HDR monitor support
This page will serve as a guide to the current state of HDR monitor support on Linux. To better understand the challenges involved you can watch the video in this article [1].
HDR video support
HDR support on Linux is not implemented yet in the display servers, though it is being worked on:
- X.org (and Xorg clients): no support for passing HDR metadata to the display, see https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/issues/1037#note_521100
- Wayland (and Wayland clients): no support for passing HDR metadata to the display, see https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/weston/-/issues/467 and https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/merge_requests/14
- DRM clients can directly pass HDR metadata, but this is not available from regular userspace clients, only specialized software can use it: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/drm/-/blob/main/include/drm/drm_mode.h#L809
- System76 have announced their new Rust based Cosmic Desktop will have a brand new Wayland compositor (based on Smithay) which will include support for HDR as well as fractional scaling and HiDPI, see https://blog.system76.com/post/november-at-system76-products-promos—cosmic-de.
HDR gaming support
Since currently neither Wayland nor X11 offer an API that fully supports HDR, your games also wont be able to display correct HDR content on them. Valve’s steam compositor gamescope does offer experimental HDR support. To try out valves steam client running trough the HDR capable gamescope do [2]:
- use a HDR capable display
- use an AMD GPU. HDR is currently only supported on AMDGPU.
- use DXVK version 2.1 or later
- use VKD3D-Proton version 2.8 or later
- use either proton experimental or proton GE version 44 and higher. Both come packaged with sufficient DXVK and VKD3D versions.
- install gamescope-gitAUR
- use a patched version of gamescope-session-gitAUR as described in [3]. The patch changes the configuration file /usr/share/gamescope-session/gamescope-session-script to include instructions for gamescope and dxvk to enable HDR. For DXVK it sets the environment variable DXVK_HDR=1 and to gamescope it passes the argument —hdr-enabled . If you want to apply the changes in the config file manually replicate all the changes of the patch here.
- open your steam library, filter for tools and right click on steam linux runtime soldier open it’s properties and click on BETAS, choose «client_beta»
- use a linux kernel with Josh Ashton Kernel Patches, see Kernel/Traditional compilation
Now you are all set up. Go into a new tty by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2, log in and run
to start the standalone steam session in HDR. If networking doesnt work you can fix it by installing and enabling NetworkManager.
How to enable HDR monitor support in Linux
HDR is a technology that makes the display on a monitor or TV screen more vivid, contrasting and realistic. This is achieved by transferring metadata (in addition to the video stream), based on which some scenes (for proprietary HDR variants) or video in general (for HDR10, which has become a de facto standard) are processed.
So yes, there are several versions of HDR, the most common of which is HDR10. In the case of HDR10, all videos are treated the same way because the metadata is static.
In practice, this means that for HDR to work, the monitor or TV must support this technology, the software (both OS and playback programs), and the content itself (movie or computer game) must support HDR of the same version.
Movies with HDR when viewed on devices without HDR support may look too dark – this is noticed by some users.
Also, in practice, not all users see the difference when turning HDR on and off. For HDR to be fully realized, your monitor or TV screen must support a high level of contrast and a large number of colors.
HDR video support on Linux
HDR video support on Linux is not yet implemented on display servers, although it is being worked on:
- X.org (and Xorg clients): no support for passing HDR metadata to the display, see https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/issues/1037#note_521100
- Wayland (and Wayland clients): no support for passing HDR metadata to the display, see https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/weston/-/issues/467 and https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/merge_requests/14
- DRM clients can directly pass HDR metadata, but this is not available from regular userspace clients, only specialized software can use it: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/drm/-/blob/main/include/drm/drm_mode.h#L809
HDR game support
Since neither Wayland nor X11 currently offer an API that fully supports HDR, your games will also not be able to display proper HDR content on them. Valve’s Steam Compositor Gamescope offers experimental HDR support. An AMD GPU must be used to try out the Valve Steam client through an HDR-enabled gaming scope. Currently, HDR is only supported on AMDGPUs, and follow some other software installation steps described here (among other things, you need to use the patched linux kernel): https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDR_monitor_support
Linux HDR Programs
When choosing programs to work with HDR, you need to understand the difference between HDR in video and HDR in photos.
The abbreviation HDR for video and photos mean the same thing, but in the case of photography, the main task of HDR is the normal visibility of both too light and too dark areas. It is easiest to explain with examples.
An example of a photo with HDR disabled:
An example photo with HDR enabled:
To work with HDR on Linux, there is, for example, the hdr10plus_tool utility (https://github.com/quietvoid/hdr10plus_tool). Also on GitHub there are several more tools for working with HDR in video: https://github.com/search?q=HDR10
As for playing videos with HDR, such videos are supported by VLC media player. But due to the lack of HDR support at the operating system level, Linux will not be able to see the effect of HDR technology (although video files can still be watched).