It is 2019 now. Any permanent way to deal with games ignoring ICC profile ?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce Drivers Section' started by Enterprise24, Mar 13, 2019.

  1. Enterprise24

    Enterprise24 Active Member

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    Someone mention that 417.58 applying ICC profile on full screen games.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/aavgbw/41758_hotfix_driver_now_automatically_applies_icc/

    For me only Sims 4 and Unigine Valley work.
    But Sims 3 (fullscreen) , Company of Heroes 2 (there is only fullscreen to choose) , Watch Dogs 2 (no matter in windowed mode or borderless windowed or full screen) still ignoring ICC profile.

    I use DisplayCal as ICC profile loader. Try CPK as well but no luck.
    Also try Color Clutch but logs file told me that there is no gamma called. Also it only work with 32 bit games so I can't try with Watch Dogs 2. Program is also dead since developer abandoned it since 2012.
    Try PowerStrip also but I cannot tick write directly to palette DAC. Entech said NVidia does not approve of this method, and starting with the Geforce8 no longer shares hardware register data with EnTech.

    Anything I am missing ?
     
  2. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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  3. Enterprise24

    Enterprise24 Active Member

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  4. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    Are videocards of AMD doing better in that area?
     

  5. Nastya

    Nastya Member Guru

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    You're going to have to use a Reshade LUT if games use their own gamma settings.
     
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  6. Enterprise24

    Enterprise24 Active Member

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    Can I use 1D LUT just for gamma ramp ? Try 3D LUT but doesn't looks good. Any guide on how to create 1D LUT for Reshade ?
     
  7. tsunami231

    tsunami231 Ancient Guru

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    This is why I set up the color/brightness and gamma on my monitor to the way i like and never worry. setting it up industry standards is another story. I can only get close to it but seeing I like thing darker and more vibrate then industry standard it not much of an issue.. to me

    But from what I understand this has always been issue for decades" and last i heard it happens cause of how windows deals with color profiles,
     
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  8. janos666

    janos666 Ancient Guru

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    Yes, consumer grade displays featuring programmable hardware LUT (even 3DLUT) are now available at reasonable prices. For example, the LG C8 OLED I use as a PC monitor. The upcoming C9 will support VRR as well (and cut the ~21ms lag back to ~11ms), so you will have even less to hold against it as a "gaming" display (unless you really are a genuine crackhed superballleage propersonal musicplayer CS:GO master).

    You won't get around this in practice with HDR anyways (external LUTs effectively stop working with dynamic metadata, like that of DolbyVision or HDR10+ but even the regular HDR10 static metadata varies between content, so needs separate static external LUTs based on actual content metadata).



    Otherwise, you can emulate the GPU LUT with ReShade (so to speak, sometimes this could even be seen as a superior solution rather than a workaround). Just generate the software 3DLUT for ReShade (the PNG file) with the calibration LUT "applied" to it (and make sure the GPU LUT is cleared when games [of the type which don't reset it on their own] are launched --- or generate different software LUT depending on the game type).

    The only drawback is the lack of 10+ bit output support in most games (at least in SDR display modes). The last time I checked ReSahde was limited to 8bit PNG files on it's own (and still, the game won't pass 10bit unless it's specifically designed to do it and none of them are, except HDR games in HDR mode and Alien:Isolation).
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2019
  9. MrBonk

    MrBonk Guest

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    Really? I've used DisplayCAL's profile loader for a few years now and I don't think i've run into issues with it not working correctly. Or at least never looking like something is obviously wrong.
    I disable it intentionally for some games where the native gamma curve of the monitor provides a more pleasing picture (Due to being incorrect and having the top end brighter than it should actually be. Which works well in very dark games)

    The most fool proof way though is using Reshade's LUT shader and disabling the profile loader when playing games.
    Or calibrating your monitor the best you can get with the native display controls and then just not using ICC profiles all together.
    Alternatively you can buy a hardware LUT box and put that between your monitor and GPU.
     
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  10. metagamer

    metagamer Ancient Guru

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    Same, using DisplayCAL prolife loader and never noticed an issue.
     

  11. Enterprise24

    Enterprise24 Active Member

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    Sadly my S2716DG don't have gamma adjust in OSD (only brightness / contrast / R-G-B). That is why I need to rely on software calibration.
    LUT box sound very promising. Is it work in the same way like those LUT in expensive monitors ?

    For those who use DisplayCal profile loader. What Windows are you using ? I try Win 10 1703-1709-1803-1809 but no luck. Anyone here try Sims 3 / COH2 or Watch Dogs 2 ?
     
  12. metagamer

    metagamer Ancient Guru

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    1809 here, DisplayCal works great. I would try those games but honestly, cba to install them.

    Do you have issues in those games?
     
  13. Enterprise24

    Enterprise24 Active Member

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    Yup. Sims 3 fullscreen ignore ICC profile. Only windowed / borderless will use profile.
    WD2 / COH2 ignore profile completely regardless of windowed or borderless or fullscreen mode.
     
  14. MrBonk

    MrBonk Guest

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    I haven't installed DisplayCAL on W10 yet (I just finally set up a new drive with W10 on it).
    So my experience is with Windows 7.

    I don't own any of those games so I can't test sorry.

    Also: By using the RGB controls on your display, you can in fact affect the gamma curve of your monitor depending on how it's adjusted. Some displays may even have additional tweakable options not shown by the OSD by using SoftMCCS you may be able to expose and change them.

    I calibrate my monitors as close as possible to target using the RGB controls (Or controls on a TV. Why do Tvs get so many more adjustments??) and then calibrate with an ICC if necessary.
    So usually the ICC doesn't change a whole ton color wise. (The gamma is often the biggest adjustment. As it's a mixture of poor native curves, and the Spyder 5 being awful at how it handles low end detail.)

    LUT box
    https://www.displaycalibrationtools...ox-65-cube-3d-lut-color-correction-processor/
    https://www.avsforum.com/forum/139-display-calibration/1464890-eecolor-processor-argyllcms.html

    This is one of the "cheap" ones.
     
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  15. RealNC

    RealNC Ancient Guru

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    I thought that Windows 10 with non-disabled "fullscreen optimizations" keeps the ICC profile?
     

  16. janos666

    janos666 Ancient Guru

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    In reality however, the per-channel digital contrast controls (alias R,G,B Gains, etc) do not adjust the gamma at all (not the slightest, really). What you might (rather often, sadly) perceive as a change in the tone response curve (after altering any contrast control, global or per channels, or really just "anything" in the menu) could be many things but definitely is not intended and not a feature with a purpose. Sometimes it's caused by rounding errors (or outright defects, aka bugs) but usually it's the result of original factory TRC (and other) adjustments (whether those are "accurate" to our standards or not, we are talking about internal coherence here) getting out of alignment (so, say, with purely fictional numbers: a slight adjustment of 5 at point 10 now becomes an adjustment of 5 at point 8 but point was 8 was intended to get an adjustment of 20 ... but it all "slid away" as you moved the sliders around in the OSD).
    It all depends on how all these things are implemented internally and how sane and accurate or precise the internal "brain" and all the "guts" of your display and what you try to do with it (while adjusting it).

    With really good displays (price tag and/or brand means almost nothing) it's usually worth using the calibration controls. With random medium quality it's usually up to your taste (the result will be basically the same but manual tweaking is usually boring and time consuming, so...). With most of the (usually cheap) stupid displays it's usually better to find the most "neutral" settings (in the OSD) and do everything externally (LUT-box hardware or PC software).
    "Neutral" doesn't necessarily mean "complete factory default" or even "one of the factory preset templates". Sometimes you find yourself basically reverse-engineering their smaretessness .
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2019
  17. Enterprise24

    Enterprise24 Active Member

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    Already do what other people suggest like disable game bar / disable game mode / disable night light / disable full screen optimization. Nothing work.
     
  18. janos666

    janos666 Ancient Guru

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    Well, that's the opposite of what they suggested here: enable them. But yeah... LOL!
    Regardless, you are still right. Some games deliberately upload their own VGA LUT by design. Some of those aren't even neutral (aka no-op = changes nothing) but apply intended changes (although that's rare, plain reset is more common). So, in some cases you actually get worse results if you forbid the game to upload it's own intrusive LUT (but again, that's very rare).

    Did you try baking it into a ReShade 3DLUT (as I already suggested)? Are those games incompatible with ReShade (or at least the color shader)?
    A 3DLUT is 3*3*3 = 27x better than a 1D LUT, you know? :D (Just joking of course. :p)
     
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  19. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    He meant that if you ENABLE fso games should keep the ICC. You could try that. Also, keep in mind that fso on some games give you a smooth and correct frame time bar like RivaTuner would, but does not work on every game, on some you have to disable them no matter what to avoid stutter and fps drops.

    But if you want to assure yourself vivid colors and contrast on any game, Reshade profiles can't be beaten. http://sfx.thelazy.net/games/

    Several people make profiles for specific games and the change in some cases is dramatic and so worth it, the downside is that some effects and profiles can eat up to 20-30% more of GPU usage and drop your fps by 15 to 10.
     
  20. MrBonk

    MrBonk Guest

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    I've measured the gamma changing on several displays as a result of changing the RGB sliders. It's not a huge change mind (Not like a gamma slider on a good monitor or TV) you but it's enough to make a measurable difference to reduce the error somewhat. One of my displays also has hidden controls only accessible via SoftMCCS for what it calls "RGB black levels" and changing these makes a more significant difference in gamma measurements. (But in that one's case it ends up being detrimental)

    I've also gotten really decent results out of just tweaking the RGB controls to the point where with some displays the ICC profile really doesn't make a significant enough difference depending on the content and it's "good enough" to me.
    That's just for games mind you.

    I'm sure many will see it as me wasting my time taking hundreds if not thousands of measurements and tweaks to get the absolute best I can out of just adjusting the RGB sliders. But it's worth the effort to me. Now if there was a decent monitor that has what I want and has good calibration controls i'd gladly get that. But it doesn't seem to exist or it costs an absurd amount of money for.
     

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