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Stretchy/Warped Foliage and Grass

Oopsie

By Oopsie
in Skyrim LE

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Oopsie Apprentice

Oopsie

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A number of people, including myself, seem to be having a very strange graphical error in Skyrim. The textures from foliage and grass stretch themselves across the map of Skyrim, blocking out parts of the sky and shrouding villages and landmarks. I am running a Radeon HD 4570. I thought it might have something to do with ATI, however, it seems to be a variety of computers and graphics cards are having this problem, and many Radeon users are not having problems at all. I have tried different resolutions, disabled Vsync, messed with many options in CCC, and tried a fresh install and have come up with zilch. I've been searching for a while on various forums but have only found many frustrated gamers, so I have decided to post my own thread to help shed light on the problem.

Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2

Here is an example of what I am talking about. The texture seems to be originating from a tree over the hill and stretching out into the sky. In Screenshot 1 another example can be seen in the distance. I have tried changing various options in an attempt to fix this and have perhaps narrowed it down a little.

I ran the game at Low quality from the Configuration menu and got this:

Screenshot 3

Looking good. There are no noticeable stretched/warped textures in the distance, however, when I turned around I again noticed the same stretching that occurred in the first two screenshots above. So it appears at the lowest quality the stretching only occurs at a short to medium distance. Not too bad in a vast plane type area, but in a forest it's pure chaos. (Just to be sure I was correct, I set all the FOV settings as high as they could go and reloaded to see if there was stretching in the distance, however, it remained the same as Screenshot 3.)

Next I set the game at Ultra quality from the Configuration menu and got THIS:

Screenshot 4

Now that is pretty insane looking. At this point we've deduced that the problem gets much, much worse when set to it's highest quality, (what's strange is the SAME stretching that occurs in Screenshots 1 and 2 has occurred in almost every test I performed, including this one.)

So this is what I did: I reset the game to Low quality and began changing each option individually in the Configuration menu. I set Antialiasing to 4 samples and got the same view as Screenshot 3. I set Anisotropic Sampling to 16 and still got a similar view to Screenshot 3. I then set both Antialiasing and Anisotropic Sampling to their max and ran them together and got some minor stretching that I had not seen before. I went along and maxed out the options for Texture Quallity, Decals, FOV, Shadow Detail separately, together in every case nothing changed, (as in I was still getting stretching at short to medium range.)

 

I then got to the 'Water' section. I checked all four boxes (Reflect land, sky, trees, objects) and I noticed a lot of stretching happening in the distance, close to what Screenshot 4 looked like. From here I had no idea what to do, so I delved into the Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini files.

In Skyrim.ini I found on line 20 bAllowCreateGrass=1. I set the parameter to equal 0, hoping it would at least stop the stretching originating from patches of grass. I was surprised to see when I loaded the game again that it had worked! The ground looked a little neater without the little grassy texture abominations all over the place, but when I looked up at the sky who did I see? My big bizarre stretchy friend from Screenshots 1 and 2.

 

From there I began searching for something similar to bAllowCreateGrass that related to trees or other foliage in Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini. Unfortunately I am no expert and have no idea what to look for. Also, I believe setting bAllowCreateGrass=1 to 0 removed some of the grass entirely, and I certainly don't think this game would be nearly as enjoyable with no trees anywhere.

And here is where I am stuck. I think it might be worth mentioning that I had a similar problem with my copy of Borderlands on Steam. I was able to fix it by changing something in the Borderlands.ini, which is why I thought the problem might reside deep within the Skyrim.ini. I have also heard of people having the same problem with Oblivion and Fallout. I played Oblivion on this computer myself and had no problems, however, I had been running it from a disc without using Steam. This leads me to believe there may be some correlation between Steam and this stretchy madness.

 

That is really all I have. I have exhausted every possible option I can think of (at least for someone of my skill level, which is relatively low) and am still having this problem. Any support from ANYONE would be greatly appreciated, not only by me, but by all the other people having this same problem. I believe it just hasn't been touched on enough because it is so soon into Skyrim's launch. I ask for Technical Support to seriously look into this as many are saying the game is completely unplayable like this. I myself could only stomach it for so long. I do not know if this has already been recognized, or if an upcoming patch is planning to fix it, but, again, ANY support would be appreciated. And I encourage anyone who is having this problem to post their experience.

 

//EDIT//

 

POSSIBLE FIX: About twenty minutes ago I delved back into my Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini files to attempt a last ditch "solve the puzzle" effort. My settings look like Frankensteins' Monster, but I believe I have found a solution. In SkyrimPrefs.ini there is, on line 116 under Terrain Manager, the text fTreeLoadDistance=12500 (the number may be different for you.)

I changed this fTreeLoadDistance=12500 to fTreeLoadDistance=0 and it seems to have COMPLETELY gotten rid of the stretchy textures for me. (As I am no expert, I don't really know what this does to the game, I just know, in my case, it has solved the problem.)

 

If you are having this problem you will need to open SkyrimPrefs.ini in Notepad++ (or a similar program, completely free) and find fTreeLoadDistance. Set it to fTreeLoadDistance=0 and it SHOULD solve this problem. (While perhaps creating another one. Who knows? One step at a time.)

If you are still experiencing minor stretchy abominations littered across the floor, open Skyrim.ini with the program you used earlier and find bAllowCreateGrass=1 on line 20. Change this to bAllowCreateGrass=0 and it should clean that up.

 

Now, as I said I do not know the consequences (if there are any) of changing those parameters. I DO know, however, that I tested loading the map several times with no problems, and seemingly no repercussions after doing this. If you do try this as a fix, please post whether or not it worked for you so 1) I can feel all good inside, and 2) so I know whether or not to stop posting in this thread, as I would hate to just take my victory and leave with people still having problems.

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Oopsie Apprentice

Oopsie

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I have this problem too. I'm letting my computer sit for a bit to see if the temp is too warm.

 

In Oblivion's case there were so many different kinds of fixes for this that did or didn't work for people, so this might be a possible solution for you. However, for me, cooling down my cpu didn't fix the stretchy madness.

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