can't take screenshots and steam overlay is super bright[SOLUTION]

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Solution at the end of the post:

Ok, so it's basicaly what the title says. The built-in screenshot steam feature does not work for me and a lot of folks. At first we thought is was an issue with the HDR, but even after the last patch that allows us to turn HDR off, we can't still take screenshots. The steam overlay is working, but the screenshot key simply does not register, even after remmaping it. Also the steam overlay is super bright, like if the brightness would have been bumped a 300% up, and it's only in this game.

I'm openning this thread to see how many people more has the same issue. Post here if you have the issue, and also if anyone has a workaround for this, please share your thoughts.

At 35 seconds of this video, you can see the issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UDM602KMUk

link to the other threads, if that helps:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/418370/discussions/4/133255603282936460/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/418370/discussions/4/141136086937660090/

http://steamcommunity.com/app/418370/discussions/0/141136086937358866/

EDIT: I forgot to ask: do you all have nvidia GPU (maswell2 or pascal)? 'Cos I think it may have something to do with the nvidia HDR API layer that they are using. It seems people with non-HDR capable nvidia gpu or AMD cards does not suffer with this issue. Confirmation is needed.

EDIT2: Bingo! I found it. It's indeed the NVAPI HDR implementation by nvidia thats causing this nasty bug. I installed the oldest driver my Titan X supports, driver 347.88, that driver was before the NVAPI HDR implementation, and BAM! Screenshot works out of the box, and the steam overlay is not super bright.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=855575949

Now I need a little help with this because I never reported a bug to nvidia, so I don't have a clue to where to start from.

EDIT3: OK, so it took me sometime but I found the latest working drive for screenshots to work. It happens to be the last driver before the HDR support was first added. Driver 358.50. Any driver after that and you have steam overlay super bright issue. With 358.50 you don't have HDR support. So it's clearly something with the HDR NVAPI implementation that gone wrong down the road.

Trouble is that it just happens with this game and ONLY this game. I've tested other games that has HDR support via Nvidia NVAPI: Obduction and Shadow Warrior 2. And there is no issue at all either with steam overlay or the screenshot feature if you disable HDR. Of course if you want proper HDR support for those games, you MUST use the proper drivers, as NVAPI HDR calls in driver 358.87 are incomplete and offer broken HDR effect on those games. But the fact that you can't take screenshots in RE7 with any driver above 358.50 shows clearly an issue with the HDR implementation. It doesn't affect GPUs that lack HDR support, like AMD gpus and any nvidia gpu below GTX960. And it affects windows 7, 8.1 and 10.

In other words: it's probably a bug in the Resident Evil 7 HDR implementation and NVAPI HDR calls.

EDIT4: Solution

Solution: just install driver Nvidia 381.65 or below 384.94 and you're good to go. You can take screenshots and the brightness is OK. But no HDR though. Its the driver with the windows creators update support, but as it was bugged, the HDR can't be turned on by the game. In other words, you can play the game without HDR and you're able to take screenshots, no matter if your screen has HDR support or not.

[Ludus Aurea]

"Why would it do?"

It does resolve the issue. Reformat your drive and reinstall your drivers and the game, you win. Reinstalling always fixes the issue. Every issue that isn't caused by hardware. We call it nuking in the business for a reason. You don't even have to actually reformat if you are on Win 10, just use the Settings > Recovery > Reset this PC option and you lose nothing but programs all of which y ou can reinstall in no time.

The nvapi is not broken and there is no HDR problem as we originally thought. I'm the person who originally reported this issue. I'm telling you that I fixed it, you can see as much from the fact that I've since uploaded screenshots of the game.

[v00d00m4n]

There is another way - if NVAPI causing this, you can try to use 3D migoto which comes with custom NVAPI dll, is its aint support HDR, i suppose game will refuse to turn it on completely, or we can request 3D migoto devs to make a fix for HDR and add some flag into ini to enable or disable it.

[Glori4n]

Hello,

Sorry for necroing this post, but recently I've had the same problem, after reading through this thread I had an idea of simply disabling HDR if its what causing the issue, and it worked.

Go to the NVIDIA Control Panel->change resolution:

• Use NVIDIA COLOR SETTINGS
  
• Output color depth to 8 bpc
  
• Output color format set to yCbCr422
  
• Output dynamic range shoud be limited

Enjoy.