Got an HDR monitor? Grab the new Nvidia App already – it turns SDR games into HDR, and aims to beat Windows 11’s similar feature

Holy Deeper Reds, Batman…

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Team Green just revealed its new Nvidia App– which replaces GeForce Experience – and it comes with a trick which is essentially the GPU maker’s take on aWindows 11 feature, namely AutoHDR.

Nvidia’s RTX HDR is an AI-powered filter which, likeMicrosoft’s Auto HDR, brings the benefit of HDR to plain old SDR games.

If you’ve got anHDR monitor, but you’re playing a game that doesn’t support HDR, then you aren’t getting the best mileage from your display in terms of visual quality.

So what these technologies do is take that SDR image and make an approximation of HDR for the gamer to enjoy on their supporting monitor.

Now, that won’t be as good as native HDR support, but it’s a lot better than nothing, and certainly a more vivid, punchy image than with just simple SDR.

As mentioned, this RTX HDR feature comes as part of the freshly revealed Nvidia App, and it’s compatible with Vulkan and DirectX games (from DX9 onwards). That new app offers a bunch of feature additions, alongside an overhauled interface (and Nvidia has dropped the requirement to sign in which will go down well with the PC gaming community).

It’s still beta software right now, though, but the eventual idea is that this will be a one-stop-shop to replace the current Nvidia Control Panel and GeForce Experience (the latter of which was avoided by a fair few gamers, let’s be honest).

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Analysis: A Windows 10 no-go, but there is a ‘vibrant’ alternative

Clearly this is great news for those with an HDR monitor, although it doesn’t come as a surprise, as there was a previous leak showing that Nvidia likely had such an Auto HDR-style feature waiting in the wings. So, that rumor was bang on the money.

There are a couple of notable caveats to be aware of, mind, notably that you need to have an RTX graphics card (the name RTX HDR gives that away) and you must be runningWindows 11. As with Auto HDR,Windows 10users are sadly left out in the tundra (literally, being saddled with somewhat bleaker images in SDR games than they could otherwise benefit from).

Of course, you must have an HDR monitor as noted, but those who don’t get a consolation prize called RTX Dynamic Vibrance. This can work with any display, whether it’s one of thebest monitorsout there replete with bells and whistles, or a bog standard screen, and again uses AI to pep up visual clarity and make colors pop more (while avoiding color crushing,Nvidia notes).

Based on Nvidia’s demos, RTX Dynamic Vibrance does make quite a difference, but as the name again indicates, this is for RTXgraphics cardsonly. You can use these features on a per-game basis, or there’s a global switch for RTX HDR.

Whatever the case, Nvidia GPU owners will doubtless be keen to try out this new feature, as the aforementioned leak involved a mod that enabled RTX HDR in a pre-release state – and even in that form, some gamers reckoned it was better thanMicrosoft’s Auto HDR. Nvidia’s take can also be used with more PC games, to boot.

ViaPC Gamer

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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

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