Chromium-based browsers like Google Chrome may not always display accurate colours when you allow websites to capture your screen. This issue affects all versions of Windows 11, but Microsoft is now switching Chromium to WGC (Windows Graphics Capture), which fixes washed-out colours, but only for Windows 11 version 24H2+.
Right now, when you share screen on Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet in Google Chrome, the browser calls Windows API “getDisplayMedia()”, which allows Zoom or Teams to capture your screen. While it works well, the issue is that you might notice washed-out or incorrect colours.
The shared screen colours won’t match the actual colours, and no, it’s neither your internet nor your video conferencing app’s fault. As first spotted by Windows Latest, these Chromium-based browsers still rely on using an older method called DXGI Duplicator, which doesn’t handle HDR colour properly.
The DXGI Duplicator screen capture method doesn’t correctly support HDR colour formats.
The method is not perfect when it comes to figuring out the screen colours and colours spaces, and sends incorrect output to Google Chrome. The output is streamed on the video conferencing platform. The end result is a washed-out screen sharing.
It doesn’t look good when colours get “flattened” as it makes the HDR screens look dull or washed out in the capture, especially if you’re into designing.
Windows 11 24H2 makes Chrome look beautiful
Thankfully, Windows 11 now has a new screen capture method, which allows Chrome and other browsers to render colours correctly when sharing the screen. However, the catch is that it’s only for Windows 11 version 24H2.
This method is called WGC (Windows Graphics Capture), and it has better support for HDR displays, including the ability to avoid unwanted captures when the screen isn’t changing. In addition, it includes DirtyRegionMode, which tells Chrome exactly what parts of the screen changed, so it doesn’t waste time comparing the whole screen every frame.
“This allows the API to avoid capturing content when there are no changes to the capture target, a capability that was previously unavailable. The lack of support for 0Hz refresh rates in screen capture had previously necessitated disabling the WGC feature for screen capture,” a Microsoft developer noted in a Chromium commit spotted by Windows Latest.
“We can now enable WGC for screen capture based on the OS version condition. WGC will address the color space issue on the HDR monitor.”
Thanks to Microsoft, Chrome will now look better on Windows 11 24H2, but is this feature coming to older versions? We don’t think. While Microsoft is great at backporting features to older versions, it may not put in the effort to migrate a new screen capture method to Windows 11 23H2 or Windows 10.
