Shadow Glitch

[ParrotManzz]

Okay, I know there are a ridiculous amount of shadow problems with Skyrim, but I've been googling for 3 days and haven't found any similar problems to mine. Here's the lowdown on my issues:

 

Whether I'm inside or outside, pretty much anywhere in the game, if I walk towards an object/npc/whatever that has light on it, It becomes dark. When I'm standing still, there are no issues.

 

Also, if an npc is walking towards me and I am standing still, there are no issues.

 

If i am in the shadows, there are no issues.

 

When indoors, the more light sources there are around, the more problems i have.

For example: in the mages guild, when you first enter, you are surrounded by four torch stands with three torches each. The problem is heavy here. If you walk beyond that, to where the room is lit by only a large circular magical-light-well thing, there are no issues.

 

If I am standing still and look around, anything that i look towards that has light on it gains a shadow.

For example: if there is a box in the sunlight on the ground, and i am looking up, if i look downwards, while the camera is moving the box gains a shadow.

 

ON NPCs: If i am looking toward or moving toward an NPC, they gain distorted shadows on their faces and clothing, and a whitish trail in the shape of their model lags less than a second behind them.

 

The most frustrating part of all this is that the worst of it goes away if i switch to third person. All of the character model problems do, at least, and most of the shadow flickering. The only issues left in third person are that Shadows disappear until you are under them. That would be all well and good if I didn't hate third person view.

 

The problems also seem to go away when in the presence of less light sources, for example, if the sun is blocked out by weather, or if there's only one ambient light source in a cave.

 

Another huge problem is that almost all of the shadow-fixes that I've found involve modifying either skyrim.ini or SkyrimPrefs.ini. I have tried many of them with SkyrimPrefs.ini, but that seems to do nothing. I even removed the file from the game folder and nothing happened. The reason i've only been trying them with SkyrimPrefs.ini is I have no Skyrim.ini. I have low, medium, high, skyrim_default, etc. etc., but no Skyrim.ini.

 

I've had Skyrim for about 4 days total, and this problem has been there the whole time. First i played it unmodded, to see if it worked, and when I encountered that problem I downloaded the unofficial patches to see if that would help. Spoiler, it didn't.

 

My system specs are as follows:
CPU: Intel® Core2 Quad

CPU speed:@2.40 GHz @2.40 GHz

GPU:Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT

VRAM:512

RAM:4 gb

 

I play the game on low graphics settings, though I'm pretty sure it could handle medium well enough.

 

Thanks in advance for all your help!

 

EDIT: An album of images of the glitches can be found here

Edited August 17, 2014 by ParrotManzz

[Akreontage]

It seems like you are describing hdr technique which simulates eyes adoption to changing light environments (looking at darker objects takes some time for eyes to adopt and focus on them after looking directly at light sources). If so, then it is not game bug. It's actually a feature. :)

As far as I know it can't be turned off in vanilla Skyrim at least.

If you are talking about something else please make some video/screenshots since it is really hard to understand the actual problem.

[ParrotManzz]

It seems like you are describing hdr technique which simulates eyes adoption to changing light environments (looking at darker objects takes some time for eyes to adopt and focus on them after looking directly at light sources). If so, then it is not game bug. It's actually a feature. :smile:

As far as I know it can't be turned off in vanilla Skyrim at least.

If you are talking about something else please make some video/screenshots since it is really hard to understand the actual problem.

Not at all. Here are some screen shots- i'd take video but i have no way to.

Thanks!

 

EDIT: I accidentally a word.

Edited August 17, 2014 by ParrotManzz

[camaro_69_327]

2 Skyrim prefs.ini file

1 Skyrim INI

 

IF you are editing the Skyrimprefs.ini in... \Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\Skyrim folder...its the wrong file. that is a default file ...should not be modified.

 

The 2 files you want are in the MYdocs folder.>>>....\Users\[your use name]\Documents\My Games\Skyrim

 

If you only see a file called "Skyrim" with no extension, that is actually it...Turn on file extensions.

 

The 8800 was a great card in its day....but is really going to have a hard time in Skyrim. Especially with only 512 MB VRAM. Also its not a GTS only GT limits it even farther. It may not have the horsepower to do the shadows properly....

[Valkasha]

Does this mod fix it? http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27418/?

[Kurzusseus]

I'm going to guess and say that its just your Graphics card is low end compared to whats recommended.

I know from personal experience that my brother had a similar issue which was fixed by upgrading to a better

Graphics card (GPU). Here's a tip as well, NEVER Edit your ini files unless you know what your doing, the ini

files are very delicate and even the most advanced modders would ask you to stay away from them.

 

Try uninstalling Skyrim, and re-installing Skyrim. If you have edited your ini files I would strongly recommend

reverting back to default by doing the above suggestion. You may even have to delete your ini's so they can

re-generate with the fresh install. (Keep back ups just in case)

 

Otherwise if the problem persists with a fresher install, then I can only say it has to be the graphics card, upgrade

to a better graphics card, or look for a mod that may reduce shadows in some way.