Daniel Flores

A quick update to HDR in #Saros on PS5 and PS5 Pro. There has been two updates to Saros since launch. They changed nothing to HDR. In picture 1 I have set PS5 to output 2000 nits in PS5s HDR system settings. The game still only outputs a max luminance of around 1300 nits as it did at launch, in that situation (see my setup guide for how to adjust for brightness output). We see how the detail is clipped in the bright clouds next to the Sun using exposure 0 in picture 1. Picture 2 is with exposure minus 2 and detail is restored, because the slightly less bright clouds, next to an even brighter Sun, is lowered below where the game clips highlight detail. In picture 3 I have set PS5 to output 3000 nits and here the game outputs 2000 nits. 2000 nits is what my TV can handle. This does not impact how much detail is clipped, as we can see the same detail is restored in picture 4 with minus 2 exposure. There are also clipping of detail in smaller highlights, but they are of course more difficult to notice, than the big Sun. I have not noticed any negative effects from increasing max luminance using PS5s HDR system settings. But there might be some, somewhere in the game. The problem is, that minus 2 exposure makes the games midtones (paper white) way to dark. I myself game with minus 1 exposure in the scene at daytime to lower the upper shadows for better contrast and reduce the effect of the clipped highlights. When the game switches to the brown scene, then I use 0 exposure, because here shadows gets too dark. Its not a great HDR implementation. But don’t get me wrong. Its still much better than SDR and it still makes the game have impactful HDR. It could have been much better, with much more adjustable HDR settings and more correct HDR output.