From SDR to Fake HDR: Mario Kart World on Switch 2 Undermines Modern Display Potential
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From SDR to Fake HDR: Mario Kart World on Switch 2 Undermines Modern Display Potential is a June 2025 technical critique by Alexander Mejia analyzing Mario Kart World's HDR output on Nintendo Switch 2.
Using Dock HDMI captures into ProRes and Davinci Resolve on a calibrated mastering monitor, it reports peaks that stall near about 950 nits even at high console brightness, Rec.709-clamped gamut, sky banding, and an SDR look that can be closely matched by stretching SDR into PQ. It argues the title uses static tonemapping from an SDR-first pipeline, contrasts wider-gamut HDR titles the author helped ship, and lists practices such as early wide-gamut review, dynamic range authoring, and dynamic tonemapping.
It is for intermediate rendering and lighting engineers and technical artists who ship console HDR and need concrete failure modes of last-minute SDR expansion.
Access is a free long-form article with HDR AVIF stills, waveform discussion, and methodology notes for home viewing on capable displays.
It is useful as a measured case study of fake HDR symptoms and a checklist for avoiding SDR-first traps on modern TVs.