What graphics card do I want for HDR and what PC games help it?

HDR on PC continues to be a little bit of a multitude lately, however offered you haven’t been postpone by the astronomical costs of the best gaming monitors for HDR or, certainly, the continuing debacle surrounding Windows 10 support for it, then the following step on your path to excessive dynamic vary glory is to get an HDR suitable graphics card.

Below, you’ll discover a full listing of all of the Nvidia and AMD graphics playing cards which have built-in help for HDR, in addition to all the pieces you’ll want to find out about getting one which additionally helps Nvidia and AMD’s personal HDR requirements, G-Sync HDR and FreeSync 2. I’ve additionally put collectively a listing of all of the PC games that help HDR as nicely. There aren’t a lot of them, all informed, however I’ll be updating this listing with extra titles as and after they come out so it’s all the time updated.

HDR: Nvidia graphics playing cards

The excellent news is that each one of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 900, 1000 collection and new RTX Turing collection desktop graphics playing cards are primed and prepared for HDR straight out of the field. Hooray! The unhealthy information is that the 900-series can solely do it over their HDMI 2.Zero connectors, as a result of their DVI and DisplayPort outputs don’t help it. Boooo. This is as a result of HDR help for DisplayPort was solely launched in DisplayPort 1.4. Nvidia’s GTX 900-series, however, are caught with DisplayPort 1.2 outputs.

Fortunately, Nvidia rectified this for his or her 1000 collection of GTX graphics playing cards. As you may see from the desk beneath, all of those can do HDR over HDMI and DisplayPort, as a result of all of GTX 10-series playing cards include DisplayPort 1.Four connectors. Nvidia’s RTX 20-series, in the meantime, are much more future-proof, as these have DisplayPort 1.4a prepared and HDMI 2.0b outputs, which might do HDR at resolutions as much as 7680×4320 (8K) at 60Hz when these displays finally turn out to be out there sooner or later.

HDR: AMD graphics playing cards

For these on the AMD aspect of the fence, you’re wanting primarily at their Polaris household of GPUs – that’s, the RX 400 and RX 500 collection – in addition to their high-end Vega graphics playing cards. You also can count on AMD’s Navi graphics playing cards to help HDR at any time when they finally come out.

However, if you happen to occur to have considered one of AMD’s older R9 300 collection playing cards, you could be in luck, as these additionally help HDR over their HDMI 1.4b and DisplayPort 1.2 outputs, albeit with a number of limitations – particularly, they will solely attain a most of 30fps at 4K and a color depth of 8-bits relatively than 10-bits when related over HDMI as a consequence of bandwidth limitations.

What graphics card do I want for Nvidia G-Sync HDR?

Alas, though Nvidia’s 900-series of GTX graphics playing cards are able to producing an HDR picture, you’ll want one of many 1000 collection or the RTX 2000 collection to utilize Nvidia’s G-Sync HDR normal – particularly, the GTX 1050 or greater.

You’ll additionally want to verify it has the proper driver – R396 GA2 or higher – and that your PC is working Windows 10. Nvidia additionally recommends utilizing your graphics card’s DisplayPort 1.Four connection.

What graphics card do I want for AMD FreeSync 2?

AMD’s FreeSync 2 tech is a bit more durable to untangle than Nvidia’s G-Sync HDR, as each graphics card that currently supports regular FreeSync additionally helps FreeSync 2. That means all the AMD playing cards listed above, in addition to the Radeon HD 7790, Radeon HD 8770, R5, R7 and R9 200 collection (excluding the R9 270X and R9 280X), and the R5, R7 and R9 300 collection (excluding the R9 370X). It additionally contains the Radeon R9 Nano playing cards, Radeon R9 Fury playing cards and the 2016 version of the Radeon Pro Duo.

As a end result, this implies all of those playing cards can, in reality, do HDR, so long as they’re hooked as much as a FreeSync 2 monitor and also you’re taking part in a game with FreeSync 2 help, AMD have now confirmed to me. That relatively limits your decisions a bit – not all of the games within the PC game listing beneath even have particular FreeSync 2 help, as an example – however a minimum of there’s a smidge extra flexibility than Nvidia’s G-Sync HDR playing cards.

Personally, I’d suggest sticking with the RX 400, RX 500 and Vega graphics playing cards listed within the desk above to be completely certain you’re getting the most effective HDR expertise attainable together with your AMD card, however a minimum of older graphics card homeowners aren’t fully disregarded within the chilly right here.

What PC games help HDR?

It’s fairly slim pickings on the HDR entrance in the mean time, however each month the listing will get that little bit longer. There are extra coming, too, akin to Anthem, Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, Forza Horizon 4 and Metro Exodus, however proper now, these are all of the games that help HDR on PC:

• ARK: Survival Evolved
• Agents of Mayhem
• Assassin’s Creed Origins
• Battlefield 1
• Call of Duty: WWII
• Celestial Command
• Chess Ultra
• Dark and Light
• Destiny 2
• F1 2017
• F1 2018
• Far Cry 5
• Final Fantasy XV
• Fortnite
• Forza Horizon 4
• Forza Motorsport 7
• Grabity
• Gravel
• Halo Wars 2
• Heroes of Hammerwatch
• Hitman
• Injustice 2
• MXGP Pro
• Madden NFL 19
• Mass Effect: Andromeda
• Middle-earth: Shadow of War
• MotoGP 18
• Nex Machina
• Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
• Obduction
• Paragon
• PES 2019
• Redout
• Resident Evil VII
• Shadow Warrior 2
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Space Fighters
• Star Wars Battlefront II
• Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet
• TerraTech
• The Elder Scrolls Online
• X-Plane 11
• Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner MARS