Dead Island 2 Recommended HDR Settings

“The next setting what we have is the Brightness setting, responsible for the overall brightness in the game. The standard factory setting is 25 and I found this actually a very good value to start with. I wouldn’t increase or decrease this value too much because either you get Black Level crush or you have a very washed out picture.”

– GamingTech YouTube channel (April 21, 2023)

Gaming HDR analysts advise setting the White Point of Dead Island 2 to 1,150, claiming that otherwise, peak highlights won’t attain 1,000 nits. They also insist on 25 as the preferred Brightness setting and caution that significantly reducing it can result in black crush. Both claims are demonstrably false. It’s not uncommon for these experts to assert that the peak brightness slider fails to hit its target when in actuality it does.

“The game has a good HDR implementation providing different in-game HDR controls including “White Point” or Peak HDR Luminance which can go up to 2.000 nits, but those values does not represent accurately what is seen in-game.”

– P40L0, HDR: Optimized (April 21, 2023)

Facts to Bear in Mind

Those recommendations, founded on the seriously flawed philosophy that brighter is better, will inevitably cause the ABL of many/most consumer devices to persistently dim the display. Another data point: the game features an instant-respawn system during which the picture momentarily flashes peak white – ~1,000 nits full screen in our case.

“When I set the game to 1,000 nits, I measured around 800-900 nits in specular highlights, so this doesn’t match up.”

– GamingTech YouTube channel (April 21, 2023)

Regarding the nonexistent black crush issue from reducing the Brightness setting, the game features eye adaptation (autoexposure): areas in deep shadow brighten as the player approaches, while dark areas outside the intended path or characters in shadow that players aren’t supposed to interact with (or a lurking zombie!) remain dark. Conversely, when going from a dark environment to a bright one, the game engine automatically adjusts the scene’s exposure to compensate.

In any case, players are provided with a flashlight with an unlimited battery to navigate dark areas should autoexposure fail to kick in (on the PS5, press the Up button on the D-pad).

Strategy

1. Match White Point to panel limit

2. Manage APL with the Brightness slider to prevent ABL dimming

If your display has a peak luminance of 1,000 nits and you game in controlled lighting, our advice is to leave the White Point slider at 1000 (default) and the Black Point slider at 0 (default). Reduce Brightness to 0 from 25 and UI Brightness to 0 from 54. 

Note: Video footage above captured on PS5, White Point 950, Brightness 0. Screengrabs are with White Point set to 1000, Brightness set to 0.