Update 8/25/2016: Added pages on Finding Trade Posts, Sentinels and Wanted Level, in addition to Shielding, Power, and Unstable Plasma Items. Also see my guide to Making Money in No Man's Sky for some tips on the best methods for earning cash, what crafting items are most profitable, and a list of all resources in the game.
No Man's Sky: Graphics
Fixing Flickering and Other Graphics Setting Problems
No Man's Sky may require some effort for it to run properly on PC.
Starting my first game of No Man's Sky was a chore, so I decided to share the things that I tried before finally getting it to work in both fullscreen (at least a resemblance to it) and without flickering. I could not have both. I wanted away from the windowed mode the game defaulted to. When I changed that, I experienced flickering like I'd never seen in such an expensive game.
Once that was fixed, I had to get over the hurdles of stuttering while playing the game. For some players the stuttering may work itself out after playing for a time as it evidently has something to do with shader caches (and will be fixed in a patch).
Stuck on Start Screen: Press and Hold E - a lot of people get stuck sitting on the loading screen, being expected to press and hold 'E' at time of release and do not realize it.
Can't Change Graphics Settings
First, know that changing graphics settings requires you to hold the mouse button down while hovering over the option you want to change. The game will require a restart. This is where you may run into trouble if you're unlucky.
Graphics Settings are found in the No Man's Sky/Binaries/Settings folder. Look for the TKGRAPHICSSETTINGS.MXML file
If you Can't Get In Game to Change Graphics Settings
You should find your game in the /steamapps/common/No Man's Sky/Binaries/SETTINGS/ folder where you installed the game. In there, is one with 'Graphics' in the name. Edit this with a text editor.
The flickering issue I had when switching to fullscreen or borderless windowed mode made the game impossible to play. Some players report fixing it by removing the steam overlay.
Flickering
Fullscreen and borderless window both caused flickering for me, so I ultimately had to find a workaround. I tried several things before finally fixing my flicker issue, though the game settings matched my desktop resolution:
- Change Resolution - Setting the game's resolution to something different from my desktop default was what fixed the flickering issue for me and allowed me to play fullscreen. If you're set at 1920x1080 and your monitor supports it, you could try 2560 and 1440 in width and height. If your monitor doesn't support 1440p, 1280 x 720 may work until a patch that fixes the flickering issue comes along, though it certainly would suck to resort to that. Find your monitor's supported resolutions that are in the correct aspect ratio.
- Steam Overlay - Some players report issues with the steam overlay. Go to steam > settings > In-game and untick show steam overlay while in-game.
- Vsync/Gsync - in the settings file I mentioned, you may be able to turn these off (write false) and fix the issue.
- Fullscreen/Borderless - Setting fullscreen to false and borderless to true would give you a windowed borderless mode.
- Increase Framerate - Don't do this with flickering issues, as it'll just flicker faster and cause a potential headache. When you're done, you can set the max framerate to something much higher than the default 30 FPS.
Fixing Stuttering
Many players report issues with stuttering in No Man's Sky, despite their PC being up to spec. The usual ensure your drivers up to date doesn't work for everyone, so you may have to play around with settings. Borderless window mode works for a lot of people to reduce stuttering, assuming you can get it to work without flickering!
Try also going into your graphics card's control panel and the 3d settings. From there you can try setting vsync to adaptive. It may also help to use triple buffering, but your results may vary.
If none of this works for you, consider checking out this post on reddit where users have written a lot about problems and what settings worked for them..
I know these things will not fix every issue for every player but I hope it helps a few people to get started playing No Man's Sky.
Other No Man's Sky Guides
- Guide to Ships in No Man's Sky
- Making Money & Crafting for Profit in No Man's Sky
- Walkthrough Part 1: Leaving first Planet
- Walkthrough Part 2: Warp Drive
- AtlasPass V1 & Anomalies
- Finding AtlasPass V2 and V3
- Discovering Plants an Animals (Scanning)
- Antimatter
- Adding Inventory Slots
- How to Buy Better Ships
- Signal Scanners, Monoliths, Outposts, and Crashed Ships
- Best Elements to Recharge Gear
- Multi-tool and its Functions
- Mining in No Man's Sky
- Sentinels and Wanted Level
- Where to Find Better Warp Reactors
