Graphical Issue

[killerkittykat]

Hi guys, I'm having some trouble in game with color depth.. The bit depth seems too low, but I checked in my nvidia driver settings and it is set to 32 bit color. I'm pretty sure I've always had these problems, but it wasn't until I downloaded a mod that they really stood out.

 

This first pic is with all mods turned off. It shows how the smoke is distorted in the loading menu.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y39/jerseygrl33458/Smoke1.png

 

The second image also has mods turned off. I think the clouds have a similar look as the smoke from the start menu and her clothes seem to look distorted... However, this is how the game has always looked for me so I'm not sure if it's normal or not.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y39/jerseygrl33458/TESV2012-01-0620-57-25-77.png

 

All of the following pictures were taken with the mod "Realistic Lighting Without Post-Processing" turn on. I love this mod, but in darker areas it made the problem (that I believe I've had all along) much more intense.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y39/jerseygrl33458/TESV2012-01-0621-11-21-70.png

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y39/jerseygrl33458/TESV2012-01-0621-12-13-84.png

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y39/jerseygrl33458/TESV2012-01-0621-10-58-36.png

 

In the second to last picture you can see distortion around the chat menu.

 

 

Thanks for those who took the time to read through my post. Let me know if there is more information you'd like me to post.

 

I'm just hoping to get some help on fixing my problem. I know it's a minor one, but it's still annoying :P

Edited January 7, 2012 by killerkittykat

[killerkittykat]

bump :(

[Feanoro]

Would you believe me if I told you the game looked like that for me as well till today? Well maybe not exactly like that but with washed up colors. Then I mucked about with it, messed it up too much and decided to completely reinstall. Before I reinstalled I also upgraded my drivers to the latest nvidia beta drivers then reinstalled the game.

 

Now it looks like this:

 

http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff501/Feanoro/TESV2012-01-0713-33-42-60.jpg

 

http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff501/Feanoro/TESV2012-01-0713-29-14-76.jpg

 

My textures are set on low btw cause I have fps problems and the pics above have been reduced in quality but anyway game looks way better with new drivers than it did before in terms of color and textures and stuff.

 

So maybe the 290.53 drivers will help you out if you don't have them?

Edited January 7, 2012 by Feanoro

[killerkittykat]

Would you believe me if I told you the game looked like that for me as well till today? Well maybe not exactly like that but with washed up colors. Then I mucked about with it, messed it up too much and decided to completely reinstall. Before I reinstalled I also upgraded my drivers to the latest nvidia beta drivers then reinstalled the game.

 

Now it looks like this:

 

http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff501/Feanoro/TESV2012-01-0713-33-42-60.jpg

 

http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff501/Feanoro/TESV2012-01-0713-29-14-76.jpg

 

My textures are set on low btw cause I have fps problems and the pics above have been reduced in quality but anyway game looks way better with new drivers than it did before in terms of color and textures and stuff.

 

So maybe the 290.53 drivers will help you out if you don't have them?

 

Hi thanks so much for the reply! I actually just downloaded the 290.53 drivers right before reading your post. I haven't installed them yet, but it sure is nice to know it worked for you.

 

Did you test to see how the game looked with the new drivers before you reinstalled? or did the new drivers only help after the reinstall? Also, did your smoke on the loading screens look like how mine looks now and after you installed the new drivers now does it looks cleaner?

 

Thanks again, I'll let you know how the install goes for me.

Edited January 7, 2012 by killerkittykat

[Dominionz]

I'm curious if you've always had this problem. It doesn't necessarily sound like a driver issue as much as maybe a monitor issue. I'd still try newest drivers anyhow, but, be wary. I tried the new beta drivers and it dropped my framerate in half with no noticeable graphical improvement so I rolled back to 285.79 beta. If drivers don't change anything you might want to look at tweaking settings in Nvidia Control Panel or possibly calibrating your monitor.

[killerkittykat]

I'm curious if you've always had this problem. It doesn't necessarily sound like a driver issue as much as maybe a monitor issue. I'd still try newest drivers anyhow, but, be wary. I tried the new beta drivers and it dropped my framerate in half with no noticeable graphical improvement so I rolled back to 285.79 beta. If drivers don't change anything you might want to look at tweaking settings in Nvidia Control Panel or possibly calibrating your monitor.

 

I don't think it's my monitor because I can look at screen shots of people who get better color depth and I can see everything fine. Also, I don't have this problem in other games. I'm installing the drivers now. Thanks for the tip about frame rate. I've been using fraps recently while running mods (to make sure nothing was slowed down significantly) so I have a good idea of where it should be. I'll take note if it drops.

 

I just reformatted a few days ago, but it doesn't seem any different to me and I don't see why a clean reformat would make things worse xD

 

On that note, I have made sure that all drivers are up to date.. Speaking of drivers, I need to reboot and test the game :)

 

 

Edit: No change. Just double checked to make sure and I am now definitely running the nvidia beta drivers (290.53)... The color depth problem is still exactly the same. Also, there has been no change in frame rate.

Edited January 7, 2012 by killerkittykat

[machuidel]

Try the following:

- Setting LOD bias to 0

- Setting AF to 16x. Use your driver to force this.

 

@Killerkittykat: Looks like your gamma is much too high. Have a look at "skyim.ini" if "fGamma" is set to "1.000".

If that is the case. Check if you have any custom nvidia profile for Skyrim that changes the gamma.

Edited January 8, 2012 by machuidel

[killerkittykat]

Try the following:

- Setting LOD bias to 0

- Setting AF to 16x. Use your driver to force this.

 

@Killerkittykat: Looks like your gamma is much too high. Have a look at "skyim.ini" if "fGamma" is set to "1.000".

If that is the case. Check if you have any custom nvidia profile for Skyrim that changes the gamma.

 

Hi machuidel, thanks so much for the tips. I uninstalled and removed the game completely (copied my save files elsewhere of course) and now I'm redownloading it. Steam says it will be finished in 5 minutes. If the reinstall doesn't work, which I don't think it will, I am going to look into what you just said. I'll keep you updated. Thanks again for your time. :smile:

 

 

EDIT: So the reinstall didn't work. I went into the nvidia settings and set anisotropic filtering to 16x and that didn't fix it. The only thing I saw for LOD bias was "texture filtering- negative LOD bias" which by default was set to "allow," but I changed it to the only other option which was "clamped".. I combined that with AF at 16x and still no luck.

 

I opened up skyrim.ini in notepad but there is nothing that says gamma in there. I did ctrl F and nothing came up. :(

 

 

EDIT2: I went into skyrimprefs.ini and there I found fgamma which was set to 1.000. Not sure exactly how to find out if I have a custom nvdia profile for skyrim.. Is that something I would have had to download?

 

EDIT3: I found the option to "select a program to customize" and Skyrim was in there and I guess nvidia had presets or something. I clicked on that one, but I am still having the same problem. Also I opened up skyrimprefs.ini after applying that customization and it still says 1.000 (not sure if I should expect that to change).. Is there a custom value you would suggest typing in there?

 

 

Also, I just now noticed that it wasn't a clean uninstall and reinstall. I copied my old saves to a different location and before I moved them over to my new skyrim install the game already gave me the option to load the old files.. Do you think that I should uninstall, delete everything (except for the moved save files) and try again? ugh...

Edited January 8, 2012 by killerkittykat

[machuidel]

@killerkittykat

 

Try setting any brightness or contrast setting you can find to default.

 

If you did not install any mod, deleting all files will probably not solve your problem. Just make sure you regenerate the INI files by removing them (or moving them away).

But make sure you do not have any "d3d9.dll" file in your Skyrim installation folder.

 

Do you have this problem with other games as well?

Edited January 8, 2012 by machuidel

[killerkittykat]

@killerkittykat

 

Try setting any brightness or contrast setting you can find to default.

 

If you did not install any mod, deleting all files will probably not solve your problem. Just make sure you regenerate the INI files by removing them (or moving them away).

But make sure you do not have any "d3d9.dll" file in your Skyrim installation folder.

 

Do you have this problem with other games as well?

 

I do not have this problem with any other games, no. I have messed around with brightness a bit.. It looks like a color depth problem.. I found a link on google that compares 32 bit color to 16, and it really seems to match up with the problems with color banding I'm getting in game. Here's the link http://img452.imageshack.us/img452/8343/gradient32bit3ze.png

 

I do have d3d9.dll in steam/steam maps/common/skyrim. Should I delete it? What is this?

 

 

Thanks

 

edit: I moved the file to a different location temporally and booted the game. No change. By the way, a friend of mine has the exact same issue on his computer, and I believe his laptop as well. Does the smoke in the first pic I posted look how it looks for you guys? Or can you guys tell it is not right? Thanks.

Edited January 8, 2012 by killerkittykat