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Starfield Screensaver

I upgraded my monitor to one with HDR and there is an issue with Starfield unfortunately:
After you go back to the desktop the screen is now dark, as if the gamma has been turned way down.
I have to go into screen settings and turn HDR off, and then back on again to get my screen to go back to the former brightness levels.
As you may guess, having to do this every time Starfield kicks on gets to be a problem after a while.
It is the only screensaver that does this unfortunately. The 3D accelerated screensavers in Windows 11 do not have the issue for example.
I tried “fixing” it with my Nvidia card settings, toggling “RTX HDR” on for all applications but it did not have any effect.
I also tried to manually add the program to the listings but it only does .exe apps and doesn’t see .scr apps.
It's my favorite screensaver of all time and kills me to not to have to use it as a "fix" for this issue.

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PeterTHX3 weeks agoWindows 10 x64, Google Chrome


3 replies

  • Hi Peter,

    Yeah, that sounds frustrating! And difficult to fix, given that we can't change the original screensaver. Some technical workarounds are imaginable, e.g. a script that turns off HDR, runs the screensaver, and then turns HDR on again, but that's going to get a little clunky. I don't have an HDR monitor to test that with, unfortunately.

    Have you tried any of the other starfield screensavers on the site?

    Rob (Screensavers Planet)3 weeks ago

  • I got some help from the author and there's an OpenGL fix.
    "NVIDIA Control Panel -> Manage 3D Settings -> Vulkan/OpenGL Present Method -> Prefer layered on DXGI swapchain"
    This worked. I have to check to see if it "broke" anything on any other apps but I can now leave the screensaver on without having to change things.
    I did try some other starfield screen savers but I still love this one the most. :)

    PeterTHX2 weeks ago

  • Terrific! This is good to know, thanks for reporting back with the solution.

    Rob (Screensavers Planet)2 weeks ago

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