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 Gameguru Mania News - Nov,24 2011 -  
Tweaking Skyrim Image Quality - tech
(hx) 09:57 PM CET - Nov,24 2011 - Post a comment / read (4)
The chaps over at HardOCP have published an interesting article on Tweaking Skyrim Image Quality. Here's a taster:
Now it's time to see everything all put together. We've taken all of the tweaks from the previous two pages and put them all in at once. In SkyrimPrefs.ini, we have set the following commands:

bDrawLandShadows=1
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
iShadowMapResolution=8192
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=32
fGrassStartFadeDistance=14000.0000
And in the Skyrim.ini file, we have added one simple line:
uGridstoLoad=7

In doing so, we have added self-shadows to rocks, boulders, mountains, and trees. We have doubled the dynamic shadow map resolution and softened the shadow edges by a magnitude of about 10. We have also doubled draw distance for grass and increased object draw distance by 40%. Before we show what the game looks like now, we have to look at performance. After all, the best graphics in the world aren't worth much if you can't play it.

Tweaking Skyrim's INI files was an interesting experience. We scoured various web sites and gamer communities looking for all the information we could find in order to enhance our Skyrim gameplay experience. We tested a very large number of settings, and a lot of them just flat did nothing, or at least they didn't visibly improve our gaming experience. At the end of the day, we came up with a list of six lines to modify that gave us great results. By increasing shadow resolution and applying a more aggressive blur filter, we effectively removed the jagged, blocky appearance of up-close shadows, which looked just horrible before. We also added shadows to the landscape and allowed trees, which gave the landscape a more dynamic, vibrant atmosphere. Increasing the draw distance for grass and landscape objects decreased the amount and severity of grass, object, and object detail pop-in happening while we traveled around the province. Before we changed these settings, we felt the game looked just good. But after tweaking, the game looks more rich and detailed.
last 10 comments:
Baconnaise(11:19 PM CET - Nov,24 2011 )
Yea I set my FOV to 80 and these tweaks help a smidge. I just keep it on ultra and tried these tweaks and more and found it to be not worth the effort. They're right about putting crappy textures next to nice ones. It's kind of shocking and considering how graphics have been a focus for so many games and people it's absurd. Anyways by the time they correct this by either letting the community fix it or themselves most of us will have moved on.

I wasn't really all that excited about Skyrim coming out anyways as I prefer Witcher 2 :).

Csimbi(12:42 AM CET - Nov,25 2011 )
Why is it that graphics is no good out of the box and you need to be a geeky guy so you can fix it???

Tom(02:29 AM CET - Nov,25 2011 )
Csimbi> Why is it that graphics is no good out of the box and you need to be a geeky guy so you can fix it???

I think you already know.

devilhood(06:42 PM CET - Nov,25 2011 )
It's an interesting article, but mostly full of crap.

uGridstoLoad should never be touched because it loads a perfectly acceptable amount of content whilst you're exploring outside. I used to tweak the hell out of Oblivion and all it did 99% of the time was overload the engine with AI scripts running in the background for Mobs/NPC's that you're not even close enough to interact with. I have little doubt that the engine is free from memory leaks, so it's best to stick with the default amount. I have already read reports that Skyrim's memory management isn't efficient enough to handle extra grids, which in-turn causes peculiar glitches such as NPC's spawning inside objects.

Also, iBlurDeferredShadowMask deals with the crispness of shadow edges, and anything above 12 will make shadows 3-4 metres ahead of you look awful, as if they have an exaggerated Depth of Field filter over them.

The problem with the engine is that the shadow resolution is directly affected by the fShadowDistance, so the smaller the shadow distance, the higher the resolution of the shadows being cast.
iShadowMapResolution=8192 seems to be the upper limit but it can cause flickering and other anomalies under certain lighting conditions.

This page has some great recommendations:

http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/five-fast-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweaks-guaranteed-to-make-your-game-look-even-better

I recommend these SkyrimPrefs.ini settings:

iShadowMapResolution=4096
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=2048 (or 4096 if you have a killer rig)
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
fShadowBiasScale=0.6000
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3

and the important one

fShadowDistance=4000.0000 (some people prefer 5000.0000)

It's worth noting these tweaks also, as they greatly increase the quality of water:

bUseWaterReflectionBlur=1
bReflectExplosions=1
iWaterBlurAmount=4
bAutoWaterSilhouetteReflections=0
bForceHighDetailReflections=1

There's also a realistic texture mod for water and rain ripples already:

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=711
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=603

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