AdmBorkBork

Yay! You fixed it! I completely disabled RCRN and I can see again. :D I even turned my brightness down a couple notches. Re-enabling and re-running BOSS turned it back to blackness. Doesn't seem like the More Dynamic Shadows and Striping Fixed impacted what I was experiencing at all. I'm only using Windhelm because it's where my character happened to be. The problem I'm describing is happening throughout the game, and it was only while trying to navigate around the stairways and tunnels in Windhelm that I finally got fed up enough with it to seek assistance. :happy: This is now with RCRN disabled (though I didn't remove the files) and brightness two notches below maximum. I'm kinda sad that I'm now missing out on the rather neat RCRN effects (sunrise now is kinda, blah, hehe), but if it means I can see underground, I'm OK with that. I'm going to start looking into other lighting mods from the link in the STEP pdf and see if a different one has a combination that works for me. I'll keep you guys updated! -Bork

No, no other ENB or FXAA mods -- I just went straight down the list from the STEP pdf guide, taking all recommendations as-is. It's not a fluke spot on the ground or something, though -- the prior screenshots just happened to be where my character was. I meandered around Windhelm a bit looking for another spot, and found a stairway example. This stairway section (between the bottom steps and where I'm standing) is almost completely black like this so long as there's something bright-ish onscreen. It's like the game has a set range of brightness possiblities (say, 0 to 100), and if something is supposed to be really bright (say, 30 points "brighter" than the current on-screen brightest), but the current onscreen ranges from 0 to 90, it makes everything else really really really dark to compensate, if that makes sense? In my analogy, suppose it squishes the 0-90 range into a 0-70 range so it can then fit the bright points at 30-points-higher, i.e. 100. However, this has made the bottom range (which used to be 0-20) all collapse onto 0, turning it just solid black. This is with RCRN OFF and the brightness slider in game set all the way to maximum. There are actually two people in that stairway, believe it or not, my follower and a random patrolling guard. Thanks again for the suggestions! -Bork

Thanks for the pointers, I think we're on the right track, as the toggle did distinctly make a change -- note the highlights on the column to the left. It doesn't seem like enough that it made a huge impact, as the walkway area is still completely drowned in shadows. RCRN ON RCRN OFF So, given that, is there something else that could be causing the excessively dark shadows? Also, thanks for the super-speedy replies! I didn't realize you guys were so active, or I would've checked back up on the boards sooner. :? -Bork

First off, this is an AWESOME guide. I went through the manual process (took me a couple nights, first time even applying mods to Skyrim), followed step-by-step, and it's made the game look really, really, sweet (especially wilderness settings). So, I must give thanks and props to the hard work and dedication it takes to put something like this together. Thanks! With that said, however, I'm having an issue that I can't seem to solve on my own. Not knowing terribly much about the behind-the-scenes stuff (e.g., what this particular .ini setting actually does), even though I'm rather computer savvy, it's been frustrating. The issue I'm having is in indoor environments that are dimly lit, with single point-sources (e.g., a few candles or torches). I get an excessively high contrast between the way-overbright candles and the completely-dark surroundings. (I've included a screenshot, below, of an average area; they can get much, much worse than this). I'm playing a Khajit, so I've been able to get by using my night vision; in some darker dungeons, however, it's to the point where I can't see anything when I'm standing next to a light source, unless I turn on the night vision, so it's been annoying. System specs: Intel Core i5-2500K (overclocked) ASUS Maximus IV GENE-Z motherboard 8GB DDR3 nVidia (EVGA) GTX 670 4096MB (recently upgraded from Zotac GTX 570) Latest 304.79 beta drivers All other system drivers are up to date Please feel free to ask me questions or request further specifics. I deal with computers as my day-job (I work at a managed service provider), so I'm rather savvy, as I said ... which makes this doubly frustrating. Thanks for the help! -Bork