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torminator, have you given up on this? I've been going crazy doing some testing with ini values all week with not much luck. I can reduce the z-fighting some, but not a whole lot. Anyways, with the original fix, why did you settle on 4.0 for the fSplitMultDistance tweak? If you happen to remember, I'm curious. I've taken it up much higher than that (12.0) in testing and never noticed a performance issue or any real difference, but that was testing the value alone without tweaking any other settings. I had z-fighting before, but recently it's become a monster. The fight still continues. Edit: disregard Just tested fSplitMultDistance=12.0 with fNearDistance=18.0... fps starts dropping even on a purely vanilla game.

That looks really impressive! Keep up the good work Sheson.

Ok, I've been running various tests all week so I think I can give you some decent input. My specs: Intel Xeon E3-1241 V3, 3.5GHz Quad Core Asus Z97-A motherboard G. Skill Ares Series 16GB DDR3-1600 Memory Asus R9 280, 3GB Skyrim is stored on a WD Black Series 2TB, 7200RPM HDD Windows 8.1 64 bit AMD Driver 15.9.1 Beta Testing with: vanilla ini's + Skyrim set to Ultra + Bethesda Hi-Res DLC Optimized (1K full replacer version) + all unofficial patches (except high-res dlc) + DynDOLOD on High + ENBoost... I get a consistent 60 fps no matter where I go in the world running at a full sprint the entire time. The only exception is when I 'coc Whiterun' and run past the companions fight with the giant. That scripted fight will drop fps by 3-5 even when on a pure vanilla setup. I would suggest you change your testing method. The intro sequence is known to be heavily scripted and I believe even disable objects during it. Try this instead: On the start screen enter the console (press ~) and type 'coc whiterun'. Once there, turn around towards Whiterun, give things a minute to load then enter the console again and type 'tgm' to toggle god mode so you can sprint indefinitely. Take off in a full sprint down the road past the companions fight and when you reach the stables turn to run into the plains area. Just run through there a while and monitor your fps and let us know what you get. I would also suggest, as was already stated by z929669, to refresh your ini's to get vanilla ones. I would uninstall ENB and ENBoost just to narrow down any issues and to rule them out as a cause. I would even run the game directly through the launcher to narrow it down even more. Keep Vsync ON (see note #2) during this test run. Let the launcher detect your video settings and do not worry about a Catalyst Control profile for Skyrim at the moment. It's just one more thing to take out of the equation. Once we have you up and running in a pure vanilla setup, then we can go with the STEP recommended Catalyst Control settings and see what happens there... then ENB... then anything else. One step at a time is what we want to shoot for here. Note #1: Since some recent driver update (not sure which one but it was pretty recent), I have started to experience the graphical issue where I get black lines around fires and fire spells. Check for this by running over to a giant camp and looking above the fire during the day. It's easy to spot if it's there. To fix it, lower your AA from 8 to 4. Note #2: I think Skyrim is not the best choice to test out your new card's abilities due to it apparently needing Vsync enabled. There are plenty of threads discussing how physics and everything else gets all jacked up when it is turned off. See here. I'm assuming this really has a huge impact on the intro scene. I would try to do a comparison on a different game.

This should be fixed now. I record for YouTube and have just made a switch over to MSI Afterburner. I can run ENBoost, Performance Monitor, and MSI Afterburner + plus record at the same time without crashing. Maybe once every 5 tries you might get a crash but that was typically only when coc'ing into an intense area with DynDOLOD on High. I did see the crashing mentioned in the forums but I haven't had the problem.

Yeah I meant the abrupt change and not pop in, sorry. Thanks for the info. I haven't touched nifskope but I've had it installed for a while now so I guess it's time to finally give it a go. Ok that makes sense now about both the Near/Far Grids and fSplitDistanceMult. Now I get why increasing fSplitDistanceMult helps with z-fighting since, if I remember right, the z-fighting is the terrain and object LOD fighting over who will be seen. @DoubleYou: I had been to that page many times and never noticed that the fSplitDistanceMult had the word "landscape" in the explanation. I kept thinking it must be "object" related since the other [TerrainManager] settings are. Even the pictures didn't help it click. I think I just stared at it too many times and was so zoned. My fault on that one. Have you tried pushing it past 4.000? That seems to be the 'accepted' value for it and I was wondering why. Great ini guides by the way. I've reset mine to vanilla and have literally gone through every single entry in the ini and prefs.ini guides for clarity and to determine what changes I'm going to implement or play around with in testing (in baby steps of course). I'll play around with the Far Grids and see what I can do. I did try Enhanced Landscapes as I had the same thought and even saw it mentioned that it greatly covered up someone's z-fighting by about 90%. In my testing with the mod (more is needed though), I did not notice much of a difference. This may also be because I reset to default ini's without any z-fighting tweaks. I was planning to also make it a core mod in my setup, but it hits FPS on occasion for me with a purely vanilla game. The Morthal swamp is a killer even when selecting the 'no trees' version and since I've begun recording for YouTube (which has a performance impact itself), I'm putting Enhanced Landscapes on the sidelines for now. If I could get only the mountain changes it makes then I'll throw it back in the mix. The mod looks really great though for those that can handle it on high settings. Thanks for all the help Sheson.

Alright, Sheson brace yourself. First time poster here, but I visit the STEP site at least a couple times a week. Created an account just to ask you questions, haha. First off, DynDOLOD is my favorite mod/tool of all time. I'm rebuilding my whole Skyrim experience and DynDOLOD is the core. I've been testing it for about a week (I should have a video up on my performance tests next week) and it's amazing. I really want to get into making my own rules. I read the manual and am still confused. 1) I notice a lot more tree popping in with the mod (maybe just because I am so focused on watching the distance now) and was wondering if something like this would work: Insert a MeshLOD Gen Rule for the most notorious trees (in the Whiterun plains) that would change their LOD 4 to full models. If it happens to hit performance harder than expected, then I could pull back my fBlockLevel0Distance in the ini which is currently set at ultra. I saw a few months ago in this topic you mentioned some hybrid trees, but I'm interested in the full models. 2) I don't quite understand what exactly your NearGrids and FarGrids do and how they interact with something like the [TerrainManager] ini tweaks that control LOD 4/8/16 distance. Also, would you possibly be able to explain what exactly fSplitDistanceMult actually does? You just seem like the person to ask. I can testify after my week of testing, users of DynDOLOD should not mess the [TerrainManager] ini tweaks. I am able to run DynDOLOD on High with a pure vanilla game at 60 FPS with not much increase in memory, but the second I started increasing those numbers like seen in some guides it was stutter city. It was to be expected, but I haven't experimented with fSplitDistanceMult yet and it's supposed to help z-fighting which I desperately need. 3) Even comparing rules already established between the settings, I wasn't sure which one affects the distance at which fires animate. I want to be able to do something like keep the way High settings handle roads but pull back fires to the Medium settings. Basically just tune down certain parts of High settings. I barely found any increase in performance impact between Medium and High, but I'm assuming once I add a full load order the little things may make a difference. 4) Might there be a way to manipulate mountain LODs to help with z-fighting? Thanks in advance for any help.