Sudden drop in drawdistance

[Martinos1991]

yesterday i installed MSI afterburner to help deal with Skyrim stuttering,

it worked but when i continued playing i noticed that the viewing distance was reduced dramatically.

it's not the settings, I've tried that and i have also tried reinstalling skyrim, verifying the game cache and completely removing MSI.

Also my in game map no longer displays normally, everything is white except for the part directly surrounding my characters location, basically the part of the map that i can see in game i'm guessing.

If anyone knows of something i could try to fix this please tell me, the view distance has become so limited that everything just pops up in front of me and it really makes the game unplayable.

 

Thanks in advance

[blitzen]

Those draw distances are affected by .ini settings. Check your Skyrim config files. Also look for any files with a .ini suffix that are anywhere under the main Skyrim folder. I have found some stray .ini files that must have been installed along with mods, and the game seemed to be reading these files, even though they weren't in the proper location (in a subfolder instead).

Edited March 1, 2013 by blitzen

[Martinos1991]

I was leaning towards it being something with the ini file, because i tried deleting it and then having skyrim make a new one, and the first two times i tried that it worked, kinda.

it restored the view distance, but somehow also deactivated some mods that i've had for some time now, but when i closed the game and deactivated some mods when i restarted the game the view distance was back down again.

now this doesn't work every time i do it but it might offer some clue.

[Martinos1991]

[General]

fBrightLightColorB=1.0000

fBrightLightColorG=1.0000

fBrightLightColorR=1.0000

iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1

bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0

[imagespace]

bDoDepthOfField=1

[Display]

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=5

fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000

fShadowDistance=2500.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

iShadowSplitCount=2

iMaxAnisotropy=8

fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000

fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000

fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=3600.0000

fGamma=1.0000

fDecalLOD2=1500.0000

fDecalLOD1=1000.0000

fSpecularLODStartFade=500.0000

fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000

fLightLODStartFade=1000.0000

iTexMipMapMinimum=0

iTexMipMapSkip=0

iWaterMultiSamples=0

iMultiSample=0

iShadowMode=3

bTreesReceiveShadows=0

bDrawLandShadows=0

bFull Screen=0

iSize H=900

iSize W=1600

fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000

fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000

fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=3072.0000

fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=4096.0000

iScreenShotIndex=2

bShadowMaskZPrepass=0

bMainZPrepass=0

iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=3

iMaxDecalsPerFrame=10

bFloatPointRenderTarget=0

[Grass]

b30GrassVS=0

fGrassStartFadeDistance=3500.0000

fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000

fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.0000

[MAIN]

bGamepadEnable=1

bCrosshairEnabled=1

fHUDOpacity=1.000

bSaveOnPause=1

bSaveOnTravel=1

bSaveOnWait=1

bSaveOnRest=1

[GamePlay]

bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1

bShowQuestMarkers=1

iDifficulty=2

[interface]

bDialogueSubtitles=0

bGeneralSubtitles=0

[Controls]

fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.0000

fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0125

bAlwaysRunByDefault=1

bInvertYValues=0

bGamePadRumble=1

bMouseAcceleration=1

[Particles]

iMaxDesired=750

[saveGame]

fAutosaveEveryXMins=15.0000

[AudioMenu]

fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000

fVal7=1.0000

uID7=0

fVal6=1.0000

uID6=0

fVal5=1.0000

uID5=0

fVal4=1.0000

uID4=0

fVal3=1.0000

uID3=0

fVal2=0.4000

uID2=466532

fVal1=1.0000

uID1=554685

fVal0=0.8000

uID0=1007612

[Clouds]

fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000

fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000

fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000

fCloudNearFadeDistance=9000.0000

[TerrainManager]

fTreeLoadDistance=25000.0000

fBlockMaximumDistance=100000.0000

fBlockLevel1Distance=32768.0000

fBlockLevel0Distance=20480.0000

fSplitDistanceMult=0.7500

bShowLODInEditor=0

[NavMesh]

fObstacleAlpha=0.5000

fCoverSideHighAlpha=0.8000

fCoverSideLowAlpha=0.6500

fEdgeFullAlpha=1.0000

fEdgeHighAlpha=0.7500

fEdgeLowAlpha=0.5000

fTriangleFullAlpha=0.7000

fTriangleHighAlpha=0.3500

fTriangleLowAlpha=0.2000

fLedgeBoxHalfHeight=25.0000

fEdgeDistFromVert=10.0000

fEdgeThickness=10.0000

fPointSize=2.5000

[Trees]

bRenderSkinnedTrees=1

uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=20

[Decals]

uMaxDecals=100

[LOD]

fLODFadeOutMultObjects=5.0000

fLODFadeOutMultItems=3.0000

fLODFadeOutMultActors=6.0000

[Launcher]

bEnableFileSelection=1

This is the Skyrimprefs.ini

[Martinos1991]

[General]

sLanguage=ENGLISH

uExterior Cell Buffer=36

[Display]

fShadowLODMaxStartFade=1000.0

fSpecularLODMaxStartFade=2000.0

fLightLODMaxStartFade=3500.0

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

bAllowScreenshot=1

[Audio]

fMusicDuckingSeconds=6.0

fMusicUnDuckingSeconds=8.0

fMenuModeFadeOutTime=3.0

fMenuModeFadeInTime=1.0

[Grass]

bAllowCreateGrass=1

bAllowLoadGrass=0

[GeneralWarnings]

SGeneralMasterMismatchWarning=One or more plugins could not find the correct versions of the master files they depend on. Errors may occur during load or game play. Check the "Warnings.txt" file for more information.

[Archive]

sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa

sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa

[Combat]

fMagnetismStrafeHeadingMult=0.0

fMagnetismLookingMult=0.0

[Papyrus]

fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0

bEnableLogging=0

bEnableTrace=0

bLoadDebugInformation=0

This one i never noticed before, not that that is saying something, but it is called Skyrim_default