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Have an HDR monitor and fed up with the picture constantly switching between SDR and HDR? There's a tool that can fix that! Smart HDR Manager automatically turns on HDR when selected games are launched or when videos are played, and restores the standard picture mode afterwards. Best of all, the program is completely free!
How does it work?
Smart HDR Manager is a small app created by independent developer VantaCode420. It runs in the background on Windows and removes the need to manually enable HDR in the settings or via the Win + Alt + B shortcut. The program automatically searches for games in the Steam, Epic Games, GOG, Xbox, Ubisoft Connect, EA and Rockstar Games Launcher libraries. The user can then select which titles should run with HDR enabled. When the game closes, the app automatically restores SDR mode. In the latest 2.5.1 release a Launch with HDR feature was also added, which enables HDR before the game starts. This is important because some titles check for that feature only at startup.
HDR also on YouTube and when watching videos
The application's capabilities aren't limited to games. Smart HDR Manager also works with media players VLC, MPC-HC, PotPlayer and mpv, and with an additional Tampermonkey script it can recognise HDR videos on YouTube. It also supports NVIDIA RTX Video HDR, a technology that can convert regular SDR footage to HDR on compatible GeForce RTX cards. A handy extra is the option to disable automatic HDR while using OBS, which can help avoid colour issues in recordings.
Smart HDR Manager can be downloaded for free from GitHub. The program is released under an open source licence, but is still in beta. The developer mainly tested it on Windows 11 with an NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti and a single HDR monitor. Operation on AMD and Intel cards, as well as multi‑monitor setups, hasn't yet been fully verified.
Sources: Videocardz, Reddit
