cuscenes weird colors - Seems fixed by OS update.

[__MoN__]

From a couple of days I have all the cutscenes with weird colors. They were correct until a week ago:

https://ibb.co/Hp4SW5CJ

I have a DELL G15 PC with Windows 11 and a RTX 3060, what I can check ?

[Alan Phipps]

Some additional questions:

• Which game and is it modded?
  Have you verified your game installation since the issue?
  What changes have you tried to address it?
  What has changed since a week ago in terms of changes to your system hardware, settings, and/or driver/OS updates, etc? - The vanilla X3 game certainly hasn't changed in that period.

The devs can't actually investigate anything in any depth from just a screenshot.

[charlie1024]

Starting from 2025/8/29, Microsoft started distribution of KB5064081 Preview update for Windows 11.

This update is strongly suspected as the cause of the symptom.

I suspect video RGB issue, R is still good but G and B doesn't show properly(G is weak, and B is nowhere).





This doesn't seem be influenced by whether the game is modded.

[Alan Phipps]

A search about that Win 11 Optional Update shows:
Known Issue: Audio/Video degradation with Network Device Interface (NDI) after August updates.

If you really do suspect that Win 11 update has a problem you cannot live with then it is entirely optional and can safely be uninstalled at the bottom of Windows Settings, Windows Update, Update History at least until the next actual cumulative update is released.

[__MoN__]

The issue happen in X3 Reunion, X3 TC, X3 AP and X3 FL.

I can confirm that uninstalling KB5064081 resolve the issue.

Thanks !

[Tengu4201]

How did you uninstall the update? I'm unable to remove it from Uninstall Updates feature in Update History under Windows Updates.

[Alan Phipps]

@ Tengu4201: Things may have changed now as the cumulative Win 11 update in the OP was an optional preview version, but now a subsequent release cumulative update version has replaced it under a different KB number.

[HunterZ0]

I am also experiencing this issue with X3:TC just installed and run from Steam with no mods, on an RTX 4080 Laptop GPU.

Edit: Many others also reporting this on the Steam forum: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2820/dis ... 376391137/

[Frobenius2006]

De-installing KB5065426 helped. It contained an patch to address audio stuttering caused by KB5063878.
Obviously this had some side effects on video.

The patch of the patch needs another patch. M$ seems to use more AI for the updates...

Update: the patch automatically re-installed itself. Seems it's difficult to get rid of security patches permanently.
Have to wait till M$ fixes the issue as I don't want to convert all videos as suggested.

[HunterZ0]

Windows would not let me uninstall recent updates - the backups needed to do that had already expired from my system.

I tried enrolling in the Windows 11 insider program and updated to 24H2 26120.6682 but the green video corruption/artifacts are still there.

Windows Update is installing a 26120.6690 update now...will edit this post with results.

Edit: Same problem in that build. Here is a video recording of the issue: https://youtu.be/T6KK4sXmvoM

Edit 2: Checked the Microsoft Feedback hub and found 3-4 other reports of corrupted video playback in DX9 games. This is definitely a Microsoft issue...

Edit 3: For now I used ffmpeg to bulk convert from mpeg1 to mpeg4-in-avi and it seems to work.

[raivopleika1]

How do you do it?

Windows would not let me uninstall recent updates - the backups needed to do that had already expired from my system.

I tried enrolling in the Windows 11 insider program and updated to 24H2 26120.6682 but the green video corruption/artifacts are still there.

Windows Update is installing a 26120.6690 update now...will edit this post with results.

Edit: Same problem in that build. Here is a video recording of the issue: https://youtu.be/T6KK4sXmvoM

Edit 2: Checked the Microsoft Feedback hub and found 3-4 other reports of corrupted video playback in DX9 games. This is definitely a Microsoft issue...

Edit 3: For now I used ffmpeg to bulk convert from mpeg1 to mpeg4-in-avi and it seems to work.

[HunterZ0]

How do you do it?

I won't provide support for this, but here is what I did:

1. Browse to your X3TC install folder
2. Rename the mov folder to something else
3. Make a new empty mov folder
4. Copy over 00044.pck and 00144.dat (these are not video files)
5. Use winget/UnigetUI to install ffmpeg and FFmpeg Batch AV Converter
6. Run FFmpeg Batch AV Converter and point it at your ffmpeg install
7. Use Add Files to add everything from your old mov folder except for the 2 copied files (in the file picker, switch file type to All Files to see the .dat files)
8. Paste in these parameters: -b:v 10240k -b:a 192k
9. Change the Format text box to: avi
10. Change Output path to the new mov folder
11. Click the Multi-file encoding button
12. Open a command prompt window (Win+R, then type this and hit enter: cmd)
13. Type this, followed by a space, followed by a pasted in path to your new folder: cd
14. Type this: ren *.avi *.dat

This will reencode all of the MPEG-1 videos as MP4 video + MP3 audio in an AVI container, at around half the original bitrates (which should be plenty for the newer generation codecs).

For some reason the game is able to play these without corruption.

https://postimg.cc/LqxRDyrV

Edit: Removed the "rename output" step - it doesn't help in the end.

[raivopleika1]

Thanks I will try this!!!!

Stuff

EDIT:

well man i did this and problem is gone, highly thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sD7zE2qy8I

[raivopleika1]

But there are some sacrifices in the sound quality and voice audio, only way to fix this i think to match the bit rates, but then have to check every video, because each sceen apparently has different audio quality.

[HunterZ0]

But there are some sacrifices in the sound quality and voice audio, only way to fix this i think to match the bit rates, but then have to check every video, because each sceen apparently has different audio quality.

Transcoding certainly sacrifices quality because it's a lossy procedure. Matching bit rates is a bit silly since the original videos use ancient MPEG-1 encoding, while the transcoded AVIs use much more compact MPEG-4 video with MPEG-3 audio.

For me it's a "good enough" workaround until Microsoft gets around to fixing their mess.

[FireCulex]

I created a batch script to convert the vidoes from MPEG-1 to MPEG 4 part 2 (Not H.264) inside an AVI container.
I tried to copy the audio directly but ran into non-monotonic DTS issues with the original audio.
00144.dat is a windows media audio file, does not require conversion. 0044.pck is actually a gzip with xml inside of it.
Video and audio are using the highest quality setting instead of specifying a bitrate.

https://pastebin.com/raw/q1EtbLvg

thanks to HunterZ0

[HunterZ0]

I created a batch script to convert the vidoes from MPEG-1 to MPEG 4 part 2 (Not H.264) inside an AVI container.

Video and audio are using the highest quality setting instead of specifying a bitrate.

Cool, thanks for sharing! I'm a noob at ffmpeg, so I appreciate the more informed approach.

Interestingly most of the file sizes end up quite similar... I also noticed that some of the yours have very low audio bitrates (the egosoft logo for example is 32kbps), but I suppose that's because it's enough to preserve the original quality.

I tried to copy the audio directly but ran into non-monotonic DTS issues with the original audio.

I had also initially tried copying the audio track into the AVI without transcoding, but it didn't work for me. I can't remember the failure mode - either no audio was heard, or the entire video didn't work.

[sadhu sequencer]

I reported this issue to Microsoft Support, but I don't think they are considering the matter seriously. First message below is regarding uninstalling updates. The other one is regarding glitches in videos and cutscenes. I reported issue as well to other channels of Microsoft Support, maybe there will be better understanding.

[alt3rn1ty]

I just installed X3 Albion Prelude today (GOG X3 Terran War Pack, just running X3AP.exe instead of X3FL.exe), with XRM and a few other mods.
Wondered what the heck had gone wrong with the intro video and in game mini videos (like when trading at a station for equipment, the little box showing a 3D model of the equipment, those are in the same weird colours) ..

.. Trust Microsoft to stuff things up again. This is going to take ages before they even look at it.

@Egosoft - Do you have the capability to contact Microsoft?

Edit: 2025-10 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 Version 24H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5066835) (26100.6899) - Does not fix the issue.

How do you do it?

I won't provide support for this, but here is what I did:

1. Browse to your X3TC install folder
2. Rename the mov folder to something else
3. Make a new empty mov folder
4. Copy over 00044.pck and 00144.dat (these are not video files)
5. Use winget/UnigetUI to install ffmpeg and FFmpeg Batch AV Converter
6. Run FFmpeg Batch AV Converter and point it at your ffmpeg install
7. Use Add Files to add everything from your old mov folder except for the 2 copied files (in the file picker, switch file type to All Files to see the .dat files)
8. Paste in these parameters: -b:v 10240k -b:a 192k
9. Change the Format text box to: avi
10. Change Output path to the new mov folder
11. Click the Multi-file encoding button
12. Open a command prompt window (Win+R, then type this and hit enter: cmd)
13. Type this, followed by a space, followed by a pasted in path to your new folder: cd
14. Type this: ren *.avi *.dat

This will reencode all of the MPEG-1 videos as MP4 video + MP3 audio in an AVI container, at around half the original bitrates (which should be plenty for the newer generation codecs).

For some reason the game is able to play these without corruption.

https://postimg.cc/LqxRDyrV

Edit: Removed the "rename output" step - it doesn't help in the end.

Thank you HunterZ0, that really does sort out all the problems.
I used it after installing XRM, so converted not only the .dat files in mov\, but also the .dat files in Addons\mov\

[HunterZ0]

I reported this issue to Microsoft Support, but I don't think they are considering the matter seriously. First message below is regarding uninstalling updates. The other one is regarding glitches in videos and cutscenes. I reported issue as well to other channels of Microsoft Support, maybe there will be better understanding.

I don't think that support person knows anything about anything, but it's still infuriating - especially considering there are several open Feedback Hub reports on this being a general DirectX 9 compatibility breakage.

I suggest everyone upvote these if you can:
https://aka.ms/AAxzypa
https://aka.ms/AAxzr5f
https://aka.ms/AAxx7uh
https://aka.ms/AAxzyp9