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Performance tweaks for low-grade systems?


Plutoman101

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I've been scanning the ini file and looking for options to tone down everything. I play on a laptop with a M880g Mobility Radeon HD 4200, standard AMD dual-core, 4 gig's of RAM, etc. College laptop - couldn't afford anything else and needed a laptop, so anyone telling me to get a new computer, keep it down please. :) Sort've out of the question.

 

Anyways, what I started with, beyond the low settings (and textures to low) was -

 

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=512

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=1024

--

iShadowMapResolution=256 <-- Turned all this shadow stuff down, basically. Considering turning them all off but I'm afraid that'll break immersion more than I'd like. Yes, I don't need extreme graphics to still have immersion - no offense to anyone, I've just seen a lot of comments about how all these textures ingame are so bad and small - they're all too big for me.

--

iPresentInterval=0 (v-sync, ofc)

--

iWaterReflectHeight=256

iWaterReflectWidth=256 <-- I lowered these - my guess was that it's the texture sizes of the reflections. I'd be grateful for help.

bUseWaterDisplacements=1 <-- No idea what this does, no comparable oblivion option.

bUseWaterRefractions=0 <-- Flipped this off, water's not as good but it helps somewhat.

bUseWaterReflections=1 <-- Not sure what type of performance hit this actually has, I'd like to keep it but I may take it off.

bUseWaterDepth=1 <-- I don't want to entirely turn this off, but it may be a future option - water is often my biggest hit.

 

I've also installed the low-rez pack on the nexus that someone added. Any other suggestions to get the maximum performance? It's entirely playable, but I'd like to squeeze every bit I can out of it. The worst bits are any areas with water inside dungeons and anything. Outside is actually pretty smooth, but I'll welcome any suggestions.

Edited by Plutoman101
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Haha. :P It's just the graphics card. Integrated graphics on a laptop is ftl for Skyrim. No ideas? Ah well. I get the most lag inside buildings, seems to be with light sources. If anyone knows anything about how the light sources work and how I could cut back lag with that, I'd appreciate it. I'm wondering if it's the shadows from light sources, therefore requiring me to just disable shadows.
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Try using Game Booster. its a free program too!

using Game Booster Defrag the TESV.exe and the Launcher.exe.

then boost click Boost System and Launch game.

If you are on windows 7 make sure to shut off themes

(go to services and then look for themes)

 

this should improve your experince 10 fold.

please tell me how it works.... I use Game Booster on all my games now and it has improved my experience drastically

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Already use game booster! :)

 

The HD 4200 is based upon the HD 3400, mostly the HD 3450, but at a slightly higher clock speed. The 3670 is better, I believe, than my card. According to PassMark software...

 

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=M880G+with+Mobility+Radeon+HD+4200

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Mobility+Radeon+HD+3670

 

Nearly 3x the difference! Honestly, I'm impressed I can even run the game. I'm mainly looking for some ini tweaks. I've cut my system back to the bare minimum; now it's a matter of what I can get my integrated card to handle. I was all excited for a while and planned on getting a DiY ViDock and rig up an external video card, but then I found I'd be removing my wireless card - and for 50% of the performance (though it still might be a decent deal, it's a future possibility, not a current one). Maybe this summer. Anyways, yeah. I don't necessarily know what all the ini stuff is.

 

One of my biggest issues is a lag around light sources - I've bumped down shadows about as much as they can go - but disabling shadows didn't actually do anything (I'm not entirely sure why?)

 

fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000

fShadowDistance=2000.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=512

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=1024

iShadowSplitCount=2

 

Thte first two seem pretty self-explanatory, and I believe I'll turn those down. The others - can anyone shed some light on them?

 

 

iActorShadowCountInt=6

iActorShadowCountExt=6

 

These are listed in the very high section (in the standard skyrim folder inside steam) - they are not listed in my own ini file. Do you think it'd be possible to add them, and set them to 0 - in effect disabling shadows for actors? Probably going to try this. Been scanning the sections for changes, and seeing what is possible to set lower (seeing what changes between low -> medium, medium -> high, etc). There's a heck of a lot of options that aren't clear though.

 

Edit: From what I've gleaned from browsing the web;

fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000

fShadowDistance=2000.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=512

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=1024

---

iShadowMapResolution=256

 

Setting the distances to 0, and the resolutions to 1, means (from the 0 distance) that they won't be displayed, and minimally stored in memory (from the resolution). I'll give it a go and report back. Might leave it as 256, turn up the blur, and just block down the distance for interiors because I'm lag-free outside.

Edited by Plutoman101
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Anyone else have any input? I've entirely disabled shadows by setting resolutions to 1 and distances to 0 so they are not rendered. Improved, but not a perfect stable FPS. Anything I might be able to set with regards to lighting?

 

You disable HDR?

 

Got this from here:

 

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/457630-disabling-hdr-bloom/page__st__10__gopid__3810840#entry3810840

 

You can turn HDR off in the Skyrimprefs.ini file.

 

The line you want to change to 0 is close to the last lines:

 

bDoHighDynamicRange=0 (1 by default)

 

If you combine that with the line

 

iRadialBlurLevel=1

 

You should get nice results, with HDR deactivated...

 

 

 

Seem to help a little.

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