Troubleshooting: Color Channels Switched?

[z929669]

I don't fancy thinking about trying to upgrade a laptop.

[absentheverte]

@Mousetick Yes, I think maybe I am barking up the wrong tree with this step guide...I actually found it in a reddit thread about improving performance. I saw a bunch of recommended fixes/patches/tweaks and some mods that just remove stuff like certain trees, but not knowing anything about how to debug or fix conflicts, I went with the guide. Are there any other popular guides/mod lists that are more barebones? Also, if I can't figure out how to make the mods work, then can I just disable stuff with MO2 or do I need to delete everything and redownload the game?

I got the driver updated, and launching Skyrim from MO2 also produces the weird color effect.

[absentheverte]

19 minutes ago, z929669 said:

I don't fancy thinking about trying to upgrade a laptop.

Yeah, I just googled out of curiosity and even the mid-range GPUs cost more than my entire computer...

[Mousetick]

1 hour ago, absentheverte said:

I got the driver updated, and launching Skyrim from MO2 also produces the weird color effect.

Ok, so it would seem to indicate that with MO2 in the middle, you get the weird color effect. In all the tests so far, unless I'm missing something, MO2 is the least common denominator that triggers the weird color effect. Still, that gives us no clue about the possible root cause.

Your actual hardware specs are still not precisely known. If you don't mind, you can share them with us:

1. Run dxdiag.exe.
2. Wait for it to launch (it can take a little while for the window to appear), then wait until the progress bar at the bottom left disappears (if it never appears, it's already done).
3. Click the 'Save All Information' button at the bottom.
4. Save the DxDiag.txt file somewhere.
5. Post* the DxDiag.txt file here as an attachment.

[*] The file doesn't contain any personally identifiable information, other than possibly your computer name. You can edit the file in Notepad and redact the computer name (Search for 'Machine Name', it's near the top of the file), if you wish, before posting.

1 hour ago, absentheverte said:

Are there any other popular guides/mod lists that are more barebones?

I doubt it but I don't really know. Have you tried playing the game as-is, in vanilla form? How did it go?

For a pretty barebones mod list you could conceivably go with just the 02-Extenders, 04-Foundation, and 09-Fixes groups of the STEP Guide, minus a few mods that should be removed either because they're only useful with other mods or because they're not "essential".

Anyhow, if I'm understanding correctly, your primary purpose for modding is to improve the performance of the base game? I'm aware of Free FPS, but it's not really a guide, more like a grab-bag collection of pointers to performance-improving mods, and of performance improvement tips, for users who like to build and optimize their modlist on their own.

1 hour ago, absentheverte said:

Also, if I can't figure out how to make the mods work, then can I just disable stuff with MO2 or do I need to delete everything and redownload the game?

No you don't need to delete or reinstall anything. You simply disable or re-enable stuff with MO2. You can also remove stuff from MO2 if it's no longer used and won't be used again (to free up disk space, otherwise your mods will keep piling up on your disk whether you use them or not). That's the beauty of mod managers, you can experiment as you wish and you can always go back to the base game state without reinstalling anything.

[absentheverte]

The vanilla game is totally fine for me; I haven't played other games contemporary with or more recent than Skyrim so I don't have very high expectations. I guess I was actually running it with Medium settings, and according to AMD it was averaging 20 FPS. Definitely a bit of lag during fights or when I would first enter a new city. I also can sometimes use the loading screen as an intermission. But I am still enjoying myself. Actually, the reason I was even looking at mod threads in the first place was to try to adopt kids in all of my houses. While looking into that, I got hopeful about improving performance and perhaps getting a better map or some other minor improvements. So, if I can get this color thing figured out, I will definitely take your recommendation and just stick with limited sections of STEP and try things from Free FPS.

I think that the settings in the INI file generated by BethINI are also only used if I run the game through MO2, since only uses the correct screen resolution in this case.

 

Here are my specs!

DxDiag.txt

[Mousetick]

About your specs:

* CPU: AMD A8-6410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics (4 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
* RAM: 6 GB DDR3
- 1 GB Reserved for GPU
- 2.5 GB Shared between GPU and OS
- 2.5 GB Reserved for OS (and apps)
* GPU: Integrated in CPU
* VRAM: None
* Display: 1366x768 (60Hz)
* Storage: Toshiba HDD 500 GB 5400 RPM

Even accounting for the much lower display resolution (1366x768) compared to standard 1920x1080, I'm not sure you can go any higher than Skyrim "low" and even then I have some doubts about sustained play due to heating/throttling, or memory usage and swapping to slow HDD.

6 hours ago, absentheverte said:

I think that the settings in the INI file generated by BethINI are also only used if I run the game through MO2, since only uses the correct screen resolution in this case.

That could be a factor in the weird color effect. Try copying the BethINI-generated INI files from your MO2 profile folder to the standard location (make a backup before overwriting), then run Skyrim directly (not through MO2).

Standard location for Skyrim INI files: Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition

[absentheverte]

So far, I have seen two cases. (1) Behaves as vanilla: correct colors, 1024xsomething resolution, windowed, with borders, window starts out with part of it off screen, and I drag it to be fully visible. (2) MO version: colors switched, 1366x768 resolution, windowed, borderless, aligned with screen.

Now, I ran skse64_loader.exe from the game root folder after pasting BethINI generated files into the folder you mentioned. This produced a combo of previous two cases: correct colors, 1366x768, but with borders, and (probably because of borders) shifted ~20 pixels to the left and downwards. So, it's not following all of BethINI's instructions, but it is the best case so far.

I also asked BethINI to revert to "Before BethINI" files, then launched SKSE from MO2; this resulted in Case (1) behavior.

[Mousetick]

6 hours ago, absentheverte said:

I also asked BethINI to revert to "Before BethINI" files, then launched SKSE from MO2; this resulted in Case (1) behavior.

That doesn't make sense to me, but ok.

Since you reverted your INIs used in MO2 to "Before BethINI", you'll need to re-apply the recommended settings from the STEP Guide, or restore from backup.

Once you're back to where you were before reverting to "Before BethINI", in other words, once you've restored to "after BethINI" , try the following in BethINI: uncheck 'Windowed Mode' on Basic tab to run the game in fullscreen mode. Then launch SKSE from MO2.

[absentheverte]

Ok, I did this and it did Case (2).

Then I tried pasting the same updated INI files into Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition and running skse64_loader.exe from the game root folder. This resulted in Case (2) as well --- what??? so is the color switch actually related to the positioning/resolution?

[Mousetick]

2 hours ago, absentheverte said:

what??? so is the color switch actually related to the positioning/resolution?

Possibly, but more importantly the last test puts MO2 out of the picture: it's not linked to the issue. 

Please post the SkyrimPrefs.ini created by BethINI and used in your last test. Also post SSEDisplayTweaks.ini (found inside SSE Display Tweaks mod folder). As attachments.

[absentheverte]

Ok, here they are!

SSEDisplayTweaks.ini SkyrimPrefs.ini

[DoubleYou]

Are there any INI files in your game Data folder (except for meta.ini)? If so, post them.

[Mousetick]

From now on, keep your BethINI INIs as they are, only edit SSEDisplayTweaks.ini manually in text editor, and always launch SKSE from MO2.

Test after each change (after each following line) and report results:

• Set Fullscreen=true.
• Set Fullscreen=false, Resolution=1366x768 (remove the # in front of #Resolution).
• Set Fullscreen=false, Resolution=1365x768.

[absentheverte]

58 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

Are there any INI files in your game Data folder (except for meta.ini)? If so, post them.

Nope - actually, there is no meta.ini, either. But there is a 'Skyrim' folder in the game root folder with only a 'SkyrimPrefs.ini' inside. Should I post that?

57 minutes ago, Mousetick said:

From now on, keep your BethINI INIs as they are, only edit SSEDisplayTweaks.ini manually in text editor, and always launch SKSE from MO2.

Test after each change (after each following line) and report results:

• Set Fullscreen=true.
• Set Fullscreen=false, Resolution=1366x768 (remove the # in front of #Resolution).
• Set Fullscreen=false, Resolution=1365x768.

Interesting! The first two options gave me Case (2) and the third option looked completely perfect, other than missing a single column of pixels. Well, I still don't understand why this would have anything to do with switching colors, but I am happy to stick with the third option.

[DoubleYou]

This sounds like a very specific and strange hardware issue to me then. I would suggest you test if adding BorderlessUpscale=True to your SSE Display Tweaks ini and see if that eliminates that single line of pixels.