✅RenoDX: God of War Ragnarok

[thorn leaf]

Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/godofwarragnarok/mods/144

**Summary **
Fixes and improves the game's HDR rendering pipeline by correcting PQ encoding, replacing broken brightness slider logic, and enabling accurate brightness scaling. Preserves the original tonemapper with optional Vanilla+ enhancements, and adds configurable controls for exposure and bloom. Also bypasses the game’s flawed gamma correction logic for accurate contrast and black levels.

Key Changes

Tone Mapping Shader (0x4D780747)

• Preserves the game's vanilla tonemapper.
• Adds Vanilla+ mode:
  • Disables the game’s built-in exposure logic.
  • Adds a new exposure slider (ColorGradeExposure) for adjusting exposure cleanly when Vanilla+ is enabled.
  • Applies brightness scaling after tonemapping using ToneMapGameNits to preserve hue, contrast, and saturation.
  • Dynamically recalculates peak_nits and min_nits based on gamma correction and game brightness for accurate tonemapping.

Final Output Shader (0x903B49C1)

• Applies proper sRGB → 2.2 gamma correction at the end of the pipeline, just before BT.2020 → PQ encoding.
  • This bypasses the game’s flawed gamma correction, which appears to be an incorrect curve fit attempting to correct sRGB to 2.2 gamma.
  • The original logic likely stemmed from developing on 2.2 gamma displays while encoding in sRGB in SDR.
  • Applies when Vanilla+ is enabled.
• Converts BT.709 → BT.2020 → PQ.
• Supports both the game's approximation curve and proper HDR10 (ST2084) encoding.
• Does not affect UI or the HDR calibration image.

HDR Calibration Menu Shader (0x4BB65477)

• Updated to reflect the same logic as the main scene:
  • Includes brightness scaling and peak/min nits adjustments.

Bloom Shader (0xC66F9B98)

• Adds a bloom strength slider (FxBloom) for controlling bloom intensity independently in HDR.

[timber holly]

https://tenor.com/view/have-a-great-day-gif-13578415868193855261

just in time for my upcoming playthrough fresh off the heels of platinuming the first game

[young jungle]

I love you musa

[lean sluice]

Other thread now being read only, I'll just complement the UI brightness slider talk thing here briefly :
Even at zero, vanilla slider makes it waaay too bright, is there any way its value could be overriden by a mod ? (Not a RenoDX hassle of decompiling all its UI shaders but something similar to an engine.ini tweaks for UE games)

Anyway, regardless, thanks for the RenoDX build Musa 🙂 Eventually gonna discover this game looking its best possible ig

[thorn leaf]

idk how to override the cbuffer

reno doesn't have that functionality built in

[lean sluice]

Oh that's what would be needed ? It couldn't be just like forcing it to go to like "-10" ?

[thorn leaf]

in some games like witcher 3 you can edit the menu slider values in some json or ini files i think

so you can select like 10k nits for peak brightness for example

doesn't exist for gow afaik

[north flame]

wrong description in nexus page

[thorn leaf]

fixed

[lean sluice]

Yeah I can't find anything about that, not even the HDR calibration values in any config file

[north flame]

@thorn leaf maybe you can clamp some of the combat ui

[thorn leaf]

Ya I guess the main HUD elements

[young jungle]

musa is there the same thing jdsp mentioned on ps5

gamut expansion linked to peak brightness

[thorn leaf]

haven't seen anything like that

[lean sluice]

I don't really understand the peak override toggle, it's dynamic ?

[thorn leaf]

the game by default reads your peak brightness from the windows calibration

the toggle lets you override it

[lean sluice]

So if it's already using 1000 nits, no need to override ig

[thorn leaf]

ya

sometimes people with multimonitor setups get the wrong value

[lean sluice]

ok 🙂

[young jungle]

@elder trench

[north flame]

i guess just the cursed gamma stuff they did

[elder trench]

When I played on the PS5 I just set the peak brightness on the system settings to 4K for the extra contrast and saturation

Unsure if it carries over to the PC code, but that's how the console is

[north flame]

probably the dumb exposre thing they done

i dont think theres any difference between the two version

gamingtech's video also suggested that

[dusk dune]

What are good exposure values? I find that the default 1.0 is overly bright.

[north flame]

default 1 looks fine to me

[dusk dune]

Well my monitor doesn't help, 600 nits IPS. Shadow areas are a bit bright

[north flame]

makes sense

you are basically on a fake hdr screen

the best you can do is just eyeball it and find the setting you like

[dusk dune]

thats true. I use PD80_03_Filmic_Adaptation to help with highlights and contrast.

[north flame]

ips is typically 1000 contrast ratio, when you have 600 nits peak, your min brightness is like 0.6 nits

0.6 nits looks super washed out on an oled

how does the native hdr look like on your screen

it looks super crushed on an oled

[dusk dune]

Native HDR is mostly ok actually

very little changes with the mod on IPS

[north flame]

ya it should be like that

this mod mainly changes the shadow detail

which is crushed in native hdr

[dusk dune]

On IPS shadows are dark but not too much

[quasi basalt]

Its okay to keep in game HDR settings to default 50/50 im assuming?

[thorn leaf]

When you enable vanilla+ it disabled the firdt slider slider

[quasi basalt]

I noticed that yes

but peak was stuck to 823 on my 790 dispaly

with or without vanilla+

[thorn leaf]

Override peak setting will let you set it to whatever you want

[quasi basalt]

must've missed that, will try it tonight

[boreal bane]

i tried yesterday and it looked good. is there a way to disable vignette? there was mod that stopped working when the game got patched

[north flame]

still works for me

[north flame]

HDR defaults / renodx 224 nits bloom 75

[boreal bane]

Are you using the Windows-Game-patches to remove the vignette?

[north flame]

YA

you need to rename dinput8.dll from folder !ASI_Loader_x64 to winmm.dll and copy to game folder

[manic pike]

Tried this out yesterday after using the native hdr for many hours. Is it expected that the perceived contrast in the mid tones of the picture should look a little lower? I can definitely see the black level crush being fixed but some details like the cravings on the max level axe for example look kinda… flatter? I’m assuming this is because I’m used to what is basically extra contrast from their default curve but I’m unsure. I can send some example screenshots when im home

[thorn leaf]

Their default curve was crushed

I think it actually made colors go negative

It was extremely cursed

It’s all cause they fucked up some other stuff and tried to paper it over by slapping on a contrast boost

Right now what I have is mathematically correct but I didn’t add any color grading sliders

I can add them at some point

The devkit was acting weird so I couldn’t figure out where to slot in the sliders

But I should be able to figure it out eventuality

[manic pike]

I see I see

I’ll throw some jxr screenshots up when I get home. It seems like I’m probably just seeing the byproduct of me getting used to the contrast boost but it just feels like stuff is less detailed? Hard to describe

[manic pike]

@thorn leaf jxrs of the on and off. I can see the there is more detial in the dark caveish area in the distance with the tweak on but the fine detiail on kratos' model and weapons looks worse? maybe im insane

also is ui hitting several thousand nits unavoidable? seems to still happen with the addon

[thorn leaf]

I woudl have to fix up every ui shader separately

I just have ui on the lowest setting

still fairly bright though

[manic pike]

its a very minor issue honestly

was just curious

[thorn leaf]

the problem is the game uses shader model 6.6 and a new feature which the decompiler doesn't know how to deal with so it requires annoying manual fixes

for each shader

[manic pike]

10000nits on the ui but its probably so few pixels that it doesnt actually look bad tbh

[thorn leaf]

my biggest issue with the game besides black crush was the brightness slider applying before tonemapping

so setting it to anything other than default fucked with the image

rather than just making it brighter or dimmer

I play with 100 game brightness in reno

[manic pike]

the exposure settings?

[thorn leaf]

the in game brightness slider doesn't work like a normal brightness slider

it acts like exposure

[manic pike]

oh you mean you play with ingame brightness maxed with reno

i thought you meant reno brightness

[thorn leaf]

renodx game brightness i have set to 100

the in game slider doesn't do anything when you select the new tonemapper

with the vanilla hdr changing the in game brightness slider was borked

[manic pike]

gotcha

im seeing 964 nits max with 1000 set

[thorn leaf]

if you set the exposure slider to something super high like 99999 it should show you what peak you're getting

ctrl click to set custom values

[manic pike]

yeah 964.25

set to 1000 in the slider

[thorn leaf]

thought I set it up properly but I'll have to double check

I guess just increase until it hits 1000

[manic pike]

fair

thoughts on the jxrs i posted? im just insane?

[thorn leaf]

both look fine to me tbh

[thorn leaf]

i'm getting 1000 nits

do you have hdr10 encoding set to pq

[manic pike]

one is the defaulk and one is with the tweak

yeah

ill post screenshoot

the game brightness slider changes it

100 gets me the same result as you

but that should not be changing it, no?

[thorn leaf]

if you do override peak brightness and set to 1000 does it work fine?

your tv's edid might just be telling the game you have a lower peak than 1000

[manic pike]

doesnt work

same thing

you have what im guessing is paperwhite value

game brightness

[thorn leaf]

ya game brightness is paper white

it should work the same regardless of paper white

[manic pike]

it changes it

default 203 vs 100

wait i did it with override not at 1000 there oops

yeah lower paperwhite seems to raise the peak then start to lower it as you get closer to the minimum value. very odd

unless its an issue with the measuring tool but that seems unlikly

[thorn leaf]

don't think it's an issue with the measuring tool

[manic pike]

60

80

all other settings are unchanged

[thorn leaf]

guess I just gotta double check the math for the slider

  float peak_nits = min(4000.0f, ConstBuf_constants_m0[4u].z);
  float min_nits = max(9.9999997473787516355514526367188e-05f, ConstBuf_constants_m0[3u].w);
  float exposure = ConstBuf_constants_m0[4u].x;  // brightness slider

  if (RENODX_OVERRIDE_PEAK_NITS) {
    peak_nits = RENODX_PEAK_WHITE_NITS;
  }
  if (RENODX_TONE_MAP_TYPE) {
    min_nits = 0.0001f;
    exposure = 8.f * RENODX_TONE_MAP_EXPOSURE;
    float scale = 100.f / RENODX_DIFFUSE_WHITE_NITS;
    peak_nits *= scale;
    min_nits *= scale;

    float invDiffuseWhite = 1.0f / RENODX_DIFFUSE_WHITE_NITS;
    peak_nits = renodx::color::correct::Gamma(peak_nits * invDiffuseWhite, true) * RENODX_DIFFUSE_WHITE_NITS;
    min_nits = renodx::color::correct::Gamma(min_nits * invDiffuseWhite, true) * RENODX_DIFFUSE_WHITE_NITS;
  }

[manic pike]

we have passed my understanding lol

[thorn leaf]

I should be able to figure it out

[manic pike]

dope. lmk if you need any other imput.
Going back to the jxr thing, can you really not see a difference on his character model between the two? maybe i am crazy then

[thorn leaf]

I mean contrast is a little different

[manic pike]

im guessing if you boost the contrast back up at all its just gonna reintroduce the black crush, isnt it?

[thorn leaf]

ya

[manic pike]

ya know what

it might be the peak nits actually

im zooming in on the detailing on the axe blade. it does look a lot dimmer in the fixed version

[thorn leaf]

could be it

might be partially from the difference in contrast

[manic pike]

so the higher contrast looks better on character models but crushes blacks in the environment. that sounds like a fundamental issue with the hdr implementation or just the lighting in the game in general.

ik some games raise the brightness on character models intentionally so they remain more visable for gameplay purposes

[thorn leaf]

ya, though i dont recall ever seeing that in this game

[manic pike]

could be a fundamental part of the models, no?

[thorn leaf]

just how they look

[manic pike]

yeah

whats the simplist way to just turn up the contrast? ik this version of the addion doesnt have all the sliders visable

just wanted to check if thats what im seeing

[thorn leaf]

lilium black floor fix i guess

ther's a gamma slider in it

[manic pike]

dope thanks

so im assuming this is a trait of the fixed curve but heres another example

this is with adjusting to peak settings manually to hit 1000

non peak highlights like this area on the floor get visablly dimmer by 100+ nits if i mreading the graph right

[thorn leaf]

partially that and their broken pq curve

you can turn off the screen shake

makes it easier to compare

[manic pike]

should be visible there. black level crush is visibly fixed but a highlight at the 300-400 range also gets dropped down in brightness

dropping gamma with lilliums does seem to fix it but with the adverse affect of messing up the rest of the image

makes me think is a biproduct of fixing the curve and/or contrast reduction

[heavy atlas]

this looks so much better than vanilla it's nuts

[heavy atlas]

@thorn leaf it is great what's odd is it looks better on my alienware qd oled versus lg c9. It's because the c9 is capped to 800 nits and subsequently all non capped highlights go to like 600ish nits or less which are all lot of highlights in this game

most games look better on the c9 due to the alienwares agressive abl and low peaks outside 10%

i think just having the peak at 1000 for all screens will fix it

[heavy atlas]

This is what I see as well, the highest peaks exceed max peak in the game, but they seem to be relatively rare. 1000 nits peaks seems to bring the "mid tier" highlights up to still be impactful

the burn mark here is 800 nits at peak 1000 and under 700 at peak 800 nits

maybe even less i can't recall

here's a direct comparison between 800 peak and 1000 peak this bright area seems very dim at 800 nits

even though it's hitting almost 700 nits

almost the same image at peak 1000 the highlight is much more pronounced

i dunno if I am just monkeybrained on the highlight brightness but I think it's a problem with the game have so many highlights that don't reach peak and when you compress the curve to 800 nits peak it makes anything under it feel less impactful

then we have this scene which is over 2k nits haha

[thorn leaf]

it's cause I fucked up some of the math and peak is lower

I'll prob have it fixed tomorrow

if you wanna find out what the actual peak you need to put in is

ctrl click on exposure slider and set it to 9999999

then you'll see what peak you're actually hitting

[north flame]

the sun does hit 750 nits with peak set to 800 nits

775 actually

its probably working as intended

not every highlight hit the peak brightness

with exposure set to 9999999 its 785

[north flame]

tbh i think this looks fine to me

its nowhere near "very dim"

and the 1000 peak looks blown out

but im on a lg c2 so it should be blown out i guess

if you pay attention to the highlight details on the rocks

the peak 800 looks way better imo

[heavy atlas]

yeah i know I think some should that aren't like fire effects which subsequently look better on my 1000 nit display I understand this is creator intent tho I'll try exposure hack maybe thats the issue

as i said almost no games look better on my qd oled monitor versus c9 so it's odd

[north flame]

ya i can agree with that

this game has relatively low apl

so it is possible that it looks better on your od oled monitor (im assuming you are using the 1000 peak mode)

the highest apl i found is like 70

which means no abl on your lg c9

but thats the highest

[heavy atlas]

makes me want the s90d its so cheap tight now

[north flame]

its only 30 apl here

so no abl on your qd oled monitor as well

since its peak 1000, it defnitely looks better

25 - 30 is where the abl kicks in on most od oled monitors (peak 1000 mode)

[heavy atlas]

the shot with the severed bruned drsgon head looks amazing on qd oled

[north flame]

that probably another issue

lg c9 doesnt have color boost

which was a feature introduced on the c2

and color boost is disabled in game mode

if i switch between fm mode and game mode

that dragon head ss does look much bettter in fm mode

[heavy atlas]

i dunno i just pkayed split fiction with unreal reno and it looked amazing on the c9 game is okenty colorful

[north flame]

ya it really depends on the content

in gow its very noticeable

[heavy atlas]

the 77 inch s90d is under 1800 right now

[north flame]

if you try these runic attacks with blades of chaos

im pretty sure its better on your qd oled

[quasi basalt]

This game does not have the wow factor on the C9 - leaves a dull impression with or without RenoDX

[thorn leaf]

Depends on paper white. I messed up the math for how peak scales with paper white

So higher paper white slightly decreases peak

[north flame]

its 785 at 200 pw

with maxed exposure

[thorn leaf]

think I fixed the math

[thorn leaf]

updated:
https://www.nexusmods.com/godofwarragnarok/mods/144

[viscid lark]

What changed ? I had recorded with 203 nits paper white, does the change affect that visually ?

[heavy atlas]

I haven't done measurements, but it looked close to the same for me last night while playing. This game is unfortunately not very good for any LG oled with 800 nits peak, it's amazing on qd oled screens though and probably LG oleds with 1000 nit + peak

[thorn leaf]

It would have undershot peak brightness by like 20 nits before.

Otherwise the same

[quick cove]

The game also crashes every 45 mins with this mod

[heavy atlas]

its most likely your driver

[thorn leaf]

could be overlays

[quick cove]

On the latest drivers and over lays are off

[thorn leaf]

can you post reshade.log next time it crashes

[quick cove]

?

[thorn leaf]

It shows dx11 devices. Usually that means something dx11 being injected like overlays

I had code somewhere for ignoring dx11 if the game is dx12

Just gotta find it

[quick cove]

I’ve turned off Microsoft over lays and nvidia overlays. Are there any more?

[heavy atlas]

steam

[thorn leaf]

When I get back home tomorrow I can just add the code that blocks dx11 stuff and that should be enough

[thorn leaf]

try this version

[quick cove]

tried it. it still crashed but took longer than 45 mins. was able to play for a decent amount of time beffore it gave me the same error message. ill post my log

[thorn leaf]

are you able to find any overlay stuff in task manager when playing?

discord overlay maybe?

they turned it on in an update

idk what else could be causing it

[manic pike]

i feel like i must be doing something wrong lmao

am i insane or does the game look less saturated with the fix applied

vanilla tonmapper/vanilla+ tonemapper

addon uninstalled^

looks the same as vanilla tonemapper

idk if im just crazy but it feels less saturated and flatter but i cant point to why

@thorn leaf

[thorn leaf]

The vanilla tonemapper has more contrast since it clips blacks

[manic pike]

so its a less contrasty which makes it look flatter in comparison but its technically correct?

[thorn leaf]

I guess so

In darker areas you won’t be able to see any details with vanilla

[manic pike]

i suppose if i've played the game a fucking lot with the more contrastly look i can tell the difference

[manic pike]

@thorn leaf does that account for this as well then? highlighs that arent quite peak highlights being brighter

[thorn leaf]

The last update I put out made it so highlights reached peak

The math was slightly off before

[manic pike]

cranking exposer im seeing about 1015-1023 with 1k peak

is that expected?

[thorn leaf]

I think so

Tonemapping isn’t the very last thing in the pipeline

[manic pike]

i suppose its probably single pixel type stuff and wont actually cause and perceivable clipping?

[north flame]

theres a forced sharpening filter in this game

probably just some grain go above 1000 nits

[manic pike]

ah maybe

i didnt actually check to make sure i had everything disabled that you can disable

playing ow2 with buddies now

[heavy atlas]

The game has muted HDR on lg oled

@manic pike

on a qd oled woth reno it's legitimately amazing though

maybe recent woleds too

[heavy atlas]

the game has a wide spectrum of highlight brightness only a few sources reach peak in my experiences like fire and effects are about 500 nits on 800 nit dosplay and don't really "pop" at all

on my 1000 nits monitor they do, I have considered just running the game with a little blown out highlights to help with that

not sure

[viscid lark]

https://youtube.com/shorts/r2qfnJJULSY

[manic pike]

@thorn leaf did UI get excluded in the new version? im seeing ui hit 10k nits

[viscid lark]

Renodx doesn't fix ui

[manic pike]

could have sworn the older one did but maybe im tripping

thanks

[thorn leaf]

Ya mod never touched UI

[manic pike]

can it? the 10k nit menu makes my eyes burn out of my skull

i suppose i could just use a reshade shader to just tonemap the ui peaks down and it should have no effect on the rest of the image? cause nothing but ui actually goes over 1k

[viscid lark]

I think the game has lots of shaders for ui, that's why Musa didn't fix it

[thorn leaf]

If ShortFuse updated the decompiler to support something called resourcedescriptorheap I can do it

otherwise it would be extremely tedious

[manic pike]

Gotcha gotcha

Thanks

[manic pike]

@thorn leaf its time for my bianual replay of this game and i noticed something. vanilla+ seems to reduce color percentages to almost entirely bt.709. Was not supposed to use wider gamuts to begin with and it was just an issue with their defualt hdr or is this a byproduct of a fix you employed?

bad scene for this, sorry lol

[thorn leaf]

There weren’t any colors outside of bt709 before, they were caused by their fucked up gamma correction returning negative values which is interpreted as WCG but it’s actually just clipped colors

[manic pike]

ah so the game just lacks hdr color

and with not fucked up hdr it doesn't push outside 709 unintentionally anymore

[thorn leaf]

I could add a different type of gamma correction that’s not actual srgb -> 2.2 correction as your display would do it in sdr but looks nicer and has wcg

[manic pike]

i meannnn

[thorn leaf]

That’s what I did in hitman and some other games

[manic pike]

yes please

this is my favorate game so

anything to make it better and im sold

im still pissed off that they never brought the RT aligned cube maps to pc

im assuming it would preserve the native hdr "incorrect" color representation

[thorn leaf]

• added 2.2 gamma correction by luminance with per channel chrominance

[manic pike]

I turned of my pc less than a minute before you sent this

I’m assuming this should match native HDR color?

its for sure much better than the old method

vanilla/2.2 per channel/2.2 by luminance with per channel chrominance

only question would be is the gamut being much bigger with the new method just over saturation or is it actually revealing colors that exist in the assets @thorn leaf

it feels like more detail but I'm not testing very scientifically

[thorn leaf]

color doesn't come from the assets but from per channel contrast (in this case gamma correction) increasing saturation

its just doing the saturation increase in a more uniform way that doesn't shift hues

[manic pike]

so regardless of the method

native, v1, v2

its still technically a saturation increase over sdr

[thorn leaf]

they have some fucked up gamma correction in vanilla

it also increases saturation

[manic pike]

i meant sdr, typo

[thorn leaf]

sdr is assuming they made it on 2.2 gamma displays

thats what its emulating

2.2 per channel gamma correction is matching that

[manic pike]

id imague they did if they actually implimented gamma correction

well

some version of it

[thorn leaf]

ya

[manic pike]

Something about the color still feels weird, better, but weird

Though I suspect it’s because I’m comparing to color that’s been through their gamma correction situation

Is it possible there’s any hue shifting happening in their pipeline that you presumably bypass in vanilla plus? I’d imagine not but feels like it

[thorn leaf]

thats just what the gamma correction is doing

only other thing vanilla+ does is correctly set the min and max nits parameters to account for the gamma correction

[manic pike]

Gotcha

The analysis tool defiantly shows it should be more saturated but it still looks less in most situations

[thorn leaf]

its not showing more saturation its showing wider gamut

[manic pike]

But perhaps it only looks less because the black floor isn’t in hell

[thorn leaf]

vanilla is more saturated because they add more contrast

[manic pike]

Ah

That would make sense

[manic pike]

Does showing colors on a wider gamut not equate to them looking more saturated? Reaching the edge of my knowledge lol

[thorn leaf]

it just means its farther outside of bt709

well saturation and chrominance aren't the same

don't rememebr the difference

too lazy to look it up

[manic pike]

Real asf

So perhaps just a saturation slider exposed? Assuming that it can exist. I don’t know how the system for slider works when you’re not replacing the tonemapper

[thorn leaf]

I can add that

[manic pike]

Was their attempted gamma mismatch fix affecting the perceived contrast by lowering the lows or was it actually contrast slapped on top?

[thorn leaf]

It was a curve fit

Idk what they modeled it on

Also they increased exposure a lot before applying tonemapping

[manic pike]

🫠

Perhaps contrast as well then

[thorn leaf]

Well that is increasing contrast

[manic pike]

I mean as a slider

Optional of course

But I’d understand if you’d wanna skip it

I know adding sliders is a slippery slope lol

[thorn leaf]

I’m fine with adding them but I’d have to see where to put it

I just did what I had to in order to fix the game

Since I already beat it on ps5

Didn’t care for doing more

[manic pike]

I don’t suspect blowout or anything of the sort will be needed so saturation and contrast is probably all you’d really need to add

[manic pike]

As in what values to default or how to physically implement them?

[thorn leaf]

Where in the pipeline

Saturation I can add at the very end but stuff like highlights and contrast would have to be before tonemap

The snapshot was showing stuff out of order in the devkit

So I’d have to mess around and look for it

[manic pike]

Yeah I figured you didn’t go too deep sense this games hdr isn’t that broken compared to other games

[thorn leaf]

It’s equally broken id say

It’s just that I had no motivation since I think the game looks great

Once fixed

And I wouldn’t change anything about the way it looks now that I’ve fixed it

[manic pike]

It doesn’t go over peak or look washed out which is more than most games can say

[thorn leaf]

Ya

[manic pike]

I’d rather back crush than washed out

I’d appreciate it if you’d be willing to add those sliders but I also understand if you don’t care to lol

[thorn leaf]

Maybe some day

[manic pike]

I haven’t actually looked

Does hdr look more saturated than sdr?

Because of their correction

[thorn leaf]

Ya

[manic pike]

Ah

So perhaps it’s better this way

Alright now I sleep

Thanks again lol

[leaden peak]

would like to try this new file as well but getting a virus warning from bitdefender

[dusk musk]

Its false positive add it to exceptions

[thorn leaf]

I built the addon using clang

The build process is faster using clang

I can build it using ninja

Which never gives false positives afaik

[manic pike]

I don’t think I got a false positive from it

But I could be misremembering

[manic pike]

Would you mind trying to explain why using a wider gamut doesn’t = more saturated? It was my understanding that a color, red for example, that was pushed further outside of 709 would appear “more red” or more saturated. Similar to when a gaming monitors sdr mode isn’t clamped so it over saturates the hell out of everything.

I know if you crank the saturation in reno it will use a wider gamut but is it a square rectangle situation? Saturation will stretch to a wider gamut but a wider gamut isn’t necessarily gonna be more saturated?

[thorn leaf]

Wider range of colors. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gonna use the colors more. Those monitors In sdr are mismatching the color primaries

Having access to a Wider gamut might appear more saturated

But in the case of Ragnarok here

I’m taking chrominance from per channel and applying it to luminance

So both images have the same chrominance

[manic pike]

Liliums shows what’s actively being displayed, right? Like after any processing

[thorn leaf]

Yes

[manic pike]

I’m thinking about how the gamut shows differently

Cause that gamut looks way way way bigger but it’s not actually much more saturated at all

Only in some spots

[thorn leaf]

It’s showing a wider range of colors but something like a saturated red won’t necessarily be more saturated, it’ll just appear as a different type of red

I mean it won’t have more chrominance necessarily, not that it won’t be more saturated. Don’t remember the difference but I should use the precise terms

[manic pike]

According to google chrominance is the whole package. Saturation, hue, luminance, etc

Saturation is just how much grey vs pure color

So wider color gamuts could mean that it’s just a more red red

But it could also mean that they just have more shades of red to pick from?

Just depends on the situation

[thorn leaf]

@plain sable calls it chrominance but I’ve seen it referred to as chroma

The distance from grayscale

[plain sable]

Saturation is distance from gray, chrominance is "colorfulness". The Wikipedia explains it well

Perceptual vs rigid math I think

Also could be "in gamma" like in YCC/YCbCr (which I guess is like perceptual)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrominance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorfulness#Saturation

I did Saturation vs Chrominance in LA Noire to experiment with the differences in B&W

[manic pike]

So how do you determine what’s the correct extent for the gamut to stretch for a game then? For this game you can’t reference sdr because it’s sdr and you can’t reference native hdr because it uses their wacky gamma correction. Is it a situation where it’s just impossible to tell unless you were to talk to the devs? Just leave it with whatever looks good?

[thorn leaf]

Correct would just be 2.2 per channel

I’m not stretching the gamut

2.2 is basically just a contrast boost

[manic pike]

Expanding then, not stretching

[thorn leaf]

But it’s per channel

[manic pike]

I see

[thorn leaf]

I don’t like doing stuff per channel cause of hue shifts

So I do it by luminance so it retains hue

And then I take the chrominance from per channel

And that’s just how the gamut ends up

[manic pike]

So that would imply that this games hdr was intended to lack colors outside of bt709

[thorn leaf]

I’m not expanding the gamut intentionally

[manic pike]

It only happens to have some fall outside it in native because of the fucked up correction

[thorn leaf]

The game’s hdr actually has a clamp

It could have some colors outside of bt709

I’d have to check

[manic pike]

That’s… odd

[thorn leaf]

But if they’re clamping stuff then they probably didn’t even do anything outside of bt709

Can’t remember if I saw color conversions to wider gamuts used

[manic pike]

So what you added last night was a different gamma correction method that results in a wider gamut but it’s technically less “correct?”

Just may be preferred

[manic pike]

Could it also be possible it had something to do with their gamma correction not playing nice with it?

[thorn leaf]

Maybe

[thorn leaf]

What they’re doing with encoding srgb and then using 2.2 monitors is also incorrect

You have to emulate their incorrect math because that’s the intended look

[manic pike]

Which is what gamma correction is, no?

It’s just that some gamma correction methods also have an effect on color

If I’m understanding right

[manic pike]

That’s why I put correct in quotes. How they intended it to look is what I meant.

[thorn leaf]

2.2 per channel is the real intended look

[manic pike]

Which is the original method, right?

If you can remove the clamp is a whole separate thing

[thorn leaf]

the clamp is literally just 3 lines of code, one for each channel

[manic pike]

Oh lmao

[thorn leaf]

idk if there's any actual wcg to recover though

[manic pike]

I’ll be home in like 4 hours if you don’t wanna reinstall the game

If you haven’t already

Before you push anything

[thorn leaf]

i have it installed

[manic pike]

Oh okay

[north flame]

any plan to cap the UI ?

[thorn leaf]

decompiling shaders in this game is a pain cause it has some stuff that the decopmiler isn't able to handle so it requires a ton of manual work

cap the ui would be a pain

[north flame]

maybe just some of them

[thorn leaf]

can't say i give too much of a shit about this game

[north flame]

Those in combat i mean

[thorn leaf]

already beat it and it was long af so i'll likely never play it again

[north flame]

i played this game four times

[thorn leaf]

2018 had an ass load of shaders for ui, hud would be a bunch of shaders

[north flame]

including two 100% playthrough

[manic pike]

Obviously this is a really patchwork solution but isn’t tonemapping overbright pixels a thing that can be done? I think I remember hearing about that

[north flame]

the first one was on the ps5 though

fuck i bought ps5 to play this game

[manic pike]

Same

Forbidden west too

A lot of Sony first party games are some of my favorite types of games

[north flame]

i dont like horizon games

never played them on console

[manic pike]

I think the gameplay in the second game is really really good

[north flame]

i actually perfer the first game

[manic pike]

The first one was carried by the story and the novelty imo

Really?

[north flame]

i think the original zero dawn is the best

remastered looks bad

[manic pike]

Gotta disagree there

[thorn leaf]

second game on paper is better but they took the bloat to a ridiculous degree

i think original zero dawn is ugly and so is remaster

[manic pike]

I think the second game has some of the best visuals in games

[north flame]

Forbidden west looks bad

[manic pike]

Strongly disagree

[north flame]

musa will agree

[manic pike]

Alright I replay the game and take hdr screenshots

I’ll prove my subjective option objectively correct

[north flame]

The hdr isnt too bad

[manic pike]

:)

[north flame]

with the right settings

[manic pike]

Yeah you just need to use liliums I believe

[north flame]

not really necessary

[manic pike]

Because the “shadows” slider is incorrect gamma correction

[north flame]

their shadow slider can work

Highlights is the more important one

default value 0 is really bad

at least reduce it to -5

[manic pike]

I’m not saying it looks horrible without it, it just looks better when you set it correctly

[north flame]

-7 is ideal

[manic pike]

I’ll have to reinstall

Actually I’ll do zero dawn remaster first

HDR in both is identical, yeah?

[north flame]

ya

[manic pike]

I’ll take some screenshots and blow your mind

Just you wait

Lmao

[thorn leaf]

I think horizon games are hideous on an artistic level

[faint horizon]

The Horizon games look like what would happen if Thomas Kinkade dropped acid and decided to paint a robot dinosaur apocalypse. -- It's legitimately one of my least favorite art styles. Just color vomit.

[thorn leaf]

Acid would make him better

It’s more like if you gave a child access to photoshop

I hate all the high frequency detail everywhere alongside the colors

It’s just sensory overload

[faint horizon]

I'm surprised that the environment artists aren't 80 year old American grandmas rather than young Dutch designers, because it looks like the Kinkade's on my Bubbe's wall

100%

The audio design is the same. Ten seconds can't go by without Aloy talking to herself.

It's a problem endemic to many Sony games. Way too much telling, not enough showing.

[thorn leaf]

lowest common denominator game

"slop" as some would say

[manic pike]

@thorn leaf finally home
did you end up testing that color clamp thing?

[thorn leaf]

I can do it now

[manic pike]

that would be great

and sorry if that sounded rude. Dont mean to be pushy

[thorn leaf]

I'm adding sliders now

[thorn leaf]

sliders are gonna have to be per channel

don't really wanna decomp any more shaders

• added color grading sliders

[manic pike]

what happened when you unclamped the gamut?

[thorn leaf]

nothing

[manic pike]

ah rip

wonder why they bothered clamping it in the first place then

[thorn leaf]

well i tested in a fairly desaturated area

[manic pike]

is it in the sliders?

[thorn leaf]

no its just unclamped if you set tonemaptype to vanilla+

[manic pike]

oh gotcha

so if its there we'll see it

apprecate it

ill check it out when im done playing peak with friends

[manic pike]

why the 55 highlight sat?

vanilla/2.2 per channel/2.2 by luminance

so they do exsit a little bit outside of bt709 with it unclamped

ah wait

filmgrain got reenabled

might have been a bad test

[manic pike]

ive discovered something cursed

default mod settings vs off

i havent noticed shifting on anything else though so i have no idea why this would be happening

bumped highlights to 100 to exadurate the difference

[thorn leaf]

That was an accident

[manic pike]

gotcha

i was able to get that shifting to happen in mother red/orange stuff

did their default gamma correction have some form of shifting built in?

[thorn leaf]

its per channel

[manic pike]

Then what the heck is happening here lol

I’ll fiddle around with it some more tomorrow

[thorn leaf]

• fix incorrect highlight saturation slider default

[manic pike]

Any theories on the hue shifting? I didn’t think anything had changed vs native that would make it shift

[thorn leaf]

looks fine to me

[manic pike]

i checked older versions and this always happens, i just hadn't noticed it

[manic pike]

guessing this wasnt a thing?

also if thier original method was per channel shouldn't this shifting be impossible?

[thorn leaf]

there was ap1 used in the calibration menu

so wcg is there

I just can't be arsed to add luminance tonemapping and do other stuff

[manic pike]

what of the hues though? is there anything that you're stripping out with vanilla+ from their native hdr that could be hue shifting?

ive only seen it in fire effects going pink

let me see if i can see it anywhere else

[manic pike]

testing further and it seems to be only the muspelheim fire lave textures that are shifting

thats a headscratcher to me

[thorn leaf]

All vanilla+ does is fix the gamma and set the max and min nits properly

[manic pike]

why would you guess the color is changed then? playing with saturation, contrast, etc and i couldn't get it to match

its also really strange to me that its happening to one type of texture only

[thorn leaf]

Does regular per channel gamma correction do it

[manic pike]

yup

[silent shale]

✅RenoDX: God of War Ragnarok

[craggy roost]

where i can install ?

the mod

[thorn leaf]

https://www.nexusmods.com/godofwarragnarok/mods/144

[timber holly]

@thorn leafany chance of an update to reshade 6.6?

[thorn leaf]

Does it not work

[timber holly]

nope

for some reason this happens

[lean sluice]

Works for me

[lean sluice]

[timber holly]

weird right

[thorn leaf]

https://clshortfuse.github.io/renodx/renodx-gowragnarok.addon64

maybe snapshot works

[lean sluice]

Yeah, I'm running SK and loading ReShade64 in root alongside the addon

& I use some snapshot from idr when

[timber holly]

hmm, im using Display commander, doesnt happen when i dont use it ill bug pmnox

[timber holly]

@thorn leaf i added the snapshot to the wiki, but i just realized that you pretty consistently only have nexus mods links and probably want clicks going through nexus, ill take it back off

[thorn leaf]

ya I want people to actually read instructions

so nexus is safest

[spark cosmos]

Hi there, my game completely freezes up when trying to change the scaling method. Without addon I'm able to switch between Scaling methods. I use latest ReShade version 6.6.2. Only terminating it through task manager helps. Drivers reinstalled with DDU already.

[thorn leaf]

Are you using driver override to use a newer DLSS version?

https://clshortfuse.github.io/renodx/renodx-gowragnarok.addon64

Try the snapshot

Maybe it’ll work

[spark cosmos]

I was indeed using DLSS overrides. Disabled them, installed the snapshot you gave, but unfortunately it's the same

[thorn leaf]

If it’s just an issue with switching upscaling method then I can probably just leave a note on nexus telling people to disable the mod when they wanna switch and re enable after

[spark cosmos]

If it's an issue just for me then not sure if it's worth it. But if anyone else has it then maybe it's worth mentioning. Up to you I guess

[light oasis]

I just started the game myself a while ago. The nexus version did freeze up only in the start menu for me. I think it was because the game was still compiling the shaders and it takes a good while. After the compilation I was able to change the upscaling in-game and the start menu with no freezing. I am using the "Recommended" Nvidia app option so it is 310.5.2 DLSS right now.

I'm going to use the snapshot of the link provided though for the extra option of configuring stuff.

So far the game looks amazing compared to the previous GoW when I last played it. At that time I was on an IPS and used the native HDR. Now I am on an OLED and using reno

[thorn leaf]

the old god of war definitely was a lot uglier

[light oasis]

True. It was my first ever game that I got use to DLSS on for the first time too.

The bloom on this game is pretty bad though, I'll definitely need to find a good amount to leave it on.

[heavy atlas]

getting some odd foliage transparency glow

not sure if it related to reno or not will try snapshot

I have one other mod installed mod that makes companions shut up during puzzles but I doubt that would have an affect on foilage..

[heavy atlas]

@thorn leaf it's not reno dlss bug/driver related sigh