Why does HDR10+ GAMING sometimes look darker, or have brightness that shifts or looks off, compared to other picture modes?

HDR10+ GAMING is designed to show the picture using the display’s actual peak brightness, reported automatically over HDMI, so each game can tailor its image precisely to that screen (a step called tone mapping). Compared to a TV’s standard enhanced picture modes, which add extra contrast and brightness processing automatically, HDR10+ GAMING can look flatter or a little darker. That’s expected behavior, not a defect; it reflects the format’s direct PQ (perceptual quantizer) brightness tracking, rather than the additional processing layered on by other picture modes.

Occasionally the picture may look brighter, oversaturated, or different from one game to the next. That variation comes from how each game engine handles its own tone mapping to the display’s reported peak brightness, which is what lets every title tailor its look to your specific screen, so image quality can differ across titles. Keeping your game and graphics drivers up to date resolves most of these cases.