Is Alan Wake 2 supposed to look like this on my PG27AQDM in HDR?

[VGeorge]

Hey everyone,

Just opened up Alan Wake 2 to try it out in HDR and found that it looks really weird on my PG27AQDM (referring to the weird hue on the right part of the ceiling). I have already run the HDR calibration tool on Windows 11 and messed with the in-game settings to make it go away but nothing seems to work. I'm on the latest firmware too (105). Does the game look like that on your PG27AQDM or is it my unit that's faulty?

[gpossel]

That's quite strange indeed. I have no flickering problems or changes of colour specifically caused by g-sync. As a matter of fact the purple problem appears as well in movies where g-sync is obviously unused. Maybe a connection problem? Just to put more data into this, my setup is PC -> HDMI 1.4 -> Monitor. I could use the DisplayPort but the dedicated GPU in the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo comes attached to the HDMI port only. This port caps at 120 Hz (which is fine for me) and 8-bit signal, which would be my gaming setup. Or, 60 Hz 10-bit, which would be my movie setup. Anyway, I see no noticeable difference between a dithered RGB 8-bit signal and a 10-bit RGB signal in HDR (no banding or noise that I can tell). No flickering in any case.

Here's a theory on the purple case: If you consider Red (R), Green (G) and Blue (B) pixels, a Yellow tint means an excess of R+G relative to B. Perhaps ASUS fixed the yellow tint issue (that might have affected skin color also) by boosting B. Maybe the B gamma curve has not the same linearity as R and G, and it's more sensitive at lower values (meaning a low value for B would be a bit more bright that for R or G). While the boost of the B curve would have solved the mid-range, in the darkest parts could be a band where blue became excessive, turning a dark orange to purple? So it might be a problem with the linearity of the gamma curves for R, G or B color individually. This is obviously a pure speculative excersise.

[markob53]

Ok so actually my screenshots look a little different and not as orange as yours, not quite sure why, mine are taken at a different part of the game i think? Maybe the lighting is different, not sure.

But you'll notice in the cabin the 8200k looks a little warmer, which surprises me because it looks duller in other games i've tried like Cyberpunk and on the Desktop. This is in Console HDR mode, 900 nits calibration, default saturation, no changes to the drivers, default 50/50 HDR settings in game and using the Display Port cable that came with the monitor.

The sauce bottle in the bottom screenshot is more red in 8200k mode so that's an example of a more purple tint to an object in 6500k, but i wouldn't say any of the screenshots suffer from anything overly purple, but you could argue it does look better in 8200k.

6500k8200k6500k8200k6500k8200k

[VGeorge]

Thank you so much for providing those! I am also fairly certain that this is from a different part of the game.

If it's not too much trouble, could you pls share the save file that you used to load to this part of the game so I can compare your screenshots to mine??

This is the save folder location: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Remedy\AlanWake2
That folder contains several ones and the one you need has a really long, password-like name. Inside are your quick and manual saves.
Can't seem to be able to share zip files through here, but you can dm them to me by clicking on my username.

[markob53]

Here are the photos from your saved game, i will say that the camera makes them look a lot more orange than they are, but its definitely meant to be that way. I do notice that there is less of a difference between 6500k & 8200k compared to yours, but the 6500k does have the purple around the window. But also it looks nowhere near as purple when actually in game.

 6500k

 8200k

[Silent_Scone]

It's 100% meant to be that way, it's dusk. Make sure to try Auto HDR, too. I find some games like CyberPunk for instance have higher black floor levels in native HDR.

Regarding the purple hue some users are experiencing on MCM105, this has been raised internally. 

[gpossel]

@Silent_Scone That's great news that the problem has been raised!

I'm sorry my previous pictures were not showing the 6500K purple issue clear enough. Now I attach some pics that truly shows the issue on a scene from Shadow of the Tomb Rider (many dim rooms illuminated by fire/candles on that game).

Also, I wish ASUS will consider the gamma at the darkest range, shadows appear too bright compared to other HDR monitors, or playing the same game in the ROG Swift but in SDR (you would expect HDR to have more detail in the shadows, but not noticeable brighter). Solve those 2 issues, and this might well become the best 27" OLED in the market.

6500K8200KASUS ZenBook Pro Duo (very nice HDR colors, shadows are better, thou less peak brightness and glossy screen gets reflections)

[VGeorge]

Thank you so much for the photos!

Ok, I will say that your monitor seems to display a lot more dynamic range in HDR compared to mine.

This is at 6500K:

Much less purple hue on yours (left) and also way more contrast (especially on the ceiling and Saga's coat and legs).

And this is at 8200K:

At 8200K the two monitors look closer to each other, however again, yours is able to display much higher dynamic range and actually looks like an HDR image, whereas mine just looks weird.

Seems to me that my monitor is defective and firmware updates can't fix that. Thankfully I'm in the EU and have a two-year window for a replacement/return, so I think I'll be doing that. Thank you again for all your help!

[markob53]

It's a shame if your monitor is defective, and that there isn't some other setting we've both overlooked that can fix it, i'm assuming at this point you've tried everything? Wonder if a complete driver re-install, factory reset of the screen and deletion of all created colour profiles and a re-calibration is worth a go?

But if you're able to get a quick and easy replacement, at least you know what the monitor is capable of, all be it with the issue regarding purples that @gpossel has been highlighting to us, which took me until comparing both colour temps myself side by side to really notice. I'm not a colour expert as i've said but looking at it really basically it would seem strange that a warmer colour temp would make oranges look duller/purple compared to 8200k.

Thanks for the update @Silent_Scone hopefully the purple issue can be resolved in a future firmware update, i feel like this is the final thing to resolve before the monitor can be considered perfect, as i haven't seen too many more issues talked about since the last update.

[VGeorge]

It really is a shame, cause in SDR it looks great and as soon as I switch to HDR it looks like crap haha
I think I've tried everything, from performing multiple factory resets on the monitor, deleting calibration profiles and creating new ones (using the W11 HDR app) to reinstalling/updating my nvidia drivers to make sure that's not the culprit. Not sure there is anything else I can do on my end, but I'm open to all ideas @Silent_Scone, @Aureliannn_ROG.

Yeah, I hadn't noticed the purple hue issue either, but hopefully that's just a firmware fix away from getting resolved.

[HakykSuu]

Is different part of the game, this monitor brightness good enough will be so nice, but when is brightness not good enough everything is ruined, just like my screenshot