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Skyrim Shadows Not Changing to INI Specs


Computerplayer1

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I've been trying desperately to get my game to recognize the skyrimprefs.ini file changes to shadows I've been attempting to make to no avail.

 

The shadows look like they're being drawn by an Atari 2600 even though they're at Ultra, but beyond that I also have them to all be 8192 in the ini file but they don't change. I've tried numerous variations of 1024,2048 etc to see if there is a difference and nothing ever changes. To see if it was actually picking up on the Ini file itself I disabled shadows in the Ini file and it worked. I'm not exactly sure what's going on but it's driving me slowly insane lol.

 

I have no mods installed to rule out interference, am running on a clean install of Skyrim, and test this in and outside of Whiterun.

 

I've google searched up a storm trying to find similar cases but everyone just refers to changing the same ini lines that I've changed to cure the blockiness. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for me for some reason lol.

 

If anyone has any ideas I'd much appreciate the help!

 

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa315/Computerplayer1/ScreenShot2.jpg

Shadows at 8192 in Whiterun. Shadows outside look the same on objects and characters.

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I should probably also note my settings and specs:

 

Everything is on Ultra

AA is set to 4x

AF is set to 0 in game, 16x in Nvidia Control Panel

AO is currently not enabled.

 

Computer Specs:

 

2700k @4.2ghz

16GB 1600mhz ddr3 8-8-8-24

GTX 670 4GB

1TB WD Caviar Black cached by 40GB Intel SSD

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There are a few of values you'll want to check in your SkyrimPrefs.ini.

 

iBlurDeferredShadowMask This controls the blurriness of the shadows. Values between 3 and 8 tend to look good.

fInteriorShadowDistance Controls the distance shadows are seen in interiors.

fShadowDistance Controls the distance shadows are seen in exteriors.

iShadowMapResolution

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary This and 'iShadowMapResolution' should be the same value

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary Controls the resolution of LOD shadows, i.e. shadows seen further than the players immediate viscinity.

 

Check your 'fShadowDistance' value. If it's too high it will stretch the shadow map so much that pixelation is visible. A value of 6000.00 should be adequate for a shadow map resolution of 8192.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...

As previously pointed out, the resolution isn't the only factor. Decreasing the draw distance will also greatly improve shadow quality and improve performance but if you make it too short you'll notice pop-in. The blur and maskquarter settings soften shadows to make the pixelation less noticeable. The maskquarter tends to lighten the whole shadow if set too high and going overboard on the blur tends to make shadow shapes indistinguishable.

 

Also, make sure you're editing the skyrimprefs.ini located at \My Documents\My Games\Skyrim\ and not the one in your installation directory.

Edited by MShoap13
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I've had the same exact problem.

Firstly, SkyrimPrefs.ini is NOT reloaded by the refreshini command, so if you want to see changes, you MUST restart the game.

 

Personally, I found the issue to be Exterior Shadow Distance (fShadowDistance). Unfortunately, the game forces you to compromise between load distance and quality. At about 1,000, the pixels are hardly noticeable, and the shadows look almost exactly like the object, at higher numbers (like 10,000) the shadows look like absolute crap. I'm not even sure the shadow resolution setting does anything considering how massive the change caused by this number is.

 

This is the difference between just 1000 and 4000 (not my own pictures, I found them on another similar thread).

1000:

http://cdn.overclock.net/a/a2/a200dadb_Screenshot8386.png

 

4000:

http://cdn.overclock.net/f/f9/f9f88693_Screenshot2138.png

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