Lots of people noticed recently than a whole lot of working was going into the Gamescope project for HDR support, and now a Valve developer has teased trying it out. This has been a long time coming, with work needed to support it across multiple parts of the Linux stack but it's starting to get there now.
For those not aware, Gamescope is a micro-compositor that's used on the Steam Deck to display your games and it can also be used on desktop too. It gives you a whole lot of control over what games are doing, with lots of work from developer Joshua Ashton going in for HDR support.
Writing on Twitter, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais mentioned:
New Linux gaming milestone: with the latest work from Josh Ashton, HDR can now be enabled for real games! Tested it tonight on my AMD desktop with Halo Infinite, Deep Rock Galactic, DEATH STRANDING DC. Very early and will still need some time to bake to be useful to most.
Griffais showed these shots:
An increasingly exciting time to be a Linux gaming fan and it looks like 2023 will be the year of HDR. As Griffais said though, there's a lot still to do and this is just the start of it actually working.
On their Fediverse account developer Joshua Ashton also showed off more of Death Stranding with a HDR Heatmap.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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This is awesome, HDR looked great back in Windows, hope we get it going on Nvidia as well :)
3 Likes, Who?
Having Steam not die when you're using anything other than 8—bit colour would probably be a good start.
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fenglengshun Jan 3, 2023
Can't say I expected that, but I should. System76 and Red Hat has been the main people in focus for HDR as of late, but Valve has been the most substantial with driving gaming on Linux (naturally) and a lot of stuff has been progressing much faster after Valve starts contributing.
Not to praise on them too much, but Linus' quote on Valve saving desktop Linux seems to remain pretty on-point. I hope that he remains right on that (though I also hope his quote on Nvidia will no longer apply next year).
Not to praise on them too much, but Linus' quote on Valve saving desktop Linux seems to remain pretty on-point. I hope that he remains right on that (though I also hope his quote on Nvidia will no longer apply next year).
3 Likes, Who?
benjamimgois Jan 3, 2023
Quoting: basedThis is awesome, HDR looked great back in Windows, hope we get it going on Nvidia as well :)
According to discord, the HDR implementation is on Gamescope, so we might need Nvidia proper support for it first.
1 Likes, Who?
Frogman strikes again!
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mr-victory Jan 3, 2023
I doubt its usefulness when gamescope is running nested ie. inside your desktop environment.
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Vasya Sovari Jan 3, 2023
We may end up testing this with the CachyOS guys at some point soon-ish
1 Likes, Who?
The feature I'm most embarrassed to admit that Linux is lacking. Soon^TM 
2 Likes, Who?
kaktuspalme Jan 3, 2023
Nice! For me personally it means I will buy more games on steam and less on PS5.
I wonder how it technically works though. Why does it need a special compositor for that and what about Kernel, DRM etc.? Are there changes too?
I wonder how it technically works though. Why does it need a special compositor for that and what about Kernel, DRM etc.? Are there changes too?
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To be honest having used HDR on windows in the Past and films ect on my LG oled I cant say it's that impressive. For the most part it resembles some turning the Saturation and colours up to full.
Dare say it's a personnel preference thing at the end of the day.
Dare say it's a personnel preference thing at the end of the day.
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: kaktuspalmeNice! For me personally it means I will buy more games on steam and less on PS5.
I wonder how it technically works though. Why does it need a special compositor for that and what about Kernel, DRM etc.? Are there changes too?
I was wondering about the same. Seems to me it needs support on various levels. Maybe gamescope can bypass the limitations of X11 (and Wayland?) and display it directly through Vulkan support. Not sure how it all connects together. Can't be as simple as just Vulkan support because then nvidia would have hooked it up already.
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slaapliedje Jan 3, 2023
Quoting: pete910To be honest having used HDR on windows in the Past and films ect on my LG oled I cant say it's that impressive. For the most part it resembles some turning the Saturation and colours up to full.What I find amusing is that the first Far Cry basically had a software version of HDR in it. So when you'd go into a cave, it'd be really dark, then it was like your eyes would adjust, then when you left a cave, it'd be really bright...
Dare say it's a personnel preference thing at the end of the day.
Then for many many years, no one tried to implement anything similar. Now I play Assassin's Creed: Odyssey with HDR, and it basically does the same thing. The sun coming up over the mountain is beautiful, but much like the real sun, is too bright to really look at. But coming out of a dark cave, has that same temporary blindness effect.
But this is really the only reason I boot into Windows, currently. Once all the feature set of my graphics card is supported under Linux, there won't be much need for reboots :)
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Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: pete910To be honest having used HDR on windows in the Past and films ect on my LG oled I cant say it's that impressive. For the most part it resembles some turning the Saturation and colours up to full.What I find amusing is that the first Far Cry basically had a software version of HDR in it. So when you'd go into a cave, it'd be really dark, then it was like your eyes would adjust, then when you left a cave, it'd be really bright...
Dare say it's a personnel preference thing at the end of the day.
I think Fallout III did something like this when leaving the
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Quoting: EikeQuoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: pete910To be honest having used HDR on windows in the Past and films ect on my LG oled I cant say it's that impressive. For the most part it resembles some turning the Saturation and colours up to full.What I find amusing is that the first Far Cry basically had a software version of HDR in it. So when you'd go into a cave, it'd be really dark, then it was like your eyes would adjust, then when you left a cave, it'd be really bright...
Dare say it's a personnel preference thing at the end of the day.
I think Fallout III did something like this when leaving thebunkervault for the first time (in your life).
Tone mapping (combined with HDR rendering) have been the norm for games with dynamic lighting for a long time. Far Cry may have been the first, but after the needed features came into DX9, things moved pretty quick.
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Valve definitely didn't release an HDR tech demo in 2005 and then let HDR languish on their lifeboat platform for 17 years, oh no.
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slaapliedje Jan 3, 2023
Quoting: EikeYeah, seems a few games here and there since then had similar things going on. I just remember the CryTek engine being one of the first ones to attempt to do a lot of crazy lighting things like that. Granted it'd also choke on the lava areas!Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: pete910To be honest having used HDR on windows in the Past and films ect on my LG oled I cant say it's that impressive. For the most part it resembles some turning the Saturation and colours up to full.What I find amusing is that the first Far Cry basically had a software version of HDR in it. So when you'd go into a cave, it'd be really dark, then it was like your eyes would adjust, then when you left a cave, it'd be really bright...
Dare say it's a personnel preference thing at the end of the day.
I think Fallout III did something like this when leaving thebunkervault for the first time (in your life).
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Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: EikeYeah, seems a few games here and there since then had similar things going on. I just remember the CryTek engine being one of the first ones to attempt to do a lot of crazy lighting things like that. Granted it'd also choke on the lava areas!Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: pete910To be honest having used HDR on windows in the Past and films ect on my LG oled I cant say it's that impressive. For the most part it resembles some turning the Saturation and colours up to full.What I find amusing is that the first Far Cry basically had a software version of HDR in it. So when you'd go into a cave, it'd be really dark, then it was like your eyes would adjust, then when you left a cave, it'd be really bright...
Dare say it's a personnel preference thing at the end of the day.
I think Fallout III did something like this when leaving thebunkervault for the first time (in your life).
I can't remember it from other games, but I found it so suiting the situation: All your life in a vault, and then you see the sun for the first time...
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Avehicle7887 Jan 3, 2023
Recently even dxvk and vkd3d-proton had some HDR related commits. Glad it's finally coming together.
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