The Windows 10 April Update (1803): The Littlest Big Update
by Brett Howse on May 25, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Software
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Microsoft
- Windows 10
Display Updates: HDR and High DPI
HDR Updates
High Dynamic Range (HDR) is definitely the new buzzword in the display industry, with displays that offer a wider range of brightness levels. There’s more steps between brightness levels, and proper HDR monitors should offer a much higher maximum brightness level as well.
The requirements for HDR haven’t changed very much since the Fall Creators Update, but there’s a couple of small tweaks. If you’re using a laptop, the device manufacturer has to provide a panel that is at least 300 nits or more, but new for the April Update is that the panel is also required to be at least 1920x1080. The laptop will also need to have an integrated GPU that supports PlayReady hardware DRM for protected HDR content, and have the codecs installed for 10-bit video decoding, which is only the latest CPUs. Since you can’t buy a laptop and add HDR, this is all something that has to be handled by the OEM of course.
For external displays, the system and display both need to support HDMI 2.0 or DisplayPort 1.4, as well as HDR10. There’s no support for DolbyVision in Windows yet.
Your display HDR support is shown here
The GPU must support PlayReady 3.0 hardware DROM for protected HDR content, which is right now a short list of GPUs: AMD Radeon RX 400 or higher, Intel UHD 600 series iGPUs, or NVIDIA GeForce 1000 series cards. All of these cards support the 10-bit video decoding required for HDR.
The PC must have the HEVC or VP9 codec installed as well, and the latest drivers should be used.
HDR is currently only supported for video playback. We’re not yet at a point where the entire OS can be done in HDR.
If you’re using a laptop, Microsoft now has an HDR calibration tool built-in which lets you adjust balance between detail in the dark part of a scene with the brighter parts, and to set if you want HDR to increase display brightness when on battery or not.
High DPI Updates
Using apps created for 96 DPI displays on displays with 200, 300, or more DPI can be a challenge, and over the years, improvements have been made in Windows to better support this. UWP was a possible solution, but with its limited traction it didn’t turn out to be much of a solution, so Microsoft has been fixing both built-in apps to work better on higher resolution displays, as well as fixing issues with using different DPI levels on different displays connected to the system, which is a big issue if you have a new laptop with a high-resolution display, and also dock it with an older 96 DPI monitor.
Microsoft has no real solution to this issue, other than have a dev update their app for HiDPI, but with the April Update Windows 10 will now prompt you to automatically try and fix an app if it think it’s opened with blurry text. You’ll get a notification asking if you’d like to try and fix it, and you can say yes. Then close the app, and hopefully it’s fixed.
Windows was built around 96 DPI as a staple, and with the legacy baggage, this issue will likely never be completely resolved, but luckily most apps work fine now. Some are not perfect, but most of the big name apps now work correctly, which isn’t something you could have said even a couple of years ago.
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ಬುಲ್ವಿಂಕಲ್ ಜೆ ಮೂಸ್ - Saturday, May 26, 2018 - link
I wish the staff would openly discuss the problem with Microsofts DRM instead of deleting my posts without commentYES, it may be against the "LAW" to discuss getting around DRM but those Laws only help Criminals who wrote the Law
A permanent backdoor into everyones computer IS a matter of National and Personal Security
Bill Gates once asked for an open discussion on security
When are you willing to actually have it ?
I believe James Comey even asked for an open discussion on the problems affecting National Security such as Encryption Backdoors
I am ready for an honest open discussion
AnandTech is definitely NOT Ready!
Be a part of the solution, instead of the problem
ChristopherFortineux - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link
Being from India yourself. You know better than breaking the law discussing breaching the DRM. Why you keep mentioning it on random comments is redundant. Also, "Bullwinkle J. Moose" LOLAzurael - Saturday, May 26, 2018 - link
I think this one went better than FCU. No complete reinstalls required yet, but one of the machines I manage still won't install it. Still, I'm not going to hold it against Microsoft because I insist on running all of my EFI-capable machines _in_ EFI boot mode and some of the early UEFI implementations (2007-2010ish) are flakey as hell. On this particular (personal) machine, I don't think the fact that the ESP is shared with a Linux install is helping, Microsoft seem to like a lot of free space on it to successfully install, even though their default partition map creates an ESP about half the size of the 'standard' 256MB...Sill, about 20 machines and no other issues, as I said, much better than FCU! I had to reinstall 3 at work last time today round... One thing I've learned is that it really isn't worth trying to diagnose issues with the updater. If you have to try and run it more than twice, a clean install is invariably quicker...
landerf - Saturday, May 26, 2018 - link
The amount of hoops I've had to jump through to replace homegroup functionality is mind boggling and I'm still not sure it will keep working the next time I reboot and all the solutions are far less secure than homegroup.coburn_c - Sunday, May 27, 2018 - link
They turned last access time stamp back on. I can't understand why, considering the i/o performance hit of the latest security patches and the fact that it has been off for the last decade.exactopposite - Sunday, May 27, 2018 - link
i have tried the update on 4 machinesRyzen x370 syste updated with no problem
Kaby lake desktop updated ok but network settings changed which prevented network shares form working. It was a simple fix but annoying
Kaby lake HTPC and Broadwell laptop both refuse to install it. The install almost completes but then uninstalls and rolls back
lfred - Monday, May 28, 2018 - link
What fix did you use? shares keeps disconnecting from time to time here?ChristopherFortineux - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link
No luck with clean install?Schmide - Sunday, May 27, 2018 - link
11 pages and a full article and no mention of the fact that they took away Workgroup?For shame
ChristopherFortineux - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link
What did you still need Workgroup for? The issue is it has become unnecessary for most things. Share for networks is already built into Windows 10. File storage is built into the OS with OneDrive. There are superior alternatives to sharing over network.