Conan exiles - Steam - Single player - PVE - Laptop/PC - Performance/Graphics issue
Description of the bug: During character creation and gameplay I can not see the characters and any details related to animals etc. Everything is surrounded by a green, glowing blur. Everybody is like a neon glowstick that emanates light. Landscape is suffering too but in smaller rate. I have screens taken that I can show but I am a new user and forum does not allow me to. I just installed the game and wanted to try it out. What I tried to do to avert the problem: I played with decrasing the graphic demands, switched window/fullscreen mode settings - nothing helps. Tried also disabling any bloom effects - nope. Nothing. All other games are running smooth. My Laptop is new and top notch: MSI Vector 17 HX A13VIG, Win11 Home 64x 24H4, Proc. 13th gen Intel i9-13980HX, RAM 32GB, Graphics Card: Nividia Gforce RTX 4090. 17’3 inch monitor resolution (2560x1600). Reinstalling the game didn’t help. File validity check neither - all good.
What did i do previously? - Nothing. Just installed the game after freshly buying it from Steam and installed it (no DLC’s, no mods). That thing was like that from the start of the gameplay. I plan to return it if this persists. The problem was present with and without the Battleye. Maybe my PC is to new? All other games like Stellaris, Hogwarts Legacy, Bus/Farm SImulators, No Man Sky run smoothly.
Nobody can help you without pictures as your description could be just different than somebody elses..
Click around a couple of threads and scroll through them, once you “read” like 5 threads the system will automatically promote your account so you can upload pictures.
The only idea I have right now is that maybe you have the new Windows feature → Auto HDR turned on, which causes issues with this game, but that effect looks completely different than what you described, it’s just extremely oversaturated regardless if it’s living things or not.
Any Ideas? I will search for this Auto HDR in the meantime.
Edit: I pressed Win+Alt+B and Game Bar says my Win 11 does not support HDR - didn’t work… Am I missing something? I went to Settings>System>Display & Graphics… could not find any additional option but HDR is there for video purposes & calibration, In graphics I don’t see anything related. Any ideas?
Yea, those effects are not related to the HDR setting, you seem to have some weird global illumination thing going on…
What you should try is verify the integrity of game files (Steam → game properties → installed files → verify integrity button.
Also make sure that your graphics driver is up to date and properly installed (as in, it’s not some auto-detected windows installed version, but you actually downloaded the proper ones off the nvidia website)
You should also lock your FPS to some value below 100 (game has issues above those values, thou mostly physics related) the game only has fps lock settings in increments of 30-60 so if you want a more fine-tuned value above 60, you can do this in your nvidia app for example or config file (ConanSandbox\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\Game.ini → add maxFPS=90 for example under [Settings.Video])
Now, based on your pictures I’m thinking it’s actually caused by some corrupted game files, so verifying the files might fix it, but otherwise these types of effects can also happen when the GPU has issues (as in, either defects or driver problems, so the diver update might help). But if nothing works, don’t panic, double-check all the software you have running on the laptop… they often come bundled with a ton of weird software that’s doing all sorts of weird things, so look at all the tiny icons on your system tray near the clock and see if you by some chance have a “turn conan green” program running (or something that has a very fancy name and this is just the side-effect lol)
doesn’t mean anything, file validity checks can suddenly find corrupted files on the third run that they somehow missed on the first
And “these other games run fine” is never a valid argument as different games use different features.. it’s literally the most irritating thing people do in these cases.. assume that somehow because some other games run the issue is not on their system and stop putting an effort into looking I could’ve very easily said the same thing “My conan is not green, so the game is fine”
Anyway, back on the topic OP, I do have an idea you could try You could try with the -dx11 launch option. Just put that in the launch options box on the game properties in steam.
More shenanigans from the cursed sorcerers who blight the lands..
Or Conan went nuclear on the picts.
Or maybe it’s a new crossover. Conan the incredibly barbaric hulk.
Eh. Why is it when the hulk flies into a rage and smashes things he’s incredible but when I do it I’m an alcoholic…
The only thing I can suggest is resetting video options to default to see what happens then adjust from there if it gets rid of the glow. Never had this happen myself.
This completely unproductive post brought to you by Raeil Inc. Contributing nothing since 1918.
-dx11 in many variants, even -skip-launcher in the game properties on steam,
I have force updated Nvidia RTX 4090 for Laptops driver to 572.83 version from 18.03.2025 from Nvidia webpage compatible with my Win11.
I have caped FPS in the game to 60 and additionally by RivaTunerStatisticServer also to 60.
I have verified game files 3x already.
I’m now rethinking my entire life choices… What could do it… some feature in the game? Somewhere else? Some program? But why targeting precisely this game only. Hmmmmm… I need to sleep on this…
I had a similar experience with weird visual glitches in another game, and in the end it turned out to be a strange interaction between the graphics drivers and some factory-installed “enhancement” software running in the background. Given how thorough you have been — trying updated drivers, file verification, FPS caps, and even launch options — I wonder if a complete clean driver installation with DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) could help. Sometimes leftover settings from previous drivers can cause issues even on brand new laptops.
Win11 is part of the solution. Win10 would have leftovers of failed installations. Upgrading win10 was blocked, but the error codes don’t say that. Some confusion, it is.
(or something that has a very fancy name and this is just the side-effect lol)
You could try with the