LOD

[SpookaXX]

I hate smudgy hills and the bare look of skyrim at a distance so I started downloading a bunch of lod mods. However, they never seem to look like the screenshots on the mod pages and if anything it seems to make things worse. Now roads that are seconds away at a run don't even show up most of the time. All my settings are on ultra and I even tweaked the .ini to increase the lod but mine doesn't look like the pics from that guide either!!! Can anyone help??

[LargeStyle]

I wouldn't be surprised if the people that make these screenshots set up their Skyrim either heavily or completely towards visual mods that make good screenshots, with either a partial or complete disregard to other "important" factors such as game stability, performance, other Skyrim gameplay enhancing mods. I guess there could be exceptions to this for people with seriously high end pcs but as I don't have one I don't know!

 

However, as for making LODs look better, if you're unaware the main variable to adjust is the uGrids setting which can be located in the Skyrim.ini. By default it's set to 5 which ultimately doesn't stretch very far at all (and I imagine was set this low for console limitations). This value has to be an odd number, and many people think 7 is the best setting because it "fills the gap" nicely with empty scenery and can be stable for general gameplay use. I've read that you need an uber-powerful pc to run uGrids to 9 while stable, and 11 and 13 are for very momentary / screenshot use only.

 

Other than this, the other LOD mods I've (so far) ended up using are:

 

HD Enhanced Terrain - this simulates better ground / grass detail and IMHO is rather good.

 

AOF HD Tree LODs - obviously improved LODs for trees!

 

 

The trees LODs in Skyrim are the worst LOD setting / mod to get right - for me I've still not found a totally convincing tree LOD mod which has actually made me think recently about making my own tree LOD mod and see how that goes. There are general environmental mods that cover tree LODs within them, such as Skyrim Flora Overhaul.

 

IMHO though, like I said I don't think there's one mod, or even one combination of mods available that makes Skyrim look as I think it should. So for me I'm now going through a process of breaking each mod down and selecting certain files and combining them into a singluar personalised mod for my own convenience - I've just done this for my "Complete People Overhaul" personal mod and I think it's awesome.

 

One last thing to consider is the actual weather / lighting mods other people use for their screenshots. The distance fogging in particular is the most important factor / relevance here - I've read that Climates of Tamriel has a less prominent distant fogging technique which yes can look great in certain locations, but it can more often than not simply expose the poor quality LODs Skyrim has. Compare this to the original Skyim weather / lighting system then there's a significantly exaggerated distance fogging in use which albeit is unrealistic it seems to suit Skyrim game engine / LOD system better as the fog masks the bare landscape.

 

Even a mod such as ENBseries can improve LOD looks greatly if used properly - such as distance fogging parameters set to appropriate levels and even Depth of Field settings to slightly blur the distance into a more "interesting" way.

 

Ultimately though, unless you have a powerful pc I would experiment with LOD tweaks (mods, .ini tweaks etc) and just settle for what's the best looking for your general 24/7 gameplay purposes. Saying all this though, I actually hope I'm wrong about this as I too would love to see better LODs!

[SpookaXX]

Thanks for the info, I also have those lod mods installed and have now upped the uGrids to 9 which has made a difference. Ultimately I think Bethesda needs a new engine.