Red Dead Redemption 2 appears not to support HDR on XBox One

Adam Fairclough, a contributor to Eurogamer, has highlighted an issue with the new title Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2). He has reported that the game does not in fact support high dynamic range (HDR) properly, and may provide a processed version of standard dynamic range (SDR) instead.

Fairclough claimed to have discovered the apparent lapse while subjecting the game to a test he had developed for HDR. This was done using the Xbox One’s video output of the game. The test in question shows all the brightness information shown on screen into nits, then remaps a given image using a colorimetric scale for nit count. This scale runs from black (0 nits) to white (10,000 nits). HDR content would be capable of achieving higher values (e.g. pink for 4,000 nits), whereas SDR would stay around yellow to orange (up to 1000 nits) at best.

The Eurogamer writer reported that images from RDR2 ranged from gray to orange, whereas comparable images from games such as Rise of the Tomb Raider easily exhibit more pink. However, the images were still rich in detail. This may indicate that RDR2 supports SDR that may be upscaled, or that DHR is somehow not working properly for this game. RockStar has yet to comment on this apparent failing in their new release at the time of writing. On the other hand, this is the only remotely serious problem associate with the game thus far.

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