weltall Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 I have a old 4870 512MB graphics card and it actually let me enjoy my first vanilla playthrough easily. Ever since I started modding Skyrim though it has been coughing here and there, because of all the graphical mods I use. I recently found configurator and the only thing I have done is to lower the shadow quality to 512x, shadow filter to low and shadow blur to 10. It has helped a bit but still it seems dissatisfied at times. I recently read a thread about Shadows Remover and using mods to replace the feeling of the shadows? I am not expert so I decided to ask in here if anyone can suggest any settings to lower. Currently I am using Skyrim HD Lite with quite a phew graphical mods, some of them being: Enchanted blood texturesEnchanted Distant Terrain HDEnchanted Lights and FXHD Furniture - BarrelsHi Rest Legible Road SignsImproved NPC Clothing - High ResNicer SnowflakesNo stretching FullProject RealityStatic Mesh ImprovementsWATERMods that alter the resolution of armor and weapon textures. I am not sure if any of these smaller mods give too much stress, for example like Flora Overhaul that as soon as I installed it I felt the computer crying, but I do know that the more I add the harder it gets for the pc. Currently I am trying to avoid anything that alters trees, flowers and grass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FiftyTifty Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 I'm on a 6670, and I can't get a stable 40fps @1152x864 (I use a few view-distance enhancing mods with distance sliders max'd) when something happens with shadows enabled, so i disabled them. Tha's my story, and I haven't regretted it. To disable shadows, change all the "ishadowmapresolution" settings to 1. DO NOT SET THEM TO 0, otherwise you will actually get worse performance. You can set all the shadow distance settings to 0, though. Get "Climates of Tamriel", "Realistic Lighting Overhaul" then "Colorful Lights No Shadows". That will greatly enhance the static shadows (Skyrim's lighting system) to compensate for the lack of dynamic shadows. Similar effect to having shadows enabled, but without the performance impact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naturlich68 Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 You know if you like, I could send you my Skyrim and Prefs ini files to try out, I've tweaked them up quiet alot, if they don't help you just go back to your own set (having backed them up of course). I don't use any of the HD textures, but I'd hope that my tweaks might help you, or in fact I could post my ini files in here later when I'm on my home PC. Nat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Georgiegril Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Shadows are rendered by the CPU in Skyrim, not the GPU. If your graphics card is the weak link in your rig, then there are other changes that will have more of an impact. (Although if you are running a dual core processor, or otherwise have GPU limitations, you may find disabling shadows does help your overall performance.) I, too, have an older card (9800 GT, 512 MB). I have decreased the amount of grass, number of particles, do not use the official high-res textures but do use SMIM, Vurts Flora overhaul, and Water (all on the lower-res options) to make my game pretty. I have tried a couple lighting mods but personally don't think they are worth the performance hit. I also limit my FPS around 35-40. A nice guide to tweaks for lower end rigs is RookieNoob's tweak guide. It does a good job of explaining various changes and their effects on high or low graphics rigs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naturlich68 Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 I'm sure by no means perfect or complet on tweaks, but here you go: My Skyrim.ini [General]sLanguage=ENGLISHuExterior Cell Buffer=36bUseThreadedTempEffects=1bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1bMultiThreadMovement=1bUseThreadedMorpher=1[Decals]bDecalMultithreaded=1[Display]fShadowLODMaxStartFade=1000.0fSpecularLODMaxStartFade=2000.0fLightLODMaxStartFade=3500.0iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=512bAllowScreenshot=1fDecalLifetime=256.000[Audio]fMusicDuckingSeconds=6.0fMusicUnDuckingSeconds=8.0fMenuModeFadeOutTime=3.0fMenuModeFadeInTime=1.0[Grass]bAllowCreateGrass=1bAllowLoadGrass=0[Combat]fMagnetismStrafeHeadingMult=0.0fMagnetismLookingMult=0.0[Papyrus]fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0bEnableLogging=1bEnableTrace=1bLoadDebugInformation=0[Water]bReflectLODObjects=0bReflectLODLand=0bReflectSky=1bReflectLODTrees=0[backgroundLoad]bBackgroundLoadLipFiles=1bLoadBackgroundFaceGen=1bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1bBackgroundCellLoads=1bLoadHelmetsInBackground=1bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1bUseBackgroundFileLoader=1[Animation]bMultiThreadBoneUpdate=1[HAVOK]iNumThreads=2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naturlich68 Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 and my Skyrimprefs.ini: [General]fBrightLightColorB=1.0000fBrightLightColorG=1.0000fBrightLightColorR=1.0000iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0[imagespace]bDoDepthOfField=1iRadialBlurLevel=0bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1bUseThreadedBlood=1bUseThreadedMorpher=1bUseThreadedTempEffects=1bUseThreadedTextures=1bUseThreadedMeshes=1bUseThreadedLOD=1bUseThreadedAI=1bUseThreadedMorpher=1[Display]iBlurDeferredShadowMask=0fInteriorShadowDistance=2000.0000fShadowDistance=2000iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=512iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=1024iShadowSplitCount=2iMaxAnisotropy=1fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=3600fGamma=1.0400fDecalLOD2=1500.0000fDecalLOD1=1000.0000fSpecularLODStartFade=650fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000fLightLODStartFade=1355iTexMipMapMinimum=0iTexMipMapSkip=0iWaterMultiSamples=0iMultiSample=1iShadowMode=3bTreesReceiveShadows=1bDrawLandShadows=1bFull Screen=1iSize H=1050iSize W=1680fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=3072fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=4096iScreenShotIndex=28bShadowMaskZPrepass=0bMainZPrepass=0iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=0iMaxDecalsPerFrame=0bFloatPointRenderTarget=1sD3DDevice="ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series"bFXAAEnabled=0iShadowMapResolution=512fShadowBiasScale=0.5iShadowMaskQuarter=3iAdapter=0iPresentInterval=0iShadowFilter=3bShadowsOnGrass=1bTransparencyMultisampling=0bDeferredShadows=1bDrawShadows=1[Grass]b30GrassVS=1fGrassStartFadeDistance=0fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.0000[MAIN]bGamepadEnable=0bCrosshairEnabled=1fHUDOpacity=1.0000bSaveOnPause=1bSaveOnTravel=1bSaveOnWait=1bSaveOnRest=1fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000.0000[GamePlay]bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1bShowQuestMarkers=1iDifficulty=3[interface]bDialogueSubtitles=1bGeneralSubtitles=1fMouseCursorSpeed=1.0000bShowCompass=1[Controls]fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.0000fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0125bAlwaysRunByDefault=1bInvertYValues=0bGamePadRumble=0bMouseAcceleration=0bUseKinect=0[Particles]iMaxDesired=250[saveGame]fAutosaveEveryXMins=15.0000[AudioMenu]fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000fVal7=1.0000uID7=0fVal6=1.0000uID6=0fVal5=1.0000uID5=0fVal4=1.0000uID4=0fVal3=1.0000uID3=94881fVal2=0.4000uID2=466532fVal1=1.0000uID1=554685fVal0=0.8000uID0=1007612[Clouds]fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000fCloudNearFadeDistance=9000.0000[TerrainManager]fTreeLoadDistance=12500fBlockMaximumDistance=75000fBlockLevel1Distance=25000fBlockLevel0Distance=15000fSplitDistanceMult=0.4bShowLODInEditor=0[NavMesh]fObstacleAlpha=0.5000fCoverSideHighAlpha=0.8000fCoverSideLowAlpha=0.6500fEdgeFullAlpha=1.0000fEdgeHighAlpha=0.7500fEdgeLowAlpha=0.5000fTriangleFullAlpha=0.7000fTriangleHighAlpha=0.3500fTriangleLowAlpha=0.2000fLedgeBoxHalfHeight=25.0000fEdgeDistFromVert=10.0000fEdgeThickness=10.0000fPointSize=2.5000[Trees]bRenderSkinnedTrees=1bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1bShadowMaskZPrePass=1uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=20[Decals]uMaxDecals=0bDecals=0bSkinnedDecals=0uMaxSkinDecals=0uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=0bDecalMultithreaded=1bDecalsOnSkinnedGeometry=1[LOD]fLODFadeOutMultObjects=4.5fLODFadeOutMultItems=4.5fLODFadeOutMultActors=13.05fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000[Launcher]bEnableFileSelection=1bShowAllResolutions=1uLastAspectRatio=4[blurShaderHDR]bDoHighDynamicRange=1[blurShader]bUseBlurShader=0[Water]iWaterReflectHeight=512iWaterReflectWidth=512bUseWaterDisplacements=1bUseWaterRefractions=1bUseWaterReflections=1bUseWaterDepth=1[Papyrus]iMinMemoryPageSize=100000iMaxMemoryPageSize=5000000iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=1800000000[Navmesh]bUseThreadedMeshes=1[backgroundLoad]bBackgroundLoadLipFiles=1bLoadBackgroundFaceGen=1bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1bBackgroundCellLoads=1bLoadHelmetsInBackground=1bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weltall Posted March 1, 2013 Author Share Posted March 1, 2013 (edited) Thank you for all the replies guys and for the config Naturlich. Also, I did not know what shadows were emulated by the CPU. All I know is that this was usually what made my games slow. I have a C2Q Q9400 @3.2GHz. The sure is that background programs are giving a hard time to my games, since when I run it normally I get 30 FPS (although its quite smooth) and when I run the gamebooster I get 30-50 depending the spot. I am going to do a format now and I am debating on even going back in Windows XP, but I have read that XP are not as good in handling newer games as 7. Edit Awesome guide Georgiegril! Thanks for the link! Edited March 1, 2013 by weltall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jet4571 Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Shadows are rendered by the CPU in Skyrim, not the GPU. If your graphics card is the weak link in your rig, then there are other changes that will have more of an impact. (Although if you are running a dual core processor, or otherwise have GPU limitations, you may find disabling shadows does help your overall performance.) Actualy shadows are calculated on the CPU for when and where they are cast and the shape of the shadow relative to what is blocking the light, the source of the light, and the camera location and angle. Then the GPU renders them in that spot just like any other texture. Basicly the exact same as a particle affect but applied like a decal. Running shadows at a resoltuion of 4096 will make an older video card scream and cry, but a 512 shadow with max dynamic lighting/shadows with dynamic trees and grass(swaying in a breeze) and the PC ruinning and jumping about the place will make an older CPU scream and cry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Georgiegril Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Indeed, the leaf animation is one of those things I have reduced for my own performance. You make a good point, and running 4096 shadows with a 512 graphics card would likely be a mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngloft Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 dont remove the shadows Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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