Linux finally does HDR gaming right — here's the exact setup

HDR gaming has always been hit-or-miss on PCs. Part of this is due to Windows’ somewhat underwhelming implementation, which requires manual tuning to get things right.

In the land of the penguin, though, things have progressed a lot more rapidly, and HDR finally works — for the most part. Linux can be complex, and support varies from desktop environment to window manager, but assuming you’re on KDE Plasma, here’s a super-easy way to get HDR up and running.

Getting everything set up for HDR gaming

KDE Plasma, Gamescope, and some manual tweaking

While there are a variety of desktops that support HDR on Linux, I’ll be sticking to KDE for this demonstration. It’s far easier to set up and doesn't require any configuration file tinkering to get everything set up properly.

The current version of KDE Plasma (6.7.3) supports HDR out of the box and can be installed in any Arch-based distribution using pacman. Once installed, you can head to the KDE System Settings page and go to Displays, where there should be an option to enable HDR. Make sure to tick and click apply to enable this.

KDE also offers a few more options, including adjusting the minimum and maximum brightness limits and choosing between “Color Efficiency” and “Color Accuracy”. Choose Color Accuracy for the best results here, and to avoid a washed-out image.

This forces HDR across the entire desktop, including games that might not support it. Still, for a more standalone implementation, consider using Gamescope and launching the game through it instead.

Getting Steam games to actually run with HDR on Linux

Two special commands make this whole setup work

To get Steam games working on Linux with HDR support, you’ll first have to install a custom version of Proton — the default versions bundled with Steam will not work:

1. Fire up your app manager and/or app store and install a program known as ProtonPlus.
2. After installation, launch it and select either Proton-GE or Proton-CachyOS for download.
3. Once completed, restart Steam. The runner should be under the game’s Properties -> Compatibility sub-menu, which should be set to either Proton-CachyOS or Proton-GE to force-apply it.
4. Return to the same launch properties menu and append two commands to the Launch Options box.

Having these two blurbs is enough to force your desktop environment to render HDR content for supported Steam games. Of course, you’ll still have to enable it manually in-game for it to take effect.

Additionally, HDR support varies from game to game — some do it exceptionally well, while others are quite terrible at it. The best way to check is to try it out yourself and see, with a mostly manual configuration.

HDR support can be a hit or miss on Linux

Most desktops do not support it, but there is a workaround for games

HDR support on Linux is generally good, but it largely depends on which desktop you’re using. The more well-supported ones, like KDE Plasma or GNOME, “just work,” and there is barely any manual tuning involved.

That said, KDE offers a robust selection of options to tweak, which is very much appreciated. HDR tuning can be finicky, and manual tuning is often the only way to get corrected outputs.

The same cannot be said for most window managers and other not-as-popular desktop environments, though. HDR is still being implemented on most Linux desktops, so you'll need to use Wayland; X11 doesn’t support it. While window managers like Hyprland and Sway do happen to support HDR, something like Niri does not. In other words, it is very much a mixed bag.

Still, for gaming, it is enough to use the Gamescope compositor as a wrapper when launching games to enable HDR. However, this is only restricted to the game itself, and not the rest of the desktop.

A word on HDR-capable displays and Nvidia GPUs

Your HDR experience will most certainly vary depending on your hardware. Unfortunately, HDR classification is a complete mess, and many brands advertise a rather poor implementation, which is often far worse than running the game without it.

You’ll want a proper, HDR-capable monitor or TV that can actually get bright enough to display things properly, and these don’t come cheap.

HDR on Linux also works best with open-source drivers, so an AMD GPU is highly recommended. You could get it working with Nvidia cards, but it’s a tad bit more complicated (and a bit less reliable).