Help with shadows

[Chris1911]

I need help, my Skyrim shadows are extremly buggy and blocky. Even with Ultra settings.

I know, there are a lot of fixes, like ini tuning but that doesnt work !

When i set the iShadowMapResolution to 4096 in the documents folder, nothing changes ingame.

Thats the same with primary & secundary.

The charactershadows are even worse. That ruins the hole game for me :S

Edited June 6, 2012 by Chris1911

[RitualBlack]

This mod works pretty well. It is an ini tweak but it really smooths out the shadows as long as you change the things it tells you to.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=148

[Chris1911]

Thanks, it worked ! But the shadows of the character are still very blocky. Is there any fix too?

[Georgiegril]

YOu are going about it backwards. Lower shadow map resolutions result in more blurred shadows

 

These are my settings, not to paste onto yours but to give you a reference for playing with your own. You need to tweak your settings until it works for your specific computer/graphics.

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=12

fInteriorShadowDistance=2000.0000

fShadowDistance=4000.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=512

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=1024

iShadowSplitCount=2

iMaxAnisotropy=4

 

and

 

bFXAAEnabled=0

iShadowMapResolution=1024

iShadowMaskQuarter=4

iAdapter=0

iPresentInterval=0

iShadowFilter=3

bTransparencyMultisampling=0

bDrawShadows=1

fShadowBiasScale=0.3000

[MightyZ0G]

if you have a big enough CPU you can get amazing shadows

here are the steps to get clean looking shadows

 

1 right click on the SkyrimLauncher and open the file location.

find the TESV.exe and create a shortcut for that and put it on your desktop.

 

2 start the SkyrimLauncher as normal and go to the advanced graphics settings

set shadows to MEDIUM

close the options and exit the SkyrimLauncher

 

3 open the documents\my games\skyrim\skyrimprefs.ini and put these settings

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=4096

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096

iShadowMapResolution=4096

save and exit

 

4 open the documents\my games\skyrim\skyrim.ini and put these settings

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096

save and exit

 

4a you can also add this to the skyrim ini to get less jumping of the shadows as the sun moves

fSunShadowUpdateTime=0.0020

fSunUpdateThreshold=0.0000

save and exit

 

5 start Skyrim using the TESV.exe shortcut (if you use the launcher it will reset the ini changes and your shadows will be horrible again)

 

you can use lower sizes for the shadowmapresloution but the numbers must be from this list or you will get some strange jumping shadows

64

128

256

512

1024

2048

[Chris1911]

Thanks, i will try it. My i5 3570k must be good enough

[MightyZ0G]

if you have a nVidia card that supports SSAO you can get much better shadows by turning SSAO on for Skyrim (you will need to use the 3d settings in the nVidia control panel to do this)

 

then in the prefs ini turn off shadow drawing

 

bTreesReceiveShadows=0
bDrawLandShadows=0
bDrawShadows=0
bEquippedTorchesCastShadows=0
bDynamicWindowReflections=0
bShadowsOnGrass=0
bActorSelfShadowing=0
bUseSunbeams=0

 

and let your GPU do the shadows with SSAO instead of your CPU doing the shadows with the game engine.

[Chris1911]

I tried the SSAO, but i can't see any difference ingame. I really set the right settings, but it doesn't work :(

[MightyZ0G]

if you have SSAO on and shadows turned off in the ini then you should have shadows in game but instead of the CPU drawing the shadows, the GPU (GFX card) draws them.

 

it doesn't improve the shadows as such but should improve overall performance

[Chris1911]

But after activating SSAO, i can so no shadows at all.