Unfixable Shadow Striping

[GlassToTheArson]

For whatever reason I can't upload any pictures from steam. I seem to be experiencing what others have called Shadow Striping. It has not been a constant problem, rather one that has started just recently. I tried disabling the last few mods I downloaded, to no avail. It's beginning to make the game unplayable.

 

Do any of you know how I can fix this problem?

Edited July 20, 2012 by GlassToTheArson

[Kalpon777]

I too have Shadow Striping. Nearly every surface in certain areas are COMPLETELY covered in this horrible eye sore during daytime. Only does it go away at night or in interior locations (mostly). It's absolutely ridiculous looking and really kills the immersion factor of this beautiful game. I'm a bit sore on the topic because A.) the only mod that fixes this is hidden on Skyrim Nexus, B.) It's the last major glitch I have yet to find a solution to.

 

It's particularly bad in cities, where sides of buildings will look fine (aside from slight striping nearly indistinguishable from the textures) and suddenly it's like somebody flicked a conveyor belt on and the entire walls begin glitching as the shadows jump forward. Rinse and repeat. While roaming around outside, many cliff faces and rocks have it bad as well.

 

I also get it in nearly every location covering the left side of my char's face/neck/arms. I've included photos but in all honesty, they don't compare to the horror in real time. It's 100x more noticeable when animated by jumping shadows.

 

 

EDIT:::

 

I've come to a fairly decent conclusion, but definitely not the actual reason behind this problem (and likely most other shadow glitches).

 

I was able to reduce, even get rid of this phenomena entirely by bumping my Shadows to High/Ultra. There are also some .ini settings you can mess with which essentially do exactly the same thing. The way Skyrim renders shadows and environmental animations such as swaying trees (and their shadows) as well as the propagation of shadows throughout the day caused by the sun rising and setting... seems like the TWO MOST GPU-dependent things in the game.

 

Essentially, you absolutely need to have Recommended or likely far better requirements to play Skyrim without any Shadow Glitches with decent FPS. If you don't, you are probably turning your Shadows to Low/Medium and this is the result.

 

You could always sacrifice LOD/Fade or Textures and throw your Shadows up to Ultra, or bump them up anyway and take a major hit in FPS.

 

There's really no easy way around it, for whatever reason, Skyrim demands you have a fantastic GPU or you're going to be experiencing some Shadow Glitches. There are however, some very creative tweaks here: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/283/?tab=2&navtag=/ajax/modimages/?user=0|:|id=283

 

I'll probably be using the static shadow tweak myself, as I don't really care whether the shadows move across the map in a realistic manner and would rather have a FPS boost.

 

Cheers and good luck :)

Edited July 20, 2012 by Kalpon777

[Georgiegril]

Have you tried changing your shadowbiasscale? I was able to get rid of striping by following the procedure here. I think the exact effects really depend on your own rig so you probably need to play around with them. Generally though, blurrier shadows decrease striping, and if you are triung to get super crisp shadows you are more likely to have the effect. I only see any striping now if I am in a custom mod dungeon that changes lighting significantly.