I've downloaded The NoSteam executable for X3: Albion Prelude and now my graphics are pretty bad

[Captain Teamwork]

Ive downloaded The NoSteam executable for X3: Albion Prelude and now my graphics have pretty much went into the toilet.

All the graphics settings are the same as it was for STEAM but for some reason I can barely read anything in menus and the ships and such look pretty bad.

I copied all game files to a different location, replaced the X3AP exec with the NoSteam exec. Not sure what went wrong.

I don't have any scripts or anything else installed, just plain vanilla.

Any help would be appreciated

[X2-Illuminatus]

Check that the NoSteam.exe picks your dedicated graphics card, and not an onboard one you may have installed, too.

[Captain Teamwork]

Check that the NoSteam.exe picks your dedicated graphics card, and not an onboard one you may have installed, too.

I'm not so sure how to do that...
I only have one graphics card that I'm aware of

I should add that I've never modded a game before in my life.
so you're pretty much dealing with a mod virgin

[X2-Illuminatus]

This is not about modding. If you start the NoSteam.exe, click on Graphics Settings and check what Direct 3D Device is selected. See if it's really your dedicated graphics card, which is displayed there. If not, check if it let's you select the dedicated graphics through the dropdown menu. If this is not possible, exit the menu and the game starter, right click on the NoSteam.exe and select the Run with graphics processor" option. From where you should be able to select your dedicated graphics card.

I only have one graphics card that I'm aware of

Most modern CPUs/APUs and mainbords come with an integrated graphics chip these days. Hence my suspicion. In any way, if the above yields no result, we will need a DXDIAG report from you anyhow, which details what hardware you have installed.

[Captain Teamwork]

What's even weirder is I took a screenshot to show what I was talking about but the screenshot comes out all clear. I can read everything just fine in the screenshot. But in game everything is crazy blurry.

Its using my graphics card. All the graphics options are set the exact same way it was in STEAM. I tried running the STEAM version again and it looks just fine. I'm at a loss.

[Captain Teamwork]

I might be on to something.

I was always running in windowed mode on Steam just fine, for some reason in windowed mode with the nosteamexe everything is busted up.

I switched to fullscreen and everything is crystal clear now.

Any ideas what that could be about?

[Alan Phipps]

See if your graphics card has some form of post-processing scaling options that make the screen fit the dynamic window size in different ways - if that auto-scales to a resolution that your monitor cannot easily handle or is unsuitable for the Egosoft gamefont then that could be the problem. Also try with any graphics card setting called something like 'Morphological Filtering' set to OFF.