HDR looks washed out: setting up HDR for games on Windows 11

You turned on HDR and the desktop went grey. White looks dull, colours look faded, and the game you turned it on for looks flat. Three things happen at once: Windows changes how everything that is not HDR is shown, the game maps its own HDR picture, and the panel shows what it physically can. The first two have settings; the third is the hardware's limit.

What turning on HDR does to everything else

Microsoft's steps: open Settings > System > Display, choose the HDR-capable display at the top and turn on HDR (Microsoft). Windows key + Alt + B turns it on or off (Microsoft's keyboard shortcuts). On Windows 10 the switch sat under Windows HD Color settings, but Windows 10 support ended on October 14, 2025.

With HDR on, the desktop and every SDR app are shown inside the HDR picture, and SDR white is drawn at a brightness you set; Microsoft's developer documentation calls it the SDR reference white level (Microsoft Learn). Microsoft also explains why results differ between screens: "a display interprets an HDR and SDR signal differently, and the results will vary by make and model."

The control is the SDR content brightness slider on Settings > System > Display > HDR. On an external display it sets the brightness of SDR content relative to HDR content; on a laptop's built-in HDR screen the slider is called HDR content brightness, and SDR follows the ordinary brightness setting. Microsoft suggests the default or a value close to it: higher can improve overall contrast but costs detail in dark scenes. If one app still looks too bright and desaturated after a change, restart that app.

Colour is a separate question. Microsoft says plainly that some HDR displays do not reproduce the sRGB colours of desktop apps correctly with HDR on, and that colours can look over-saturated with Night light on. For colour fringes around text over HDMI, its advice is DisplayPort if your display supports HDR over it.

Calibrate the display once

The Windows HDR Calibration app, from the Microsoft Store, runs three test patterns recommended by the HDR Gaming Interest Group (HGIG): the darkest visible details, the brightest visible details, and the maximum brightness of your display. On each screen you drag the slider until the pattern is no longer visible (Microsoft). The result is saved as a colour profile you can remove later in Color Management.

It needs Windows 11, HDR on, the app running full screen and a WDDM 2.7 or later display driver; for colour saturation to work properly, Microsoft lists AMD RX 400 series or later or a Ryzen processor with Radeon Graphics, Intel 11th Gen or DG1 or later, or NVIDIA GTX 10 series or later. Microsoft also advises turning off the display's own post-processing if you can, calibrating in your usual lighting, and going easy on saturation, because too much can make HDR content look unnatural and over-saturated.

Auto HDR, for games that were never HDR

Auto HDR raises the colour range and brightness of SDR games to HDR; Microsoft's examples are games that use DirectX 11 or DirectX 12. In Settings > System > Display, turn on HDR, expand the HDR section and turn on Auto HDR. It converts a picture made for SDR, so judge it game by game; Windows 11 gaming settings that actually matter suggests turning it off per game for a competitive one. If some games no longer get HDR, w0a's Auto HDR card on the Fix page removes the per-game Auto HDR override so they follow the global Windows setting again (Auto HDR).

The game's own HDR settings: peak brightness and paper white

A game that ships HDR is expected to do its own tone mapping. Microsoft's developer guidance tells HDR apps to compress their scene into what the display can show, names max luminance as the most important single parameter for that, and says an HDR app must let you set the reference white level or read the one Windows uses. Games label these values differently, but they map onto two ideas:

Peak brightness is the brightest level the game will send. If the game shows a calibration pattern for it, follow the instruction on that screen.
Paper white is how bright an ordinary white surface appears in the scene. Microsoft Learn defines reference white with that image, "a diffuse white object (such as a sheet of paper…)", and notes that SDR reference white on desktop HDR monitors is typically set to around 200 nits. If the whole picture looks dim while highlights look right, this is the value to raise.

On a PC monitor in DisplayHDR or Dolby Vision mode, Microsoft says Windows tone-maps HDR10 content on the GPU using colour information from the monitor, and no additional content-based tone mapping is expected from the monitor.

TVs add one more switch. HGIG, a volunteer group of game and TV companies organised by Microsoft and Sony, publishes best practices rather than a standard, and states that "HGIG mode" is not a product function defined in its guidelines (HGIG). The guidelines' idea is that the game adjusts its tone mapper to the display's limits, and the display preserves gradation within its primary HDR range while in game mode. What a TV setting carrying the HGIG name does is for the TV maker to document, so read the manual before you choose it.

DisplayHDR 400 and local dimming: what the panel can show

VESA's DisplayHDR tiers set minimums. Under CTS 1.2, released May 7, 2024, DisplayHDR 400 must reach 400 cd/m² on a small centre patch and may show a black level of up to 0.4 cd/m² in VESA's corner-box test; DisplayHDR 1000 must reach 1000 cd/m² with a black level no higher than 0.05 (VESA). Local dimming is what the higher tiers require: 1D or better for DisplayHDR 500 and 600, 2D or better for 1000 and above, while 400 needs either a substantial increase in native panel contrast over CTS 1.1 or 1D local dimming.

Without local dimming, the backlight cannot darken one part of the picture while lighting another. RTINGS sums up the result: monitors without it "don't have black crush or haloing, but instead blacks aren't deep, and highlights don't pop like on Mini LED displays" (RTINGS). RTINGS also finds that edge-lit local dimming usually fails to improve picture quality, and treats OLED as the equivalent of perfect local dimming. That is one source of the washed-out look no slider can fix: the signal is HDR, the panel's contrast is not.

Microsoft recommends HDR-certified displays, and for DisplayHDR, tiers of 500 or higher. Settings > System > Display > Advanced display shows what Windows knows under HDR certification; "Not found" can mean the display has none, or that its maker has not published it.

Automatic colour management

Separate from HDR, Settings > System > Display > Color profile may offer Automatically manage color for apps, which Microsoft describes as making colours across apps appear accurately and consistently on supported displays. Microsoft's steps say to check whether the setting is there for your display; if it is, you can turn it on there.

When to leave HDR off

HDR looks worse than SDR on your monitor even after calibration. Leaving it off is a legitimate choice; RTINGS gives the same advice for monitors whose local dimming is locked on in HDR and performs badly: "it's better not to use HDR."
You only play SDR games and do not want Auto HDR. Keep HDR off and switch it on with Windows key + Alt + B when you start an HDR game.
A laptop running on battery. Microsoft says playing HDR content on battery can reduce battery life, and notes the PC maker may have set HDR to turn off on battery by default.

What does not help

Raising SDR content brightness to the maximum. Microsoft says higher values cost detail in the darker parts of the picture.
Pushing the saturation slider to compensate. Microsoft warns that too much can make HDR content look unnatural and over-saturated.
Expecting DisplayHDR 400 to match a screen with 2D local dimming. VESA requires 2D local dimming only from DisplayHDR 1000 up.
Duplicating a laptop screen onto an HDR monitor. Microsoft says HDR is not supported when displays are duplicated; extend them instead.

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