Settings
The Settings tab is where you tune how Chromatics behaves, what devices it talks to, and how the app looks. Chromatics saves your changes automatically.
Settings are grouped into four sections.
General - day-to-day behaviour.
Appearance & Language - theme, language, keyboard layout, global brightness.
Device Providers - which RGB vendors Chromatics connects to.
Advanced - beta channel, crash reporting, reset, admin behaviour.
General
Start Chromatics when Windows starts
Automatically launches Chromatics when you sign in to Windows. Pair this with Start Chromatics minimised to the tray below for a silent boot.
Default: Disabled.
Minimise to system tray on close
When on, clicking the window's red X hides Chromatics to the system tray instead of closing it. You can still exit fully by right-clicking the tray icon and choosing Close.
Default: Disabled.
Start Chromatics minimised to the tray
When on, launching Chromatics sends it straight to the system tray without ever showing the main window.
Default: Disabled.
Check for updates on startup
Lets Chromatics check for new releases automatically when it starts. New versions download and install in the background, with a quick restart at the end.
Default: Enabled.
Close Chromatics when FFXIV closes
When on, Chromatics will exit automatically a few seconds after Final Fantasy XIV closes. Handy if you launch Chromatics alongside the game and don't want it lingering after you quit.
Default: Disabled.
Appearance and Language
Theme
Pick Light, Dark, or System (follows your Windows theme). The change applies instantly.
Language
Chromatics is localised into several languages. Choose yours from the drop-down - the interface text updates immediately.
Keyboard Layout
Tells Chromatics which physical layout your keyboard uses so key positions are correct. Options are QWERTY, QWERTZ, and AZERTY.
Changing this setting remaps your existing layer key assignments automatically so you don't need to rebuild anything. The virtual keyboard in the Mappings tab also re-renders to match.
Default: QWERTY.
Global Brightness
A master brightness slider that scales every device's output from 0% (off) to 100% (full brightness). Use this to keep Chromatics subtle without editing every palette colour.
Default: 100%.
Device Providers
This section shows a tile for every supported RGB provider. Click a tile to toggle that provider on or off.
Turning a provider off means Chromatics won't try to connect to that vendor's lighting software at all. Handy for troubleshooting: if one vendor's app is misbehaving, you can disable it and keep the others working.
Supported providers:
Razer
Logitech
Corsair
Cooler Master
SteelSeries
Asus
MSI
Wooting
Novation
OpenRGB
Philips Hue - searches your network for bridges, pairs, then asks which bulbs to control.
PlayStation (Beta) - DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers.
LIFX (Beta) - runs a network discovery and asks you which devices to control.
We recommend restarting Chromatics after enabling new device providers.
Philips Hue pairing and adoption
Enabling Philips Hue runs a three-step setup: pick a bridge, pair with it, and choose which bulbs Chromatics should control.
Step 1 - Pick your bridge.
Chromatics scans your network and lists every Hue bridge it finds. Click Use this bridge next to the one you want. Don't see your bridge? Type its IP into the Bridge IP box instead.
Step 2 - Pair.
Press the big round button on top of the Hue bridge.
Click Submit in the dialog within about 30 seconds.
Step 3 - Pick your bulbs.
After pairing, the Choose Hue lights dialog lists every bulb on the bridge. Tick the ones you want Chromatics to control, then click Save.
Chromatics remembers your bridge and adoption choices, so you won't be asked again unless your bridge's network details change. To change which bulbs are controlled, toggle Hue off and on in this section to re-open the picker.
Upgrading from an earlier build: the first time you launch a Chromatics build with the picker, every bulb your bridge exposes is adopted automatically so your existing setup keeps working. From there you can deselect any bulb you don't want from the same dialog.
When Chromatics releases control - you disable Hue in Settings, disable a bulb on the Mappings tab, or close the app - each bulb returns to the colour and on/off state it had before Chromatics took over. Same behaviour as LIFX.
Hue motion is also smoothed for fast-changing effects (Vegas mode, cutscenes, certain weather animations). Chromatics asks the bridge to interpolate between colour frames so bulbs without the Hue Play's hardware fade still get smoother transitions.
PlayStation controllers (Beta)
Enabling PlayStation lets Chromatics drive the lightbar and the five player-indicator LEDs on DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers. Both USB and Bluetooth connections are supported, and your controller's input still works normally in games while Chromatics is driving the lights - Chromatics only writes to the lighting, not the input pipeline.
Once enabled, your connected controllers show up on the Mappings tab as standard devices, where you can assign layers to the lightbar and the player LEDs just like any other device.
If your controller is connected but Chromatics says it can't open it, another tool is probably holding it in exclusive mode. The usual culprits are Steam Input, DS4Windows, and reWASD. Close that tool (or disable its exclusive mode) before launching Chromatics.
LIFX devices (Beta)
Enabling LIFX runs a discovery sweep across your local network and opens a picker dialog so you can choose which devices Chromatics should control.
Chromatics talks to LIFX devices using the Local LAN protocol. There's no LIFX cloud account, no internet round-trip, and no LIFX login. Your bulbs need to be on the same network as your PC.
The picker shows every LIFX device it found:
Tick the ones you want Chromatics to control, then click Save.
Click Search again if you've just powered on a new device and want it picked up.
Click Cancel to back out without enabling LIFX.
If no devices are discovered, or you save without picking any, the LIFX toggle automatically switches itself back off so you don't end up with an enabled-but-empty provider.
You can re-open the picker any time by toggling LIFX off and on again from this section.
How LIFX devices appear in Chromatics:
Standard bulbs - single zone, lit as one colour.
Multi-zone strips (Z, Beam, String, Neon) - addressable per zone, so effects like the HP bar or weather gradients spread across the strip.
Matrix devices (Tile, Candle Color) - mapped as a grid, so 2D effects like the Audio Visualizer and the Reactive Weather animations work on them too.
When Chromatics releases control - you disable LIFX in Settings, or close the app - every device is restored to the colour and on/off state it was in before Chromatics took over. Your bedroom won't be left mid-strobe if you close Chromatics during Vegas mode.
Advanced
Opt in to beta releases
When on, Chromatics also checks the beta update feed and installs beta builds if they're newer than the current stable release. See Beta Releases.
Default: Disabled.
Always relaunch Chromatics as Administrator
Chromatics needs admin privileges to read FFXIV memory. When on, Chromatics will silently relaunch itself with admin rights instead of showing the usual relaunch prompt.
Default: Disabled.
Send anonymous performance and error telemetry
Lets Chromatics send anonymous crash reports to help us catch and fix bugs faster. Chromatics never sends any personally identifying information - just the crash itself, the app version, and basic environment info. If Chromatics crashes, a small dialog appears where you can add a comment describing what you were doing and choose whether to send the report. This dialog always appears whether you've opted in or out, and sending is always your choice.
Default: Enabled.
Check for Updates
Runs an update check immediately. If a new version is available, Chromatics will download and install it.
Reset Chromatics
Resets Chromatics back to defaults. All of your config files in %AppData%\Chromatics\ are removed. You'll need to restart Chromatics afterwards and go through the First Run wizard again. Consider exporting your layers and palettes first if you'd like to keep them.
Collect Logs
Bundles the console log, your config files, and some basic system info into a single ZIP in a location of your choosing. Attach this ZIP when asking for support on Discord or GitHub - it gives us everything we need to help.
Where are the old "Advanced Settings"?
A handful of deeper options that used to require editing settings.chromatics3 by hand are now exposed in the UI (keyboard layout, global brightness, beta opt-in, admin elevation, device provider toggles). The only settings that still live in the file are very niche tuning values and can be changed by editing settings.chromatics4 in %AppData%\Chromatics\ while Chromatics is closed.
rgbRefreshRate
Refresh rate (in seconds) of the RGB rendering surface. Default 0.05. Lower values are smoother but use more CPU. Values below 0.05 are not recommended.
Takes effect on restart.
criticalHpPercentage
The HP percentage at which the HP Tracker switches to its critical colour. Default 20.0.
deviceHueBridgeIP / deviceHueBridgeKey / deviceHueBridgeStreamingKey
The Hue bridge credentials. Normally set automatically during pairing, but can be filled in by hand if you're restoring a backup.
Close Chromatics before editing settings.chromatics4 by hand, or Chromatics will overwrite your changes the next time it saves.
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