Okay, so here we are diving into the big buzz around Mario Kart World on the Switch 2. Folks are ticked off about this so-called ‘fake HDR’—a bunch of TechTubers are going off about it. I mean, we’ve all seen those social media rants, right? Anyway, Alexander Mejia, who’s kind of a big deal with HDR stuff, jumped in too. He writes some tech blog and totally agrees, saying the game was pretty much slapped with HDR at the last minute. Imagine putting on glitter after the painting’s done—yeah, kind of like that.
Honestly, Mario Kart World kind of dug its own grave here, didn’t it? I mean, marketing themselves as having 4K resolution and HDR visuals is like saying you have a secret sauce that turns out to be just ketchup. Mejia’s words, not mine, about them not taking HDR seriously hit hard. It’s like a splash of cold water for anyone dreaming of perfect visuals.
But hey, tripping up with HDR isn’t something new. Even Mejia admits that making HDR look good can be a real head-scratcher. The key, he suggests, is starting with HDR in mind right from the get-go. Makes sense, right? Kind of like making sure you have shoes before you plan a hike.
And for those itching to know how Mejia got all these results, he laid it all out there with his gadgets and techniques. It seems he’s got a PhD in sniffing out subpar brightness levels. The numbers don’t lie—those peaks in brightness he measured were like wannabe fireworks that just fizzled out. We’re talking a measly ~500 nits when it was supposed to be way up there at 10,000 nits. Ouch.
Despite cranking the brightness on your console, it still falls flat—never hitting beyond ~950 nits. It’s like your TV’s trying to shout, but it’s stuck whispering in SDR. Remember Rec.2020? Yeah, it’s a color space thing—a fancy term for all those colors just sitting there, unused.
For a visual treat, there’s this image comparing Mario Kart World and Godfall Ultimate Edition. Both were supposed to look shiny with HDR, but Mario Kart’s totally lagging behind. It’s like showing up to a party in sweats when everyone else is in their glammed-up gear.
And to cap it all off, Mejia gives a little wink-wink nudge-nudge about his consultancy. HDR-first rendering and all that jazz. Maybe a bit of a humblebrag, but if it gets us better visuals, who’s complaining?
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