With update 7.2.1, many players playing on “Low” graphics settings have reported the graphics looking wrong – either too dark, too shiny, or otherwise broken or wrong. While we don’t have any verified fixes yet, here’s some things you can try and some information about the bug. It only seems to happen to players who are on the lowest graphics settings, and who were likely playing on “Very Low” before the update.
Contents
What does the Low Graphics bug look like?
“Since they took my low graphics options away, they don’t seem like the same graphics – everything looks dark and shiny wet like I live underwater now.”
“Yeah, I’m not having fun playing. I was doing FP yesterday and it was dark. My eyes hurt after 1 and I needed to do 2. I hope they do something quickly or I won’t be able to play.”
All my graphics were dark/shiny/messed up when the update first dropped, but changing my graphics up and back down fixed it.”
How to Fix the Low Graphics Bug
Unfortunately this issue has not yet been officially addressed by the Developers, so we only have player suggestions. The best ones I have seen so far involved trying to edit the .ini file. I have not tested this myself and can not guarantee it will work for you.
.ini Settings File Fix
You will you need to edit your game’s setting file on your computer while the game is shut down.
The hard part is finding that file. To locate it, you’ll need to open your File Explorer, and find the drive your game is saved to, this is usually the C: drive which you can click on the left side of the screen. The second step is to find the Users folder, and from there choose the folder of your account on your computer.
Third is to open your AppData folder – if you can not see the AppData folder, it may be hidden, so to show hidden folders you need to click the “View” tab on the top left of the File Explorer, and check the checkbox that says “Hidden items” on the right.
From the AppData folder, you follow a set path: Local > SWTOR > swtor > settings.
C:\Users\SWTORISTA\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings
You’re looking for a specific file in here, and if you have a lot of characters there may be a ton of files in this folder. The one you are looking for has your SWTOR account name – the one you log in with, followed by the word _Account.ini. So mine would look like swtorista_account.ini. If you double-click this file, it should hopefully open up as a text document automatically – if it doesn’t, right-click the file and choose “Open with” and choose “Notepad” from the list or “Choose another app” and find “Notepad” if it’s not on the little right-click dropdown.
Once it’s open, you’ll be able to see it’s just a little settings file, nothing too scary to edit.
You will be completely REPLACING the text in this file with the suggested settings by olagatonjedi on the forums.
[Renderer] AntiAliasingLevel = 0
AtlasQuality = 1
Buckets = 5
DYDDrawDistancePreset = 0
EnableSSAO = false
GraphicsDeviceId = 7200
GraphicsQuality = 0
Height = 1080
MeshLODQuality = 0
NativeHeight = 1080
NativeWidth = 1920
ShadowMapNumCascades = 4
ShadowMapResolution = 1024
SpeedTreeDistanceScale = 1.25
TextureAnisotropy = 1
Width = 1920
AllowColorRemapping = false
AllowDepthOfField = false
doBlobShadows = false
doShadows = false
EnableBloom = false
FxLightsLimit = 0
PlantDensity = 0
RefreshRate = 95
ShaderSet = 1
StaticLightsLimit = 1
TextureQuality = 4
WindowX = 0
WindowY = 0
CodeVersionChanged = false
LastCodeVersionRun = 2
NewBucket = 5
AmbientNPCCount = 15
DebugAdvEnviroLighting = false
DynamicLightsLimit = 0
EnableAdvEnviroLighting = false
EnableDistortion = false
FarClipScale = 0.1371195
LightEnvironmentShadows = false
UseMinSpecShaders = true
VerticalSyncState = false
doOmniShadows = false
HighShadowResolution = false
EnableHighShadowResolution = false
shadowQuality = 0
EnableDynamicShadowFiltering = false
DynamicShadowFiltering = false
EnableZPrepass = false
EnableAccumTrails = false
Save the file and close it.
A very important step, after you save and close, you need to right-click the .ini settings folder and choose “Properties”.
In this pop-up window, check the checkbox beside “Read-only”, or the game will try and re-write your new settings file.
Then cross your fingers and try launching the game and see if it works. That’s all I have for advice right now and can’t really test it myself!
I saw another player also say, “I fiddled with my monitor settings a bit and it’s looking far better now, thankfully.”
“Caused me to go back into the Radeon app to put the Contrast back to its default.”
If the ‘no shader’s look is something you can live with, and you want the lights, then here’s how to do it:
1. make a clean client settings (delete everything in the folder if you have changed anything), and use the in-game settings to put your graphics where you want them (low, high, custom,)
2. in the client settings
a. change ShaderSet =0 to ShaderSet = 1
b. add UseMinSpecShaders = True
3. adjust your monitor settings, ironically the no shaders makes some things too bright for me. I found just putting the colour setting to ‘warm’ (my monitor has a ‘night light’ setting that does that automatically) was all I needed to do.
thread by LD_Little_Dragon: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/928581-ultra-low-settings-aka-turn-the-lights-on/
Threads
- Big thread: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/928251-i-want-my-very-low-graphics-settings-back/
- another thread: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/928581-ultra-low-settings-aka-turn-the-lights-on/?do=findComment&comment=9750449
- possibly related: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/926969-low-gamma-when-using-fullscreen-windowed/?do=findComment&comment=9736371
- reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/1290rmd/are_the_developers_paying_attention/ (comments too)
- reddit 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/1257tlf/someone_turned_off_the_lights/
- reddit 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/1250l7w/custom_graphics_ini_tweaks/
- reddit 4: https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/126kif0/retuned_my_swtor_graphic_settings_after_patch_v721/ (comments)
- reddit 5 (unsure if related): https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/1268ftw/graphics_issues_crashing/
Others Technical Bugs
Empty SWTOR Server List Fix – “Unable to retrieve server list.”