4 years ago

Elevated Black Levels During Pre-rendered Cutscenes Since 17/5 Patch (HDR Only?)

7/6 EDIT:

After today's patch (7th June), the correct black levels have been restored, during pre-rendered cutscenes, in HDR. I have only tested Mass Effect 2 so far but I see no reason for the other games not to have been fixed/reverted. Please note, I have not tested SDR, before or after the patches. I do not know if the issue was present there or still is.

Hi,

Since the patch yesterday, pre-rendered cutscenes, such as the Spinning Mass Relay loading screen on ME1 and the Intro cinematic on ME2 have pretty horrible elevated black levels in certain areas. Gameplay is completely unaffected but there are numerous pre-rendered cutscenes in the second game, and for them to all have bad black levels is very frustrating, when it was working fine until yesterday's patch.

I am playing on PC with an HDR1000 monitor. All other HDR games and videos I've tested still look fine.

Since the issue arose, I have tried tweaking HDR settings but the issue remains. I have attached some images and links to the images, in case you can't see the images, to this post that demonstrate the issue:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/550526342010109952/844329643770249246/unknown.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/550526342010109952/844334056900395058/unknown.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/550526342010109952/844335067929378816/unknown.png

Lots of grey areas on the top left and along the bottom of The Normandy:

screenshot3

May be hard to notice but black levels here are elevated, they are nowhere near black:

screenshot2

Bottom right corner has very grey blacks:

Screenshot1

me legendary edition

32 Replies

FidQ
4 years ago
I can confirm I have the same problem, as a precaution I took a backup of the game folder, before updating so I'm able to play the version before the latest update, without this problem.
Windows 10 v2004
OS build: 19041.508
Nvidia driver: 466.27
Wiz13688
4 years ago
What is the calibration setting for HDR Contrast and HDR Brightness under options? I'm using 4 HDR displays, a CG437K (HDR1000), a Aorus FV43U (HDR1000), a Vizio M437Go (480 nits)(replaced by the FV43U just today) and a Samsung Q90T TV (HDR 10, HDR 10+, 1400nits). The CG437K was contrast 6 and brightness 1050, The FV43U was Contrast 1 and Brightness 1000. TV was contrast 3 and brightness1400 and everything look about the same on the 3 1000nits+ displays. The only strange behavior was on the Vizio M437Go, That display maxed out at about 480 nits and yet I have to set brightness to over 2000 to get the logo to disappear and I did notice that things seems a bit darker than the other 3 while in game. If your brightness calibration is over 1000, try bringing it back down and see if it gets brighter in game.
Rhino1931
4 years ago
I just made a post about this as well, same exact situation; was fine before the patch and now it's an eyesore. I'm guessing reducing "occasional artifacts" in the cutscenes meant increasing the contrast, and they didn't account for any issues that this would cause HDR users.
K4tja
4 years ago
I don't have HDR, and the cutscenes still look worse. Not nearly as bad as yours (no grey blacks), but the shadowed areas are mostly just black; before the patch there was some actual detail visible. I hope it's just a mistake and will be fixed because I fail to see how this is an improvement.
Wiz13688
4 years ago
Someone suggested that turning off "depth of field" is a temporary fix.
Rhino1931
4 years ago
Just tried this, didn't have any effect.
krismate
4 years ago
@Rhino1931 Yeah, no change in settings is likely to have any impact, as the cutscenes are already pre-rendered.
Rhino1931
4 years ago
Man this is frustrating, and even more frustrating, I'm not seeing many people with this issue, so I'm kind of doubtful anything will be done about it.
krismate
4 years ago
@Rhino1931 It's possibly only an issue on PC (I assume you're on PC also). HDR gaming on PC is very small percentage of the player base. Combine that with the smaller amount of people who will actually notice and the result is not many people talking about it.
N7NYj
4 years ago
I'm seeing the elevated blacks both with and without HDR turned on. I really hate the 5/17 patch.