Dr. Blake Birmingham, Ph.D. Principal Scientist at 6P Color
Despite modern gaming displays being capable of reproducing vibrant colors reaching up to 56% of human vision, the video game industry is still constrained by sRGB, a color standard from 1996 that limits creative expression to just 35% of what the human eye can perceive. At 6P Color, we call this artificial limitation the Iron Triangle. And yet, this narrow color range has become the unquestioned foundation of a multi-billion dollar industry. Gaming’s adherence to sRGB represents not a technical limitation but a crisis of confidence; developers cannot trust that their artistic intent will survive the journey from asset file to player’s display, forcing an entire industry to design for the lowest common denominator, despite widespread availability of displays capable of much richer color.
The limitation exists purely in developer confidence, not in technological possibility. Modern gaming displays routinely advertise coverage of 99% or more of DCI-P3 and can reach up to 56% of all color that human vision can perceive, yet the overwhelming majority of game developers continue to author, render, and output content within the narrow sRGB confines established by Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard in 1996. Game engines like Unreal and Unity technically support wide-gamut pipelines, but developers avoid them due to legacy defaults, workflow friction, and the risk of misrepresentation on uncalibrated displays.
The adherence to the Iron Triangle lies in the complexity of rendering color in games compared to traditional media. Unlike film, where color is carefully managed in post-production with complete control over every frame, gaming presents fundamentally different challenges. Video games are simulated environments where light interactions determine color in real-time, creating dynamic color generation that account for material properties, lighting conditions, environmental factors, and real-time simulation demands across “diverse platforms including PC monitors, console HDR displays, mobile screens, and VR headsets, and Televisions each with different color reproduction capabilities.”¹
Current attempts to address wide gamut support often exacerbate rather than solve the confidence problem. HDR and wide gamut displays frequently oversaturate sRGB content without proper emulation, causing “colors to appear unnaturally vivid, reds blow out, and greens shift.”² This over-saturation occurs because wide-gamut screens stretch sRGB to the native gamut of the display, transforming the limited sRGB data into new colors without regard for the artistic intent of the game developer.
The gaming industry is hungry for a solution to take advantage of the full range of colors that displays can produce today, as indicated by industry wide adoption of frameworks like OpenColorIO (OCIO), a comprehensive toolset to manage conversions between standardized color working spaces, such as ACES AP0 and BT Rec.2020. However, OCIO comes with complex integration costs, “configuration complexity requires deep understanding of both color science principles and YAML syntax, making it primarily accessible to teams with dedicated color management expertise.³
The solution to this confidence crisis requires moving beyond relative color management approaches toward absolute color space foundations. Enter 6P’s concept of Full Color Range (FCR) encoding, a color space and data format which represents 100% of the color that humans can perceive, based directly on the LMS cone response functions. FCR simplifies asset management and display transmission by making color an absolute data point encoded to 100% of human vision, removing the need to transform from one color space to another throughout the layers of asset creation and final product delivery.
Paired with the 6P Color Management System (CMS), this new view of color data representation addresses the fundamental trust gap that keeps gaming locked within the Iron Triangle. The 6P CMS combines display calibration with color-managed workflows in a way that addresses what researchers identify as the “last mile” problem, where “the framework’s control typically ends before colors reach the user’s screen.”⁴ The 6P CMS integrates with game engine, graphics driver, and display to manage color from texture file through ray tracing to light emission from displays. Display calibration and management is vastly simplified and made accessible to everyone by leveraging data transportation with FCR and ready-made solutions and profiles for today’s displays.
The implications for game development extend far beyond technical capability improvements. When developers gain confidence in color delivery, they can embrace artistic risk-taking with wider color palettes that were previously too dangerous to implement. Research demonstrates that ACES AP0 workflows in Unreal Engine 5 preserve HDR and color accuracy better than sRGB pipelines when properly implemented, showing “notable fidelity advantage over default sRGB workflows.”⁵ However, this advantage only materializes when developers can trust the implementation, a trust that current systems cannot consistently provide.
The real barrier preventing wide gamut gaming adoption has never been technical capability but rather the confidence gap that forces conservative implementation choices. Game engine floating point color calculations systems supports wide gamut workflows, display hardware provides necessary color reproduction capability, and research demonstrates clear fidelity advantages for properly implemented systems. Gaming deserves color management that matches its artisticambitions. Players deserve experiences that utilize the full capability of displays they have already purchased. Developers deserve confidence that their artistic intent will survive the journey from concept to player experience. The Iron Triangle of sRGB has served its historical purpose, but that purpose no longer aligns with current capabilities or future possibilities. Breaking free requires not just better technology, but better trust—and absolute color management finally provides the foundation upon which that trust can be built.
About the Author
Dr. Blake Birmingham is the Principal Scientist at 6P Color, where he leads research at the intersection of quantum optics and practical innovation. He holds a Ph.D. in Quantum Optics from Baylor University, where his pioneering work led to multiple patents and breakthroughs in the optical detection of trace molecular compounds. With a deep technical background in nanoscale spectral imaging and enhanced light-matter interactions, Blake brings a rare blend of theoretical expertise and hands-on ingenuity.
Driven by a passion for turning lab concepts into real-world solutions, Blake thrives at the boundary of science and commercialization. Whether he’s refining full-spectrum color technology at 6P or experimenting with new inventions in his garage, his work is grounded in curiosity, precision, and a desire to make the invisible visible. When not immersed in optical physics, Blake can be found tending to his garden or building things by hand — often both.
References
1. Academy Software Foundation. “OpenColorIO: A color management framework for visual effects and animation.” OpenColorIO Documentation, 2024.
2. PC Monitors. “Color gamuts and oversaturation.” Forum discussion, 2024.
3. Academy Software Foundation. “Using OCIO – OpenColorIO Documentation.” 2024.
4. Academy Software Foundation. “Virtual displays for ICC monitor profiles.” GitHub Issue #1082, 2024.
5. Research Gate. “ACES Color Workflow in Unreal Engine 5.” 2024.
