NVidia Control Panel resets color settings (and only color settings) on each boot after driver update

[Onasi]

Hello, TPU community! After being an avid reader for more than a decade I finally decided to make a forum account now that I have run into an issue that, frankly, stumps me.

A day ago, I decided to update the driver for my venerable 1070 from the 528 branch (still waiting for a decent upgrade option that doesn't cost a kidney) and went through my usual process - NVcleanstall, latest driver, just the GPU driver+PhysX and no complex tweaks apart from no ads and telemetry in installer and MSI mode. Clean install in the NVidia setup itself. All went well. No issues with the update. The interesting thing started to happen when I rebooted and went into the NVCP itself. All settings (resolution, GSync, 3D settings) applied and saved just fine. However, the setting in color management which I make quite a lot of use of "Override to Reference mode" applies in the OS just fine... but when I shut down my PC and then couple of hours later booted up again and checked on a whim (a little OCD of me, but oh well) the setting reset. Only this setting, nothing else. I started digging. On the reset from OS the setting DID remain applied. However, on a cold boot (so after shut down) it reset again.

Alright, I thought, maybe the driver is messed up a bit. Went to the thread for the latest release on Reddit and sure enough, 546.17 and overall the entire 545 branch is plagued with issues and most people consider that 537.58 is the latest "stable" version. Fair enough. I decided to do a clean install. Usual steps were applied, so NVCleanstall to download and create a package of 537.58 with the same parameters and tweaks as described above, remove the Ethernet cable, boot into Safe Mode, DDU to clean up, boot into normal Windows 11, setup the driver from the package, done. Again, all is fine... but the color settings still reset. Moreover, now the behaviour changed slightly and it resets on EVERY boot, even on reset from OS, not just from shut down.

I tried both of the potential solutions floating around the web:
1. Turning off the Windows Color Management from Task Scheduler. That did not solve it.
2. Turning off Windows Calibration in Color Management System Defaults. It was already off and so re-checking it and un-checking did not do anything.

Frankly, I am at a loss. I have no idea what can cause this behaviour. The setting in the old driver worked just fine, but it should be noted that I have turned it on when I installed it (early summer, I believe) and never switched it back and forth again. Since then, 23H2 update rolled out and I have my suspicion that it may have something to do with it. After all, MS allegedly added the ACM (Automatic Color Management) to the OS with it. It isn't active on my system, there is no toggle for it in the Advanced Display settings, so I am not sure if that's the case, but I would not put it past MS to somehow still override other color controls even when ACM is not in play.
Anyway, I would love to hear any suggestions on how it may be fixed and to hear from other NV users on 23H2 if their system displays similar behaviour just to compare notes. My specs are in the profile and the Win11 is on the latest stable branch build 22631.2715.

 

[nomdeplume]

23H2 update rolled out and I have my suspicion that it may have something to do with it.

Keep typing your thoughts and I bet you corner the issue here.

 

[Onasi]

Well, since I was encouraged to post my thoughts further I will do so. In fact, I managed to fix the issue, but the way it worked out is so unintuitive that I feel compelled to leave the whole process here just in case someone runs into a similar issue. It truly was a fell task, honestly.

So after my OP post i started trying more stuff. In order:

1) Tried to see whether Windows itself was corrupted somehow. Ran SFC and DISM, but no dice. No integrity violations and the component store was fine.

2) Messed around with Color Management and its tasks again. No combination of settings led anywhere.

3) Decided to follow my hunch and research ACM. Studied the devblog post from MS on it and, honestly, it was clear as mud. The only potential variable that was user controlled that they had provided was a registry key, but that was for the prerelease version of the feature to enable it on dev builds. Obviously, no such key existed on my up to date 23H2 build. In fact, through all my scouring through both the registry and Group Policies I was unable to find anything resembling a switch for the control of the feature. It’s not clear to me how exactly does MS control its deployment.
In fact, let me go on a bit of a tangent here. As I mentioned before, ACM doesn’t SEEM to be active on my installation. There is no toggle for it in the Advanced Display settings. Now this is interesting since, according to MS, my system DOES in fact fall under its requirements. Which are WDDM 3.0 (check), Pascal and newer on NV side (uh-huh), An SDR 8-bit panel at a minimum (yup). All the necessary components are in place, yet the feature is inactive. Which, unless we are dealing with Google-style A/B testing from MS and the feature isn’t ACTUALLY rolled out to all 23H2 installations for now, means that MS isn’t actually being fully forthcoming about the real requirements for this thing to work. This suspicion is fully confirmed by me running a DxDiag and looking through full results. In there there is a variable under Display called “Advanced Color” which on my system is shown as unsupported. Now I remember in 10 there was a setting called “HDR and Advanced Color” which controlled, well, HDR. But in 11 it seems that HDR is being controlled through the system in another way and DxDiag kinda supports it seeing as HDR entry is separate. So what is Advanced Color then? Wide gamut? Not sure. May it be this variable that system is basing whether or not ACM is active? Who knows. After looking through various topics on the web, there are plenty of people with simple 8-bit SDR panels who DID get the feature and plenty still with full fat HDR capable ones who did not. As usual, the whole Windows Color system continues to be a mess.

Anyway, after that brief tangent… I did mention that I solved the issue. What ended up happening was me getting completely stumped and, in a fit of desperation, just decided to roll the dice on an unlikely scenario that something got stuck in a myriad of background tasks Windows so loves to run. So I opened a CMD and ran the old reliable - "rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks & pause". Without quotes, obviously. What this does is force Windows to go through all of its scheduled BS. Takes a bit, around 15 minutes on my system, you’ll know when it’s done when Task Manager goes back to 0% CPU usage from thrashing Core 0 with System process. So I ran it, not hoping for much, checked my NV settings AGAIN and shut down the PC.

Next day, I turn the machine back on and, to my surprise, everything works. The settings in the CP applied and did not reset. I rebooted to check and all still was fine. Now, a change in behavior that I did observe was the following - before the whole issue when all was working well my display flickered twice on the login screen. I assume that was first Windows applying its nonexistent color settings and then NV doing its thing. Now though, on the login there is only one flicker and THEN there is a second after sign in on the desktop itself. Not sure why, but I assume either MS or NV changed something in how the settings apply and this change wasn’t processed by the system properly either after Windows or Driver update until I ran my commands? Feels a bit janky, but… Who even knows at this point. Hopefully it will continue working without issues.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yeah windows is taking over control of many aspects of gpu preferences and not giving anything but use gaming mode as the replacement
A sad day indeed saw most of this with my laptop I usually always even on desktop switch to best quality in nvcp but not sure it does anything there or switching to best performance anymore.