Random Gaming Talk

[Nintex]

Just found out something that is worth checking on your own HDR gaming setup. While my Xbox Series X 'feels' like it's running at 60fps, I always had the feeling that it had more input lag than it should have. In most 'cinematic' games like Resident Evil 4 Remake or Elden Ring animations are slow so I can't really tell if that is just how the game is supposed to be. I do find the windows for parrying hard to hit on those games though. Games like Street Fighter 6 and 2D platformers however don't seem quite 'snappy' enough to begin with.

Today I tried out Street Fighter 6 over Moonlight and I was surprised at how well it ran and how little input lag there was but it looks a bit washed out and with PC HDR being garbage in general it isn't quite up to console level in terms of IQ. To compare and finally decide on a platform I downloaded the demo on Xbox too to see how streaming stacks up and then I noticed that on Xbox Series X it looked sharper but the input lag was 2x or 3x worse. This was weird, because how would playing over the network via streaming have less lag than directly playing on the Xbox.

I figured it was a TV setting that got reset after an update or just a bug in the demo so I tried a few things but nothing seemed to work. After some digging I discovered that some folks claimed that in some cases and with some TV models Dolby Vision caused lag and other issues on the Xbox and in some PS5 games too. Of course if you have all the bells and whistles your TV will automatically pick Dolby Vision over HDR10(+) as on paper at least it is supposed to be better. In other words many tech bro's and TV reviewers dismissed these claims of additional lag because...

After turning off Dolby Vision for Gaming on the Xbox, it still enables Dolby Vision (that button doesn't seem to work). So I turned it off completely for all content and apps on the Xbox and tried again. Street Fighter 6 is now silky smooth with very little input lag. While before I had considerable input lag. I booted up a few games I had on quick resume and again much snappier than before.

So if you feel like things aren't quite as smooth as they should be on your 4K gaming box, try turning off Dolby Vision. It made a big difference for me. This might also explain what I've seen some people call the 'Nintendo 30fps' that runs at 720p30 but somehow feels more responsive than 4k60.

As for the image, I personally prefer HDR10(+) over Dolby Vision for games. Games look more vibrant with vanilla HDR than Dolby Vision but it's a matter of preference I guess.