.ini tweaks, ugrids

[moho25]

Attempting to make long story short...

 

1. Within a couple weeks of Skyrim's release, I made some .ini tweaks to my game and used a few mods. Mostly textures, with a few gameplay changers, the LAA until the patch, and the 4GB memory with SKSE. My game worked well. Rare CTDs. Often crashed when trying to alt-tab, though, which seems extremely common from looking around the web.

 

2. Recently I've been tweaking and modding more heavily, and making some changes to my nvidia settings. Following mostly STEP and various tweaking guides on the web. While doing this I found out I had previously been tweaking the wrong .ini files -- the ones in the \skyrim folder, rather than the ones in the \My Documents folder. So, I reverted the \skyrim .ini's to their default, and re-modified the ones in the \My Documents location.

 

3. When I did this the game started to use much more RAM/SWAP. That makes me think that some of my previous .ini tweaks weren't working, as they were made in the incorrect location. Could this be correct?

 

4. Also, as of the latest tweaks, my game now CTDs or locks up frequently. I'm in the process of updating my video drivers to make sure that's not the issue, but considering everything was fine before the most recent round of tweaks, I don't think that's the problem.

 

5. I'm trying to figure out the source of my new CTDs, and they could be the result of the modifications I made to the uGrids setting. When I had made my first tweaks to the incorrect .ini's and my game was running fine, I had increased the uGrids=9. Is it possible that the game wasn't really using this setting, since I had tweaked the wrong .ini file? Now that I've altered the right one in the \My Documents, I'm getting a lot of game crashes and freezes -- but it doesn't happen when I'm indoors.

 

6. I know that it's difficult/impossible to revert/reduce the ugrids setting on previous saves without corrupting them. Reverting my ugrids setting to 5 or 7 will corrupt my current saves, IF they were actually set to ugrids=9. If it turns out the initial ugrids=9 tweak I made "didn't take" since I made it to the wrong file, then most of my 500 saves would be fine, and in that case reverting the .ini to ugrids= 5 or 7 might very well fix my CTD. So, the million dollar question: Is there a way to tell what a previous save's ugrid was set at?

 

Note: In general my tweaks to the .ini are for a higher-end machine with the following specs: i7 2630QM, 8GB RAM, 16GB swap partition (overkill), GTX 560M GPU, Win7 x64, 1920x1080 monitor resolution.

 

Hope all that makes sense >.<

 

I'd greatly appreciate any input folks have on this.

 

Thanks much.

[moho25]

Anyone?

 

I realize it's a lengthy post. Help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Here's the TL:DR -->

 

1. Is it possible that certain .ini tweaks don't work if they are made to the incorrect files (in the Steam directory, rather than the MyDocuments)?

2. Is there any way to tell the uGrids setting for a specific save?

 

Of course, see the first post for the context of these 2 questions.

 

Again, thanks.

[HeyYou]

1. Yes. Eminently possible. Not sure which ones the game pays more attention to though, I would think it would be the ones in the My Games folder......

 

2. Console Command. (PC only)

[moho25]

1. Yes. Eminently possible. Not sure which ones the game pays more attention to though, I would think it would be the ones in the My Games folder......

 

2. Console Command. (PC only)

 

 

Hmm. Do you know which command? I can find the commands to change the ugrids, but not a command to see what the current value is. Thanks.

[egamar]

Read the tweak-guide on geforce.com. There's an explanation on how to UNDO the ugrids "tweak" - you need to follow the instructions exactly, but they do say it works.

 

It probably would "work" even if it had never existed (if you see what I mean - you're undoing something that wasn't done, but it doesn't matter). I think the info (whatever it is) is stored in the savegame file - but no idea what or where. The geforce guide is, of course, aimed at nVidia cards - but the solution for the ugrids thing is generic.

 

However, before panicking, get rid of ALL the texture mods and fancy whatnots. Get rid of ALL mods. When you've got rid of all the mods, check to make sure you've got rid of them all. You'll have forgotten one or two. Or do a clean reinstall.

 

Then see what happens. If you're stable, put back a few mods at a time and check each time. Be selective about the mods and tweaks (use the geforce guide or similar - its excellent) you install and make sure they come from trusted reputable modders, and only take ones that are worth the risk of f*cking things up. Use NMM and if they don't support NMM, don't install them (except for ScriptDragon and SKSE - safe as houses those two).

 

My recommendation: stay clear of texture mods, FXAA injectors and the like and install mods form only trusted reputable modders, not some 12yo who wants his Glass Sword in all the colours of the rainbow.

[moho25]

@egamar

 

I agree with all of your advice. I did use the nvidia guide -- it really is fabulous. Highly recommended to every player. Problem is that I made a few of my first tweaks from a different guide posted on the Skyrim Nexus mod list, and while I read it closely, I'm not sure I realized the potential risks enough.

 

At any rate, I do all my installs with NMM (except SKSE), and actually don't plan on using FXAA -- I may use the Skyrim Enhanced Shaders package though. I'm just trying to make sure my game is stable before I try out some of the larger texture and shader packages.

 

I've been busy the last couple days and haven't yet had time to work through all my mods so far, deactivating them. Will be doing that shortly. I've updated my GPU drivers as well. Now I'm crossing my fingers that nVidia actually puts out a update for trhe mobile GPUs for Skyrim -- desktop only so far. Can't use ambient occlusion until then, as it's not supported.

 

I'll provide an update once I know more. Thanks.

[moho25]

Just finished a bit of testing. At first I thought disabling all the mods fixed it, but I don't think so.

 

Note that I disabled all mods, double checked everything was gone out of the Data folder, but still loaded the game with SKSE. I left the .ini files alone.

 

The CTDs I was having subsequent to modding & .ini tweaking usually occurred when I was outdoors. I was also having issues with never-ending loading screens when going from a building to the outdoors -- I waited for maybe 4 "captions". There were also a couple new character saves (just prior to character creation) that I couldn't get to load -- stuck at the loading screen, with several rounds of captions.

 

Here's what I was left with after unloading all my mods:

 

-- No crashes for about a half hour; fast traveled, slayed a couple dragons, went indoors and out, etc

 

--Loading screens for indoors > outdoors take 2 "captions"

 

--2 crashes after the first 30 minutes; 1 in Honeyside when opening a chest, another outside Honeyside upon opening the map (I have some highrez .ini tweaks for that -- not crazy high, but greater zoom in details). While these are the same CTD without errors I was getting before, they aren't happening from the same thing -- can't decide if this was just bad luck, or what.

 

--I can load into the 2 saves now that I couldn't previously

 

So, it seems like it might be due to a mod, or combination thereof, or, maybe not.

 

My next step is to replace the defaul .ini files, except for the uGrids setting and see how that works.