uGrid Advice/Discussion

[MysteriousSquall]

Hey Guys & Gals,

 

So here's a little background information as to why I want advice and a general discussion on uGridstoLoad. My PC is by no means High-End, let's get that out of the road first. I recently did a brand new install of my OS from Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit to Windows 8.1 Pro and one of the things I noticed was my games were running a lot better than they were before. So when I was a W7 user I tried everything to make my Skyrim look amazing, but here's the kicker my computer's crap and it would constantly run into BSOD, so when I reinstalled Skyrim I new that I would just have to make do without the nice fancy graphics and go for a gritty realism play through. For those of you who like computer specs to see how crap my machine really is, here's the specs.

 

 

OS: Windows 8.1 Pro

Processor: AMD A6-3500 APU w/Radeon HD Graphics (3CPUs) ~2.1GHz

Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6530D 3GB VRAM

RAM: 5GB DDR3 1337MHz

 

Now first of all, even though my G.Card says 3GB, it's really only got 1GB 2 of it is brought in from else where. I don't understand how this works, just what I was told by the Tech at the shop. Right, When I was W7 I played at about 20 FPS? W8 I play at about 40-50 FPS. I don't use any ENBs because they make my game crash and my PC cries at me with a Blue Screen. But recently I've noticed how bad my Skyrim actually looks. Bland Colours, Draw Distance etc etc From Whiterun you can see a Fort in the distance, not the tower where you fight the dragon, but just passed it. I can't see it, like at all, untill I get really close. My settings for view distance is maxed out on everything. So I started experimenting with Mods that change the Graphics and I found one on the Nexus that takes the texture files and compresses them so I installed it, the mod literally broke my Distant Textures, but that's beside the point as I got another mod to fix that (hopefully).

 

Here's where it gets interesting. My FPS jumped another 10 or so, so I thought right let's look at this uGrid everyone keeps talking about and I've ramped it up to 11 along side the uInterior or uExterior to 144 (I dunno which, I'll paste it from my .ini at the bottom. Now I tested a few uGrid values all the way up to 20, which aside from the large load times worked quite well until another mod (frostfall) claimed that script latency was slow or something and then my game crashed. Anyway I settled on 11.

 

So I'm wondering, instead of using uGrid. Should I just use an ENB and go for the fancier graphics? I don't want to break my game by installing something that won't work and then end up having to reinstall the whole game again. What's you thoughts? and What are the long term effects of a high uGrid count?

 

Thanks in advance for your advice and discussion.

 

MS.

 

 

P.S I should add that I can now run the game on AA x8 and AF x12. Which was impossible before. Here's my .ini for those who are interested.

 

 

 

[General]

sLanguage=ENGLISH

uExterior Cell Buffer=144

uGridsToLoad=11

[Display]

fShadowLODMaxStartFade=1000.0

fSpecularLODMaxStartFade=2000.0

fLightLODMaxStartFade=3500.0

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

bAllowScreenshot=1

[Audio]

fMusicDuckingSeconds=6.0

fMusicUnDuckingSeconds=8.0

fMenuModeFadeOutTime=3.0

fMenuModeFadeInTime=1.0

[Grass]

bAllowCreateGrass=1

bAllowLoadGrass=0

[GeneralWarnings]

SGeneralMasterMismatchWarning=One or more plugins could not find the correct versions of the master files they depend on. Errors may occur during load or game play. Check the "Warnings.txt" file for more information.

[Archive]

sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa

sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa

[Combat]

fMagnetismStrafeHeadingMult=0.0

fMagnetismLookingMult=0.0

[Papyrus]

fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0

bEnableLogging=0

bEnableTrace=0

bLoadDebugInformation=0

[Water]

bReflectLODObjects=0

bReflectLODLand=0

bReflectSky=0

bReflectLODTrees=0

Edited May 19, 2015 by MysteriousSquall

[Bloodinfested]

Everyone setup is different so it will vary but going beyond ugrid default will lead to scripting errors some more then others same with timescale set to real values. Only thing that bothered me was the distant waterfalls witch someone fixed a long time ago.

Far as it looking bland you could use a enb performance wise try imaginator or tweak ini RGB (fBrightLightColorB) settings... but imaginator is more powerful and user friendly then the ini tweaks.

[MysteriousSquall]

Unfortunately I can't run ENBs, I just tried using Project ENB Fantasy and all I get is infinite loading screens. It's not that the game is bland, it's just that when I make the character look forward, he sees lots of detail, then it just stops and everything else is just plain ugly bald wasteland. Like a perimeter around my character. I don't mind if it's really far away, but not being able to see the keep from Whiterun is a real piss take. Higher uGrid has solved that issue, like you said I may encounter script errors which is going to be a bit bothersome. I'll play for a couple of hours and see what kinds of problems crop up. Luckily I created a new character with the higher uGrid count and my old character has the normal count. So hopefully it won't cause any problems. Thanks for the input, when i get a new G.C I'll try a ENB again.

 

MS.

[Shivala]

Hi, do not mess with the uGrid, 7 is the max and even that could set you up for freezes and weird stuff! So many tutorials recommend it, but it is OLD info. There is a whole video on youtube about the ugrid (i think it was gopher) Instead increase the Lod and draw distance in the ini file.

 

Next, an Enb doesn't crash the game unless it taxed your system and couldn't load all in time.

Try a performance ENB -- and tweak the settings in INI, it aint that hard... I use performanceXP on a laptop and it is worth it.

[saurusmaximus]

I don't recommend messing with ugrids at all, it causes more problems than it solves, but if you insist make sure you get stable ugrids to load. As far as graphics enhancements, skip using an ENB (though I do recommend you get ENBoost) and go with a SweetFX preset instead.

[MysteriousSquall]

Thanks for the replies.

 

@Shivala, 7 is not the max amount of uGrids you can activate, you can add me on Steam and I'll stream my game running with 11 uGrids active. 7 is probably the number with least amount of problems. I did check out some videos on youtube, though I'm not sure if I watched a video about uGrids by Gopher. Thanks for that, I'll check his video out. It was Gopher's video I used to install Project ENB with the performance .ini settings and that was just too much for my little system to run. I have played with my skyrim.ini quite a bit, which offered little to no increase in draw distance at all. Which is why I resorted to increasing the uGrids, I was skeptical of messing with something that could mess up my game, but I played for 2 hours yesterday with no issues.

 

@SaurusMaximus I do use ENBoost and I'll check out SweetFX thanks.

 

 

It might be that I've not gotten far enough into the game to encounter issues yet. After all I'm playing with Requiem so my game progress is rather slow considering what it should be after 2 hours of gameplay. I might make a video and post it to youtube, to show the difference in draw distance that I'm experiencing. I honestly can't believe that upgrading from W7 to W8 can offer this much gain in performance. That's what I'll do, time to make a video. Thanks for the replies guys, I'll make a video which should clear a few things up. Also I'll try and move to another area in the game and see if I can make some problems appear.

 

MS.

Edited May 20, 2015 by MysteriousSquall

[Lillysdad2009]

I am just looking for a way to increase visibility. I don't have a very good PC, my ugrids are still set at 5. I have tried the Skyrim distance overhaul and it's great. But I want to be able to see the grass and terrain at further distances. What should I set my LOD to? I am also unsure about which LOD settings to change.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Lillysdad2009

[MysteriousSquall]

Hey Lillysdad2009,

 

If your PC isn't great, then the changes you make are compromises. Drag all your LOD settings up max and load the game, do you get FPS Drop? If you do then you need to decide what it is you're ultimately after. Drop the AA and AF down a few notches and see if your FPS increases again. When all is done, if you've still not got the desired effect and got no FPS drop, then you should look at altering the Skyrim.ini and skyrimprefs.ini in My Documents/My Games/Skyrim. You can change the draw distance here for grass & such.

 

SkyrimPrefs.ini Changes (In order as you scroll down each section)

 

 

 

 

[Grass]

b30GrassVS=1

fGrassStartFadeDistance=20000.0000

fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=20000.0000

fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=400.0000

[TerrainManager]

fTreeLoadDistance=75000.0000

fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000 Use these if your FPS drops

fBlockLevel1Distance=70000.0000 (This value can also be 40000)

fBlockLevel0Distance=35000.0000 (This value can also be 20000)

fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000

bShowLODInEditor=0

 

[LOD]

fLODFadeOutMultObjects=15.0000

fLODFadeOutMultItems=15.0000

fLODFadeOutMultActors=15.0000

fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000

Finally if nothing helps and you feel you must resort to altering your uGridToLoad here's how it's done.

FOR f*#@ SAKE WARNING!!!!!!! Do this at your own risk! I will not be held responsible if you break your save!

Right below is an example of Skyrim.ini aswell as the formula to work out the values. I note at this point, before you make the changes and load your game. Follow these instructions.

1) BACKUP YOUR SAVE DATA!

2) Load up the game first and Fast Travel to Whiterun Gates and look at the fort passed where the Dragon attacks. (This is to see the range increase.)

3) Save your game here.

4) Quit and make the changes.

5) Load up the game and check the distance. If it's what you want, then roam around and see if your FPS drops. If you don't like it make sure you DON'T SAVE.

That's that, rinse and repeat till you find the distance that you're comfortable with. Higher the value, the more problems can occur. Just to throw this out there, but once you've changed your uGridsToLoad to a higher value than 5 and SAVED. You can not load that save file with a lower value.

Now all the warnings are there, someone else posted a link to a Mod that allows you to test these values without breaking our save data. Here's the changes and the formula.

[General]

sLanguage=ENGLISH

uExterior Cell Buffer=64 <-- To work this out. Take the uGrid No.7 add 1 = 8, Now 8x8=64. 9+1=10 so 10x10=100 you get the point.

uGridsToLoad=7 <-- This gives me 2 extra Grids

MS.

[Lillysdad2009]

Thank you very much MS! :thumbsup:

[Bloodinfested]

You can revert a save file/game to default if you did accidentally saved at higher #...

 

1: Start the game with the current ugrids value
2: Load the save game that you'd like to revert/change back
3: Once the game is loaded, ALT+TAB or minimize the game
4: Navigate to your Skyrim.ini file located typically in the documents/my games/skyrim/
5: Input the Ugrids value you'd like to use, DEFAULT is "5", otherwise if you want to go from 9 down to 7, put in 7
6: Save the file and then maximize/tab back into skyrim that is already running
7: hit the "~"/console key and type in "refreshini"
8: Save the game as a new save file