Graphics bug driving me crazy.

[Uncumber]

Hello there =) I'm new to posting on forums and I'm really sorry if I'm writing irrelevant information or this is long winded, but I've spent three days solid now trying to fix this and it's just driving me nuts.

 

The problem is sort of hard to explain, but I'll do my best. Firstly, there are no shadows whatsoever in game, neither is there mist or fog. However what's more, whenever I move, large shadows constantly flicker across the screen - as if a massive cloud had gone overhead for a second. Sometimes when I'm stationary I'll be under one of these 'clouds' - and then I move and it will flicker again.

 

The problem has started since I downloaded the latest patch; before then I was able to run Skyrim absolutely fine, with the graphics settings all on full, shadows looking beautiful and everything. I was not running any mods at all.

 

The first thing I tried to do was update my graphics drivers, that didn't help. I then did a fresh installation of skyrim, not from a backup. I have tried playing on all of the graphics settings (low, medium, high and ultra), with all the different options ticked on or off. I tried turning Crossfire off, that didn't help.

 

I've spent today restoring my PC to it's factory settings. It's now a completely fresh PC and everything's clean, haven't downloaded anything apart from the essential updates. Still the same problem with Skyrim though, which has what's prompted me to write this.

 

My SkyrimPrefs.ini is obviously untampered with now from the fresh installation. However I found that if I set everything with the word 'shadow' in it to =0, it fixes the 'cloud shadow' problem - although obviously there are still no shadows at all, which is just rubbish.

 

I have tried adding 'bShadowsOnGrass=0' to the skyrimprefs but that hasn't helped either.

 

And lastly I would have attatched a screen shot of the problem, but the problem is sort of hard to capture as it doesn't look particularly odd if I'm stationary (just sometimes I'm under a lot of shadow.)

 

 

I'm playing on a Dell XPS 420, 3G RAM, intel core 2 quad CPU 2.4ghz, 32-bit operating system and my graphics card is an ATI Radeon 3870 X2, I downloaded the latest graphics drivers for it from Dell.

 

If someone has any idea of what I might do to try and fix this it would be so massively appreciated, I'm more than happy to give any more information on anything - thank you for reading.

 

 

 

Uncumber.

Edited April 12, 2012 by Uncumber

[MadWizard25]

Sorry to hear mate. Unfortunately, if your using the latest patch there seems to be an issue with shadows for many users.

 

http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1361153-update-15-shadows-are-invisable-move-with-camera-have-lines-issue-possably-figured-out/

 

The original OP problem is not the same as yours, but if you read through then it seems there are many shadows issues surrounding latest patch, flickering, badly rendered, not rendering at all, etc. You can try some of the fixes mentioned but i cant guarantee anything.

 

Also, you rig may not be able to handle shadows at all, your hardware is pretty dated, and shadows can be tough on hardware. You may need to just have no shadows on period. If all else fails try rolling back to 1.4 patch. I dont know how to do that, but you can probably find a way on the internet.