3w ago

Native Linux Games/Applications with HDR Support?

So with newer wayland+wine/proton improving HDR support, I figured... I would actually try. And, rather than needing to debug everything all in one go, I'd rather take a few incremental steps.

So is anyone aware of games with native linux clients/binaries that support HDR? Preferably with a menu setting so I can determine if the capability is detected rather than "I guess that light looks bright?"

4 comments

You can refer to list of games with HDR support.
As far as HDR in native Linux games, recent changes won't help, but you should be able to get that working with a couple env vars.

This is what I do, I enable HDR on:
My Monitor's menu (hardware)
Steam Game Mode
KDE Plasma monitor config (software)
Game settings
My monitor isn't OLED, so the difference is barely noticeable to me. Even on my Steam Deck OLED, the difference is not big enough for me. It's nice, but I just can't appreciate it as much as others do. However, I do graphic design so the color management aspect is more valuable to me in a work context, just not so much for games.

If you're using proton, then you're not using the native linux clients you're using the Windows clients.
But, to answer your question, if you want to see if you're using HDR it will depend on the game. For a method that is game agnostic, install mangohud: https://github.com/flightlessmango/MangoHud which will let you see all kinds of information about the game that's running (often used for FPS/temps).
If you'd rather use a GUI instead of editing the config files, you can use goverlay: https://github.com/benjamimgois/goverlay
- Mangohud is great, but last time I checked the hdr option it can show only works on gamescope, so if you’re using any other compositor it won’t be accurate