30-bit color support with NVIDIA GeForce

[Enthusiast]

Hello!

NVIDIA provides 30-bit color support for GeForce users since July 2019 so it became widely available now (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/studio-driver)

NEC 10 bit Color Depth Demo application (https://www.necdisplay.com/documents/Software/NEC_10_bit_video_Windows_demo.zip) demonstates that my system also supports higher bit depth (Win10 with NVIDIA GTX 1070 and DELL U2713H)

However it looks like Affinity Photo is not capable to display smooth 10-bit gradients.

Am I missing some setting? And if not - do you have any roadmap to support higher color depth or sell some additional 30-bit extensions?

Thank you!

P.S.: Few older posts on the the same topic:

 

[stokerg]

Hi Enthusiast and Welcome to the Forums,

We do support 10-bit display but you also need a HDR/EDR compatible monitor which the U2713H isn't, from my understanding.  We have a full write up on this over on our Spotlight site here which confirm this does work: https://affinityspotlight.com/article/biggest-ever-affinity-updates-bring-unrivalled-speed-power-and-extensive-new-features/ 

 

[Enthusiast]

U2713H does not have the HDR/EDR certification due to its age but it is true wide gamut 10-bit display with hardware LUT calibrated by X-Rite i1 Display Pro Monitor Calibration Device.

It is not fair to compare Affinity Photo with the professional software like Photoshop therefore I mentioned only the "NEC 10 bit Color Depth Demo application" but I also have "Adobe Photoshop Version: 21.0.2 20191122.r.57".

Photoshop has a "30 Bit Display" setting unter "Edit" > "Preferences" > "Performance" > "Graphics Processor Settings" section > "Advanced Settings..." button (look at the screenshot in attachment). 10 bit gradients like this one https://github.com/jursonovicst/gradient are smooth in Photoshop with this setting. In Affinity I do not see any difference between 8 and 10 bit gradients just like in Photoshop if "30 Bit Display setting" is disabled.

https://affinityspotlight.com/article/biggest-ever-affinity-updates-bring-unrivalled-speed-power-and-extensive-new-features/ provides only marketing information unfortunately so I still do not understand why the gradients are not smooth.

Is it possible that Affinity does not support higher bit depth on Windows?

Does Affinity Photo have an equivalent of the "30 Bit Display" setting in Photoshop?

[WOEHAA]

First of all, I consider it rather ignorant to answer a 10-bit related question with "it's not HDR/EDR" compatible. Those are two different things.
I also have a 10-bit compatible setup (Quadro K2200, DELL U2711) and despite the whole 32bit workflow compatiblity of Affinity I have yet to see if that's true. There is no setting to be found. Then there is this answer from a forum admin telling me I need to activate AERO interface on my win7 desktop (fun fact, with Photoshop you need to disable that) and still ... brushes are banding all over the place, no matter the settings.

I run the 1.8.3 version and have all the latest stable drivers and I am running a i7-4790K @4GHz with 32GByte RAM. More than enough to edit 25 layers of 2k*5k pixels in 30 bit workflow without even stressing out my PC. That is, in photoshop. 

So long story short: how does Affinity support 30-bit workflow (not HDR, not EDR... but 30-bit) and how can a user check and/or enable this?

[sfriedberg]

Also interested in this topic.  I have a PA239 (10bit) sitting right next to a PA238 (8bit) with a 10-bit capable Quadro adapter.  I use the 239 for color grading and similar tasks.

[ashf]

Display a 10 bit test pattern image on the 10 bit display so you can judge see if it's 10 bit.

Like these

https://github.com/jursonovicst/gradient
https://www.eizo-apac.com/support-service/monitor-test

[cgidesign]

In case a new user is finding this thread by a search, I like to add that 10 bit output might be off in the Nvida settings. Furthermore, if the monitor is attached via HDMI and not DVI it might be, that only 8bit is available even though the monitor and the software support 10bit (this is related to the hdmi spec. not the hardware capability).