Jump to content
  • 0

Black Circles, z-fighting and texture shimmering


Question

Posted

NEW UPDATE:

I have tried the Skyrim Special Edition, and there seems to be no more z-fighting for me. As if that is linked to the fixes towards the shadow processing or has something to do with the new 64bit engine, I cannot say for sure. If you have further insight, please share below.

 

OLD post:

I am still working on my fix, as it does not solve all of the z-fighting and there is a performance drop of about 0-8 FPS. Further testing is therefore welcomed!
For the original little fix head over here !


For the guide (WIP) against z-fighting head over here !


Hey folks,
at the moment I'm fiddeling around with nvidia inspector, skyrim ini and prefs to get rid of black circles on mid-distant terrain, reduce z-fighting as much as possible and eliminate texture shimmering if possible.
I don't remember if z-fighting has been such a big problem for me before the last drivers update, but now it really gets on my case. It's only visible on very distant mountain sides but in a large area. The good thing is, if it's cloudy I don't notice it as much. The bad thing is, if it's sunny all of the great graphics cannot overshine the flashing mountains in the Background.
Texture shimmering is annoying but it's on the very end of my 2dolist.
What annoys me know the most is this black circles glitch. I just can't find the setting that causes me all that trouble. :wallbash:
It is very prominent and extremely disturbing. Reading through this forum I stumbled upon a lot of threads that were highly interesting and revealed that there are a whole lot of bright minds around.
I guess if STEP tries to make Skyrim an unforgettable experience, then it should include some details about very common bugs and glitches as those three I'm referring to. If anyone of you guys knows any tricks considering them I would be too glad to try them out!
I have had problems with artifacts probably caused by too much graphic mods and ini tweaks (no ugrids changes whatsoever...)
My rig is the following:
Crucial m4 SSD 128GB, 2.5"
Samsung EcoGreen F4 1500GB
Intel Core i7-2600K, 4x 3.40GHz
Kingston ValueRAM DIMM Kit 8GB
2 x Gainward GeForce GTX 570 Phantom, 1.25GB GDDR5 SLI
ASRock P67 Extreme4
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX750 750W
All drivers are absolutely up2date. By all means I should be able to run Skyrim without problems. So far that doesn't work out...
EDIT: Those Black Circles seem only to pop up in the lower half of the screen o_O but somewhat diagonal... maybe cuz of the Sun angle?
I found out how to remove them:
fShadowBiasScale=0.1500 revert to fShadowBiasScale=0.2500 in SkyrimPrefs.ini
There are still black stripes on some rocks and mountainsides. they disappear from the center the closer you come...

Recommended Posts

  • 0
Posted
  Quote

DDSopt recomputes and replaces (or adds if needed) all the mipmaps. The mipmaps it provides are very often better than those created by the tools used by mod authors.

so you really think using DDSOpt on my textures might help w/ this pop-in? guess it's worth a shot. reading the wiki on it now
  • 0
Posted

Good news fellas, this thread is not dead!

 

I'm currently revising my z-fighting tweaks, since for me with the newest skyrim/driver/enb updates they became redundant.

Since this is my working protocol, any interested can provide some feedback.

From the saveini generated ini for Skyrim (vanilla) I have destillated the most interesting categories for this topic.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

I then searched for specific values in the categories, which might have any impact on distant terrain or how it is rendered.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Now... How do I find out where to start?

First of all, I'll try to find a mention of LOD stuff from the CK guys. Maybe they know more about these values. A cooperation with a bunch of guys/gals will be necessary in some way, since I alone am limited by time, wits, RL and possibilities.

  • 0
Posted

I recently purchased Skyrim for the PC and have been following the STEP guide for the modding, so far I have gone through the list up to the end of "Characters & Creatures".

 

One thing which I did notice today was z-fighting, with popping textures on distant mountains, so I tried to edit the INI files to include the changes which used to be on the z-fighting page, but have found that they cause infinite/endless loading screens, so have had to disable them for now.

 

I followed these video guides (GophersVids)

 

 

My GPU is an AMD 6770 and I am running the 13.6 Beta2 driver, I had to update from 13.4 because of the HDMI bug which disabled the screen input and forced me to turn the input back on by clicking the mouse or pressing a key, during some situations such as opening/closing FRAPS. I currently get 24 FPS during the benchmark test and when running around outside of Whiterun the FPS is 20-30. Both versions of the drivers have had the same amount of z-fighting. 

 

 

Are people still working on this and how can I reduce it? I have noticed that increasing the FOV to 80 makes it less obvious, but it does not reduce it.

  • 0
Posted

Its mainly a fix that can be used with a very lightly modded skyrim. As soon as you begin to add in the more detailed textures etc. then you will hit the inf. loading screen.

In effect the z-fighting ini tweaks remove the problem by increasing the resource use of the game.

 

As for people still working on it then some most likely are, but the problem always comes back to the infinite loading screens.

  • 0
Posted
  Quote

Its mainly a fix that can be used with a very lightly modded skyrim. As soon as you begin to add in the more detailed textures etc. then you will hit the inf. loading screen.

In effect the z-fighting ini tweaks remove the problem by increasing the resource use of the game.

 

As for people still working on it then some most likely are, but the problem always comes back to the infinite loading screens.

This. ^

What is really safe to use, are the tweaks in Skyrim.ini (fneardistance). It will only cause clipping if you move very close to an obstacle, but nothing game breaking. It will definitely not cause Infinite loading screens. I currently have it set to 25, since I experience very bad z-fighting, and I cannot use the skyrimprefs tweaks because of infini loads.

  • 0
Posted

Thanks for the quick reply. I tried changing some values which were mentioned in the comments of the first video and have found that I only need to modify "fSplitDistanceMult" to remove 95% of the effect, with a FOV of 80. I changed the value from a default of 1.5 to 2.5 as suggested in the comments and it has no noticeable impact on performance, with less than 1 FPS loss if there is one.

 

Has anyone else had any luck with just modifying "fSplitDistanceMult"? I recommend that you try it and leave the rest as the default in the INI files. Below is the INI settings which I have, those with // in front are not loaded, but I have left them in the INI to re-activate later if needed and for future reference.

 

Skyrim.ini
==========

[Display]
// fNearDistance=15


SkyrimPrefs.ini
===============

[Main]
// fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000

[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=75000
fBlockMaximumDistance=250000
fBlockLevel1Distance=70000
fBlockLevel0Distance=35000
fSplitDistanceMult=2.5
bShowLODInEditor=0
  • 0
Posted
  Quote

Has anyone else had any luck with just modifying "fSplitDistanceMult"? I recommend that you try it and leave the rest as the default in the INI files. Below is the INI settings which I have, those with // in front are not loaded, but I have left them in the INI to re-activate later if needed and for future reference.

 

 

Good tweak indeed. It worked well for me. Thanks.
  • 0
Posted

Nice thread!

I was suffering from heavy z-fighting which turned into infinite loading screens or heavy clipping with the fixes in the skyrimprefs ini (probably due to my textures+open cities). However, following the last few pages and trying these two minimal tweaks, I've managed to hide the z-fighting from my peripheral vision:

 

skyrim ini - fNearDistance=18.0000

skyrimprefs ini - fSplitDistanceMult=2.5000

 

Cheers guys!

  • 0
Posted

I managed to get rid of the majority of the flickering on mountains.

I used all of the STEP ini recommendations, and my fNearDistance is set at 25.0000.

 

Here is an example video:

[video=youtube]http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiLnRzikbnk

1: OS: Windows 7 64-bit SP1

2: GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB SC ACX

3: Driver: GeForce 332.21

4: Video card settings: Screenshot of Nvidia Inspector.

5: In-game settings: All on Ultra except AA (4x).

6: INI weaks: STEP recommendations and 75 FOV.

7: Mods: Screenshot of mods.

 

DxDiag:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

  • 0
Posted

Hi

 

Dunno if this thread is still alive....

 

I mostly got rid of z-fighting by decreasing the fBlockLevel1Distance to 50000.0000 and increasing fBlockLevel0Distance to 100000.0000...

Yup indeed setting Level0 the double as Level1 did the trick for my rig...

 

[TerrainManager]fTreeLoadDistance=125000.0000 fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000

fBlockLevel1Distance=50000.0000fBlockLevel0Distance=100000.0000fSplitDistanceMult=1.5bShowLODInEditor=0

 

[MAIN]

fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=250000.0000

 

[Display]

fNearDistance=25.000

 

BTW I do use Realvision ENB

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30936/?

 

 

AMD Sapphire 7970

Driver Packaging Version 14.10.1006-140417a-171099CCatalyst Version 14.4Provider Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.2D Driver Version 8.01.01.13902D Driver File Path /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/CLASS/{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}/0000Direct3D Version 9.14.10.01029OpenGL Version 6.14.10.12874AMD Catalyst Control Center Version 2014.0417.2226.38446AMD Audio Driver Version 7.12.0.7718

 

 

SKYRIM.INI

 

[General]sLanguage=ENGLISHuGridsToLoad=5 ; <--- change to what you desire. use only odd numbers. highly recommended: Stable uGridsToLoad Mod (SKSE Plugin).uExterior Cell Buffer=36 ; <--- this variable doesn't need changing. sIntroSequence=DISABLED.BIK   ; <--- disables the intro sequence for a faster startup.bRunHighLevelProcess=1bMultiThreadMovement=1bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1bUseThreadedBlood=1bUseThreadedMorpher=1bUseThreadedTempEffects=1bUseThreadedTextures=1bUseThreadedMeshes=1bUseThreadedLOD=1bUseThreadedAI=1bUseHardDriveCache=0fFlickeringLightDistance=8192 ; <--- helps prevent lighting pop-in.

 

[backgroundLoad]bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1bBackgroundCellLoads=1bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1bUseBackgroundFileLoader=1

 

[Display]fDefaultWorldFOV=75   ; <--- 75 (Standard) and for 16:10, 81 and higher for 16:9 monitors. higher FOV - performance impact.  fDefault1stPersonFOV=75fSunShadowUpdateTime=0.1000   ; <--- Transition time of sun-shadow movementfSunUpdateThreshold=2.0   ; <--- Time between sun-shadow movementfShadowLODMaxStartFade=500.0fSpecularLODMaxStartFade=2000.0fLightLODMaxStartFade=8192.00   ; <--- same as fFlickeringLightDistanceiShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048bShadowsOnGrass=1   ; <--- enables shadow rendering on grass (performance impact).bAllowScreenshot=0 ; <--- Set to 1 if you don't use ENB.otherwise 1bSimpleLighting=0fDecalLifetime=256.5000iAdapter=0 ; <--- for smoothed camera movement, 0 fixes some mouse lags.iPresentInterval=1 ; <--- disable vsync! vsync should be handled in enblocal.ini. for ENB Users.bDecalsOnSkinnedGeometry=1 ; <--- blood decals on skin (not clothes) for NPC and play modelsfNearDistance=25.000 ; <--- Z-fighting FIX

 

[Audio]fMusicDuckingSeconds=6.0fMusicUnDuckingSeconds=8.0fMenuModeFadeOutTime=3.0fMenuModeFadeInTime=1.0

 

[Grass]iGrassCellRadius=2   ; <--- uGridsToLoad/2 - 0.5 !!!! increase the maximum radius for grassbAllowCreateGrass=1bAllowLoadGrass=0bGrassPointLighting=1b30GrassVS=0iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure=7 ; <--- set it to 3 if you're not using SFO or other textures. unique grasses users set it to 8.iMinGrassSize=40   ; <--- lower values - denser Grass but greater impact on performance, Grass on Steroids user set it to 75 for best look, 120 for best

performance.

 

[GeneralWarnings]SGeneralMasterMismatchWarning=One or more plugins could not find the correct versions of the master files they depend on. Errors may occur during load or game play. Check the "Warnings.txt"

file for more information.

 

[Archive]sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsasResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa

[Combat]fMagnetismStrafeHeadingMult=0.0fMagnetismLookingMult=0.0f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7  ; <--- Archery Fixf3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7  ; <--- Archery Fixf1PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7  ; <--- Archery Fixf3PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7  ; <--- Archery Fix

 

[Actor]fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=12288.0000   ; <--- allows arrow to hit objects as far as the appear to fly.

 

[Papyrus]

fUpdateBudgetMS=1.2 ; <--- script-heavy setup and your scripts start to perform badly? increase to 1.6 (then 2.0 at max).fExtraTaskletBudgetMS=1.2fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0iMinMemoryPageSize=128iMaxMemoryPageSize=512iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=76800bEnableLogging=0bEnableTrace=0bLoadDebugInformation=0bEnableProfiling=0

 

[Water]bReflectLODObjects=1   ; <--- DefaultbReflectLODLand=1 ; <--- DefaultbReflectSky=1 ; <--- DefaultbReflectLODTrees=1   ; <--- Default 

 

[Trees]bForceFullDetail=1

 

[TerrainManager]bKeepLowDetailTerrain=0

 

[Controls]bMouseAcceleration=0

 

[saveGame]bAllowProfileTransfer=1bUseSaveGameHistory=1

 

[Decals]bDecalMultithreaded=1bForceAllDecals=1

 

[interface]bShowTutorials=0fBookOpenTime=700.0000

 

[MapMenu]sMapCloudNIF=0bWorldMapNoSkyDepthBlur=1fWorldMapNearDepthBlurScale=0fWorldMapDepthBlurScale=0fWorldMapMaximumDepthBlur=0fMapWorldYawRange=3600.0000fMapWorldMaxHeight=130000.0000fMapWorldMinHeight=5000.0000

 

SKYRIMPREFS.INI

 

[General]fBrightLightColorB=1.0000fBrightLightColorG=1.0000fBrightLightColorR=1.0000iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0fDefaultFOV=75 ; <--- 75 (Standard) and for 16:10, 81 and higher for 16:9 monitors. higher FOV - performance impact.

 

[imagespace]bDoDepthOfField=1iRadialBlurLevel=1

 

[Display]iBlurDeferredShadowMask=4   ; <---- Blurring fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000 ; <---- Interior ShadowsfShadowDistance=5500.0000 ; <---- Interior ShadowsiShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048iShadowSplitCount=2iMaxAnisotropy=1   ; <--- Set to 16 if you don't use ENB otherwise 1.fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=10000000.0000 ; <--- distance that trees switch to a lower-polygon modeliTexMipMapMinimum=4iTexMipMapSkip=0fGamma=1.0000   ; <--- Change if your ENB preset wants a different value (RealVision ENB).iShadowFilter=4   ; <--- Shadow TexturesfDecalLOD2=1500.0000fDecalLOD1=1000.0000iActorShadowCountInt=6iActorShadowCountExt=4fSpecularLODStartFade=1000fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000fLightLODStartFade=7000.00   ; <--- default ?bbTransparencyMultisampling=0 ; <--- Set to 1 if you don't use ENB or EnableTransparencyAA in enblocal. Otherwise = 0 when using ENBiWaterMultiSamples=0iMultiSample=0iShadowMode=4 ;<--- Shadow TexturebTreesReceiveShadows=1   :<--- enables shadow rendering on trees (minimal performance impact).bDrawLandShadows=1   ;<--- enables shadow rendering on land  (minimal performance impact).bDrawShadows=1   ;<--- enables shadow rendering (minimal performance impact).bDeferredShadows=1bFull Screen=1iSize H=1440  ;<--- Screen HightiSize W=2560  ;<--- Screen WidthfMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=1e+007fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=1e+007bShadowMaskZPrepass=0bMainZPrepass=0iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=25iMaxDecalsPerFrame=100sD3DDevice="AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series" ;<-- change to your card.bFXAAEnabled=0iShadowMapResolution=2048 ; <--- Character ShadowingfShadowBiasScale=0.2500 ; <--- Character ShadowingiShadowMaskQuarter=4   ; <--- Shadow TexturebFloatPointRenderTarget=1 ; <--- Set to 0 if you don't use ENB.If using ENB then MUST = 1iScreenShotIndex=0iAdapter=0iPresentInterval=1bShadowsOnGrass=1 ; <--- Grass Shadow

 

[Grass]b30GrassVS=0fGrassStartFadeDistance=7000.0000 ; <--- should be capped at 7000fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000   ; <--- Can be set up to 20000 but probably not worth it.Should be capped at 7000fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0   ; <--- to avoid bad grass fading

 

[MAIN]bGamepadEnable=1bCrosshairEnabled=1fHUDOpacity=1.0000bSaveOnPause=1bSaveOnTravel=1bSaveOnWait=1bSaveOnRest=1fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=250000.0000   ; <--- Original - controls the distance that 3D clouds on mountains are rendered at. 

[GamePlay]bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1bShowQuestMarkers=1iDifficulty=3   ; <--- Change to your preferred game difficulty. 0 (Novice), 1 (Apprentice), 2 (Adept), 3 (Expert), 4 (Master), 5 (Legendary)

[interface]bDialogueSubtitles=1 ;<--- Dialog SubtitlesbGeneralSubtitles=1 ;<--- General SubtitlesfMouseCursorSpeed=1.0000bShowCompass=1

 

[Controls]fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.0000fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0180bAlwaysRunByDefault=1bInvertYValues=0bGamePadRumble=1bMouseAcceleration=0   ; <--- disable mouse acceleration.bUseKinect=0

 

[Particles]iMaxDesired=750 ; <--- if you use the CoT Weather patch increase [Particles] to iMaxDesired=1750 for fog effects.

 

[saveGame]fAutosaveEveryXMins=10.0000

 

[AudioMenu]fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000fVal7=1.0000uID7=0fVal6=1.0000uID6=0fVal5=1.0000uID5=0fVal4=1.0000uID4=0fVal3=1.0000uID3=94881fVal2=0.4000uID2=466532fVal1=1.0000uID1=554685fVal0=0.8000uID0=1007612

 

[Clouds]fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000fCloudNearFadeDistance=9000.0000

[xxxxTerrainManager Original]fTreeLoadDistance=125000.0000 ; <--- Distance of rendered LOD TreesfBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000 ; <--- Distance cells are rendered atfBlockLevel1Distance=50000.0000 ; <--- Cell rendering 120000=more distance and heavy performance impact, 50000=less distance and stuttering more performancefBlockLevel0Distance=25000.0000 ; <--- Cell rendering 70000==more distance and heavy performance impact, 25000=less distance and stuttering more performancefSplitDistanceMult=1.5   ; <--- Quality of landscape mesh and texture default 1.5, 2.0 raisess texture quality and heavy performance hit and loading timesbShowLODInEditor=0

; Z-fighting FIX (Flickering Mountains)[TerrainManager]fTreeLoadDistance=125000.0000 ; <--- Distance of rendered LOD TreesfBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000 ; <--- Distance cells are rendered atfBlockLevel1Distance=50000.0000 ; <--- Cell rendering 120000=more distance and heavy performance impact, 50000=less distance and stuttering more performancefBlockLevel0Distance=100000.0000 ; <--- Cell rendering 70000==more distance and heavy performance impact, 25000=less distance and stuttering more performancefSplitDistanceMult=1.5   ; <--- Quality of landscape mesh and texture default 1.5, 2.0 raisess texture quality and heavy performance hit and loading timesbShowLODInEditor=0

 

[NavMesh]fObstacleAlpha=0.5000fCoverSideHighAlpha=0.8000fCoverSideLowAlpha=0.6500fEdgeFullAlpha=1.0000fEdgeHighAlpha=0.7500fEdgeLowAlpha=0.5000fTriangleFullAlpha=0.7000fTriangleHighAlpha=0.3500fTriangleLowAlpha=0.2000fLedgeBoxHalfHeight=25.0000fEdgeDistFromVert=10.0000fEdgeThickness=10.0000fPointSize=2.5000

 

[Trees]bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1bRenderSkinnedTrees=1uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=20

 

[Decals]uMaxDecals=1000bDecals=1bSkinnedDecals=1uMaxSkinDecals=100uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=60bDecalsOnSkinnedGeometry=1

 

[LOD]fLODFadeOutMultObjects=15fLODFadeOutMultItems=15fLODFadeOutMultActors=15fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000

 

[Launcher]bEnableFileSelection=1bShowAllResolutions=1uLastAspectRatio=3

 

[blurShader]bUseBlurShader=0

 

[blurShaderHDR]bDoHighDynamicRange=1

 

[Water]iWaterReflectHeight=1024 ; <--- change Height and Width to 1024 for higher Water Reflection Resolution. (performance impact).iWaterReflectWidth=1024   ; <--- change Height and Width to 1024 for higher Water Reflection Resolution. (performance impact).  bUseWaterDisplacements=1 ; <--- DefaultbUseWaterRefractions=1 ; <--- Default bUseWaterReflections=1 ; <--- DefaultbUseWaterDepth=1 ; <--- Default

HTH

Cheers

Wim Teuwens

Belgium

 

 

 

  • 0
Posted

This thread will never die ;-)

Thanks for your input! However the method you use is already known and comes with a great decrease of the visual quality of the distant terrain. But you're right, that's one way to do it. Some rigs can't even run high blockdistance settings, so those guys never get z-fighting at all.

 

As for my chivalrous promise to still keep working on improving my fix, I have to say, that the absolute finetuning is so specific for different rigs, there is nothing I can really tell you guys as guidance how to make it better on your setup.

Just use one or multiple of the methods floating around, and tweak them yourself as long as you want.

 

Cheerios

Torminater

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Use.