HDR monitor support

HDR support has been merged into Wayland, and some compositors have implemented it. X.org has no plans to support HDR.

Requirements

An HDR capable display. Though many displays now advertise HDR, those that use edge lit local dimming can fail to deliver a satisfactory HDR experience. You can learn more at RTINGS: Local Dimming on TVs.
HDR capable graphics driver: AMDGPU and NVIDIA (550.54.14+) are confirmed to work.
- A bug in NVIDIA before 565.57.01 will cause colors to appear washed out in HDR. [1]
- Intel graphics has experimental HDR support starting from Gen 9 graphics and kernel 5.12 but the implementation is reportedly incomplete.
A supported compositor, see #Compositors
A supported application, see #Applications
A Vulkan WSI with HDR support, see #Vulkan HDR WSI

Configuration

Vulkan HDR WSI

For NVIDIA and mesa prior to version 25, vk-hdr-layer-kwin6-git^AUR is required for the VK_EXT_swapchain_colorspace and VK_EXT_hdr_metadata vulkan extensions [2] [3]. Without them, HDR will not work using the Vulkan API.

Enable the Vulkan Wayland HDR WSI layer by setting ENABLE_HDR_WSI=1. It is not recommended to enable this globally, instead enable it on each game and application you wish to use with HDR.

Compositors

KDE Plasma

See KDE#HDR.

Hyprland

Ensure hyprland >= 0.47.0 and set the xx_color_management_v4 variable to true.

More information can be found in the Hyprland experimental docs.

GNOME

Ensure mutter is >= 48.0.

Enable HDR in GNOME's display settings. The HDR toggle is per-monitor and is located next to the resolution and refresh rate setting.

Note: Gamescope HDR appears "washed out" with GNOME as GNOME lacks scRGB or support for the frog-color-management-v1 protocol [4] [5]. See #With Gamescope

Gamescope with Steam session

Valve's Steam compositor gamescope offers experimental HDR support. Following these steps will allow you to try out Valve's Steam client running through the HDR capable gamescope.

Tip: An AMDGPU is recommended for use with gamescope - NVIDIA is known to have critical issues.

Install gamescope and gamescope-session-steam-git^AUR

You may create the optional config file ~/.config/environment.d/gamescope-session.conf with the following content:

if [ "$XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP" = "gamescope" ] ; then
    SCREEN_WIDTH=1920
    SCREEN_HEIGHT=1080
    CONNECTOR=*,eDP-1
    CLIENTCMD="steam -gamepadui -pipewire-dmabuf"
    GAMESCOPECMD="/usr/bin/gamescope --hdr-enabled --hdr-itm-enable \
    --hide-cursor-delay 3000 --fade-out-duration 200 --xwayland-count 2 \
    -W $SCREEN_WIDTH -H $SCREEN_HEIGHT -O $CONNECTOR"
fi

Update the resolution values above to the correct ones. You can list your displays by running xrandr --query.
You may need to set the Display CONNECTOR if it does not pick the right one by default.

You can now start gamescope from your login manager or a terminal using one of the following steps:

Via a login manager

Log out and select the Steam Big Picture in your login manager and log in.

Via the command line

Go to a new TTY by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2
Log in and run gamescope-session-plus steam to start the standalone steam session in HDR.
- If networking does not work you can fix it by installing and enabling NetworkManager.

Configure Steam

In the general settings, under Display, you should now see HDR settings. Enable HDR and Experimental HDR Support.
Select an HDR compatible game and click on the cog next to it.
Set Compatibility to Force Proton 8.0 or Proton Experimental.
Set Game Resolution to match your monitor otherwise it will launch at Steam Deck native resolution.
Click Play to start the game. Check the in-game settings to see if the HDR setting is available and enable it.
To switch back to your normal session, select Power and Switch to desktop mode from the Steam menu.

COSMIC

The COSMIC developers have promised HDR support in the initial stable release.

Applications

Gaming

Wine/Proton

HDR through Wine or Steam Proton requires DXVK (2.1+) or VKD3D-Proton (2.8+), depending on DirectX version used by the game.

Tip: Use either Proton 8.0+ or Proton GE 44+. All come packaged with sufficient DXVK and VKD3D versions.

Without Gamescope

To use HDR without gamescope run a build of Wine which includes the Wayland driver.

Note: Wines native Wayland driver is experimental and may perform better or worse than Xwayland depending on the game.

proton-ge-custom: install proton-ge-custom-bin^AUR and set PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 and PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 [6].

Note: PROTON_ENABLE_HDR sets DXVK_HDR=1 [7].

wine-tkg: install wine-tkg, set DXVK_HDR=1, and unset DISPLAY.
proton-cachyos or wine-cachyos: install your choice of proton-cachyos^AUR, wine-cachyos-opt^AUR, or wine-cachyos^AUR and set PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 and DXVK_HDR=1 [8].

Tip: You can also easily install the aforementioned wine builds to Lutris, Bottles, or Steam using protonup-qt^AUR.

With Gamescope

Gamescope with proper HDR requires scRGB and xx-color-management-v4 protocol support or frog-color-management-v1 protocol support in your compositor.

Because of this gamescope will not work with the vk-hdr-layer-kwin6-git^AUR layer. Ensure ENABLE_HDR_WSI is not 1.

You have many options for using gamescope depending on your desired configuration:

Launch Steam with HDR enabled. All games will then have HDR enabled, but Steam and all games will be launched inside a gamescope window.

$ gamescope --hdr-enabled --steam -- env DXVK_HDR=1 steam

Enable HDR for a single game in Steam. Set the following Launch options:

DXVK_HDR=1 gamescope -f --hdr-enabled -- %command%

To launch a non-Steam game within gamescope:

$ DXVK_HDR=1 gamescope -f --hdr-enabled -- executable

Note: By default gamescope will launch with 1280x720 resolution. To override the default resolution, use the -W and -H parameters to a desired resolution.

Retroarch

HDR in Retroarch is currently only supported on the git release retroarch-git^AUR. Enable HDR in RetroArch's video settings.

$ retroarch

Native SDL

To run native games that use SDL with HDR set SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland.

For example for Quake II RTX:

$ SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland quake2rtx

mpv

For best image quality MPV maintainers recommend using gpu-next [9].

Note: This requires a Vulkan WSI with HDR support, see #Vulkan HDR WSI

$ mpv --vo=gpu-next --target-colorspace-hint --gpu-api=vulkan --gpu-context=waylandvk "path/to/video"

Other ways of enabling Wayland HDR support include using the dmabuf-wayland and drm video outputs.

$ mpv --vo=dmabuf-wayland "path/to/video"

From the tty terminal, one could do

$ mpv --vo=drm "path/to/video"

Firefox

firefox introduces working experimental HDR in 138.0 under the hidden preference gfx.wayland.hdr. You can enable it at about:config.

Stable HDR is still in progress [10] [11].

Chromium

chromium has work-in-progress HDR support [12].

Tips and tricks

HDR video samples

Kodi wiki maintains the list of fair use HDR video samples. These can be used to test the HDR output using video players that support HDR such has #mpv.

Troubleshooting

Broken screen sharing with HDR10

Pipewire attempts to stream what it sees as BGRA, which WebRTC cannot interpret, due to its current lack of capacity to interpret it. As such, a "ParamId:EnumFormat: 0:0 Invalid argument" exception is thrown and the WebRTC socket crashes for that application [13].