HDR

HDR 10 Support for gaming

In a recent news-items we mentioned that games currently did not seem to support 10-bit. So basically as it turned out (and really this was not specific only to AMD) AMD was fighting the HDMI protocol and specification, as even HDMI 2.0 does not have enough bandwidth for 10-bit HDR (over HDMI) in specific at 4K and a 60hz refresh-rate with 4:4:4 YCrBr-sampling (2160p60 / 10bpc). AMD is applying 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 sampling and thus shares red and blue color components to get to a lower bitrate over HDMI. With the new driver AMD now supports HDR gaming with Dolby Vision and HDR10 support.
  

  
HDR video and gaming increases vibrancy in colors, details with contrast and luminosity ranges with brightness. You will obviously need a monitor that supports it as well as a game title that supports it. HDR10 is an open standard supported by a wide variety of companies, which includes TV manufacturers such as LG, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Vizio, as well as Microsoft and Sony Interactive Entertainment, which support HDR10 on their PlayStation 4 and Xbox One video game console platforms (the latter exclusive to the Xbox One S hardware revision released 2016.).  Dolby Vision is a competing HDR format that can be optionally supported on Ultra HD Blu-ray discs and from Streaming services. Dolby Vision as a technology allows for a color depth of up to 12-bits, up to 10,000-nit brightness, and can reproduce color spaces up to the ITU-R Rec. 2020 and SMPTE ST-2084. Ultra HD (UHD) TVs that support Dolby Vision include LG, TCL, and Vizio, although their displays are only capable of 10-bit color and 800 to 1000 nits luminance.

Think big and a lot of bandwidth. monitor resolutions are expanding. A problem with that is that the first 8K monitors needed multiple HDMI and or DisplayPort connectors to be able to get a functional display. With DisplayPort HBR3 a thing or two have changed as with the new feature-level AMD can now driver 4K 120 HZ, 5K 60 HZ and 8K 30 Hz from just one single DisplayPort cable.

 
Though the FreeSync protocol, well VESA Adaptive Sync really will not be changed, AMD does have an update at hand for it as they will support Freesync combined with Windowed Borderless Fullscreen mode. Typically with FreeSync you needed to always be in Full screen mode if you wanted FreeSync to work. Windowed Borderless Fullscreen mode allows for better usability for gamers using multiple displays, provide more game support/display options for FreeSync and will also improve click-to-response latency in games where AMD FreeSync and Windowed Borderless Fullscreen mode are used over displays without AMD FreeSync or with it disabled.