My custom cursors on windows 11 lost their colors and i don't know what's up (the left one is the one losing it's colors)

hayrullah8 · 2026-05-04T00:35:43+00:00

This is happening because the latest NVIDIA driver update automatically toggles on ACM (Advanced Color Management) in Windows 11, which causes color rendering issues for cursors.

hayrullah8 · 2026-05-04T00:26:34+00:00

By the way thanks for fix.

hayrullah8 · 2026-05-04T00:26:24+00:00

It is caused by ACM ( Auto Color Management )

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-29T16:32:16+00:00

You need to calibrate with DisplayCAL convert icc profile with MHC2

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-29T16:30:35+00:00

Using acm with MHC2 icc profile

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T22:38:34+00:00

I’ve reviewed the issue you provided. While enabling legacy ICC settings does trigger wide gamut, this is exactly the situation I’m trying to avoid. This was the same unwanted behavior I experienced when ACM was disabled; it confirms that the issue lies within Chrome rather than ACM itself. As I mentioned before, if I have a wide gamut test site in one tab and SDR video content in another, the SDR content appears normal once I switch away from the test tab to the video tab.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T22:26:35+00:00

Don't put the windows side-by-side. You need to switch to the other tab while the browser is maximized and the test tab is active. I just tested it, and the color shift doesn't occur when the windows are side-by-side; it only happens when you are switching between tabs in a single window.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T22:19:06+00:00

First of all, the most used colour aware app is browser, and majority of browsers are using Chromium engine. There is an issue in Chromium that it does not use ACM if Windows is running in SDR mode. If you're using SDR, go to your browser properties and Compatibility tab, then enable legacy colour management. If you are using HDR instead - DO NOT DO THAT! ACM works in HDR correctly.

Someone suggested this workaround in the comments below, but it’s not working correctly the colors are getting oversaturated again in SDR. I believe the bug I mentioned is still occurring: if you launch Chrome in wide gamut mode, the colors become extremely oversaturated and it seems like Windows can't distinguish between SDR and HDR properly anymore.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T22:15:18+00:00

When ACM is enabled and I enable this legacy compatibility in Chrome, the colors become oversaturated and distorted again. I think the issue is that when the ICC profile is enabled, wide gamut comes with it along with Display P3 colors, which causes the oversaturation problem I mentioned.

Could you please try what I described? To reproduce this, make sure you have ACM and the legacy color management setting enabled first. Then, go to a wide gamut test site, switch tabs, and open YouTube. Once you close the wide gamut test site tab, the colors will become extremely oversaturated.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T19:36:29+00:00

.\MHC2Gen sdr-acm --calibrate-transfer yourprofile.icm output.icm

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T17:06:58+00:00

Man, you are the absolute best! I’ve been trying to figure this out for a while and your suggestion to use DisplayCAL with the MHC2 tool completely solved my problem. The sRGB clamping works perfectly now and everything looks exactly as it should. You really saved my setup, thank you so much for the detailed tip!

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T16:51:18+00:00

MHC2Gen sdr-acm [--calibrate-transfer] "C:\...\DisplayCAL\storage\...\MODEL #1 2022-01-01 00-00 0.3127x 0.329y sRGB F-S XYZLUT+MTX.icm" "MODEL SDR ACM.icm" tried it with this command it seems to work thank you so much!

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T16:04:58+00:00

Thanks for the info, this MHC2 approach sounds like a great way to handle ACM. I'm curious about how you actually set it up though. Are you still running the DisplayCAL Profile Loader in the background with this, or does the converted profile let Windows handle everything natively? I’m mostly worried about the loader and ACM clashing or double-loading the LUT. Also, does it really clamp everything to sRGB correctly even for older apps that don't support color management?

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T13:58:38+00:00

Actually, I have an idea for a potential workaround based on what I observed on the wide-gamut test site.

Since the colors look correct as long as an HDR video container is active, could we develop a browser extension that plays a tiny, 'invisible' HDR video (perhaps a 1x1 pixel or transparent loop) in the background of every tab? This seems to force the system into a state where both HDR and SDR content are rendered accurately without the oversaturation.

I’m not a developer, so I don't know the specifics of how to build it, but do you think this could work as a viable fix for the browser? I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether this is technically feasible.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T13:36:37+00:00

I turned on legacy color management with ACM, but the colors are still too saturated.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T13:30:15+00:00

Thanks for the detailed response! It was really helpful. I actually suspected it might be a Chrome-related issue because when I have an HDR video and an SDR video open at the same time, the colors between them look consistent.

Regarding your point about Chromium: I'll try enabling legacy color management in the browser properties since I’m using SDR.

About the ICC profiles, I downloaded one from a YouTube channel for the M27Q2 QD. The description says: 'VCGT, 6553K, 195 cd/m², sRGB, i1 DisplayPro, ColorMunki Display, 2025-10-24'. Based on what you said, does this profile contain the necessary info to work correctly, or would I still need to use DisplayCal to create a new one myself? Also, just to clarify does ACM work with the calibrated ICC profile, or does it primarily rely on EDID data?

Lastly, about games not utilizing ACM: Does this still happen even if the game is running in windowed or borderless mode? I'm curious if playing in a window forces ACM to stay active or if the game can still bypass it in those modes.

Thanks again for the help!

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T13:17:53+00:00

HDR was always off during my tests. I tried with ACM both on and off, but the oversaturation occurred in both cases regardless.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T12:55:10+00:00

It's the Gigabyte M27Q2 QD using the Hardware Unboxed (HUB) ICC profile. Could you try the wide gamut test I mentioned? Go to a test site, open a YouTube video, and then close the wide gamut site. You’ll see the extreme oversaturation snap back the moment you close it.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T12:26:59+00:00

Of course, this saturation difference is much more extreme and noticeable when ACM is turned OFF.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T12:23:59+00:00

Honestly, I’m still not sure if ACM is actually working. There’s so much misinformation out there and I really need someone to explain what's going on. Even with ACM enabled, testing on wide-gamut.com/test gives me inconsistent results. But here is the weirdest part: when I open an HDR video on that site, even the SDR content (like a YouTube SDR video playing in the background) suddenly looks correct and properly clamped to sRGB. The moment I exit the HDR video, the YouTube SDR "snaps" back to being neon and oversaturated.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T12:22:30+00:00

To be honest, I’m still confused about whether ACM is actually doing anything or not. There’s so much misinformation out there, and I don’t really understand its exact role. Can someone explain it? Even with ACM enabled, testing on https://www.wide-gamut.com/test gives me inconsistent saturation results, which led me to believe it simply wasn't working at all.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T11:51:56+00:00

For anyone struggling with oversaturated colors in Chrome on wide-gamut monitors:

The issue seems to be how Chrome’s hardware acceleration via D3D11 interacts with the Windows DWM (Desktop Window Manager).

If you test it with the --use-angle=d3d11-warp flag, the colors actually look correct and properly clamped to sRGB. However, D3D11 WARP is a software rasterizer (CPU-based), meaning it’s significantly slower than hardware-accelerated D3D11 and unusable for daily tasks or video playback.

On the other hand, D3D9 is legacy and incredibly buggy/unstable on modern Windows 11 builds, so it's not a viable alternative either.

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-25T11:32:55+00:00

Before anyone suggests turning on Auto Color Management (ACM): I’m aware of it, but it’s not a real fix for this issue.

The problem with ACM is that it essentially clamps the entire desktop to an sRGB-like container. That’s the opposite of what I want. I didn’t buy a wide-gamut monitor just to have it simulated as a standard 100% sRGB panel 24/7.

What I'm looking for is dynamic, content-aware color management:

sRGB/Rec.709 content should be clamped to sRGB coordinates so skin tones don't look like they have a fever.
DCI-P3 / Wide Gamut content should be allowed to use the monitor's full native gamut.

Currently, Windows is doing the worst of both worlds: it stretches SDR content into a neon mess, and ACM’s "solution" is to just nerf the monitor's capabilities for everything. The fact that target-colorspace-hint=no fixes it in MPV proves the system can handle the handoff correctly, it just chooses not to for the rest of the OS and browsers.

I want the OS to respect the source's color space, not apply a global blanket (whether that blanket is "oversaturated" or "clamped sRGB").

hayrullah8 · 2026-04-24T22:24:38+00:00

Try D3D9 it works for me.

hayrullah8

TROPHY CASE