Flickering shadows driving me mad. Please help.

[Mariel14]

Big Edit: FIXED! After months of searching, I finally found the cure. If anyone else is having this problem, give this a try. Of course, odds are your shadow problem (like mine) looks identical to everyone else's but is caused by something no one else's is. In which case, good luck in your epic quest to drag the game you paid good money for into the realm of decently playable as it's kicking and screaming and clawing at the immobile furniture all the way.

 

For me, it was an .ini tweak in the end. Go to SkyrimPrefs.ini in your My Games/Skyrim folder. At the bottom of [display], right above [grass], check to see if you have this line:

 

bDeferredShadows=0

 

If you don't have it, insert it right there. If you do have it but it's set to 1, set it to 0.

 

I only found this solution in one other place on the internet after six hours of trying different searches, so I hope anyone else who reads this finds it helpful.

 

 

Before the 1.5 update, Skyrim ran pretty well on my computer. After, it became unplayable, and I haven't been able to fix it since.

 

First, my particular type of flickering shadows: They happen whether I'm indoors or outdoors, sunlight or torchlight, at all graphics levels. Any slight movement of the mouse or view causes the shadows to spazz and flicker at seizure-inducing rates. Additionally, most of the shadows are blocky/pixelated or rippled or both, when before they were none of those. It happens with or without mods playing.

 

EDIT: This is not my video, but this person seems to be having the same problem as I am. So at least I'm not alone.

 

 

Things I have tried:

Mods to remove the shadow stripes, mods to change the graphics of the game

Numerous .ini changes (saved a copy of the original, of course, no harm done)

Updated all graphics drivers

Made certain that my NVIDIA GeForce was the preferred graphics card, both globally and specifically for Skyrim

 

As a last ditch effort, I uninstalled the game and then tried to re-install it from the disc without any updates so I could at least play it straight vanilla. Before I could stop it though, Steam started automatically updating (even though I had specifically told it never to update for this game), so it seems even that option is useless to me. None of these things made any difference whatsoever, nor have any subsequent updates.

 

I contacted customer support/tech support, and was told to send a text from my DirectX Diagnostic panel. I did so, and was informed that my computer did not meet the minimum requirements for Skyrim, have a nice day and go screw yourself (I'm paraphrasing). This is bull, because I specifically got this laptop because it had those minimum requirements.

 

So after a few months of utter disgust, I'm tackling the problem once again. For starters, here's the system info:

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System Information

------------------

Time of this report: 12/15/2012, 05:14:45

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120503-2030)

Language: English (Regional Setting: English)

System Manufacturer: FUJITSU

System Model: LIFEBOOK NH751

BIOS: Default System BIOS

Processor: Intel® Core i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.0GHz

Memory: 4096MB RAM

Available OS Memory: 3944MB RAM

Page File: 3850MB used, 4037MB available

Windows Dir: C:\windows

DirectX Version: DirectX 11

DX Setup Parameters: Not found

User DPI Setting: Using System DPI

System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)

DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled

DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 64bit Unicode

 

Then this caught my eye:

---------------

Display Devices

---------------

Card name: Intel® HD Graphics Family

Manufacturer: Intel Corporation

Chip type: Intel® HD Graphics Family

DAC type: Internal

Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0116&SUBSYS_15EA10CF&REV_09

Display Memory: 2694 MB

Dedicated Memory: 978 MB

Shared Memory: 1716 MB

Current Mode: 1600 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz)

 

It's supposed to be using my NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M, isn't it?

 

I understand that with both graphics processors on my system, it should be switching from one to the other when necessary. However, after I tried disabling the Intel card and restarting my computer, it didn't seem to be using the NVIDIA card at all. The regular desk top was limited to VGA processing, and when I ran DxDiag it came up with blanks in the 'Display Devices' tabs. No card at all. So maybe THIS is my problem?

 

I can't tell who's at fault here--DirectX? NVIDIA? Bethesda? I don't care. I'd just like my game to run without causing brain damage please.

 

Any help would be incredibly appreciated.

Edited December 16, 2012 by Mariel14

[terrain182]

have you try this shadow tweak

[acidzebra]

Try reinstalling the Nvidia drivers or better yet, grabbing the most current ones from the Fujitsu site.

http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/Index.asp?LNG=com

[Mariel14]

I have tried all of those ini tweaks before, some of them several times in different configurations. I've also just re-installed all the latest drivers for both of my graphics cards not two hours ago. Thanks for replying though. Edited December 15, 2012 by Mariel14

[stars2heaven]

Have you tried just playing with a completely unaltered ini and no shadow tweaks at all? (and that includes anything you might have changed in you video card settings for the game such as in nvidia inspector)

 

I went through a great deal of trouble recently for several days looking for a problem I had with CTDs in only one location and I was convinced it was a mod that was doing it because the CTDs stopped when I had that mod turned off. Turns out it was actually a setting that I had changed long ago and forgotten about in nvidia inspector that no longer plays nice with skyrim. Now that mod works fine. I'd suggest trying a completely fresh start and then go from there.

[Mariel14]

I never altered the ini before this, and I just tried a complete uninstall/re-install, but for the sake of completeness I went ahead and deleted the .ini's and let it re-set all the preferences with no tweaks. Still no change.

 

I did a fresh start... now where do I go?

[RomSkun]

Thank you , that fixed my problem