Tweaking Skyrim Image Quality @ [H]

I'm running 1920x1200 on a 24" and have it set to 80. Anything higher than that starts to "fishbowl".

I'm running 1920X1200 on a 27inch and have had my FOV set to 90 for the past several days while enjoying the improvement over the default 65 (or whatever it was).

I never thought of "dropping" it down to 80 until your suggestion. I have to admit that there really is less fishbowling at 80 than at 90.

At 80 my 1920X1200 screen does have less viewing content than at 90 but the benefit of having less fishbowling and experiencing no 'queasiness' when rotating your view inside of a room, is a benefit that outweighs the lessened viewing area.

Thanks.
 
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#nrowland try and use the LAA mod for the new patch. Should improve stability (allows the game to use 4GB of RAM instead of the current 2GB limit)
Ah, yeah that got it. Been playing for a few hours now with the 4gig memory patch and no trouble. Thanks a lot!
 
Alright, so in order to play at all indoors i have to change iShadowMapResolution to 4096. Also, i got nVidia Inspector and turned on Ambient Occlusion, WOW!!! The game looks awesome, unfortunately the framerate suffers. Without AO i get ~60fps. With AO, i get 30fps and that's not good enough.
 
I did have some severely diminished performance with the shadow map resolution option set to 8192, but after a little while, it just stopped and went from about 6 to about 45 fps. I didn't do anything, it just happened. I'm not sure what the deal was, but I couldn't replicate the crippled performance later on.
 
Hello, problem :)

After modifying the settings in SkyrimPrefs can't continue game.
Last quick save is created under tweaked settings but shadow lag (lightning, candles..) forced me to i had to stop game. Then i changed the settings back to High (4x-16x) but can't continue...last quicksave always crash game to desktop. What is wrong?

Looks like because he was created in tweaked settings?

- Is possible to someone else trying to load my last quicksetting and re-save file in defaul High value?

- Or is there any other solution?


My saves:
http://www.mediafire.com/?4o3fbve2a7q2mrz

Thanks, cheers
 
Alright, so in order to play at all indoors i have to change iShadowMapResolution to 4096.

Yeah, unfortunately I was forced to do so too. My vRAM is limiting me in this case I guess. LOL

There was no noticeable difference for me from uGrids 11 to 13 though (but there's a performance hit) so I stuck with 11.

I have 8x Supersampling forced through Inspector, as well as High Quality AO. 16x AF is forced through it instead of using the in-game settings.
 
Great list and article. I will institute these changes once I have crossfire, haha
 
I tried AO a while back and the shadows shimmer all over the place its really annoying while moving. But it does look great, but only when you're not moving.
 
Alright, so in order to play at all indoors i have to change iShadowMapResolution to 4096. Also, i got nVidia Inspector and turned on Ambient Occlusion, WOW!!! The game looks awesome, unfortunately the framerate suffers. Without AO i get ~60fps. With AO, i get 30fps and that's not good enough.

Try setting Performance for AO instead of Quality, if you haven't already. Looks almost the same, but not as much of a framerate hit.
 
It's really surprising how little these tweaks affect the frame rate, at least with the relatively high-end system used for testing.

Only the last tweak, for object draw distance seems to affect the frame rate noticeably. So why didn't Bethesda make those options available for tweaking? It clearly makes the PC version of the game look better, with only a minor reduction of the frame rate.

I'm going to apply most tweaks to my system. However, I will leave the shadow maps alone, because I get a huge FPS drop when going from High to Ultra shadows. Maybe my 1GB video card is running out of VRAM. Also, in Oblivion, changing uGridsToLoad would cause stability issues with the game, so I'm going to stick with the default for that as well, since I've already experienced two CTD's in the game.
 
Any chance of getting some CPU performance testing done on Skyrim? Preferably including a 3960x or 3930k against a 2600k and Fx-8150? I havent found hardly anyone that has tested CPU performance other than Toms and all they did was test scaling while overclocking a 2500K. I want to see if theres any improvement from the additional cores and cache of SB-E because Hardware Heavens review of the 3960X had it and the 990x outperforming the 2700k by a decent margin in Skyrim.
 
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Another question:

There are actually three entries for grass distance:
fGrassStartFadeDistance=
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=

What effect does changing the others have? I liked the effect in Oblivion where the grass smoothly faded in the distance instead of just abruptly disappearing like in Skyrim. Is it possible to achieve that with a combination of those entries or something?
 
Surprised you didn't test the nVidia ambient occlusion settings. (Granted, it requires either a registry tweak or using nVidia inspector, but it IS strictly a built-in-to-the-driver capability. No third-party utilities needed.)

It makes a BIG difference in image quality.

Ambient occlusion off:

2011-11-11_00006.jpg


Ambient occlusion on:

2011-11-11_00005.jpg


Note, specifically, the corners and 'under' or 'behind' things. For example, the weapons rack in the left-back of the room, and the beam next to it and stone projections on the wall above it...or under the various lamp posts...or in the floor seems over to the right. Note the closest lamp post, specifically. It just seems to 'float' over the ground without ambient occlusion on. SSAO really gives it a much more 'real' look.

And...yeah, it's a MASSIVE performance hit.
 
Any chance of getting some CPU performance testing done on Skyrim? Preferably including a 3960x or 3930k against a 2600k and Fx-8150? I havent found hardly anyone that has tested CPU performance other than Toms and all they did was test scaling while overclocking a 2500K. I want to see if theres any improvement from the additional cores and cache of SB-E because Hardware Heavens review of the 3960X had it and the 990x outperforming the 2700k by a decent margin in Skyrim.

This! I'd love to see this!
 
Really great article guys. First one to show real framerate differences. Also I never knew how good ugrids could make things.

I tried AO a while back and the shadows shimmer all over the place its really annoying while moving. But it does look great, but only when you're not moving.

On performance I noticed this. On Quality is was much better. on high quality it's almost perfect.
 
Really great article guys. First one to show real framerate differences. Also I never knew how good ugrids could make things.

Well, one downside to adjusting ugrids (and I didn't see it mentioned in the article, but I may have missed it) is that this is a PERMANENT change.

IE., once you increase it, any games you save at the higher value, can only be loaded in the future with the same value (or, presumably, one even higher). You can't reduce it, and then restore a saved game that had it at a higher value.

On performance I noticed this. On Quality is was much better. on high quality it's almost perfect.

Exactly. You really need to set the ambient occlusion at 'high quality' in order for it to be awesome. The performance hit is truly stunning, but...wow...it looks GOOD.

'Performance' seems alright in screenshots, and indoors - but it does make the edges of trees have a very weird shimmer when moving outside, and that looks really stupid. Which is a shame, because 'performance' really does have pretty good performance.
 
With the ugrid size, I always used 11 in FO3 and NV, and it was pretty stable.

Without proper texture packs out yet, the ugridsize setting is the single most impressive setting to improve graphics in Bethesda games.
 
Well, one downside to adjusting ugrids (and I didn't see it mentioned in the article, but I may have missed it) is that this is a PERMANENT change.

IE., once you increase it, any games you save at the higher value, can only be loaded in the future with the same value (or, presumably, one even higher). You can't reduce it, and then restore a saved game that had it at a higher value.

There's a console command that lets you change it back, and at least some reports that saving inside also lets you change it back.
 
There's a console command that lets you change it back, and at least some reports that saving inside also lets you change it back.

12 th post on this thread address how to fix that ...posted by me!

My question is why is the xbox 360 controller affecting frame rate ?

Some type of polling irq issue ? :/
 
Why didn't you guys analyze the effect of enabling ambient occlusion? I has this enabled and it makes a huge difference in overall image Iquality. For those of you worried about performance use oblivion compatibility rather than skyrim looks and performs better I think.
 
I had the same issue that others reported with setting the iShadowMapResolution to 8192. I had to leave it at 4096 or my performance went to crap. Everything else seems to be working well, though.

Thanks guys!
 
:) love that u guyz even considered doing an article on improving the vanilla experience :D

There's a warning about SAVE FILES using ugrids tho that i found if you save your game with uGrids set to 7 for example, but then decide to change your mind and change it down to 5, the file will not open. this setting is not retroactive with saves.

you'll have to do this:

1) Load game with uGridsToLoad at your current setting.
2) Load the save, which should load correctly.
3) Open the console and type the following:

setini "ugridstoload:general" 5
saveini
refreshini

This has restored the uGridsToLoad setting to its default while your save is already open.

4) Save the game. The save you create now will work at any uGrids setting from the default up

I didn t come up with this its on the internet but might help ppl who play with it

No mention bout upping the fov ? 65 default is just too low imho

Tried this just to try it out. Doesn't work for me :) The game just crashes. If I do it inside it works. Untill I go outside. Then the game crashes again :) You _cannot_ go back from a higher ugrids setting. Which sucks as my guess is many ppl will like to experiment. And it, again, _cannot_ be such a hard thing to code around. It's line of sight ffs. How hard can that be to jump back and forth between in a gfx engine?

Edit: Ah, found the problem. If the above method stops working it's because a new ini file has been created called "Skyrimcustom.ini". Delete that and all is good and well in the world.
 
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Just to warn you Tweakguides has been incorrect on the entire memory section since Oblivion came out. You want iPreloadSizeLimit to be as small as possible, but big enough to support smooth cell transitions with mods. I don't know if Skyrim uses this variable anymore since it's largely redundant.

uGridstoLoad isn't the best way to improve graphics at a distance, but a nice rig can certainly handle it and it's a stock variable. Generating lod objects (rocks/buildings) and using a highres lod texture would look better, but that's out of the scope of this guide. Eitherway,
uExteriorCellBuffer = (uGridstoLoad+1)^2 **Only one correct answer here, any value that is smaller or larger than this is very bad. The game crashed when you tried to load 13^2= 169 cells into a 36 cell buffer, who knew!
 
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#nrowland try and use the LAA mod for the new patch. Should improve stability (allows the game to use 4GB of RAM instead of the current 2GB limit)

Yep, I think that got it. Thanks! Been playing for 8+ hours now without any trouble. Thanks again!
 
12 th post on this thread address how to fix that ...posted by me!

My question is why is the xbox 360 controller affecting frame rate ?

Some type of polling irq issue ? :/

Just for info, changing the 360 controller and vibration did nothing for my FPS. 2500k and 6870. Very happy regardless, 50fps with all the mods from [H] except the 2x shadow depth.
 
Just to warn you Tweakguides has been incorrect on the entire memory section since Oblivion came out. You want iPreloadSizeLimit to be as small as possible, but big enough to support smooth cell transitions with mods. I don't know if Skyrim uses this variable anymore since it's largely redundant.

What value would you suggest then? Your post was intriguing but a little too vague to be helpful. :p
 
I guess if u push settings high enough the difference at high resolution and shadows, the xbox360 benefit is barely noticeable. (maybe the os as something to do with it ?)
 
anyone? :mad:

After modifying the settings in SkyrimPrefs can't continue game.
Last quick save is created under tweaked settings but shadow lag (lightning, candles..) forced me to i had to stop game. Then i changed the settings back to High (4x-16x) but can't continue...last quicksave always crash game to desktop. What is wrong?

Looks like because he was created in tweaked settings?

- Is possible to someone else trying to load my last quicksetting and re-save file in defaul High value?

- Or is there any other solution?


My saves:
http://www.mediafire.com/?4o3fbve2a7q2mrz
 
Whats the command for SkyrimPref.ini console commands?

Im trying to change bDrawLandShadows to 0
 
anyone? :mad:

After modifying the settings in SkyrimPrefs can't continue game.
Last quick save is created under tweaked settings but shadow lag (lightning, candles..) forced me to i had to stop game. Then i changed the settings back to High (4x-16x) but can't continue...last quicksave always crash game to desktop. What is wrong?

Looks like because he was created in tweaked settings?

- Is possible to someone else trying to load my last quicksetting and re-save file in defaul High value?

- Or is there any other solution?


My saves:
http://www.mediafire.com/?4o3fbve2a7q2mrz

There must be something wrong with your save file because I loaded your level 39(or 30 I dont remember) file and it immediately crashed skyrim on my computer as well too I am using the stock .ini files so I think it is something that is saved in your save file. Sorry man that really sucks!
 
I was just trying settings from review:

bDrawLandShadows=1
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
iShadowMapResolution=8192
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=32
fGrassStartFadeDistance=14000.0000

And in the Skyrim.ini file, we have added one simple line:
uGridstoLoad=7

Game save is created under this settings. Im trying to run quick save under same settings but without luck, Ok, once it was but no more. Grrrr
F'in sH++ F***
 
Setting shadow resolution to 4096 on my 6870x2 results in 1fps.

Also, be careful with ugrids, if you set it to a higher number, then revert back to a lower number, your save games will not load correctly (game will crash with no error) unless you do a manual adjustment in game w/ the ini...
 
Awesome work here...one of the most useful articles (to me) ever. Thank you.
 
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