" Press the [Windows] Key + [R] at the same time
Copy the following in to the text box and press ok
%localappdata%\swtor\swtor\settings
Open the client_settings.ini file in notepad and ensure the following are displayed within
Fullscreen = false
D3DFullScreen = false
RefreshRate = 60
Check NativeHeight, NativeWidth, Height and Width ( all 4 ) match your monitor resolution.
Save and close the file.
Start the game as normal.
Change graphic settings within the game as desired. "
When we first started this adventure, I followed the above instructions, but I think I might have forgotten to save the changes.
When I went through it again, I realized that not only were NativeHeight and Nativewidth wrong, but the other settings, Fullscreen and D3DFullScreen were also incorrect. A very close inspection showed that RefreshRate was not listed, either.
I made sure that NativeHeight and width were corrected, changed the Fullscreen and D3DFullscreen to = false, and added the line about RefreshRate.
This time, I made sure to save the changes.
The game started properly. I logged off the game and rebooted the PC, and got back in the game, and it started normally.
For now, I think I can say the issue is solved.
The thing about it working when I had Vortex and Skyrim up, before starting SWTOR was coincidence, and that SWTOR started properly those two times were flukes.
Hopefully, no issues will come up, but if they do, I'll have your guide to follow in the future.
I give you my thanks for your patient help.
EDIT:
I wanted to add a bit of an afterword.
I have the nVidia's G-Force Experience game manager installed. I usually use it to optimize games that I have installed. When I used it to Optimize SWTOR's graphics settings, it broke the game. I got the pink field again. I used nVidia's "Revert" feature, and that fixed it.
So, don't use 3rd Party game managers to fiddle with the graphics settings?
EDIT 2:
Last night, for unknown reasons, the game broke again. I booted up my PC, started up Vortex, and started up Skyrim. Played that for a while, then shut it down, and started up SWTOR, but it was broken. I followed the the steps at the top, and found that "Fullscreen" and "D3DFullscreen" both were set to true, so I changed them to false and saved, and when I started SWTOR again, it was fixed. I used Alt + Enter to change it back from Windowed to Fullscreen.
This morning, I started up my PC, got a very strange "Out of Range" error from my monitor, which means my graphics card was not talking right to my monitor, a very, very rare problem that leaves my monitor with a blank black screen. I hit the power button on my PC to restart it. My PC started normally, with the Monitor properly recognized by my graphics card. I started SWTOR with no problems. Next time, after I restart my PC, I'll start Vortex/Skyrim first, to see if SWTOR breaks again. I'll post the results, again.
EDIT 3: (Final Edit)
No more issues. Everything starts up normally, no matter if I start other applications or games. The fix that was proposed did solve the problem. Any issues I may have had were because I forgot to save the changes, or was just coincidental glitches.
