Lighting for performance

[Bealdwine]

For my most recent re-build I continued to use Realistic Lighting with iCCC and Sydney666's ini. Unfortunately something has changed since my last build as I'm back to long loads and stuttering. Not too bad generally but very noticable in the rain or other high particle areas.

 

I recall some chat about RCRN v21 HDR - Realistic Colors and Real Nights before, and iirc it was said that the built in FXAA was good enough to allow the card AA to be 0 and gain FPS. But I note the latest on the site + guide suggests using nVidea AA instead. Any comments from users?

 

Also is anyone familiar with the differences between the Classic and Pure RCRN experience?

[MontyMM]

I'm a big fan of RCRN - I would never go back. It seems to have a greater range of atmospheric lighting, and handles the contrast between light and shadow far better than RL. I also find it errs on the side of subtlety - you have to use it for a while before you really appreciate it.

 

Performance-wise, I found that using it with its own AA, I was getting an image quality that I could not achieve with standard AA without incurring an even bigger penalty. Mind you, my setup is a jury-rigged old banger, and YMMV.

 

Pure vs Classic seems mainly to be quite dark vs very dark nights, though I think there may be some colour differences too. I like both.

[EisDrache]

Ya i Personally use RCRN too and i have found i get better performance using RCRN over RL i get no stuttering like i used to using RL.

[frihyland]

  Quote

Ya i Personally use RCRN too and i have found i get better performance using RCRN over RL i get no stuttering like i used to using RL.

 

Yeah this is because of the way shadows are drawn in the skyrim engine, they use the cpu instead of gpu and also additional cpu resources are used by all the npc AI that reacts to the lighting that obviously doesn't happen if you use post processing, if you use a post process to do the lighting then it should be mostly gpu.

 

So your mileage will vary based on your hardware.

[venkman781]

  Quote

I'm a big fan of RCRN - I would never go back. It seems to have a greater range of atmospheric lighting, and handles the contrast between light and shadow far better than RL. I also find it errs on the side of subtlety - you have to use it for a while before you really appreciate it.

 

Performance-wise, I found that using it with its own AA, I was getting an image quality that I could not achieve with standard AA without incurring an even bigger penalty. Mind you, my setup is a jury-rigged old banger, and YMMV.

 

Pure vs Classic seems mainly to be quite dark vs very dark nights, though I think there may be some colour differences too. I like both.

 

 

Monty - is there a specific place in STEP you need to put it or is it strictly like the original FXAA post processor that goes into the root Skyrim folder?

 

Edit - nevermind. I see there's a textures and .esp that needs installing, as well.

[MontyMM]

Quite a helpful review of RCRN here:

 

Skip to 7:10

[z929669]

so "both" is what I am hearing from the video author.... (NVIDIA cards only, I assume)

[MontyMM]

That's just his preference for AA. The main factor for me is the quality and restraint of the lighting and environmental effects.

[Bealdwine]

Mentioned this on the Nexus forum but IMAGINATOR looks promising as a way to tweak the RL settings for those who find the dungeons/indoors too dark or shadows with too much contrast.

[MontyMM]

I'll have to see if Sydney can tempt me back to RL. Spoilt for choice!

[blacksol]

I use RL and found I could turn my AA down to 2x, turning it off still left jaggies, but 2x smoothed them out such that I could only see them in a few places when standing still and looking closely (24" screen aat 1920x1200)

[venkman781]

I started using RCRN 2.1 Pure today and really like the way it handles lighting. Very nice transitions during dawn and dusk outside, while keeping dungeons dark and eerie.

 

One question for the RCRN users: do you know of any FPS Limiter Mod compatibility issues? I'm getting physics glitches and need to cap my framerate.

[MontyMM]

I use Dxtory to cap at 40fps, with no probs. Makes everything feel smoother, and removes mouse lag. I wouldn't be without it.

[stoppingby4now]

I've been curious to try something to see how it would affect performance (though I would need to get a new power supply). I was thinking of putting my older card in and set it to be dedicated to PhysX. Anyone here do this?

[MontyMM]

AFAIK, Skyrim doesn't support PhysX. I know the Gamebryo engine can support it, but I don't think they bothered to implement it. It's a fairly short list of games that do.

 

EDIT: Yeah, I'm pretty certain now - I see they use Havok, which I don't believe is compatible.