Cells disappear in LOD near Winterhold?

[AngryBritishAce]

Please forgive me, as I am not very good at the technical stuff behind computers in general, so if this is really easily fixed then sorry :confused:

 

Anyway, yesterday I was wondering around Winterhold going through the College questline and I noticed some Cells off in the distance that had failed to show properly. I play Skyrim on ultra graphics most of the time and I had never experienced this glitch before. They showed the underneath of the map, showing sky and some terrain (in areas where it's really low). As well as this, there were also some cells in the ocean that didn't load/ show properly (however these were less noticeable). As far as I can tell, this is only happening in Winterhold and possibly areas where you can clearly see the ocean, however, I have not extensively looked into this in-game so it may cause problems around other areas in the game.

 

I managed to take a screenshot of the glitch in action:

 

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1082266720760396812/E3F6D0BDFAE89B8799A48F770A3A498A1867C55D/

 

I began to fiddle about with different settings and tried removing mods, and eventually discovered that this problem is partially fixed by going to "Options> Advanced> View Distance> Distant object detail = low." Although there are some cells that have disappeared, they are so far away they are not visible unless you really look closely.

 

Now, although I can still happily play like this, I would rather understand why this is happening and find out a permanent solution to fixing it. As I've said, I've been able to run Skyrim on Ultra before with little-to-no quality drop in the past, so I would like to at least understand why this is happening.

 

 

For the record, I have also tried the following solutions to try and stop this bug, however what I've said above has been the only solution that worked:

 

-Removed all mods so it's pure, Vanilla Skyrim

-Removed all DLC

-Played with lowest graphics (found out through this method that it was the Distant Object Detail that caused the problem, however the rest of the settings didn't effect the glitch)

-Played both using and not using SKSE

-Downloaded the Unofficial Skyrim Patch (but that caused more problems than solved)

-Uninstalled Skyrim and re-installed it

-Updated Driver

-"Attempted" to adjust game using SkyrimPrefs.ini (not at all experienced with this so I was changing things wildly hoping I'd do something with no real idea of what I was changing exactly).

 

Thank you for your time. :biggrin:

Edited May 21, 2013 by AngryBritishAce

[DocRockwell]

I'd be curious to know the cause as well. I'm runing on ultra high graphics, and forts and castles pop out of thin air sometimes.

 

Tried high quality LOD's mod and increasing ugridstoload to 7.

 

I remember a mod on Oblivion that had low detail models for the major structures in the game so they'd render at really long distances, with minimal performance hit. Something like that would be sweet.

[prod80]

If this happens on Vanilla settings, like you said, then how'd you expect to fix it...? If you have an exact location I could check tonight... I have a lot of distant LOD fixes installed, perhaps one of them addresses this issue - if it can be fixed in the first place.

 

I think it's just the engine thinking you are not able to see that part so - lets not render it. Does it even get rendered if you'd move more to the left?

[Kursan]

I have the same problem with some cells particularly water surface in the sea around Winterhold. From what I have read this is an engine limitation and there is no fix for it, other than setting graphics to low which for me is not an option.

 

It happens for me regularly standing on the bridge of the college at Winterhold and looking west, if the weather is clear the ocean floor is exposed along the beach for several cells, if the weather is lousy its ok; likewise as soon as I move down the path below the bridge the water becomes visible.

The same happens sometimes with castle walls that will not render at a long distance on a clear day.

 

What is more disconcerting is when water surface disappears in a cell right in front of the player, this happens at random and I have no explanation for it, but that is far more immersion breaking than the LOD issue.

 

prod80 if you know of some LOD fixes it would be great if you could list them, thanks.

[prod80]

Ill post... gotta be at home to check exactly what I am using right now... dont wanna post links to mods if I'm not sure about it.

 

Pretty sure about these though;

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4834/ (for Skyrim HD, as I use Skyrim HD)

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/1598/

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12866/

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/31982/ (I think this one is overwritten somewhere by any of those above, could check, but didnt cause issues of some sort)

[AngryBritishAce]

Ill post... gotta be at home to check exactly what I am using right now... dont wanna post links to mods if I'm not sure about it.

 

Pretty sure about these though;

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4834/ (for Skyrim HD, as I use Skyrim HD)

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/1598/

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12866/

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/31982/ (I think this one is overwritten somewhere by any of those above, could check, but didnt cause issues of some sort)

 

Hi, Sorry for not getting back immediately :P

 

I tried all of this and nothing seems to work, but thanks anyway. I can't really think of anything else that could help. If you're right, and this isn't something I can hope to fix, I'm assuming I'll either have to live with it or hope Bethy will somehow fix it in their next patch.

[rolloLG]

It's not the only one. There are more of them scattered around Skyrim, e.g. "coe 45 -21" and look at south mountains...

 

http://i43.tinypic.com/15713k9.jpg

 

This game engine is so old and buggy....

Edited July 29, 2013 by rolloLG

[rolloLG]

I'm the author of "USKP addon" mod... I'm trying to fix this kind of issues.

Already patched the area around 45 -21 and seems to work fine...

 

I need to know the exact cell(s) you're in when you can see cell-holes near Winterhold... Open console and use these commands (from 1st person view):

player.getpos x

player.getpos y

player.getpos z

Edited July 29, 2013 by rolloLG

[ksdfksdfkks]

Try to reduce fSplitDistanceMult=0.4000

Edited February 20, 2018 by ksdfksdfkks