No Man's Sky now producing “no-signal/out-of-range” error on monitor after changing in-game settings

Question

We pre-ordered No Man's Sky on Steam. After five minutes of excellent gameplay, my husband went into the in-game settings and dropped the resolution to (I think) 1280 x 960, and this resulted in an out-of-range message on the monitor.

It probably should be noted at this point that, while the computer itself has been souped up with a solid-state hard drive and Nvidia graphics card - GTX 970, I think - it's hooked up to two older monitors, one of which is widescreen and one 4:3. I can't be a lot more specific - this is my husband's baby. Also, it's hooked up so both monitors display the same image. Don't ask me why: please refer to this being my husband's baby. The Windows desktop resolution is set to 1280:768.

I have tried:

• deleting the save files
• starting NMS in offline mode
• deleting local content from Steam and redownloading the game
• going in to TKGRAPHICSSETTINGS.MXML and changing settings per this post
• going in to the above file and messing with the resolution and FPS and dropping them to as low as 800:600 and 14.
• hooking up the newer monitor from our main computer

And I am unable to resolve this. It sounds like it's playing (I get the background music and everything), but I can't see a darn thing because both monitors display a No Signal/Out of Range error.

What is left to try?

Answer 1

Okay... so we fixed it by calling a local computer repair store and getting the following directions:

• Delete the TKGRAPHICSSETTINGS.MXML file entirely
• Go into the Steam Library, right-click on No Man's Sky and select "Properties"
• Under the "local" tab, choose "Verify Integrity of Game Cache"

It will then discover that the settings file has "mysteriously" disappeared and download another copy with the default settings.

I think I am going to copy it, set the copy to Read-Only, and keep it as a backup in case my husband gets brave enough to tinker with the settings again.