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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC Performance discussion

shiroryu

Member
Is there a way to fix black screen after loading? I tried to use that DNA ini generator and none of my saves were working. Now even though I erased local content and installed the game again, it CTD right after loading.

Have you re-patched your installation to the latest official patch(v1.3.10 or something) Latest patch had no CTD issues at all for me.

Also, in the future, always make copies of .ini files before making changes so you have safe versions to go back to; there shouldn't be a need to reinstall the game because of ini changes. Especially when using the .ini creator, it's better to try and figure out the specific line in the output than copy and paste the whole thing.

As to why your save files broke, it seems like you changed the uGrids settings; if the saves are still around, you basically need to match the game's uGrids settings to the ones you had when you made the saves, if they don't load after your reinstallation. You can then create a save with a desired uGrids from the console and use that going forward. See the OP for more info - a whole section on it near the bottom.
 

JVIDICAN

Member
Are the FXAA injector settings listed in the OP still up to date?
The FXAA part is definitely working but the color correction is kind of... purple..
VAOjE.jpg
 

Ledsen

Member
They are in the other links section at the bottom, yes.

While on that topic, shouldn't you remove some stuff from the OP? There are guides and such that were copy/pasted when the game had only been out a little while, unfinished and incomplete .ini guides from multiple sources, and everything about 4GB and LAA is obsolete since the latest patch. It gets a bit confusing.
 

tborsje

Member
Hey Guys...

This is.... AWESOME.

CFG Auto Creator. One of the best tools I've seen so far.

DO NOT ARGUE SKYRIM .INI CREATOR TOOL

Ugh. This just killed my config. Now every time I move my characters head or the third person camera, a massive black shadow follows my field of view obstructing anything in the way. It seems to track whatever I'm looking at.

Anyone have any idea what variable in the ini files would cause that?
 

shiroryu

Member
Ugh. This just killed my config. Now every time I move my characters head or the third person camera, a massive black shadow follows my field of view obstructing anything in the way. It seems to track whatever I'm looking at.

Anyone have any idea what variable in the ini files would cause that?

No idea, but seems to be a shadow issue. There's a player self-shadowing option in there, maybe turn that off if you have it on. Or play around with the other shadowing options.

Skyrim has some default inis for graphics settings in the game folder, if you want to go back to the default config.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
A "mod" to keep an out for.

Don't know when it's coming but it's something that may be pretty cool.

Ugh. This just killed my config. Now every time I move my characters head or the third person camera, a massive black shadow follows my field of view obstructing anything in the way. It seems to track whatever I'm looking at.

Anyone have any idea what variable in the ini files would cause that?

DO NOT copy the entirety of it to your ini. Plug in settings that help and do it slowly. Don't risk breaking a good thing. Try and enhance little by little.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Also working on a separate mod thread. When it goes up, please don't post in it for a few posts. I want to reserve 3-4 posts if I can.

It won't necessarily be up today but it will be up hopefully soon. I intend to transfer most of the mod post to post 2 and highlight the CK and other things in the first post. Info is scarce and I've received little from Beth (I talked briefly to a dev/rep). I understand they can't exactly spill it all to some forum guy :p So it will start taking shape as soon as the CK hits and I have the information here and start piecing things together.
 
The "TESVAL.asm" file? But do I boot up a different file or just boot up through Steam as always?

skyboost and TESVAL are two different mods. Skyboost is based on TESVAL but TESVAL came out first.

That being said, you can only use one or the other. Not both at the same time. If you're using TESVAL then delete any skyboost files you have in the skyrim main directory.

If you're using skyboost, then delete all TESVAL files you have in the plugins sub folder in the SKSE folder.
 
While on that topic, shouldn't you remove some stuff from the OP? There are guides and such that were copy/pasted when the game had only been out a little while, unfinished and incomplete .ini guides from multiple sources, and everything about 4GB and LAA is obsolete since the latest patch. It gets a bit confusing.
The patch applies automatically for the steam version?

Haven't seen ENB doing much for Bethesda games, it was a performance killer on Fallout. Screens so far, with ENB, don't look stunning... yet.
 
The visual artifact that bothers me is the seesaw shadows. But guess moders can't do anything about that.

The other thing i would like is extended view distance, but it tends to make things unstable.

And finally, most wanted gameplay mode is something similar to the "hardcore" mode of New Vegas, since food and sleep are kind of wasted in the game.
 
On the INI generator, my setup is a 2600k HT Enabled and 8GB os system RAM.

How should I set the RAM and core usage fields?


Max Preload Size Limit in Bytes

Master File Preload (MB)

Number of Threads the game can use

Also, when I hit the Create button, a lot of the fields have no values to them:

[Grass]
bAllowCreateGrass=1
bAllowLoadGrass=
b30GrassVS=
fGrassStartFadeDistance=
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=

Quoting for new page. Any input would be greatly apprecaited!
 
Can't check it out for myself now. Is there away to modify the .ini so you can use down on the dpad xbox360 controller as a shortcut like you do with left and right? Strange Bethesda didn't do it since there's no advantage for down to function the same as up.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
While on that topic, shouldn't you remove some stuff from the OP? There are guides and such that were copy/pasted when the game had only been out a little while, unfinished and incomplete .ini guides from multiple sources, and everything about 4GB and LAA is obsolete since the latest patch. It gets a bit confusing.

It's in the works. I've got something going already in a word document but yes, it needs to be edited down and the holidays took its toll on my devotion to the thread. I've been quietly working on the thread for sure and in prep for a migration to a dedicated mod thread.

Can't check it out for myself now. Is there away to modify the .ini so you can use down on the dpad xbox360 controller as a shortcut like you do with left and right? Strange Bethesda didn't do it since there's no advantage for down to function the same as up.

You mean hotkeys?
 
I see in the OP that there's a fix for indoor/cave areas. What I'm wondering is if anyone else has encountered a more specific variant: awful, slideshow framerates (that even result in multiple second freezes of the game before unfreezing for lack of a better description) in areas only when multiple enemies are present. I'm using the better performance mod which greatly helped framerates in cities, and this is the only real outstanding issue I'm noticing.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
I see in the OP that there's a fix for indoor/cave areas. What I'm wondering is if anyone else has encountered a more specific variant: awful, slideshow framerates (that even result in multiple second freezes of the game before unfreezing for lack of a better description) in areas only when multiple enemies are present. I'm using the better performance mod which greatly helped framerates in cities, and this is the only real outstanding issue I'm noticing.

That's one I just added today btw. Was recommended to me on the forums so I put it here. I can't say I've ran into the issue you've had. I am continuing to read the forums but there are so many thread and a lot of it is basically spam so it makes it hard to find relevant posts sometimes.
 

shiroryu

Member
Quoting for new page. Any input would be greatly apprecaited!

Use the .ini generator page provided earlier, you'll see some options near the top that specify the correct no. of cores and stuff with the number of cores and system RAM.

Think these are the settings in skyrim.ini that control them, but you'll want to go through the generator. I have an i5 with 8 GB RAM, for reference.

[General]
iNumHWThreads=4

fMasterFilePreLoadMB=200.0000
iPreloadSizeLimit=419430400

[HAVOK]
iNumThreads=4
 
Use the .ini generator page provided earlier, you'll see some options near the top that specify the correct no. of cores and stuff with the number of cores and system RAM.

Think these are the settings in skyrim.ini that control them, but you'll want to go through the generator. I have an i5 with 8 GB RAM, for reference.

[General]
iNumHWThreads=4

fMasterFilePreLoadMB=200.0000
iPreloadSizeLimit=419430400

[HAVOK]
iNumThreads=4

I have a core i7 with 6 GB RAM, what would be my settings?
 
Use the .ini generator page provided earlier, you'll see some options near the top that specify the correct no. of cores and stuff with the number of cores and system RAM.

Think these are the settings in skyrim.ini that control them, but you'll want to go through the generator. I have an i5 with 8 GB RAM, for reference.

[General]
iNumHWThreads=4

fMasterFilePreLoadMB=200.0000
iPreloadSizeLimit=419430400

[HAVOK]
iNumThreads=4

Mine is set to:

iNumHWThreads=12
fMasterFilePreLoadMB=200.0000
iPreloadSizeLimit=419430400

[Havok]
iNumThreads=8

But then there is this section to care about:

[BudgetCaps]
uActorMemoryBudgetCap=20971520
uLoadedAreaNonActorMemoryBudgetCap=371195904
uWaterMemoryInterior=20971520
uTextureMemoryInterior=20971520
uGeometryMemoryInterior=20971520
uWaterMemory=10485760
uTextureMemory=20971520
uGeometryMemory=10485760

Anyway.... what I'm suggesting is that you take your Havok threads from 4 to 3 just so that there is 1 core left completely to the game in cases of extreme physics requirements. It's very unlikely to happen, but it might cause some stutters here or there.

I don't think I've seen the game go over 14% CPU usage either, so that basically means it's single threaded down at the code level unfortunately, it will hand of little itsy bitsy tasks to the other cores when it can, but nothing important (yet). That's partly what Skyboost is about :)

Also... there are not enough 'high class' citizens in Skyrim. Even the Empire has shitty gear. I would like it if there were more enemies and bandits walking around in more than just fur and leather - although I suppose that's semi realistic, I don't like that I stick out like such a sore thumb just for wearing Ebony :p
 

KaiserAlucard

Neo Member
Messing with bloom and blue shift in Yabba's ESB file.

tumblr_lx4ih5reSq1qza3e8o1_1280.png


tumblr_lx4iceGRWG1qza3e8o1_1280.png

I'd like to know your settings too. I'm so far from your screens...
But I'm also using Yadda's ENB file and I have bugs on straw roofs, like there's some textures missing (Edit: sorry, I was wrong here). And what do I need to tweak to have more vivid colors and day time less bright?

2012-01-03_00001jpoe7.jpg


2012-01-03_00002qoozt.jpg


Edit: Sorry, the textures of the roof wasn't a bug at all.
 

MrOogieBoogie

BioShock Infinite is like playing some homeless guy's vivid imagination
I'd like to know your settings too. I'm so far from your screens...
But I'm also using Yadda's ENB file and I have bugs on straw roofs, like there's some textures missing (Edit: sorry, I was wrong here). And what do I need to tweak to have more vivid colors and day time less bright?

2012-01-03_00001jpoe7.jpg


2012-01-03_00002qoozt.jpg


Edit: Sorry, the textures of the roof wasn't a bug at all.

Oh man, that looks HORRIBLE, in my opinion! Completely kills the cold, bleak, Nordic atmosphere the game is going for.
 

x3sphere

Member
Whenever I run Skyrim with ENB I have to keep AA off otherwise my fps dips to 0.5

Anyone else run into this? AMD card, HD6970 2GB.

Don't think it's a VRAM wall since running the game at 1024x768 exhibits the same issue, and I have no problem running it 2560x1600 no AA.
 

Speevy

Banned
Against all reason, I bought this game for my laptop running

-i3 2330
-4 GB DDR3
-Intel HD Graphics 3000


I was expecting to get framerates of 10-15 FPS, but the game actually runs on medium at a rate of 25-30 with some tweaks. Color me surprised.

I don't know if this info is particularly useful other than the fact that it's proof positive that you can in fact play Skyrim on an integrated graphics card.
 
Wowzers. What ENB settings are you using and what are you combining those with in terms of FXAA injector settings?
what are your settings? I love the trees
I use v10 of ENB Dark Nights, with minor tweaking to eliminate the flickering on foliage (fps hit). Plus FXAA Post Process Injector for sharpening/technicolor/tonemap modifications. Also max ini settings.

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?6iuysnzowvt666j

The trees are of Skyrim Flora Overhaul and Lush Trees.
 

AwesomeSauce

MagsMoonshine
Against all reason, I bought this game for my laptop running

-i3 2330
-4 GB DDR3
-Intel HD Graphics 3000


I was expecting to get framerates of 10-15 FPS, but the game actually runs on medium at a rate of 25-30 with some tweaks. Color me surprised.

I don't know if this info is particularly useful other than the fact that it's proof positive that you can in fact play Skyrim on an integrated graphics card.

Install Skyboost asap for a performance boost.
 

shiroryu

Member
Mine is set to:

iNumHWThreads=12
fMasterFilePreLoadMB=200.0000
iPreloadSizeLimit=419430400

[Havok]
iNumThreads=8

But then there is this section to care about:

[BudgetCaps]
uActorMemoryBudgetCap=20971520
uLoadedAreaNonActorMemoryBudgetCap=371195904
uWaterMemoryInterior=20971520
uTextureMemoryInterior=20971520
uGeometryMemoryInterior=20971520
uWaterMemory=10485760
uTextureMemory=20971520
uGeometryMemory=10485760

Anyway.... what I'm suggesting is that you take your Havok threads from 4 to 3 just so that there is 1 core left completely to the game in cases of extreme physics requirements. It's very unlikely to happen, but it might cause some stutters here or there.

I don't think I've seen the game go over 14% CPU usage either, so that basically means it's single threaded down at the code level unfortunately, it will hand of little itsy bitsy tasks to the other cores when it can, but nothing important (yet). That's partly what Skyboost is about :)

Also... there are not enough 'high class' citizens in Skyrim. Even the Empire has shitty gear. I would like it if there were more enemies and bandits walking around in more than just fur and leather - although I suppose that's semi realistic, I don't like that I stick out like such a sore thumb just for wearing Ebony :p

Hmmm, I didn't touch BudgetCaps because the generator has only two options, default and DNA, and I've not gone with the DNA settings elsewhere. Does your rig have 8 GB as well? I might give those budget settings a spin.

I've not had any stutters in gameplay; the only annoying effect I'm seeing is that it can take time for the health bar of an enemy to drop to zero when one-hit killed from a fireball. Is that how the game is, or is it a lag because of an .ini setting?

And yeah, it's unfortunate that it's not optimized to the CPU. Having the best rigs means nothing if games don't take advantage of all that horsepower :(

I'm also waiting for the mod like the one in Oblivion that adds some more traffic along the main roads. Skyrim shouldn't be as busy as Cyrodiil, but there's too little 'normal' activity; farmers, tradesmen etc.


I have a core i7 with 6 GB RAM, what would be my settings?
I'm not an expert on this, but I think Core i7 has 4 cores running 2 threads each to easily enable 8 threads; so you could go with settings of 8 for iNumHWThreads and 7 iNumThreads on Havok, if what ColonialRaptor says in his post might turn out to be true. For RAM, again plug in the values on the ini page and amend those entries.
 

KaiserAlucard

Neo Member
Oh man, that looks HORRIBLE, in my opinion! Completely kills the cold, bleak, Nordic atmosphere the game is going for.
Well I totally agree with you...
I just can't get the right look. It's always too bright, like in a sunny day at the beach. It just doesn't fit with the game. All those ENB configs are driving me insane, I just want one that would give something similar to catotheyounger's screens.
I tried the config of Confidence Man but it's really not to my taste.
 
I'm not an expert on this, but I think Core i7 has 4 cores running 2 threads each to easily enable 8 threads; so you could go with settings of 8 for iNumHWThreads and 7 iNumThreads on Havok, if what ColonialRaptor says in his post might turn out to be true. For RAM, again plug in the values on the ini page and amend those entries.

Thanks, will try it when I get home. Here are some screenshots using Yadda's ENB settings

Screenshot67042.png


Screenshot62830.png


more to come :D
 

Speevy

Banned
Guys, I know next to nothing about computers but I've been very impressed with how much I've been able to turn up graphics settings while still getting playable (mostly 25-30FPS is playable for me, it may be 60 for you, which I totally understand.

If anyone has a 2nd gen Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics card and is thinking that this game won't run, let me assure you that it will.

Just let me give you a piece of advice: DO NOT go into your card's settings and choose "performance". It makes every tree in the game look like a piece of construction paper. I thought this was normal at first lol. Then I set it to "quality", noticed barely 1 FPS (if that) dip in framerate, and the game is starting to look quite pretty.

Don't get me wrong. If you're a longtime PC gamer who is used to running games on ultra with full AA and everything ticked, this setup is by no means acceptable. I get that. You put a lot of work and/or paid a lot for your PC, and you deserve to see the best game.

What I'm trying to say is that despite Bethesda's typical fluctuating framerates (which is a reality here too), you can play Skyrim on this integrated graphics card.

There is a crapload of misinformation going around on Youtube about how the Intel cards can only run low everything, and even then only achieve like 15 FPS.

Well here's how I have it.

-Skyboost
1280x720
-Tweaked self-shadows in the .ini file for land and objects.
-High textures, medium radial blur, medium shadows, no decal (this is blood, right?)

I'm not totally set on fade, so perhaps someone could help me out there, but yeah. I'm not entirely convinced that there's a perfect slider amount for these, but a good balance would help.

If I thought I could record it how it's playing for me, I would do so in a heartbeat and show you guys, but it's really running beyond my wildest expectations.

$450 laptop bought at HH Gregg.

But holy crap at these pics, yeah, you guys have some killer machines.
 

Orlandu84

Member
Guys, I know next to nothing about computers but I've been very impressed with how much I've been able to turn up graphics settings while still getting playable (mostly 25-30FPS is playable for me, it may be 60 for you, which I totally understand.

If anyone has a 2nd gen Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics card and is thinking that this game won't run, let me assure you that it will.

Just let me give you a piece of advice: DO NOT go into your card's settings and choose "performance". It makes every tree in the game look like a piece of construction paper. I thought this was normal at first lol. Then I set it to "quality", noticed barely 1 FPS (if that) dip in framerate, and the game is starting to look quite pretty.

Don't get me wrong. If you're a longtime PC gamer who is used to running games on ultra with full AA and everything ticked, this setup is by no means acceptable. I get that. You put a lot of work and/or paid a lot for your PC, and you deserve to see the best game.

What I'm trying to say is that despite Bethesda's typical fluctuating framerates (which is a reality here too), you can play Skyrim on this integrated graphics card.

There is a crapload of misinformation going around on Youtube about how the Intel cards can only run low everything, and even then only achieve like 15 FPS.

Well here's how I have it.

-Skyboost
1280x720
-Tweaked self-shadows in the .ini file for land and objects.
-High textures, medium radial blur, medium shadows, no decal (this is blood, right?)

I'm not totally set on fade, so perhaps someone could help me out there, but yeah. I'm not entirely convinced that there's a perfect slider amount for these, but a good balance would help.

If I thought I could record it how it's playing for me, I would do so in a heartbeat and show you guys, but it's really running beyond my wildest expectations.

$450 laptop bought at HH Gregg.

But holy crap at these pics, yeah, you guys have some killer machines.

Wow! I would never have thought that Skyrim could run on your computer. Good job for tweaking it so that it does! At the same time, I have a higher amount of respect to Bethesda for Skyrim's engine having the capability to run on your computer.
 
Hmmm, I didn't touch BudgetCaps because the generator has only two options, default and DNA, and I've not gone with the DNA settings elsewhere. Does your rig have 8 GB as well? I might give those budget settings a spin.

I've not had any stutters in gameplay; the only annoying effect I'm seeing is that it can take time for the health bar of an enemy to drop to zero when one-hit killed from a fireball. Is that how the game is, or is it a lag because of an .ini setting?

And yeah, it's unfortunate that it's not optimized to the CPU. Having the best rigs means nothing if games don't take advantage of all that horsepower :(

I'm also waiting for the mod like the one in Oblivion that adds some more traffic along the main roads. Skyrim shouldn't be as busy as Cyrodiil, but there's too little 'normal' activity; farmers, tradesmen etc.

I'm not an expert on this, but I think Core i7 has 4 cores running 2 threads each to easily enable 8 threads; so you could go with settings of 8 for iNumHWThreads and 7 iNumThreads on Havok, if what ColonialRaptor says in his post might turn out to be true. For RAM, again plug in the values on the ini page and amend those entries.

You've got to remember that a multi-threaded core is just a special way of routing tasks two a core in a particular order to ensure that it's request, cache and memory que is full at all times, that's the only reason they use multi threaded. You should always consider things by specific 'cores' not 'threads'.

Part of the reason I chose to run less Havok than total Cores is that I assume without this setting there the game just uses whatever it wants of the total available cores for Havok Physics when needed, so I don't ever imagine that the game would allocate all cores to Havok, it's just not likely and therefore I decided that it would be best to keep it lower.

Most likely it's one of those settings that has very little affect on things however.

BTW, don't use my settings as a guide because I have 24gb of RAM.
 

Speevy

Banned
Okay, so for those of you who were wondering (yes, BOTH of you), here's Skyrim running at about 17-20 FPS on my integrated graphics card.

The drop is only due to the recording and is usually 25-30FPS. Most fps fluctuations come not as a result of hectic stuff happening, but inexplicable things like turning at a certain angle.

I have concluded that the shared memory in my card is the most likely culprit of the instability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftqYSJWeSZ8&feature=youtu.be

As you can see though, high textures, medium radial blur, medium shadows, 1280x720. No AA, no AF, no Vsync, no water reflections set.

I've played several hours and have enjoyed the game immensely. Keep in mind this is being played with a controller rather than a keyboard/mouse setup.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Okay, so for those of you who were wondering (yes, BOTH of you), here's Skyrim running at about 17-20 FPS on my integrated graphics card.

The drop is only due to the recording and is usually 25-30FPS. Most fps fluctuations come not as a result of hectic stuff happening, but inexplicable things like turning at a certain angle.

I have concluded that the shared memory in my card is the most likely culprit of the instability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftqYSJWeSZ8&feature=youtu.be

As you can see though, high textures, medium radial blur, medium shadows, 1280x720. No AA, no AF, no Vsync, no water reflections set.

I've played several hours and have enjoyed the game immensely. Keep in mind this is being played with a controller rather than a keyboard/mouse setup.
That is so fucking impressive. Both Skyboost and the engine itself deserve mad props.
What the fuck kind of voodoo magic is Skyboost? I'm getting 60fps constant in Whiterun now.
Yeah, this is basically the silliest thing ever. A "game runs better" mod when the PS3 is struggling to remain stable running the game at half the image quality? :p

They should start just distributing it with every patch.
 
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