The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC Performance discussion

BoobPhysics101 said:
Always make uGrids an odd number.Change interiorcellbuffer to 3. Or just delete that setting. It does not need to be messed with.

Here's the formula for uGrids

(uGrids + 1)^2 = Exterior cell buffer

For example, default ugrids is 5... what is (5+1)^2? That's right, 36... which is the default exterior cell buffer setting. :)

SO if you want stable uGrids with similar performance to stock but a noticeable long distance image quality boost and the same stability as stock, here's what you set in Skyrim.ini

Code: 
[General]
sLanguage=ENGLISH

uExterior Cell Buffer=64
uGridsToLoad=7

Enjoy. Exterior/interior cells do NOT work the way you expect them to, btw, so raising them without reason will harm performance and stability.
Click to expand...

Cool, just tried it at 7 with no crashes or FPS dips, jacking it up to 11 (cell buffer=144) now. See how I go.
 
LabouredSubterfuge said:
What hardware do you have?
Click to expand...

GTX 570 @ 900/2100
Core i5 2500k @ 4.6 Ghz
Asus Z68 motherboard
8GB DDR3 RAM
Vertex 2 SSD
etc

Nothing mind-blowing. I did notice that uGrids=9 was pretty stable, but absolutely KILLED FPS in Ivarstead. ONLY Ivarstead though, which was strange.

So I figured 'why not try Ugrids=7 and see if it gives even more performance with increased stability', and sure enough it did. I also did research into the interior/exterior cell buffers and that's how I came up with the (Bethesda-approved) exteriorcellbuffer formula.

You may not have asked for all that, but hey, it's just some fun background info. :)


Arcipello said:
what exactly does the Ugrids thing do? does it increase the range at which models are loaded into the game world????

and can you give us your complete .ini files? i want to be able to compare with my own :D
Click to expand...

uGrids essentially streams distant areas into memory more fully, instead of using cut-down models/representations. However, it puts a big strain on the engine since it's going full-bore on trying to deal with those extra areas, and sometimes it just shits itself. It also decreases performance noticeably depending on how high you set it due to having to render a LOT more and also the CPU/memory subsystems have a much increased load on them trying to keep all of that together.

To put it simply, if the game was a juggler that is decently comfortable juggling 5 items but you suddenly started throwing him 7, 9, 11 things to juggle, he's going to most likely fuck up and have a much harder time keeping his juggling going. Make sense?
 
BoobPhysics101 said:
Sounds like you have instability somewhere else. I can play for hours just fine. So can others. Even uGrid=9 was pretty stable for me.
Click to expand...
Well I have a super-high "mismatched" exterior cell count, and an even uGrid to boot - which is apparently more unstable than your settings, and have never crashed once.

So...
 
Izayoi said:
Well I have a super-high "mismatched" exterior cell count, and an even uGrid to boot - which is apparently more unstable than your settings, and have never crashed once.

So...
Click to expand...

Hey, don't shoot the messenger. Bethesda is the ones who recommend keeping odd numbers of uGrids, and the extra exterior cells are a waste and will eventually drag your performance down or cause crashes.

YMMV, as with any tweaking. Do what works best for YOU.
 
BoobPhysics101 said:
Nothing mind-blowing. I did notice that uGrids=9 was pretty stable, but absolutely KILLED FPS in Ivarstead. ONLY Ivarstead though, which was strange.

So I figured 'why not try Ugrids=7 and see if it gives even more performance with increased stability', and sure enough it did. I also did research into the interior/exterior cell buffers and that's how I came up with the (Bethesda-approved) exteriorcellbuffer formula.

You may not have asked for all that, but hey, it's just some fun background info. :)
Click to expand...

It's much appreciated, wasn't game to fiddle with it after nearly losing my saves but it seems you've worked out why that was.

uGrids=11 caused a bit of slowdown but definitely playable until it locked up near Solitude, trying =9 now.
 
dollartaco said:
What are your specs? I have the same problem and I suspect it's CPU related.

i3-2100
6950, 2GB unlocked
4GB DDR3

50-60 everywhere but the town squares, or looking at them from a distance.
Click to expand...

i5-750
1gb 5850
4gb DDR3

Same performance as you
 
can we get a definitive list of the Ugrid settings for 5, 7, 9 and 11 with the interior/exterior cell buffer numbers for each? would be useful for the OP :)
 
Can someone reccomend me the best tweaks to do with my PC specs below please :)

AMD 6970 2 GB cross fire (so 4 gig of V graphics memory in total)
DDR3 12 gig of Ram
I7 Sandy Bridge 3.8 ghz


Thanks guys, I always have problems when tweaking on my end.
 
Arcipello said:
can we get a definitive list of the Ugrid settings for 5, 7, 9 and 11 with the interior/exterior cell buffer numbers for each? would be useful for the OP :)
Click to expand...

Interior cell buffers NEVER needs to be changed. Until mods come along with huge, ginormous dungeons and tons of extra shit. Even then, the absolute max should be 5 for interior cell buffers.

uGrids=5 (exterior cell buffers = 36)
uGrids = 7 (64)
uGrids = 9 (100)
uGrids = 11 (144)
 
BoobPhysics101 said:
Interior cell buffers NEVER needs to be changed. Until mods come along with huge, ginormous dungeons and tons of extra shit. Even then, the absolute max should be 5 for interior cell buffers.

uGrids=5 (exterior cell buffers = 36)
uGrids = 7 (64)
uGrids = 9 (100)
uGrids = 11 (144)
Click to expand...

awesome good to know... will be trying this out tonight:D
 
My girlfriend is having really big troubles trying to run Skyrim. I hope this is the right place to ask.

After playing for a few minutes the screen starts to flicker and then most of the time the game crashes to desktop with an error-message like that:
ATI display driver stopped working and has been recovered
Click to expand...
She also encountered a bluescreen and just a black screen with NPCs still talking but the PC wouldn't react anymore

We've allready tried:
- changing the soundsettings, like mentioned in the OP
- windows update
- low, mid, high, ultra graphic setting
- completely removing the driver and reinstalling multiple times
- yesterday we updated to 11.11
- launching the game as admin
- memtest (everything's fine)
- currently trying to reinstall the game

The rig:
AMD Athlon II X3 435
ATI Radeon HD 5770
4GB Ram
MSI 770-C45

Temperatures are fine.

Windows 7 64 Bit
 
dolphx said:
My girlfriend is having really big troubles trying to run Skyrim. I hope this is the right place to ask.

After playing for a few minutes the screen starts to flicker and then most of the time the game crashes to desktop with an error-message like that:

She also encountered a bluescreen and just a black screen with NPCs still talking but the PC wouldn't react anymore

We've allready tried:
- changing the soundsettings, like mentioned in the OP
- windows update
- low, mid, high, ultra graphic setting
- completely removing the driver and reinstalling multiple times
- yesterday we updated to 11.11
- launching the game as admin
- memtest (everything's fine)
- currently trying to reinstall the game



The rig:
AMD Athlon II X3 435
ATI Radeon HD 5770
4GB Ram
MSI 770-C45

Temperatures are fine.

Windows 7 64 Bit
Click to expand...

Had same prob... Lowered the OC on my CPU to 4ghz and hasn't happened since
 
DoctorZ said:
Can anyone with a similar rig post what you are using, if you have gotten the game smooth and running to your liking.

amd x4 phenom 3.2 ghz
GTX 480
4gb ddr3

I have been tweaking constantly and frankly have just given up as I just want to play the game. But I am still getting weird shadow bugs, flickering, streaming issues (geo and texture pop in).

The OP seems to focus on high end rigs and I feel mine falls short of that hardware. So using these tweaks and settings I dont get a smooth framerate.
Click to expand...
I have a similar processor (phenom II x4) OC'd to about 3.4. 4gb RAM, AMD 4870.

I used the autodetected settings (everything set to high) and bumped shadows down to medium. This gave me relatively good performance and I thought it looked fine. Usually ran at 60fps, ocassionally down to high 40s outside, a few dips to the 30s once in a while. Last night I did the Radeon Pro tweak (which won't help you, try the Nvidia Inspector stuff) and added the memory lines in the skyrimprefs.ini, seems like it gave me a noticeable bump, everything seems smoother.
 
I don't know if anybody posted but here is a perk calculator/builder

http://www.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim/create?
 
So about the RAM usage, should I do the ini tweak with iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes or should I do the Large Address Aware patch on the executable, or both? OP is getting a bit confusing.
 
There needs to be a mod that Categorizes items stored with containers at least in your house. I would like to use a single container for all of my items but since the items aren't categorized when you view the contents, I end up putting different types of items in different containers. It seems like a no brainer. Just make the container interface work basically the same as the vendor interface.
 
Game crashed on me for the first time (Well the game crashed on me before but it was while I was just checking out the FOV and started a ridiculous fight in the city).

Then I lost my internet connection right after that >_>
 
OTIX said:
So about the RAM usage, should I do the ini tweak with iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes or should I do the Large Address Aware patch on the executable, or both? OP is getting a bit confusing.
Click to expand...

I'd appreciate an answer on this, too. Also, what sort of improvement are people seeing when switching to Large Address Aware? What's the tangible benefit?
 
Here's a good example of 7000 Shadow Distance vs. 8000 Shadow Distance:

8000

tesv2011-11-1615-14-1mmcf7.png


http://www.abload.de/img/tesv2011-11-1615-14-1mmcf7.png

7000

tesv2011-11-1615-11-35dfvn.png


http://www.abload.de/img/tesv2011-11-1615-11-35dfvn.png

The loss of shadowing on that big tall tree above the water wheel, that is why I use 8000, despite the blockiness of shadows at close range. 8000 is about the limit of the game's tree LOD (where that detailed tree turns into the crap behind it), and so with 7000 the shadow pops into existence as you move closer. With 8000 the shadow is already on the tree as soon as you see the tree in full detail. Oh, and it gets a whole lot worse if you turn off bTreesReceiveShadows=1.

P.S. That scene is in no way meant to be an amazing one for a screenshot, it's simply the best location that I've found containing all 3 tree LODs, people, water, distance details, etcetera.

Edit: Zoomed section for the blind :)

7000vs8000zoomedsfc1p.gif
 
catapult37 said:
I'd appreciate an answer on this, too. Also, what sort of improvement are people seeing when switching to Large Address Aware? What's the tangible benefit?
Click to expand...

The Skyrim.ini change is attempting to use 1.8GB of system RAM (or 3GB depending on the version you're using) which is well within the /3GB switch capabilities of a 32-bit game/OS. The Large Address Aware app is trying to make the game .exe 64-bit, in essence, allowing it to use as much RAM as it likes. Frankly, I see no point in using LAA unless you're doing www.deadendthrills.com/?cat=314 style 2160p rendering as tweaked 1080p Skyrim (.ini and NVI/RP) doesn't push the game anywhere close to 1.8GB of system RAM usage.
 
Durante said:
Bububu it doesn't use all cores! how can it be CPU bound?
(That's as I expected and explained 20 pages or so actually, thanks for doing a real measurement)
Click to expand...
But it does use 4 cores. I've got FPS boost on 3vs2 cores and 4vs3.
 
Just a note to the op. Not sure of this is an error, but you have;

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=1
fInteriorShadowDistance=2000.0000
fShadowDistance=5000.0000 - If you set this lower, shadows will be rendered less further but are sharper. test it for yourself.
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3

The same code entered twice at different values. You also originally listed 1 = Low, 2 = Medium and 3 = High, but given you have it listed twice I'm not sure what you intended.

If this isn't a mistake, please ignore me.
 
I should let everyone know that I finally fixed the damn texture flickering. In case anyone is having this same problem (massive, up-close pop-in/pop-out of textures, disappearing/reappearing texture layers), here's what I did.

First of all, I'm on Crossfire 6950s. Disabling CF never helped.

Then:
-- I installed the leaked Catalyst 11.12 beta drivers.
-- I used this dll (really not sure if this had any effect)

At this point, the biggest problem (disappearing
dragon wings
in the opening scene was alleviated. But I still got the problem with texture layers changing based on viewing angle.

The thing that fixed it for me was..

-- fully disabling AA and Anisotropic Filtering in-game
-- using Radeon Pro, putting AF to 16x and sliding AA to supersample.


Probably not related to the texture issue, but I also used Radeon Pro to force the Oblivion Crossfire profile, which gave me an appropriate performance boost.

Viola, a game that I can stand to play. Still have some bad fps drops like everyone else. I notice major stuttering in heavy-detail areas when I look left-to-right. Hopefully the real drivers + official Skyrim CAP + eventual patches by Bethesda will somewhat alleviate these issues.
 
Arcipello said:
yeah i see all the same shadows in both pics... no missing or added shadows :-/
Click to expand...

Careful now, any moment Dennis will swoop down like a dragon from the sky and shit on your face.
 
Arcipello said:
yeah i see all the same shadows in both pics... no missing or added shadows :-/
Click to expand...
Because that's a terrible spot for gauging shadow distance as your line of sight is obstructed by so much geometry.

If you want to see the difference, the best spot to test is in Whiterun at the top of the stairs looking down over towards the tree.
 
How does this run with basic settings? Anything like Oblivion? I have a 13 inch Macbook Pro on bootcamp that can run Oblivion on medium setting at 720p so I was wondering how it compares.
 
MickeyKnox said:
Because that's a terrible spot for gauging shadow distance as your line of sight is obstructed by so much geometry.

If you want to see the difference, the best spot to test is in Whiterun at the top of the stairs looking down over towards the tree.
Click to expand...

yeah thats what i thought... it was just when he said "here is a good example" followed by screenshots which are clearly a very bad example that confuses me.
 
EatChildren said:
Just a note to the op. Not sure of this is an error, but you have;

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=1
fInteriorShadowDistance=2000.0000
fShadowDistance=5000.0000 - If you set this lower, shadows will be rendered less further but are sharper. test it for yourself.
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3

The same code entered twice at different values. You also originally listed 1 = Low, 2 = Medium and 3 = High, but given you have it listed twice I'm not sure what you intended.

If this isn't a mistake, please ignore me.
Click to expand...
It is a mistake as I've edited that several times and accidentally left that in there. I'm working and tigheting things up more when I can sit down for an hour or two but I've been too busy. Thanks for pointing that out.
 
catapult37 said:
I should let everyone know that I finally fixed the damn texture flickering. In case anyone is having this same problem (massive, up-close pop-in/pop-out of textures, disappearing/reappearing texture layers), here's what I did.

First of all, I'm on Crossfire 6950s. Disabling CF never helped.

Then:
-- I installed the leaked Catalyst 11.12 beta drivers.
-- I used this dll (really not sure if this had any effect)

At this point, the biggest problem (disappearing
dragon wings
in the opening scene was alleviated. But I still got the problem with texture layers changing based on viewing angle.

The thing that fixed it for me was..

-- fully disabling AA and Anisotropic Filtering in-game
-- using Radeon Pro, putting AF to 16x and sliding AA to supersample.


Probably not related to the texture issue, but I also used Radeon Pro to force the Oblivion Crossfire profile, which gave me an appropriate performance boost.

Viola, a game that I can stand to play. Still have some bad fps drops like everyone else. I notice major stuttering in heavy-detail areas when I look left-to-right. Hopefully the real drivers + official Skyrim CAP + eventual patches by Bethesda will somewhat alleviate these issues.
Click to expand...
That's awesome that it fixed your issue BUT I can tell you that those drivers are actually older based on my research. It must have done something for you so don't fix what ain't broken.
 
Phenom X4 940 3.6ghz
4gb DDR2 RAM
GTX480 1.5gb

Here is my (SkyrimPrefs) INI file:

Code: 
[General]
fBrightLightColorB=1.0000
fBrightLightColorG=1.0000
fBrightLightColorR=1.0000
iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1
bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0
fdefaultfov=85
[Imagespace]
bDoDepthOfField=1
iRadialBlurLevel=3
[Display]
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3
fInteriorShadowDistance=1000.0000
fShadowDistance=4000.0000
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=4096
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
iShadowSplitCount=2
iMaxAnisotropy=16
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=10000000.0000
fGamma=1.0400
fDecalLOD2=1500.0000
fDecalLOD1=1000.0000
fSpecularLODStartFade=2000.0000
fShadowLODStartFade=6000.0000
fLightLODStartFade=3500.0000
iTexMipMapMinimum=0
iTexMipMapSkip=0
iWaterMultiSamples=8
iMultiSample=8
iShadowMode=2
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
bFull Screen=1
iSize H=1080
iSize W=1920
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=10000000.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=10000000.0000
iScreenShotIndex=2
bShadowMaskZPrepass=0
bMainZPrepass=0
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=10
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=30
bFloatPointRenderTarget=0
sD3DDevice="NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480"
bFXAAEnabled=0
iShadowMapResolution=4096
fShadowBiasScale=0.1500
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iAdapter=0
iPresentInterval=0
iShadowFilter=3
bTransparencyMultisampling=1
bDrawShadows=1
[Grass]
b30GrassVS=1
fGrassStartFadeDistance=7000.0000
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=400.0000
[MAIN]
bGamepadEnable=0
bCrosshairEnabled=1
fHUDOpacity=0.2000
bSaveOnPause=1
bSaveOnTravel=1
bSaveOnWait=1
bSaveOnRest=1
fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000.0000
[GamePlay]
bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1
bShowQuestMarkers=1
iDifficulty=2
[Interface]
bDialogueSubtitles=1
bGeneralSubtitles=1
bShowCompass=1
[Controls]
fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.0000
fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0380
bAlwaysRunByDefault=1
bInvertYValues=0
bGamePadRumble=1
bMouseAcceleration=0
[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=94881
fVal2=0.7500
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=40000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=150000.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=40000.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=25000.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.1000
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=250
bDecals=1
bSkinnedDecals=1
uMaxSkinDecals=50
uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=40
[LOD]
fLODFadeOutMultObjects=15.0000
fLODFadeOutMultItems=15.0000
fLODFadeOutMultActors=15.0000
fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000
[Launcher]
bEnableFileSelection=1
bShowAllResolutions=1
uLastAspectRatio=3
[BlurShaderHDR]
bDoHighDynamicRange=1
[BlurShader]
bUseBlurShader=0
[Water]
iWaterReflectHeight=512
iWaterReflectWidth=512
bUseWaterDisplacements=1
bUseWaterRefractions=1
bUseWaterReflections=1
bUseWaterDepth=1
[Papyrus]
iMinMemoryPageSize=100000
iMaxMemoryPageSize=5000000
iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=3221225472
 
After playing around with the settings I have settled with adding fSunUpdateThreshold=0.125 under display in skyrim.ini. Shadows now update faster relative to the position of the sun.

If you want real time shadows just set it to 0. However shadows will be constantly jittering since the sun's movement isn't smooth.

fSunUpdateThreshold=0.500 is the default value.

Also just wanted to point out that changing iWaterMultiSamples and iWaterReflectHeight/iWaterReflectWidth don't really produce any apparent changes as seen here.
 
Izayoi said:
Game is massively CPU-bound, at least as far as clock speed goes.

Went from 74 frames to 98 frames in Winterhold by bumping up my CPU from 3.8GHz to 4.5GHz. On an i7-2600k.
Click to expand...
I was thinking about replacing my 3.6 GHz Q6600 with a 2500k, but dismissed it, thinking the old quad was still enough.

Now I hate you.
 
Damn it guys... :( I got another problem . See if you guys can help. For some reason my grass is not working. I have the ini file and prefs file tweaked... but everytime I load the game up the slider is all the way down.. not sure what I did This what I have.
in prefs
[Grass]
b30GrassVS=1
fGrassStartFadeDistance=6000.0000
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=6000.0000
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=6000.0000
in ini

[Grass]
bAllowCreateGrass=1
bAllowLoadGrass=1


also should I have those files in read only every-time I change something.
the world looks bland without grass.. :/
 
neoism said:
Damn it guys... :( I got another problem . See if you guys can help. For some reason my grass is not working. I have the ini file and prefs file tweaked... but everytime I load the game up the slider is all the way down.. not sure what I did This what I have.

[Grass]
bAllowCreateGrass=1
bAllowLoadGrass=1

also should I have those files in read only every-time I change something.
the world looks bland without grass.. :/
Click to expand...

Yes, it needs to be read-only. And as far as I know, bAllowLoadGrass=1 is for lower detail settings?
 
So is there any news on anyone working on a UI or Inventory mod? It's atrocious.

Luckily I did just figure out how to use hotkeys, since it was not explained ANYWHERE on any of the menus.
 
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