nVidia/ENB "sun shines through mountains" bug - temp fix

[Hirlok]

UPDATE: the temp fix described below might still be interesting for people using outdated drivers and/or ENB versions, but as of today (7/14) the problem has been solved - the bug is gone in ENB binaries 13713! Thanks Boris!!

 

 

Hey all!

 

like many nVidia users I had the annoying problem that recent drivers do not work well with any ENB presets - esp. the sun keeps shining through mountains, walls and other solid objects...

 

Searching did reveal a lot of confusion, even the maker of ENB states that "he does not know what the hell is going on", as he posted a new release that was likely to fix the bug, but did not do so for all users.

 

Other workarounds are a pain in the butt (downgrading drivers...), do not work in most cases (like the bFloatPointRenderTarget=1 setting, that is needed anyways), or kill some of the best visual effects (like disabling sunrays alltogether)

 

I have also no idea what is going on, and basically we will have to wait until nVidia gets their act together again, BUT I have been able to fix it at least for my setup with one simple setting and thought I would share it with you guys, maybe it helps.

 

so: the option is usually greyed out in the in-game controls for ENB, edit the config file.

 

In enbseries.ini look under "FIX" for the line ForceFakeVideocard=false and change it to ForceFakeVideocard=true.

 

Done.

 

Start game, no more sunsprite peeking through walls. ;-)

 

So far I have not noticed any sideeffects or performance issues.

 

My setup:

Lenovo Y500 with 2x 650M SLI, Win 8, driver version 320.49
running latest ENB (1.88) with several presets (Tundra, Optimus, etc...)

[Dellage]

First post on the forum and it's to say a huge thanks to the OP for this thread.

 

I have a GTX 680 and am running Project ENB among other mods and I've had the sun shining through mountains glitch as well as a weird transparency thing going on where you can see the shadows and outlines of the objects behind an object through certain walls/floors.

 

This tweak appears to have fixed both issues :)

 

No obvious ill effects that I can see, but I did see it mentioned on the ENB forums while looking into my problem that this setting should be set as 'false' so will be interesting to see if anything does crop up.

 

Hopefully not though and thank you once again, you've stopped me tearing my hair out :)

[prod80]

if you use NVidia other than the 7xx series, just use drivers 314.22 and youll have zero issues with ENB ;)

[Hirlok]

if you use NVidia other than the 7xx series, just use drivers 314.22 and youll have zero issues with ENB :wink:

 

"just use", hehe, good one ;-) That is why I posted my workaround, because downgrading drivers once you have the new ones

 

a) sucks

b) takes time and a lot of fiddling around

c) some people play other games besides Skyrim and the new driver releases really speed things up for Metro LL and a couple others...

 

So YES, downgrading drivers works. Others will wait for nVidia and/or Boris to fix things. And for some, like me and Dellage, using the fakevideocard setting is a suitable workaround for the time being.

[Dellage]

I'm with Hirlok on this one, rolling back drivers is a faff and as he mentions the latest drivers really make a big improvement on other games I'm playing, so it wasn't an option for me.

 

This seems to be a very simple 30 second fix for the problem that I'm yet to find a problem with.

 

If any side effects do occur I will update this thread, but for now I'm enjoying a very pretty and immersive game :)

Edited July 12, 2013 by Dellage

[Dellage]

I've found a flaw or two now.

 

For me altering the force fake graphic card setting to true has removed the mountain fog and also seems to do strange things with the draw distance.

 

I can't decide which is the lesser evil, this or the sun shining through objects, both aren't things I want to put up with in my game.

 

Tempted to remove ENB again for now and try some alternative options until this problem is fixed.

[Hirlok]

For me altering the force fake graphic card setting to true has removed the mountain fog and also seems to do strange things with the draw distance.

 

Thanks for the testing - interesting. Have not noticed this here. What ENB version and what preset(s) are you using?

I have the latest ENB (188) and using Tundra and Optimus at the moment - no glitches that I am aware of.

 

P.S.: I might be daring and try the latest 260.01 drivers, officially they are for Win 8.1, but reportedly work well on 8 and 7 as well and seem to fix a few glitches plus have hughe fps improvements for some games. MAYBE we won't need any workarounds any more in the future ;-)

[Dellage]

No problem, just noticed while playing. Took a while as I had that 'something isn't right here' feeling but couldn't put my finger on it.

 

I was using project ENB which required the 0.119 binary (iirc), so not the latest version by a long shot.

 

Let me know how you get on with those drivers, I'd be interested to hear :)

 

I've uninstalled the ENB for now, back to using CoT on its own and using hardware SSAO instead. Not quite as pretty but not way off.

[Hirlok]

Let me know how you get on with those drivers, I'd be interested to hear :smile:

 

 

Well, bad news, kinda - nothing changes in regard to ENB compatibility with the 260.01 drivers. Guess the 500 Million ENB users just don't count, nVidia got better things to do, lol

 

Two more observations: performance is considerably better with the 260, BUT tweaking/overclocking with nvidiainspector bat files does not stick anymore.

 

I still run around with the forcefake setting, just can't give up on that cute "model railway" look, lol

 

P.S.: just saw that Boris updated ENB, got a new card himself and will develop with DirectX 11 and modern cards/drivers in mind for the future. That should help!

[Hirlok]

Woot! With latest ENB (13713) and drivers 260.01 (most likely with the 220 series as well), the freaking bug is GONE!!!

Thanks Boris.

 

So: all of the ass-breaking workarounds and fakevideocards no longer needed.

 

ENB-presets for old ENB binaries will most likely not work with the new version, but there are quite a few presets for ENB 170 and up which should work with the latest version. At least Tundra (right now my favorite) does.