Best HUD colors Elite Dangerous

Elite: Dangerous is a fantastic space simulator where you're free to do almost anything, even venture out into the void. The default ship HUD color is a bright orange with blue highlights for contrast. If you're a Denver Broncos fan or otherwise like orange, then this color scheme might appeal to you.

There's nothing wrong with this, so fret not, console players since you can't change your HUD color over there. But if you're on PC, you can easily change the whole color scheme to something of your choosing. Here's how to change your HUD color in Elite: Dangerous.

How to change the HUD color

1. Open Steam and right click on Elite: Dangerous.
2. Hover over 'Manage,' then click 'Browse local files.'
3. In your File Explorer, open the 'Products' folder, then 'elite-dangerous-64.'
4. Make a copy of the GraphicsConfiguration.xml file, then open the original file in a text editor.

1. Under the section 'GUIColour,' you're looking for 'Standard' under the 'Default' heading in 'LocalisationName' tags.
2. In the 'MatrixRed,' 'MatrixGreen,' and 'MatrixBlue' sections, you can edit the HUD color by entering numbers between 0 and 1.

Your imagination is your only limitation here. I'll put my settings down below if you're looking for something more Outrun looking, which is what I'm using in my screenshots. Remember to make a backup of the XML file before making tweaks just in case something goes wrong.

MatrixRed = 0, 0.55, 0; MatrixGreen = 1, 0, 0; MatrixBlue = 1, 0, 1

Enter your numbers, save the file, and then open Elite: Dangerous. The main menu will still be orange, but as soon as you load into your ship, you'll notice your changes. If you don't want to keep loading the game over and over to see your changes, try out this tool to see your changes before committing them to the config file. And if you need some ideas on what do, here's a Reddit thread to help you get started.

PC Gaming

Main

There is a brilliant website that allows you to customise the HUD colour schemes within the game created by Arkku – HUD Editor

Full instructions on what you need to do are on Arkku’s website, but I’ve had a few people write to ask where the actual files? It isn’t obvious, as it depends on when you started playing… in Alpha/Beta/Gamma or after Release. The file you are looking for is called ‘GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml’, this is an additional file that Frontier added and prevents game updates from overwriting your changes to the HUD. When I first looked at it the file only had a couple of lines of code and I had to put in the relevant information (remove the spaces after the ‘<‘ symbols);

< ?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″> < GraphicsConfig> < GUIColour> < Default> < LocalisationName>Standard</LocalisationName> < MatrixRed> 0, 0.25, 1 < /MatrixRed> < MatrixGreen> 0.75, 0, 0.25 </MatrixGreen> < MatrixBlue> 0, 1, 0 < /MatrixBlue> < /Default> < /GUIColour>

< /GraphicsConfig>

For Alpha/Beta/Gamma players, the file location is (make sure ‘Show Hidden Files’ is turned on):
C:\Users\*USERNAME*\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics

Otherwise, you should find it here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Frontier\EDLaunch\Products\FORC-FDEV-D-****

The ‘****’ will be a four digit number, something like 1000, 1001, 1002, etc.,

I’ve collected a few different ones which I’ve used since the function was found and thought I would list them here with the Matrix Colours and the name of the person who made it or a note of what the colours are. Click on the images to see a bigger version.

— Screenshots taken from Arkku’s – HUD Editor