PSA Washed out Graphics Fix

[Krythic]

Played this game for 145 hours, and only just now realized that I was playing the game with washed out graphics. Always sort of thought that the game looked a little bland, perhaps a persistent lighting bug or something. Nope. It's evidently just a bug with running the game in full screen. If you run the game in borderless windowed it fixes the washed out graphics completely.

Once more...I played the game for 145 hours before realizing this today. So that's great. I have that going for me now as a thing that happened.

Just wanted to post this for anyone else. Just set your game to borderless windowed to fix the graphics. It really is that simple.

[Bullett00th]

Just tested it and both look identical. Might be some filter going on with your machine perhaps?
Can you post screenshots?

[Krythic]

Originally posted by Bullett00th:

Just tested it and both look identical. Might be some filter going on with your machine perhaps?
Can you post screenshots?

Just tried, both screengrabs look completely identical, so I can't provide evidence, despite the fact that one of them is completely washed out while taking a screen grab. Screenshot does not show the washed out effect.

I have an RTX 3070, btw.

[󠁳]

Originally posted by Krythic:

Originally posted by Bullett00th:

Just tested it and both look identical. Might be some filter going on with your machine perhaps?
Can you post screenshots?

Just tried, both screengrabs look completely identical, so I can't provide evidence, despite the fact that one of them is completely washed out while taking a screen grab. Screenshot does not show the washed out effect.

I have an RTX 3070, btw.

i know exactly what you are talking about
a lot of the games i have played over the years would go from normal looking to "wow it should look like THIS??" if i go from my 1080p monitor to my 4k monitor, the colors and dynamic range would be so much better, even if i use 1440p but if i go back to 1080p it looks washed out
i've also noticed some games do it when going fullscreen like you say, like windows assigns the wrong gamma mode/value to fullscreen applications

[Amanita]

HDR messes up on windows sometimes. I have it off.

[Bullett00th]

Originally posted by Krythic:

Originally posted by Bullett00th:

Just tested it and both look identical. Might be some filter going on with your machine perhaps?
Can you post screenshots?

Just tried, both screengrabs look completely identical, so I can't provide evidence, despite the fact that one of them is completely washed out while taking a screen grab. Screenshot does not show the washed out effect.

I have an RTX 3070, btw.

yeah might be HDR acting up

[Krythic]

Originally posted by Bullett00th:

Originally posted by Krythic:

Just tried, both screengrabs look completely identical, so I can't provide evidence, despite the fact that one of them is completely washed out while taking a screen grab. Screenshot does not show the washed out effect.

I have an RTX 3070, btw.

yeah might be HDR acting up

I don't have an HDR monitor, and the option is greyed out for me in the elden ring settings.

[ReDsKuLL]

I would expect, if it's not showing in screenshots, it wouldn't be the game. I'm no software or hardware expert (not by a longshot), but I suspect it's your monitor from basic logic. Screenshots capture the actual program, your monitor displays it according to the monitor's own settings and hardware (Or at least I assume as much). If you have something else to plug your machine into, check that. If it still happens I have no clue why. If it doesn't get washed out, try looking through your monitor's own settings, I guess.

Also I don't know why borderless windowed would affect that...

[Krythic]

Originally posted by ReDsKuLL:

I would expect, if it's not showing in screenshots, it wouldn't be the game. I'm no software or hardware expert (not by a longshot), but I suspect it's your monitor from basic logic. Screenshots capture the actual program, your monitor displays it according to the monitor's own settings and hardware (Or at least I assume as much). If you have something else to plug your machine into, check that. If it still happens I have no clue why. If it doesn't get washed out, try looking through your monitor's own settings, I guess.

Also I don't know why borderless windowed would affect that...

If you look online "Elden Ring Washed Out Graphics", other people say that windowed fullscreen fixes the issue as well. It's not just me.

[Mitsu]

I know it's an old topic but it is true on my PC too, fullscreen gets the screen with washed colors while borderless show the "true" colors. I use a 75hz IPS monitor.

[Krythic]

Originally posted by Mitsu:

I know it's an old topic but it is true on my PC too, fullscreen gets the screen with washed colors while borderless show the "true" colors. I use a 75hz IPS monitor.

It's weird they haven't fixed this bug yet.

[vitoxzyy]

Guys, this forum helped me, I hope it solves your problem
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/t3swp8/if_your_game_looks_washed_out_non_hdr_nvidia_try/

[Meeporized]

Originally posted by Krythic:

Originally posted by Mitsu:

I know it's an old topic but it is true on my PC too, fullscreen gets the screen with washed colors while borderless show the "true" colors. I use a 75hz IPS monitor.

It's weird they haven't fixed this bug yet.

Same here. I looked that up when the game was released. Found no solution. Picked the game up a month or two ago. Still the same problem. FROM isnt good at troubleshooting these kind of things in all of their games. Same goes for controller support or microstutter issues.

Best solution? Play without HDR. The game looks identical without HDR from my pov.

I have the same issue with a completely different PC Setup.
Since its the only game where HDR isnt working for me i dont care. Same goes for microstutter. I am so glad i found Processlasso to fix that ♥♥♥♥ for me with the E-Core problem and their stupid silly Anticheat system.

[Pacino]

Had that issue earlier, for whatever reason my HDR was broken. Ended up rebooting my PC and then immediately running the game before Windows could finish it's full start up routine. Definitely annoying. I remember Armoured Core 6 being iffy with HDR as well.

[Kaim Argonar]

Thanks so much man, it worked