Troubleshooting: Color Channels Switched?

[absentheverte]

Hi, first time using mods. Started the Step guide, finished up to the first section of extender mods and went to test launch. Everything was fine except that the colors were switched. Sky and water were yellow orange, my character's skin was purple blue, plants and leaves were blue green. I took a screen shot, but when I opened in my photo viewer, the colors all looked normal. I thought it must be something with my display settings. I had a screen calibration program called Calibrize so I uninstalled. I also restored default settings with with the AMD Radeon UI (reverted to default 'gaming' options, checked 'anti-lag'). Checked windows display settings, everything that could be adjusted only had one option so I left it as-is. Rebooted, launched again, same issue. 

At the beginning when setting up BethINI, I used the "medium" setting instead of "high" and didn't change some values that seemed intensive, because up 'til now I've had to use "low" settings for everything to run quickly enough. (I also had checked "windowed" and unchecked "borderless" because for some reason, this whole time I've been playing pure vanilla, the game always started a little bit to the northwest of the corner of my screen, making it so I couldn't see anything in menus. So I always ran it at a smaller resolution, then moved the window after the game loaded. But when I launched after first part of Step guide, it actually just did the full screen version at the correct size and location.) So, I went back and adjusted the INI settings -exactly- as written. Rebooted, relaunched, no effect.

Summary: Color channels are switched in game, but screenshot looks normal. Anybody know why it's doing this? 

[DoubleYou]

I would suggest checking your monitor settings, but honestly I've never heard of such an issue before. Do other games do this as well?

[z929669]

Check if you are running HDR via Windows and try disabling it if you are. Otherwise, you monitor or GFX driversoft color management settings could be off.

Do colors look right in other apps and Windows (and other games as DY mentioned)?

[absentheverte]

Thanks both of you for your replies!

3 hours ago, DoubleYou said:

I would suggest checking your monitor settings, but honestly I've never heard of such an issue before. Do other games do this as well?

I'm using a laptop, so there isn't much for monitor settings, just brightness, resolution and battery optimization. I just tried a couple of other games, and only Skyrim has the problem.

1 hour ago, z929669 said:

Check if you are running HDR via Windows and try disabling it if you are. Otherwise, you monitor or GFX driversoft color management settings could be off.

Do colors look right in other apps and Windows (and other games as DY mentioned)?

It looks like my screen doesn't have HDR capability. Everything else looks normal. I found the Color Management settings and it only has a default profile called "Generic Non-PnP Monitor.icm". In AMD Radeon Software, there is a "Custom Color" option, but it's off.

 

I tried unchecking all the mods in MO2 and running SkyrimSE.exe, and the colors looked fine. Then, I unchecked everything except for SKSE64 and the Address Library and then ran skse64_loader.exe and the colors looked fine. Still with only SKSE64 & Address Library checked, I ran SKSE from MO2, and the colors are all wonky again. I don't know if that narrows it down at all; I guess even when they are unchecked the mods still may have some effect.

[Mousetick]

2 hours ago, absentheverte said:

Still with only SKSE64 & Address Library checked, I ran SKSE from MO2, and the colors are all wonky again. I don't know if that narrows it down at all; I guess even when they are unchecked the mods still may have some effect.

The ones from the Extenders group should certainly not have any effect when disabled on MO2's left side list. So let's make sure they are indeed disabled:

1. Remove this file: Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE\skse64.log.
2. Remove this file if it exists: Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE\SSEDisplayTweaks.log.
3. Reproduce* the color shift in the same conditions you previously described (enable/disable stuff, start game, observe weird colors, quit game).
4. Post the SKSE log Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE\skse64.log.
5. Post the SSE Display Tweaks log Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE\SSEDisplayTweaks.log if it exists.

[*] If problem is not reproduced on first attempt and it takes several attempts to get the "correct" conditions, repeat steps #1 and #2 before each attempt.

[absentheverte]

11 hours ago, Mousetick said:

The ones from the Extenders group should certainly not have any effect when disabled on MO2's left side list. So let's make sure they are indeed disabled:

1. Remove this file: Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE\skse64.log.
2. Remove this file if it exists: Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE\SSEDisplayTweaks.log.
3. Reproduce* the color shift in the same conditions you previously described (enable/disable stuff, start game, observe weird colors, quit game).
4. Post the SKSE log Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE\skse64.log.
5. Post the SSE Display Tweaks log Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SKSE\SSEDisplayTweaks.log if it exists.

[*] If problem is not reproduced on first attempt and it takes several attempts to get the "correct" conditions, repeat steps #1 and #2 before each attempt.

Thanks for the instructions! Here are the logs, I reenabled all the mods in MO2 and ran SKSE from there.

SSEDisplayTweaks.log skse64.log

[Mousetick]

Nothing obvious in the logs. However it appears that:

• You're running Windows 8.
• Your GPU is AMD R5 M230 or M330.

Is this correct? These products are no longer supported by Microsoft or AMD, respectively. The last AMD driver for this GPU on Windows 8 was released in 2017.

You can try updating your GPU driver to the latest available. Other than that I have no advice other than upgrading to Windows 10 if that's possible. You'll have a very hard time finding help for troubleshooting your issue from this community or the online community at large, as very few people run Windows 8 nowadays or are still using circa-2017 AMD drivers.

PS: Steam will end Windows 7/8/8.1 support on Jan. 1, 2024. Steam client will no longer work on these OSes.

[absentheverte]

Huh, I am running Windows 10, so I'm not sure why it says that. As for the GPU, it is an AMD R5, but the current driver is from 2021 (my computer was made in 2014 btw). I wonder why the log file got the windows version wrong?

[z929669]

You may want to run Windows Update and make certain Windows is not updating your video drivers.

From Run menu, type gpedit.msc (or find C:\Windows\System32\gpedit.msc).

Local Computer Policy > Administrative Templates > Windows Components >

 

Then update your video drivers from latest AMD source for your card

[Mousetick]

3 hours ago, absentheverte said:

I wonder why the log file got the windows version wrong?

Edit: Never mind, my SKSE logs say the same thing (Windows version 6.2 build 9200, that is Windows 8) and I'm using Windows 10 22H2. I'm not sure what's going on, it's probably Windows 10 lying to Skyrim on purpose. But it's almost certainly not related to your issue. Please ignore and sorry for the false alarm.

[DoubleYou]

You wouldn't happen to have DXVK installed in your game root? https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/80030

[absentheverte]

2 hours ago, Mousetick said:

Edit: Never mind, my SKSE logs say the same thing (Windows version 6.2 build 9200, that is Windows 8) and I'm using Windows 10 22H2. I'm not sure what's going on, it's probably Windows 10 lying to Skyrim on purpose. But it's almost certainly not related to your issue. Please ignore and sorry for the false alarm.

Ok, thanks 

41 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

You wouldn't happen to have DXVK installed in your game root? https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/80030

Nope!

[Mousetick]

I don't mean to discourage you, but you may be embarking on a doomed adventure, so to speak. Your GPU is very very weak, and barely meets the Bethesda minimum system requirements for Skyrim SE 1.6.x, let alone the STEP minimum system requirements for the guide. In your first post at the beginning, you mentioned having to use "low" settings because everything was too slow. That doesn't bode well for the fully modded game. You need to start with a very comfortable performance headroom in order to support all the visual bells and whistles that will be bolted onto the game throughout the guide. If your laptop is already struggling without any mods, it will only get worse from there, not any better.

What about your CPU and RAM, what are the specs?

Like I said, I don't mean to discourage you, but you're going to spend long hours installing and configuring a mod list that is focused on visual improvements and high quality graphics. It would be a pity if at the end of the day the game were unplayable, because your hardware simply can't keep up.

Now back to your color shift issue:

• Latest AMD driver available for your GPU on Windows 10 is Adrenalin 22.6.1 (June 23, 2022). You should give it a try.
• What happens if you launch Skyrim (not SKSE) from MO2?

[z929669]

Also see my last post. I'm assuming it was missed up there

[absentheverte]

6 hours ago, z929669 said:

You may want to run Windows Update and make certain Windows is not updating your video drivers.

From Run menu, type gpedit.msc (or find C:\Windows\System32\gpedit.msc).

Local Computer Policy > Administrative Templates > Windows Components >

 

Then update your video drivers from latest AMD source for your card

Thanks for the instruction, I completed it (btw Windows 10 Home doesn't come with gpedit.msc, but I was able to install in cmd). I also found out that I have an iGPU which is why there's no model #. After reboot, problem persists.