretty butchered vivid mode settings going, so it wouldn't be the best comparison.

My biggest problem is my damn launch Pro and its fan. It's the inconsistency more than the noise that gets me, I'm actually using a small room fan to drown out the Pro fan. Besides that, I'd suggest to people having problems with HDR to adjust their TV brightness slider, and if they are unhappy with the softer look of the Pro, maybe, only slightly, adjust your TVs sharpness setting. Although across the board I'd suggest leaving that setting on 0.

Also, the X version itself even though it's native 4K doesn't look as sharp as Forza Horizon 4 or anything like that. The game still has a soft look due to the AA and other more technical thingy things. So I wouldn't be expecting Rockstar to make any big changes to the Pro version with patches. If anyone is holding out, you might be holding out for awhile.
 

Me_Marcadet

Member
Oct 25, 2017
411
We've got multiple people confirming that HDR raise the black level and it's easily fixable with a slider.
I don't know if it deserves its own thread or if we are waiting for the DF HDR video to make a new one.

Since I adjusted the brightness the HDR really shines. People with high end TVs shouldn't miss out.
 

chaosaeon

Member
Oct 26, 2017
1,116
Anyone with a KS8000 try HDR with dynamic contrast enabled? It supposed to act differently for HDR content than SDR and I've seen users on the AVSForum suggest using it at Low or Medium for HDR content
Iirc back on the old site there was something of a turnaround on dynamic contrast for the KS8000 specifically for HDR. At first everyone thought using DC for HDR would clip your whites and crush blacks etc which it could if you just set it to High with everything else at regular settings, but after a million pages in the thread people started saying to try setting it to medium or even high and then tweaking other settings from there and you can avoid the stereotypical overblown contrast usually associated with using it. I did that and things have never looked better. I would say try setting it at medium or high and Warm 1 (I switched from warm 2), lower the TV's brightness setting (not backlight), and turn the color setting down until it suits your taste. Then adjust the in game brightness (with that setup I only needed in game brightness at 2/10 for Uncharted 4 for example). Of course YMMV because of white balance and color space settings but it's worth a try for sure.
 

P40L0

Member
Jun 12, 2018
7,663
Italy
I don't need to do this with every other HDR game, I'm not changing my TV settings just for RDR2. They must have a pretty bad implementation for it to look this washed out.
Those are general calibrated settings to one time apply and forget.
If it still looks wrong, it would only be a game implementation issue.
 

Dark1x

Digital Foundry
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
3,530
NX Gamer video shows how PS4 Pro without supersampling has better framerate

Glad NX took the time to test that! I'm a little surprised - I guess it's the GPU that was bottlenecked.

Also...sharpening slider? I don't remember seeing that at all. I wonder if that was added in the day one patch and I simply never returned to the options menu after it had installed? That has to be it unless I'm losing my mind. I'll check my captures with the option menu visible and see if it's there or not.
 
Last edited:

headspawn

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,652
For Samsung KS series folks that are experience the game looking a bit dull; try turning the Dynamic Contrast to 'High'. I feel like it helps out a lot without much negatives and you don't have to tweak your colors or brightness to achieve a less dim picture.

Using 260 for the HDR setting in-game, with my standard HDR settings but with Dynamic Contrast on High. This helped a lot with Forza Horizon 3 as well, though it kill some white details in the sky but the clouds/sky aren't as finely detailed in this game so it's not adversely affecting the image quality.

Let me know if that looks better to anyone else or if they've found better setttings solution rather than turning off HDR.
 
Last edited:

ThreepQuest64

Avenger
Oct 29, 2017
5,735
Germany
So the X930E, an edge-lit LCD whose HDR capabilities have been highly regarded in reviews, can't show HDR properly? That's news to me. Methinks you're painting with an overly broad brush.
It's an exceptional TV on its own and with double-sided edge led, means on all four sides, it is perhaps the best an edge lit led can get. But it still offers only 72 zones which isn't enough to eliminate clouding and bleeding. However, as an exceptional TV it handles HDR exceptional well for an edge led and is an absolutely viable option; the XE93 is not what you usually get from an edge led in terms of HDR quality.
 

Tyaren

Character Artist
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
24,976
I have yet to see definitive evidence that the game looks sharper on a base PS4.

It does look clearly sharper on the base PS4 and on Pro with supersampling off. But the base PS4/1080p Pro version also has aliasing and very dithered hair and foliage which the supersampled Pro version has less or none of. Pick your poison, I guess. ;)
 

Vishmarx

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,043
For Samsung KS series folks that are experience the game looking a bit dull; try turning the Dynamic Contrast to 'High'. I feel like it helps out a lot without much negatives and you don't have to tweak your colors or brightness to achieve a less dim picture.
already did, that hurts the volumetric lighting. The light spread wont look as thick anymore because you tv will focus on making the background dark objects more prominent.
 

Flandy

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,445
Iirc back on the old site there was something of a turnaround on dynamic contrast for the KS8000 specifically for HDR. At first everyone thought using DC for HDR would clip your whites and crush blacks etc which it could if you just set it to High with everything else at regular settings, but after a million pages in the thread people started saying to try setting it to medium or even high and then tweaking other settings from there and you can avoid the stereotypical overblown contrast usually associated with using it. I did that and things have never looked better. I would say try setting it at medium or high and Warm 1 (I switched from warm 2), lower the TV's brightness setting (not backlight), and turn the color setting down until it suits your taste. Then adjust the in game brightness (with that setup I only needed in game brightness at 2/10 for Uncharted 4 for example). Of course YMMV because of white balance and color space settings but it's worth a try for sure.
For Samsung KS series folks that are experience the game looking a bit dull; try turning the Dynamic Contrast to 'High'. I feel like it helps out a lot without much negatives and you don't have to tweak your colors or brightness to achieve a less dim picture.

Using 260 for the HDR setting in-game, with my standard HDR settings but with Dynamic Contrast on High. This helped a lot with Forza Horizon 3, though it kill some white details in the sky but the clouds/sky aren't as finely detailed in this game so it's not adversely affecting the image quality.

Let me know if that looks better to anyone else or if they've found better setttings solution rather than turning off HDR.

Yeah I've had Dynamic Contrast set to High which I think really elevates it above the SDR image.
 

headspawn

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,652
already did, that hurts the volumetric lighting. The light spread wont look as thick anymore because you tv will focus on making the background dark objects more prominent.

I'm not sure if that overly caked up thick volumetric lighting is intentional though; it almost looks like an overdone Bloom lighting from 360 era at times and kind of gives a bit of a blurry/hazey look to anything around it when those extra thick spots are present when I have it set to Off or Low.
 

Putty

Double Eleven
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
934
Middlesbrough
Not a jaggy in sight on my sammy downsampled on Pro. Not a set that supports HDR so barebones in that respect. Game IMO looks amazing, especially clothing/fur/material shaders. Attention to detail has R* written all over it. #nevereatyellowsnow
 

bombshell

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,927
Denmark
User Banned (1 Week): Systems warring across multiple threads, history of related infractions
The general public predictably doesn't care.
UK first week sales split:
PS4 68%
XBO 32%
 

Jazzwhiz32

Member
Oct 28, 2018
4
Thought I'd chime in here regarding HDR considering I have an OLED TV. My SDR and HDR settings are about as calibrated as they can get without going that extra mile and hiring a calibrator, which much couldn't be done for the game modes anyway due to their limited settings. I have a 2016 C6 OLED on an older firmware that had a brighter HDR tonemapping at the sacrifice of some highlight detail. I enjoy this balance and have kept my TV as such.

Most HDR games I play are fine, but being an OLED TV means that some HDR games with raised black levels stick out badly. From personal experience, RE7 was particularly rough. That game was washed out badly on my OLED, the solution being turning my TVs brightness down, or playing in SDR. RE7 stuck out due to all those wasted perfect blacks, and I'm more or less seeing the same thing here in Red Dead Redemption 2.

There is no texture quality difference, or actual visual drawbacks to HDR on RDR2, but merely the game is rather washed out to the point where shades of black are instead shades of grey. This seems to be a recurring problem with bad HDR implementations on the OLEDs in particular. I don't really know why this continues to happen, but I do remember reading someone hypothesise that a lot of developers are tonemapping the HDR on PC monitors with really aggressive local dimming, the result being raised blacks for people with high end TVs.

The solution to the HDR problem in RDR2 is really easy. Just go to your TVs brightness setting and notch it down a few until the shades of black are actually black, all that colour and contrast will return, along with some slightly better highlight detail. I've just been playing in SDR because I play a lot of HDR games and it's just too frustrating to be making this adjustment every time going into Red Dead.

Also, I'm playing on the Pro. I do have an X but stuck with the Pro for this release, my friend bought it on both. Although the Pro version does look soft, and the X does look considerably sharper, the Pro version still holds up fine. He has the exact same OLED as myself, and the X version also suffers from a washed out HDR implementation. One thing I appreciate with my PS4 version of the game is the ability to turn off HDR in-game, that is oddly missing from the X version. I've got another friend with a 2018 OLED that I was curious to see how the game looked on, but he's got some pretty butchered vivid mode settings going, so it wouldn't be the best comparison.

My biggest problem is my damn launch Pro and its fan. It's the inconsistency more than the noise that gets me, I'm actually using a small room fan to drown out the Pro fan. Besides that, I'd suggest to people having problems with HDR to adjust their TV brightness slider, and if they are unhappy with the softer look of the Pro, maybe, only slightly, adjust your TVs sharpness setting. Although across the board I'd suggest leaving that setting on 0.

Also, the X version itself even though it's native 4K doesn't look as sharp as Forza Horizon 4 or anything like that. The game still has a soft look due to the AA and other more technical thingy things. So I wouldn't be expecting Rockstar to make any big changes to the Pro version with patches. If anyone is holding out, you might be holding out for awhile.
100 percent agree. I have the X version and saw my friends version on pro and noticed the same thing; the HDR is raising black levels on both consoles causing it to either be too dim or washed out with no in between really. The TVs are fully calibrated too. Seems like it's an across the board issue at least with when it comes to that.

Is there anyway to at least let Rockstar know so that they could maybe see what's going on??
 

ClamBuster

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,111
Ipswich, England
base ps4 here, pretty much final gen 50" panny plasma, native 1080p, and the game is game is absolutely gorgeous and crazy sharp

god knows what this looks like on a properly calibrated hdr capable 65"+ oled running at native 4k on an xbox1
 

II JumPeR I

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
2,770
Germany
For Samsung KS series folks that are experience the game looking a bit dull; try turning the Dynamic Contrast to 'High'. I feel like it helps out a lot without much negatives and you don't have to tweak your colors or brightness to achieve a less dim picture.

Using 260 for the HDR setting in-game, with my standard HDR settings but with Dynamic Contrast on High. This helped a lot with Forza Horizon 3 as well, though it kill some white details in the sky but the clouds/sky aren't as finely detailed in this game so it's not adversely affecting the image quality.

Let me know if that looks better to anyone else or if they've found better setttings solution rather than turning off HDR.
Yup. Dynamic Contrast is a must for HDR.
 

Wackamole

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,970
I can't speak about the base ps4 but I can confirm that the pro version looks bad. This is the the first time I've stopped playing a game due to its visuals. It really is a blurry mess especially when there's lots of foliage on screen. It's very poor by Rockstar and I'll be waiting for a patch.
Doubting you played it. Some people are actually playing the game on a Pro, did you know that?
Some say turning off HDR might help, try that.
But i'm playing it and it looks very good. Just a bit softer than on the X
Not a jaggy in sight on my sammy downsampled on Pro. Not a set that supports HDR so barebones in that respect. Game IMO looks amazing, especially clothing/fur/material shaders. Attention to detail has R* written all over it. #nevereatyellowsnow
same here.
 

Terbinator

Member
Oct 29, 2017
10,319
Startrd this up on my X last nigt and the game is simply jaw dropping. Might be the best game from a visuals point of view I'ever played.
 

Cripterion

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,104
Anyone with a KS8000 try HDR with dynamic contrast enabled? It supposed to act differently for HDR content than SDR and I've seen users on the AVSForum suggest using it at Low or Medium for HDR content

I have a KS9000/PS4 Pro and using dynamic contrast set to medium the game looks much better than SDR, especially with the weather changes, it's definitely noticeable. I usually have dynamic contrast turned off and HDR looks fine on every other game or videos though so there's definitely something up with RDR2.
 

Mr Punished

Member
Oct 27, 2017
600
OUTER HEAVEN
100 percent agree. I have the X version and saw my friends version on pro and noticed the same thing; the HDR is raising black levels on both consoles causing it to either be too dim or washed out with no in between really. The TVs are fully calibrated too. Seems like it's an across the board issue at least with when it comes to that.

Is there anyway to at least let Rockstar know so that they could maybe see what's going on??
I guess it's possible they could patch in a brightness setting for HDR or something so people can adjust in-game without having to change their TV settings. I'm just doubtful it'd happen. A lot of big games with dodgy HDR support, I can't really recall a time where it was patched. Although it'd be great if they did.
 

DrDeckard

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,109
UK
OK, just got around to watching the NXGamer video. Based on the video, it seemed like reducing the PS4 Pro to 1080p via system level and turning off super sampling just delivers a native 1080p image w/ a slight sharpening filter. That's .. not really any kind of beneficial at all. I'll stick to the much higher resolution count any time. The performance drops were also 1 to 2 frames maximum, even still 99% of the frame rate analysis we saw had it locked to 30 FPS. Again, not something worth dropping that huge resolution bump over.

Anyway, thanks NXGamer for clarifying the super sampling part up. I hope that answers and addresses a lot of confusion going on.

Back on topic, here's some more stuff from the Pro. Including my first poor attempt at .gif making

ezgif-5-477e7cdd481dygfvt.gif




reddeadredemption2_20wocdx.png


reddeadredemption2_20x4fu8.png


reddeadredemption2_20triaw.png


reddeadredemption2_209micr.png


reddeadredemption2_20oafe2.png


reddeadredemption2_20jqcx4.png

I'm guessing that's the jpeg compression making it look that soft? still such a beautiful game but it is a shame to see the PS4 Pro get the such short end of the stick here. Every screenshot looks like a photo or a painting imo, simply stunning.
 

Joco

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,446
So if you have both the base PS4 and the PS4 Pro, is the Pro the way to go? I'm reading conflicting reports of people saying that the Pro version is a blurry mess and that the base PS4 actually looks better.
 

P40L0

Member
Jun 12, 2018
7,663
Italy
RDR2 current implementation of HDR has probably slightly raised black levels (that could be patched), but for the most of the complaint posts I'm reading the main cause for "disappointing HDR" are wrongly setup and calibrated Consoles/TV and in-game HDR settings.

For example, if you have an X1X and an LG OLED and apply all these settings + set the in-game HDR Brightness value to 350, the game looks already great in HDR, but for sure can be even better if R* will tune it up a little more...
 

Dictator

Digital Foundry
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
4,949
Berlin, 'SCHLAND
Sharpening slider? Huh? Is that in the X1X version? I did not see that in the menu!

I am kinda surprised that the PS4pro's 1080p mode, not system forced SS, is in fact lower resolution. I guess that is nice though as it gives people the option to avoid CB should they care, and to avoid potential GPU related framedrops.
 
Last edited:
Feb 1, 2018
5,274
Europe
Sharpening slider? Huh? Is that in the X1X version? I did not see that in the menu!

I am kinda surprised that the PS4pro's 1080p mode, not system forced SS, is in fact lower resolution. I guess that is nice though as it gives people the option to avoid CB should they care, and to avoid potential GPU related framedrops.

X1X doesn't need it :) Sharper would just cut your TV in half.