Faded colors, Color Settings not working

[GeneticResearch]

Hi,
few days after the Windows 11 update colors faded out and change the color settings in wallpaper engine to fix it for myself did not work.

This problem affect only all wallpaper engine videos (own and other ones) aswell the colors in windows media player for any reason.
System colors, the VLC player colors or the colors of a black test picture works correctly.

Issue is present if Windows HDR mode is on but not if Windows HDR mode is off. I use HDR and Wallpaper Engine since years and had never a problem with them together.

Support is contacted with the issue report aswell screenshots as examples and for comparison.

Comment here is to look if other ones have the same issues and found a solution.

[Tim]

I'll just reply here instead of your email:

Do a clean reinstallation or a reset of your drivers and your issue should be fixed:

https://help.wallpaperengine.io/videos/artifacts.html

[GeneticResearch]

İlk olarak Tim tarafından gönderildi:

I'll just reply here instead of your email:

Do a clean reinstallation or a reset of your drivers and your issue should be fixed:

https://help.wallpaperengine.io/videos/artifacts.html

No its not be fixed. None of both issues. Had made a clean deinstallation of the graphics driver with Amd Cleanup Utility and reinstall the newest driver.

What i had also tested before i reinstalled the graphics driver are the simple black test picture (which you see in one of the screnshots) set as wallpaper with wallpaper engine which shows correctly. So the issue affect only animated video wallpaper in wallpaper engine and the windows media player.

[Tim]

Wallpaper engine basically uses Windows Media Player under the hood to render videos. Videos in Windows Media Player are rendered through your graphics card (unlike VLC for example, which uses your processor), so whenever something looks wrong, it means your graphics card is rendering the video wrong. If you did a full reset and it is still not fixed, the only thing I could potentially imagine here is that you might have installed a display color profile or something like that which Windows uses on video files. Either way, this is the direction you should be looking at. Without exaggeration, you are the first person that I can remember that was unable to solve this with a clean reinstallation of their drivers, so I suspect there must be something specific to your graphics card or display setup that is causing this.

[Biohazard]

The fact that the color settings don't have any effect means that the system or driver must be overriding them. These settings are provided by the video decoder of your GPU so there is only one set of settings and they are likely not at their defaults which is the reason why it looks faded out.

When this is done in the Nvidia driver, the clean installation checkbox will reset these settings but maybe this isn't working for AMD. So try to find any video related settings in the AMD driver directly and disable/reset them.

If you disable HDR, do these settings work again then as well? That would be very odd since they should be the same settings in the driver independent from HDR being enabled or not. If this is really what is happening then this problem is probably on AMDs' end and not Microsofts'.

[GeneticResearch]

İlk olarak Tim tarafından gönderildi:

Wallpaper engine basically uses Windows Media Player under the hood to render videos. Videos in Windows Media Player are rendered through your graphics card (unlike VLC for example, which uses your processor), so whenever something looks wrong, it means your graphics card is rendering the video wrong. If you did a full reset and it is still not fixed, the only thing I could potentially imagine here is that you might have installed a display color profile or something like that which Windows uses on video files. Either way, this is the direction you should be looking at. Without exaggeration, you are the first person that I can remember that was unable to solve this with a clean reinstallation of their drivers, so I suspect there must be something specific to your graphics card or display setup that is causing this.

İlk olarak Biohazard tarafından gönderildi:

The fact that the color settings don't have any effect means that the system or driver must be overriding them. These settings are provided by the video decoder of your GPU so there is only one set of settings and they are likely not at their defaults which is the reason why it looks faded out.

When this is done in the Nvidia driver, the clean installation checkbox will reset these settings but maybe this isn't working for AMD. So try to find any video related settings in the AMD driver directly and disable/reset them.

If you disable HDR, do these settings work again then as well? That would be very odd since they should be the same settings in the driver independent from HDR being enabled or not. If this is really what is happening then this problem is probably on AMDs' end and not Microsofts'.

Thanks for explaination from both of you. Because of it i had compared this time without HDR both screens with Windows Media Player and VLC Player and you are right it has also a difference in the black level which i had no seen because no comparison and much darker and vibrant level with HDR off.
I had also already invest lot of time for research and testing different settings in the Radeon Software, Windows settings and screen calibration options but never find a solution except lower brightness and increase contrast which also change HDR graphics if HDR is on.

I will further research in directions you called and hope that i find the solution there. Otherwise its is maybe a driver problem which happens because AMD is already not up to date with the new Windows 11. It will be not the first time.

I ask you to leave the thread open and not mark it as solved, so that other users who have the same problem are more likely to find a solution than me.

[GeneticResearch]

Have found the issue for the not changeable color settings in wallpaper engine. It was the changed video profile in the Radeon Software which override values in the Wallpaper Engine color options. It was set to luminous instead of standard or custom. It can be found in the Radeon Software under Settings (right upper corner) - Video - Videoprofil.

I haven't figured out yet whats the main problem with faded colors but with the working color options i have a workaround which only affect Wallpaper Engine graphics and not the others which are working. For Windows Media Player i have the VLC Player as workaround.

Thats helpfull until i find the solution for the main problem or AMD fix it with a new driver.