Nvidia cards don't display full RGB color via HDMI - here's a fix

[Patres87]

This apparently isn't anything new, but I was stunned after applying the patch provided in the article. I am forced to use my monitor with HDMI (the other port being VGA), which I always though was sh*tty because the color were just off,  but after I connected my TV to HDMI and the colours were still washed out, I knew something's not right. 

 

So everybody using a nVidia card with a HDMI connected monitor should try this, you can still revert to original color spectrum.

 

it extends the color spectrum from 16-235 to the standard 0-255.

 

Source:

http://www.pcgamer.com//nvidia-cards-dont-full-rgb-color-through-hdmiheres-a-fix/

 

Link to the fix:
http://goo.gl/8tmKfh

[Archangel1994]

Someone posted this a few days ago as well

[Lauen]

I've known this for a while now, the first day after I got a second monitor it became apparent to me, as I had to use HDMI and it just didn't look right, so I spendt a good hour searching for a solution. Nvidia has it incorporated into the control panel now though.

 

[Theo]

I've known this for a while now, the first day after I got a second monitor it became apparent to me, as I had to use HDMI and it just didn't look right, so I spendt a good hour searching for a solution. Nvidia has it incorporated into the control panel now though.

 

 

Im surprised this is even news, ive known for 2 years

[Woody]

I don't see a difference at all. Is there a way to test it?

[Humbug]

I've known this and had to use a stupid workaround for years because the setting in the Nvidia control panel didn't work. The video card would just assume my monitor was an HDTV and output a signal with a limited color space (16-235) resulting in washed out colors. What I had to do was create a custom resolution and set the refresh rate to something not exactly 60 (e.g. 59.99999). That would trick the driver into outputting the correct signal.

 

After I switched to AMD earlier this year my R9 290 would default to the correct setting. And there is a simple drop down menu in the catalyst control center to change it if you need to.

 

It boggles my mind how Nvidia could get HDMI wrong for so long. To be fair it wasn't a major issue for me as I just do the workaround; but there are probably thousands of people  who don't realize that something is wrong, who don't know any better and they just end up thinking that their monitor sucks or HDMI sucks, or that this washed out image quality is normal...

[420istoday]

What if I only see three, White over Grey, then a single black bar on the right?

 

Edit:

Nevermind, I think my eyes are just bad, or the lighting one.

[LAwLz]

Not exactly news, but it's good to spread awareness. I am surprised that Nvidia still haven't fixed this.

[Guest]

I've known this for a while now, the first day after I got a second monitor it became apparent to me, as I had to use HDMI and it just didn't look right, so I spendt a good hour searching for a solution. Nvidia has it incorporated into the control panel now though.

 

Does this method work? Or do you still have to use the hack/fix?

[GoodBytes]

Repost: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/271109-hdmi-on-nvidia-cards-limited-to-limited-rgb/

Not news. My GeForce GTX 260 has the same issue, just now people realizes.

And in fact it's not even an issue. If you use HDMI it's because you are using a TV, else you would be using DVI.

[Lauen]

Does this method work? Or do you still have to use the hack/fix?

Works fine for me.

[Syntaxvgm]

I thought this was common knowledge? 

[sof006]

I actually didn't know this....

[Flamewalker]

The setting in the control panel doesn't actually work on hdmi/displayport,using a custom resolution will get you full rgb or editing the inf file/reg fix (i have been editing the inf to get full rgb for over 2 years now)

 

A fix for this is incoming in the next driver BRANCH ,(https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/523992/geforce-drivers/tip-for-nvidia-users-using-hdmi-and-getting-accurate-color-format/post/4371216/#4371216)

 

 

In case someone wants to edit the inf to get it to work (its does the same thing as the regedit/rgb tool only difference is if you edit the inf ,that it will do it during the install)

 

 

edit: C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\####(whatever driver install you are trying to change)\WinVista_Win7_64(or whatever fits your system)\International or English\Display.Driver\nv_disp.inf
find the "[nv_miscBase_addreg__01]" sections and then right after each one add the line:
"HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD% ,1"

So for instance you get:
"[nv_miscBase_addreg__01]
HKLM,"Software\Khronos\OpenCL\Vendors" ,nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Hybrid",AddDeviceSequence,% REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak",NoPages,%REG_DWORD% ,0x40120518
HKLM,"Software\Wow6432Node\Khronos\OpenCL\ Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_MULTI_SZ%,"ACR,2A1 ,71;"
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_SZ_APPEND%,"ACR,01 26,70; "
HKR,,UserModeDriverGUID,%REG_SZ%,"{9A516B97-E7C1-451B-9165- C5035994A3F5}"

[nv_miscBase_addreg__02]
HKLM,"Software\Khronos\OpenCL\Vendors" ,nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\DRS",DRS_DefaultProfile,%REG_SZ % ,"3D App - Default Global Settings"
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Hybrid",AddDeviceSequence,% REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak",NoPages,%REG_DWORD% ,0x40120518
HKLM,"Software\Wow6432Node\Khronos\OpenCL\ Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_MULTI_SZ%,"ACR,2A1 ,71;"
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_SZ_APPEND%,"ACR,01 26,70; "
HKR,,UserModeDriverGUID,%REG_SZ%,"{9A516B97-E7C1-451B-9165- C5035994A3F5}""

etc. for all the __##s
make sure to add it for all the miscbase0addreg's there might be like 20 of them

into:
[nv_miscBase_addreg__01]
HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\Khronos\OpenCL\Vendors" ,nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Hybrid",AddDeviceSequence,% REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak",NoPages,%REG_DWORD% ,0x40120518
HKLM,"Software\Wow6432Node\Khronos\OpenCL\ Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_MULTI_SZ%,"ACR,2A1 ,71;"
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_SZ_APPEND%,"ACR,01 26,70; "
HKR,,UserModeDriverGUID,%REG_SZ%,"{9A516B97-E7C1-451B-9165- C5035994A3F5}"

[nv_miscBase_addreg__02]
HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\Khronos\OpenCL\Vendors" ,nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\DRS",DRS_DefaultProfile,%REG_SZ % ,"3D App - Default Global Settings"
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Hybrid",AddDeviceSequence,% REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak",NoPages,%REG_DWORD% ,0x40120518
HKLM,"Software\Wow6432Node\Khronos\OpenCL\ Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_MULTI_SZ%,"ACR,2A1 ,71;"
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_SZ_APPEND%,"ACR,01 26,70; "
HKR,,UserModeDriverGUID,%REG_SZ%,"{9A516B97-E7C1-451B-9165- C5035994A3F5}"

then you go back one directory and run setup.exe and install the driver

[killers993]

Wow, that made a big difference for me. I thought my monitor was bad with dark colors (everything looked washed out) but now every thing looks really good. Never thought to look in the control panel. 

[MRL]

Repost: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/271109-hdmi-on-nvidia-cards-limited-to-limited-rgb/

Not news. My GeForce GTX 260 has the same issue, just now people realizes.

And in fact it's not even an issue. If you use HDMI it's because you are using a TV, else you would be using DVI.

 

That's a bad assumption there. might be valid when HDMI first come out but nowadays there are a lot of HDMI monitors and I use HDMI on one of my monitors as well.

 

Though it seems to be I was not hit with this issue on my GTX680.

[Humbug]

And in fact it's not even an issue. If you use HDMI it's because you are using a TV, else you would be using DVI.

Not really true.

There are monitors with HDMI, some with only VGA and HDMI (no display port or DVI).

[Michael McAllister]

Not exactly news, but it's good to spread awareness. I am surprised that Nvidia still haven't fixed this.

 

You should be able to fix this issue just by changing the color format from the default RGB value to YCbCr444, no?

[helpingaskewcokemansarcasm]

You should be able to fix this issue just by changing the color format from the default RGB value to YCbCr444, no?

ColorAdjust.png

 

yCbCr444 uses the 16-235 colour space, I find tht the RGB setting outputs 0-255 to my TV and I get crushed blacks, so I use yCbCr444 to solve it.

 

The above posts, with the switching of 'video colour settings' affects only the playback of video and doesn't do anything to the desktop with my card.

[Rohit Jackdaw]

I've known this for a while now, the first day after I got a second monitor it became apparent to me, as I had to use HDMI and it just didn't look right, so I spendt a good hour searching for a solution. Nvidia has it incorporated into the control panel now though.

This fix only works for video playback. The original registry based fix applies for everything including games. I did it yesterday and was jaw dropped. My desktop wallpaper is that of a Red Ferrari and also I have a Red theme in W8. It used to appear somewhat pinkish early but after applying the fix it was perfect red. Especially now I can even see the brake discs inside the alloys clearly. In game like FC4 Vegetation appears much better. The fix is just 8 KB download and it just changes some registry values and then restart. Boom !

[Rohit Jackdaw]

The working link to the fix :

http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?p=83

[NannerBeans]

I thought I had this on my monitor and never noticed but using that test, it looks like it's fine on my setup and I'm using an hdmi to dvi cable so that's weird. Not sure what's happening here. 

[Psykomantis00]

Repost: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/271109-hdmi-on-nvidia-cards-limited-to-limited-rgb/

Not news. My GeForce GTX 260 has the same issue, just now people realizes.

And in fact it's not even an issue. If you use HDMI it's because you are using a TV, else you would be using DVI.

:rolleyes:

[dmegatool]

I'm using a TV so the fix won't change anything for me right ? 

 

One thing I wish they fixed with the HDMI is the way they detect audio. All my things are plugged to my TV and then I run a single optical cable from the TV to my home theater. Everything works fine except my PC which detects the 2 speakers of my TV so it only output stereo instead of 5.1... Didn't find a way to force it.  

[Trik'Stari]

I'm glad I'm now using DVI lol