HDR

High dynamic range (Advanced video display - currently only available for windows platforms)

Overview

The current Windows Pre-releases/"nightlies" now support HDR. They can be downloaded from the very bottom of the Downloads page or directly from GitHub, here.

If you have a compatible monitor or TV you can now enjoy vivid, bright and high contrast colors that seem to pop right out of your screen, while maintaining full image details in both highlights and dark areas.Furthermore, colors in HDR mode can now exceed the Rec709 color space and go well into the DCI-P3 and BT2020 color spaces, creating an even more impressive visual experience.

Fine gameplay moments in HDR can be captured in Radiance (.hdr) format using the standard Oolite save snapshot key. You can view Radiance files at a later time using software like Windows HDR+WCG Viewer (available from the Windows Store for free) or the also free and very powerful HDR image viewer utility, SKIV.

This has been implemented by our Developer, Another commander (who also greatly improved visuals in Oolite versions 1.86, 1.88 & 1.90).

Note

Because the changes only affect the display on a HDR screen, there is no way of displaying the improvements on an older screen!

How to Enable Oolite's HDR Mode

After installing the game, a new shortcut will be added to the Start menu group for the game under Windows. Those who use the nightly installers, will notice this new icon under the group "Oolite":

You can now use it to launch the game in HDR. Alternatively, you can launch Oolite from a console or the Windows Run dialog using

C:\path\to\game\oolite.exe -hdr

As a reminder, to be able to run the game in this mode you need:

• Windows 10 or 11 (11 is strongly recommended).
• A monitor that supports HDR output. An OLED monitor or TV are strongly recommended.
• Graphics card that supports HDR, like 10xx NVidia series or higher spec.
• HDMI 2.1 / DisplayPort 1.4 or higher spec cable, so that the HDR bandwidth requirement is satisfied.
• Enabling of HDR in Windows from the Settings -> System -> Display. If your system does not support HDR for whatever reason you will not have the option to enable it.

Attempting to launch the game in HDR mode without satisfying the above requirements will trigger a warning dialog informing the user that it was not possible to detect HDR on the system and asking whether the user would like to proceed with the game rendering as HDR in a non-suitable environment (i.e, looking weird) or abort.

Links

• Oolite on HDR Displays (2022 - date) - this BB thread has the current information