SkyrimPrefs.ini MUST SEE!

[Twelvepak]

I've been trying to get answeres about this on the official forums but no one seems to want to answer, so I thought maybe some of the mod pros here could shed some light. I'll try to be brief in the explaining. Previous to the .exe patch that happened several days back, I was playing the game just fine with no mods, or tweaks. I hadn't even heard of the LAA thing until after the patch. I was playing on a High/Ultra mix of settings with 8xAA and 16xAF at 1920x1200. I expereinced some slowdowns in Whiterun and Markarth (down to around 27 FPS at the worst) which rectified themselves if I stood still for a few seconds when first entering these areas. Shadows looked AWESOME (had them on ULTRA). It was steady at 60 FPS in most all other areas other than the above mentioned, so I went with it and was loving it.

Then came the sneak attack "patch" that did something with the EXE's that got everyone in an uproar. Frankly, I didn't care, as I had always played using the steam launcher anyway with no probs up to this point. As soon as I loaded the game afterwards though, my shadows were shot. They reverted to low settings and no matter what I change in the option on the splash screen the game refuses to make the changes. I can't even change my resolution now. Let me rephrase that. I can change all my settings to whatever I wish, but when the game starts, it ignores the changes.

I"ve been trying to get answers and trying to troubleshoot this for days now. I can't get any answers at the official forums, as all I get are folks telling me there must be some mistake that there is no way the "patch" is what caused this. This may or may not be the case, all I know is that from the moment the patch happened, my game has never been the same.

Ok, enough back story, now let's move on to what I just discovered today. This may or may not hold any significance, as I know next to nothing about modding or programming, but something doesn't seem right here and I'd like to ask those of you that know what your doing. I was browsing my Skyrim files on my hardrive today trying to figure out where I'm supposed to put an .esp file that I downloaded from here at the Nexus. Out of the blue I saw the SkyrimPrefs.ini in there and decided to take a peek at it. I immediately noticed some severe discrepencies with the SkyrimPrefs.ini that is located under MyDocuments/Games/Skyrim/SkyrimPrefs.ini. This was the first time I have looked at this file inside the x86 folders in my program files. I have often looked at it in the MyDocuments version after making option changes from the Skyrim splash screen so I was familiar with some of the numbers from there. First thing I noticed was the vast difference in the "fShadowDistance". I scrolled further down and began noticing other big differences. One of the other biggies was the screen resolution. This version of the .ini in the x86 folder has my resolution list as 900x1600. I have no idea where the game whould have gotten that dimension from. These descrepencies have led me to realize that when I change my settings in the options menu of the splash screen, the .ini in MyDocuments is updated. This one that is in the x86 folder is not. Now at this point, I have no clue if this is happening correctly or not. It seems like the game is updating one .ini, but using the other when it loads the game. Why do I even have two of these in seperate locations?

Here is a copy and paste of a small portion of each of these .ini's. Any advice as to what I should do would be greatly appreciated from someone that knows what the hell they are talking about because at this point, I'm completely lost.

 

My Documents version:

My documents version:

[General]

fBrightLightColorB=1.0000

fBrightLightColorG=1.0000

fBrightLightColorR=1.0000

iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1

bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0

[imagespace]

bDoDepthOfField=1

iRadialBlurLevel=1

[Display]

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3

fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000

fShadowDistance=4000.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

iShadowSplitCount=2

iMaxAnisotropy=16

fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000

fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000

fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=5000.0000

fGamma=1.0000

fDecalLOD2=1500.0000

fDecalLOD1=1000.0000

fSpecularLODStartFade=1500.0000

fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000

fLightLODStartFade=3500.0000

iTexMipMapMinimum=0

iTexMipMapSkip=0

iWaterMultiSamples=0

iMultiSample=8

iShadowMode=3

bTreesReceiveShadows=0

bDrawLandShadows=0

bFull Screen=1

iSize H=1050

iSize W=1680

fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000

fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000

fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=10000000.0000

fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=10000000.0000

iScreenShotIndex=2

bShadowMaskZPrepass=0

bMainZPrepass=0

iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=10

iMaxDecalsPerFrame=30

bFloatPointRenderTarget=0

sD3DDevice="NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560"

bFXAAEnabled=0

iShadowMapResolution=2048

fShadowBiasScale=0.2500

iShadowMaskQuarter=4

iAdapter=0

iPresentInterval=0

iShadowFilter=3

bTransparencyMultisampling=0

bDrawShadows=1

 

Now here is a copy of the same lines from the x86 version:

[General]

fBrightLightColorB=1.0000

fBrightLightColorG=1.0000

fBrightLightColorR=1.0000

iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1

bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0

[imagespace]

bDoDepthOfField=1

[Display]

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=5

fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000

fShadowDistance=2500.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

iShadowSplitCount=2

iMaxAnisotropy=8

fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000

fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000

fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=3600.0000

fGamma=1.0000

fDecalLOD2=1500.0000

fDecalLOD1=1000.0000

fSpecularLODStartFade=500.0000

fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000

fLightLODStartFade=1000.0000

iTexMipMapMinimum=0

iTexMipMapSkip=0

iWaterMultiSamples=0

iMultiSample=0

iShadowMode=3

bTreesReceiveShadows=0

bDrawLandShadows=0

bFull Screen=0

iSize H=900

iSize W=1600

fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000

fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000

fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=3072.0000

fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=4096.0000

iScreenShotIndex=2

bShadowMaskZPrepass=0

bMainZPrepass=0

iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=3

iMaxDecalsPerFrame=10

bFloatPointRenderTarget=0

 

Someone please help, lol, all these numbers are giving me a headache.

[Witcher79]

I don't understand exactly what you mean by "x86", but if you mean main Skyrim directory where other files are stored (like TESV.exe, data folder etc) these ini files are default/safe mode. Also high.ini low.ini etc are used by a launcher when you pick quality setting first time when you launch the game.

 

As an experiment try to move these files to some other folder (ex. to the desktop) and launch your game with the launcher. You'll notice that the game starts with no problem not asking for those. Next step of an experiment would be to try changing your graphic settings from the launcher and see what happens... :whistling:

 

 

*Hint: The launcher is going to work again when you move back ini files to the main game directory.

[Twelvepak]

By x86 Im talking about when you open up My Computer and double click the hard drive, then go to program files (x86). I've already tried overwriting the ini in there with the one from the Documents. It didn't seem to do anything differently, so I put the original back. As stated before, all changes I make from the launcher screen are ignored by the game when it loads.

 

Guess this whole longwinded thread was for naught. I got all excited thinking I may have found the issue. Everythign else is still great. It's only the interior shadows that are giving me grief. Anyway to just disable shadows altogether?

Edited November 29, 2011 by Twelvepak

[Witcher79]

To turn off shadows try changing in your My Documents SkyrimPrefs.ini bDrawShadows=1 to 0. Beware though that it won't be nice game to look at from that point.

 

I would advice you to verify game files via steam first. Just make sure you have your saves archived and My Documents/My Games/Skyrim folder removed. Try to start new game with default settings, then start again with settings appropriate for your system. See if there's any difference. Then copy your saves back where they belong.

Wacky stripes and low res shadows are common issue. Bad implementation of shadow map, low res specular and normal maps with compression artefacts and lack of Adaptative AA and DX10 support.

 

BTW: If you're on ATI card - turn off Adaptive Anti Aliasing in CCC. If you're on nVidia search these forums for tips how to improve your experience. Also check this mod. It helps not to focus on some graphical glitches here and there and makes great use of FXAA shader without huge fps drop.

 

Good luck! ;)

 

P.S. With few tricks and couple of mods you can have really awesome looking game with very playable frame rates. I'm on moderate system ([email protected] / RadeonHQ4850 1gb / 4gb RAM) and have 30-60fps. 100+hours into game with no issues except some very rare stuttering while entering new cities. Here's how my game looks like:

 

 

http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g400/Marteen_Dee/Skyrim%20Modding/Rorikstead-1.jpg

 

[Twelvepak]

Thanks for the responses, but i have already done the verify thing with steam, and i also tried changing the Drawshadows to 0' but again the game ignores any changes i make. I cant figure out why. Also, i know the shadow issues are common, but i didnt have the issue at first.