Karspankey
Banned
SUPER CLARIFICATION: PC MONITOR USERS WILL MOSTLY BENEFIT FROM THIS GUIDE AND AS A RESULT, THE GUIDE IS STEERED MORE TOWARDS THOSE PEOPLE. Sorry!
Hey everyone! Recently, I learned of the full RGB setting on consoles and the benefits it could bring if you can use it! I will briefly explain what difference there is to what most of you have defaulted to, limited RGB, and give you a simple way to check if you should change to full! I'll also link a video I made with The Division on PS4 that shows you what you can achieve with a little bit of tweaking! And before anyone asks, I received permission from Y2Kev to post the video from my channel! All right, let's begin!
Info!: What Difference is There Between Full and Limited?
The simplest answer to that question is that while limited RGB is on, the range of colors you can receive (with each number representing a color) is 16-235. With Full RGB, you receive all colors, 0-255. That means that with limited, you are not receiving 15 colors on the lower side of the range and 20 on the high side! Instead of explaining what colors are missing, instead understand that with limited enabled, all 16 of those colors in the lower range will be treated as black, and the 20 in the high end will appear as white! That's a lot of missing color! So there is a difference? Yes! Now, let's move on to the next section!
What Does the Difference Look Like In-Game:
EDIT AND CLARIFICATION: I am using a PC monitor that is full RGB at all times!
Now, to find out if you can actually use this setting, but first, I will post that comparison I mentioned before so you can actually see the difference yourself!
Do note: In the video, I compared The Division not only by doing full RGB vs limited RGB, but also by tweaking the brightness settings! In this case on the full RGB side, the brightness was set using the in-game help (most games have an image that they ask for you to turn down the brightness of until it is barely visible.). The reason this was done is because you will also want to adjust the brightness in your games according to the usual in game help! So basically, this video is Full RGB with Adjusted Brightness vs Limited RGB and Default Brightness (a default PS4).
Now, here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocn6Pf-EqzY
Alright, now that you've watched the video, you may have noticed a few things, but the main difference I want to point out is the amount of white and washed out image quality the limited (or default PS4 setup) has. It is quite amazing to know that those two videos are the exact same time of day, only seconds away from each other in realtime. To me, the full RGB + adjusted brightness actually looks like proper night time, especially compared to the limited version. Ok! Before we actually go ahead and do this, I want to clarify that I realize that you can actually make your games look better if you cannot use or don't care for full RGB by just correctly adjusting the in-game brightness! It will however, look better with full RGB, which was the brunt of the difference you saw, bearing in mind it can be used with your setup! Onwards!
Let's Do This!:
The very, very, first thing we need to do is determine what type of display you are using to play games on. Is it a TV or a PC monitor? Unfortunately, one of these options work pretty much 100% of the time and that is an HD PC monitor! Many TV's do not support full RGB and the image will actually make the black in your games appear overtly dark and even "crushed" as some of you might have heard before. You can lookup the model of TV you own and do research yourself.
EDITED NOTE: If you are using limited on your TV and limited on your console, and can only set your TV to limited, then you will not likely see a change and should leave your settings as is! Explained better by user Khaz:
So if you are using a limited only display, then switching to full will not be beneficial to you!
If the edited above does not apply to you, what I suggest is this:
Open this thread up on your console of choice with full RGB turned on, and look at this picture:
thanks to nicolaspeople.com
This picture, if your display supports full, will have the first box in the top left be barely visible with the following squares becoming lighter and lighter! The entire image should be a gradient that goes from the darkest square all the way to the lightest square, getting lighter and lighter. See it? Great! If you see a harsh black for most of the image, you can try and tweak your displays brightness a bit in case it is far away from it's default. If not, then you should not use the full RGB setting.
I say should not like that because in the end, no one is stopping you from using the setting and you may end up liking it even with the black crush (just turn up the in-game brightness!!) The colors may even be more saturated and "crisp" to your eyes, but again be warned, if you did not pass the test, you may have a tough time seeing dark areas of games.
Wrap-Up!:
I hope this explanation a tutorial helped some of you out! Many games look completely different, and in my opinion better (Watch Dogs is a game I wanted to get to. Wow), following these steps. I do want to mention that in the end, visuals in games to an individual are mostly subjective! I played games with limited and default brightness all my life and they still looked great, so don't think any different about what settings your screen are at. Enjoy the games and take beautiful screenshots forever!
Hey everyone! Recently, I learned of the full RGB setting on consoles and the benefits it could bring if you can use it! I will briefly explain what difference there is to what most of you have defaulted to, limited RGB, and give you a simple way to check if you should change to full! I'll also link a video I made with The Division on PS4 that shows you what you can achieve with a little bit of tweaking! And before anyone asks, I received permission from Y2Kev to post the video from my channel! All right, let's begin!
Info!: What Difference is There Between Full and Limited?
The simplest answer to that question is that while limited RGB is on, the range of colors you can receive (with each number representing a color) is 16-235. With Full RGB, you receive all colors, 0-255. That means that with limited, you are not receiving 15 colors on the lower side of the range and 20 on the high side! Instead of explaining what colors are missing, instead understand that with limited enabled, all 16 of those colors in the lower range will be treated as black, and the 20 in the high end will appear as white! That's a lot of missing color! So there is a difference? Yes! Now, let's move on to the next section!
What Does the Difference Look Like In-Game:
EDIT AND CLARIFICATION: I am using a PC monitor that is full RGB at all times!
Now, to find out if you can actually use this setting, but first, I will post that comparison I mentioned before so you can actually see the difference yourself!
Do note: In the video, I compared The Division not only by doing full RGB vs limited RGB, but also by tweaking the brightness settings! In this case on the full RGB side, the brightness was set using the in-game help (most games have an image that they ask for you to turn down the brightness of until it is barely visible.). The reason this was done is because you will also want to adjust the brightness in your games according to the usual in game help! So basically, this video is Full RGB with Adjusted Brightness vs Limited RGB and Default Brightness (a default PS4).
Now, here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocn6Pf-EqzY
Alright, now that you've watched the video, you may have noticed a few things, but the main difference I want to point out is the amount of white and washed out image quality the limited (or default PS4 setup) has. It is quite amazing to know that those two videos are the exact same time of day, only seconds away from each other in realtime. To me, the full RGB + adjusted brightness actually looks like proper night time, especially compared to the limited version. Ok! Before we actually go ahead and do this, I want to clarify that I realize that you can actually make your games look better if you cannot use or don't care for full RGB by just correctly adjusting the in-game brightness! It will however, look better with full RGB, which was the brunt of the difference you saw, bearing in mind it can be used with your setup! Onwards!
Let's Do This!:
The very, very, first thing we need to do is determine what type of display you are using to play games on. Is it a TV or a PC monitor? Unfortunately, one of these options work pretty much 100% of the time and that is an HD PC monitor! Many TV's do not support full RGB and the image will actually make the black in your games appear overtly dark and even "crushed" as some of you might have heard before. You can lookup the model of TV you own and do research yourself.
EDITED NOTE: If you are using limited on your TV and limited on your console, and can only set your TV to limited, then you will not likely see a change and should leave your settings as is! Explained better by user Khaz:
Setting the display as "limited" makes it expand the 16-235 range back to 0-255 on your screen. If the source was 16-235 it's fine, but if the source was already 0-255, everything 0-16 will be pushed to 0, same for whites. Conversely, if the display is set for full range, displaying a 0-255 image looks fine but displaying a 16-235 image makes it look more dull, not quite black and not quite white.
Limited range is a compression format, part of NTSC. It's lossy so it's not so cool, but when expanded back to 0-255 you still get back most of it. A limited source on a Limited TV should look almost exactly the same as a full source on a full TV.
Most TVs are by default set to Limited range, because NTSC is broadcast as limited, to give a good picture to the viewer. Problems arise when using sources that are full range and the TV is still in Limited mode.
So if you are using a limited only display, then switching to full will not be beneficial to you!
If the edited above does not apply to you, what I suggest is this:
Open this thread up on your console of choice with full RGB turned on, and look at this picture:
thanks to nicolaspeople.com
This picture, if your display supports full, will have the first box in the top left be barely visible with the following squares becoming lighter and lighter! The entire image should be a gradient that goes from the darkest square all the way to the lightest square, getting lighter and lighter. See it? Great! If you see a harsh black for most of the image, you can try and tweak your displays brightness a bit in case it is far away from it's default. If not, then you should not use the full RGB setting.
I say should not like that because in the end, no one is stopping you from using the setting and you may end up liking it even with the black crush (just turn up the in-game brightness!!) The colors may even be more saturated and "crisp" to your eyes, but again be warned, if you did not pass the test, you may have a tough time seeing dark areas of games.
Wrap-Up!:
I hope this explanation a tutorial helped some of you out! Many games look completely different, and in my opinion better (Watch Dogs is a game I wanted to get to. Wow), following these steps. I do want to mention that in the end, visuals in games to an individual are mostly subjective! I played games with limited and default brightness all my life and they still looked great, so don't think any different about what settings your screen are at. Enjoy the games and take beautiful screenshots forever!