Help - Ridiculously bad lighting

I’m getting insanely bad graphics issues with AMD RX 6900XT. Its not that the GPU is lagging or anything, its permanently at 120FPS… its that the lighting glare is actually ridiculous - to the point I genuinely can’t see anything.

I can’t upload an image because “new users cannot upload images” (been a Halo player since Halo: CE and registered on forums since before 343i was a thing).

But I’m talking that when stepping outside, the lighting flare is so bad that 60-90% of the screen goes almost pure white.
In multiplayer, that map with the two forerunner structures facing each other for CTF, with the man-cannons either side - you know the one - yeah I can’t see anything on that unless I stand in the shade - it’s ridiculous.

There has to be some kind of setting issue here. I’ve tried both the Xbox install, and the Steam install - both exactly the same issues - and yes, I’ve updated my GPU to the latest drivers - it was the first thing I did.

Are you playing with HDR on? For me that was the issue. You have to turn it off in your windows settings. 343 really needs to add a setting in game

There’s screen calibration, and I have HDR set to 0 in there.
EDIT: also just checked in Windows settings, I have HDR set to off already.

Make sure you don’t have any fake HDR modes on, and also make sure that auto-contrast isn’t enabled.

I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean “fake HDR modes” - what modes should be disabled, and if they should be disabled - why aren’t they disabled by default?

I could’ve been clearer. Some TVs and monitors include features like “game HDR” as a selling point, when in reality it’s a post-processing feature instead of a display capability. They’re used to improve the white parts of an image but can cause outdoor scenes to be blindingly bright.

I don’t know what kind of monitor/TV you’re using so it’s hard to be certain, though.

Samsung Super-Ultrawide 120Hz 5120x1440
I’ve actually found that turning HDR ON in Windows Settings has alleviated a lot of the issues.
The graphics are still a bit “grainy” where the sharpness is way off, but the light-flare effect is massively reduced.

Ooh, good monitor. I would just calibrate the display at this point to ensure that colors, contrast and brightness are on point, but you probably already knew that.

(Also, I think there is film grain setting? I don’t remember…)