OLED Deck forcing HDR on non-HDR display

[CrazyCritic89]

Your system information

• Steam client version: 1700676668
• SteamOS version: 20231122.1
• Opted into Steam client beta?: No
• Opted into SteamOS beta?: No
• Have you checked for updates in Settings > System?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

I simply plug the Deck into my TV or monitor, and HDR is forced on with no way to turn it off. I'm using the official dock. I've tried on multiple displays, and all of them force HDR with a "Display state: HDR Enabled (Forced Active)" on the bottom of it with the switch grayed out. This does not occur on LCD Deck also running stable. I tried switching to preview and the issue still persists.

[YoreonX]

SteamOS or Big Picture Mode needs to implement separate per-game settings when Docked for Steam Deck.

[presstart2begn]

It forces HDR on some games that don’t support HDR too

[FatalErrorXDevs]

Honkai star rail is such an example, if you run it via the work around, it looks all over exposed. We definitly need a toggle to turn off HDR per game, either in QAM or in the properties of a game.

[presstart2begn]

Cristales doesn’t for me the game will launch in HDR mode and the game doesn’t support HDR so I just get a washed out image that looks awful and if I open the menu HDR is activated above the brightness slider. So can play the game until they fix it

[burnpsy]

I am also having this issue. I have an old, cheap display with no HDR support. The OLED deck is forcing HDR on; the option to disable it is greyed out.

The result looks awful and washed out.

[shawnwall]

do we have any official documentation on this feature? when docked, i see a NON greyed out toggle but whether its on or off it still says 'HDR Enabled (Forced Active)'. Very confusing.

[Kosai106]

Just encountered this today for some reason while I don't recall having the issue before.

Only solution I found was to lower the resolution of the external display which somehow worked.

[presstart2begn]

I found a temp solution that has worked in a couple games add

DXVK_HDR=0 %command%

in the launch options and it will force off hdr in games that don’t have a toggle this works for me on Cris Tales

[anthr76]

Your system information

• Steam client version: 1709846872
• SteamOS version: (Custom build based off of Jovian-NixOS)
• Opted into Steam client beta?: No (same issue in beta)
• Opted into SteamOS beta?: No
• Have you checked for updates in Settings > System?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Describe what you expected should happen and what did happen.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Enable HDR
2. Play a SDR Game
3. Observe bright whites to be over saturated and hard to read/look at

I have an issue where when I play SDR games with HDR enabled in the display settings the colors/gamma looks washed out. If I disable HDR in the display settings in the steam UI the picture looks perfect. Curiously the TV reports HDR as off when playing SDR games while HDR is enabled in settings. When in the steam menus or in HDR games the tv reports HDR signal. HDR games look fine as well. It appears a partial HDR signal is being sent by steam/gamescope when SDR games are being played. Is anyone aware of a upstream issue? I'm not even sure where to even report this between gamescope/steamos/amdgpu/mesa.

Kernel: 6.8.0-rc7 Mesa: steamos-24.1.2/24.1.0 Gamescope: 3.14.2-unstable-2024-02-28

[anthr76]

I found a temp solution that has worked in a couple games add

DXVK_HDR=0 %command%

in the launch options and it will force off hdr in games that don’t have a toggle this works for me on Cris Tales

Is there a similar environment variable for DX12 games?

[TacoCake]

HDR is also forced ON for me with the LCD deck and the official dock.

Same thing with VRR, it's forced ON but I can't turn it off since the display isn't VRR compatible.

[Calebbyrd]

Same problem here older games look like shit, toggle does nothing.

[devKyleOrtiz]

Getting this issue, too.

[drake90001]

Have this also. My Roku TV doesn’t even see the input as HDR (no notification).

[vanessakindell]

I have this problem as well. My TV doesn't support HDR so all the colors look washed out when docked.

[tusx]

This needs to get fixed, it makes the steamdeck docked useless. Can't properly watch anything.

My tv also doesn't have HDR and deck is stuck on Forced HDR without the option to disable it

[strich3]

+1 same problem here with capture card

[matte-schwartz]

This is caused by an environment variable that gets set for Steam in gamescope-session that forces HDR to default to on for the OLED Deck, otherwise the internal display has the possibility to lose HDR capability after docking to an external display, disabling HDR, and then undocking the display. At this time there's no great way to get around this easily in gamescope, although it should hopefully be possible to handle more gracefully in the near future when per-display configuration is implemented.

[nex86]

Any update on this? For me it forces HDR enabled on every reboot, resulting in a picture that looks like an LSD trip. when I go to the settings, the switch for HDR is turned off. I have to flip it on and off again to fix the distorted colors. the issue is back on next reboot or cold boot. Any fix?

I've been asking around but not many people seem to know about this issue.