Black Circles, z-fighting and texture shimmering

[torminater]

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.
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...

[Vond]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnDtLIemqKg

 

Uploaded this to show I'm still having some issues even with using all the changes to TerrainManager and the fSkyCellRefFadeDistance value in SkyrimPrefs.ini and the fNearDistance value in Skyrim.ini. I get the same results with or without Enhanced Distant Terrain and HQ LOD meshes/textures. Oh, also uExterior Cell Buffer is at 64 in the video. As you can see the z-fighting in that area is still quite horrid. :/ FOV is at default

[torminater]

Ok, DEACTIVATE any lighting mods. whether it's RLwC or ENB or RCRN. Tell me whether it helped or not.

[Ryan055]

I currently have only a 1-3 fps drop but I have no Black circles Z-fighting or any other texture problems.As most AMD cards have these errors, I guess i'm quite lucky to have no texture errors in anyway :PMy Rig is the following:AMD Llano A8-3850 2.90GHz (Socket FM1) Processor

Radeon HD 6550D DirectX 11 Graphics - Version 8.862.0.0

4GB Mushkin Blackline #996659B (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz 9-9-9-24

1TB Seagate Barracuda Green ST1000DL002 3.5" SATA II Hard Drive

Running Windows 7 Ultimate

4 GB ram

Skyrim Ultra Settings

 

Edit: My Skyrim Settings :

 

I don't use many mods

SkyrimPrefs.ini

[General]

fBrightLightColorB=1.0000

fBrightLightColorG=1.0000

fBrightLightColorR=1.0000

iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1

bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0

[imagespace]

bDoDepthOfField=1

iRadialBlurLevel=1

[Display]

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=0

fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000

fShadowDistance=2000.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

iShadowSplitCount=2

iMaxAnisotropy=8

fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000

fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000

fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=0.0000

fGamma=1.0000

iShadowFilter=3

fDecalLOD2=1500.0000

 

 

SkyUI

Static Mesh Improvement Mod

Zoners High Performance ENB - Vanilla

Bellyaches Animal and Creature Pack

AdvancedKillMoves

Categrorized Favorites menu

Crimsion Tide - Blood

 

 

fDecalLOD1=1000.0000

fSpecularLODStartFade=1100.0000

fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000

fLightLODStartFade=1850.0000

iTexMipMapMinimum=0

iTexMipMapSkip=0

bTransparencyMultisampling=0

iWaterMultiSamples=0

iMultiSample=4

iShadowMode=3

bTreesReceiveShadows=0

bDrawLandShadows=0

bDrawShadows=1

bFull Screen=1

iSize H=900

iSize W=1440

fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000

fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000

fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=3072.0000

fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=4096.0000

iScreenShotIndex=17

bShadowMaskZPrepass=0

bMainZPrepass=0

iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=0

iMaxDecalsPerFrame=0

sD3DDevice="AMD Radeon HD 6550D"

bFXAAEnabled=0

iShadowMapResolution=512

fShadowBiasScale=0.5000

iShadowMaskQuarter=3

iAdapter=0

iPresentInterval=1

bFloatPointRenderTarget=1

[Grass]

b30GrassVS=1

fGrassStartFadeDistance=3500.0000

fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000

fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.0000

[Water]

iWaterReflectHeight=512

iWaterReflectWidth=512

bUseWaterDisplacements=1

bUseWaterRefractions=1

bUseWaterReflections=1

bUseWaterDepth=1

[Main](only relevant ones )

fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000.0000

[Decals]

(same as Main)

[LOD]

fLODFadeOutMultObjects=5.2000

fLODFadeOutMultItems=2.4000

fLODFadeOutMultActors=5.2500

fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000

Skyrim.ini

fShadowLODMaxStartFade=1000.0

fSpecularLODMaxStartFade=2000.0

fLightLODMaxStartFade=3500.0

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

[Water]

bReflectLODObjects=0

bReflectLODLand=0

bReflectSky=0

bReflectLODTrees=0

 

[torminater]

Thx for the input! :)

[Ryan055]

Wait, Never mind, I tend to forget where the spoiler button is ;)

[Vond]

Ok, DEACTIVATE any lighting mods. whether it's RLwC or ENB or RCRN. Tell me whether it helped or not.

 

 

Will do when I get home, that video was with only RLwC active (turned off ENB to be able to make the video at all fps-wise). Sadly that wont be an agreeable solution though in the end as I wont give up lighting mods to get rid of flickering. :)

[torminater]

RLwC is known to amplify the flickering effect unless you use the vanilla lighting option.

[Vond]

Just got back home and tried the same area with no ENB or RLwC, still same amount of flickering on those mountains actually.

[torminater]

Well then that is interesting. have you tried a vanilla skyrim setup yet? at least there I have the least z-fighting. otherwise you would have to know all the different mods and tweaks you applied in the meantime.

BUT: it seemed to me, that somehow my z-fighting got worse and worse from time to time whilst I actually didn't change anything. Since this is quite impossible i think i just got a whole lot more sensitive to it. Even as I started a whole new game I was only thinking about z-fighting xD

[Vond]

After I thought I got rid of it after first applying your fixes back when you figured them out, I haven't really changed much in terms of mods of graphics quality. It's still SRO etc, and still ENB+RLwC. Only difference is the ini-files for enb and rlwc :/

[torminater]

well... then try this:

 

FIRST OF ALL: Look at your ini and look for all the values you have changed for your personal ini-config. sometimes only opening the skyrim launcher can revert your ini-modifications.

 

1. have you tried to completely delete RLwC and ENB files from the skyrim folder? Test it.

2. then revert to Vanilla Skyrim, backup everything, revert to original ini-files. NO TWEAKING. Test it.

3. Apply only my tweaks. Test it.

4. Try out different driver versions of your graphic card. Test it.

5. Reapply everything except lighting mods. Test it.

6. Reapply lighting mods. Test it.

 

Yup, it's a lot of work, but that's most likely the only way you can narrow it down onto something specific...

I'ld really love to here your insights!!!

[Vond]

I've done it all already actually, but I'll do it again tonight (will be many hours from now though sadly!) as I'm not 100% sure I reverted the inis and the textures at the same time or if I tried it only seperately.

[torminater]

Yes. As far as I can tell I've gotten z-fighting in areas I didn't have it before applying STEP even without any lighting mods. I guess the z-buffer isn't concepted well enough so it can handle all the additional modded information from extreme quality mountains or the like. it's just really annoying.

[torminater]

OK guys!!!

Let's get ready to rumble!

I've finally figured an ini which has nearly no z-fighting for lod textures. obviously I have installed the BRAND NEW WHQL Nvidia drivers, so you are very recommended to do so, too.

Whatever. I've found something in my standard ini that gets generated that caught my interest.

In SkyrimPrefs.ini I found two really tempting settings under [Display]:

 

bShadowMaskZPrepass=0

bMainZPrepass=0

 

So, what I think is that this seems SOMEHOW linked to the z-buffer, as I get z-buffering issues to only characters, since they are moving by altering those values. Now, maybe, there is a possibility to manipulate those two settings, so the z-buffer is fixed for long-distance.

 

What do you guys think?

 

Later on I'll post my new ini configs for you guys to try out.

 

 

OK, so first of all, those were two configs I generated with the donotargue tool. After I found out what KILLED my rig using all maxed out settings, I actually perceived that Z-fighting seemed very improved by it, at least for the vanilla/HDDLC/vano hybrid Skyrim. so I tweaked around ya know. And voilà, what a view! almost NO z-fighting using vanilla lighting. I tested different other lighting mods, and they did enhance the z-fighting. at least the ones I tested.

The problem is, and I'ld like your help on that issue...

I have no clue what improved it by that much. It's really barely seeable on the whiterun spot for me now, and I've got an eagle's eyes for z-fighting ANYWHERE. So I travelled to the throat of the world and dang, that was not as bad as I thought. I could improve the very very very distant LOD z-fighting, but nobody would see it unless they visited the throat of the world on a sunny and clear day...

What I'm trying now is to find out exactly what might have improved z-fighting in this constellation. I already tried my enhanced terrainmanager-tweaks but they did not decrease the z-fighting any further for whiterun z-fighting.

If you look through those ini's you'll see loads of settings increased to insane heights, but maybe one of them is the clue to this matter.

Also, shadows SUCK. I'll tweak those again to my favor since they are really really really bad atm. And I only tried this on a pretty much VANILLA setup. ANY big texture mod can crack your FPS with all of those tweaks into the low one-digit numbers. So handle 'em with care.

 

Skyrim.ini

[General]
uGridsToLoad=7
sLanguage=ENGLISH
iNumHWThreads=8
sIntrosequence=
uExterior Cell Buffer=72
uInterior Cell Buffer=6
fMasterFilePreLoadMB=200.0000
iPreloadSizeLimit=419430400
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseThreadedTempEffects=1
bMultiThreadMovement=1
bDisableAllGore=0
bTrackAllDeaths=1
bPreemptivelyUnloadCells=0

[Display]
fShadowLODMaxStartFade=1750.0
fSpecularLODMaxStartFade=3500.0
fLightLODMaxStartFade=6125.0
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
bAllowScreenshot=1
fSunShadowUpdateTime=0.0000
fSunUpdateThreshold=0.0000
bShadowsOnGrass=1
bActorSelfShadowing=1
bMTRendering=0
bForcePow2Textures=0
bForce1XShaders=0
bAllow30Shaders=1
bAllow20HairShader=1
bDoTestHDR=0
bDo30VFog=1
bDoTallGrassEffect=1
bDoTexturePass=1
bDoSpecularPass=1
bDoDiffusePass=1
bDoAmbientPass=1
bUseRefractionShader=1
bUse Shaders=1
bUseSunbeams=1
fMipBias=-0.7500
bSimpleLighting=0
fDecalLifetime=52.5000
fNearDistance=25

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

[Grass]
bAllowCreateGrass=1
bAllowLoadGrass=1
bGrassPointLighting=1

[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, HighResTexturePack01.bsa, 

HighResTexturePack02.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - 

Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa
sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - 

VoicesExtra.bsa

[Combat]
fMagnetismStrafeHeadingMult=0.0
fMagnetismLookingMult=0.0
bDismemberOneLimb=0
bForceNPCsUseAmmo=1

[Papyrus]
fUpdateBudgetMS=1.6
fExtraTaskletBudgetMS=1.6
fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=1000.0
bEnableLogging=0
bEnableTrace=0
bLoadDebugInformation=0
iMaxMemoryPageSize=8192
iMinMemoryPageSize=256
iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=8388608

[Water]
bReflectLODObjects=1
bReflectLODLand=1
bReflectSky=1
bReflectLODTrees=1

[Trees]
bForceFullDetail=1
bEnableTreeAnimations=1

[TerrainManager]
bKeepLowDetailTerrain=0
bDisplayCloudLOD=1

[Controls]
bMouseAcceleration=0

[HAVOK]
iNumThreads=8

[SaveGame]
bAllowProfileTransfer=1
bUseSaveGameHistory=1

[Animation]
bMultiThreadBoneUpdate=1

[BackgroundLoad]
bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1

[Decals]
bDecalMultithreaded=1
bForceAllDecals=1

[Imagespace]
bDoRadialBlur=1

[BudgetCaps]
uActorMemoryBudgetCap=20971520
uLoadedAreaNonActorMemoryBudgetCap=371195904
uWaterMemoryInterior=20971520
uTextureMemoryInterior=20971520
uGeometryMemoryInterior=20971520
uWaterMemory=10485760
uTextureMemory=20971520
uGeometryMemory=10485760

SkyrimPrefs.ini

[General]
sLanguage=ENGLISH
fBrightLightColorB=1.0000
fBrightLightColorG=1.0000
fBrightLightColorR=1.0000
uExterior Cell Buffer=72
uInterior Cell Buffer=6
iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1
bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0
[Imagespace]
bDoDepthOfField=1
iRadialBlurLevel=2
[Display]
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=5
fInteriorShadowDistance=5250.0000
fShadowDistance=14000.0000
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=2048
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
iShadowSplitCount=2
iMaxAnisotropy=16
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=8050.0000
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=6300.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=17499998.0000
fGamma=1.0000
fDecalLOD2=1750.0000
fDecalLOD1=875.0000
fSpecularLODStartFade=3500.0000
fShadowLODStartFade=350.0000
fLightLODStartFade=6125.0000
iTexMipMapMinimum=7
iTexMipMapSkip=0
iWaterMultiSamples=8
iMultiSample=8
iShadowMode=3
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
bFull Screen=1
iSize H=1024
iSize W=1280
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=2.1000
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=448.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=3584.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=4977.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=17500000.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=17499998.0000
iScreenShotIndex=0
bShadowMaskZPrepass=0
bMainZPrepass=0
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=54
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=175
bFloatPointRenderTarget=1
sD3DDevice="NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570"
bFXAAEnabled=0
iShadowMapResolution=4096
fShadowBiasScale=0.1600
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iAdapter=0
iPresentInterval=1
iShadowFilter=0
bTransparencyMultisampling=1
bDrawShadows=1
[Grass]
b30GrassVS=1
fGrassStartFadeDistance=12250.0000
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=12250.0000
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=700.0000
[MAIN]
bGamepadEnable=0
bCrosshairEnabled=1
fHUDOpacity=1.0000
bSaveOnPause=1
bSaveOnTravel=1
bSaveOnWait=1
bSaveOnRest=1
fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=262500.0000
[GamePlay]
bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1
bShowQuestMarkers=1
iDifficulty=4
[Interface]
bDialogueSubtitles=0
bGeneralSubtitles=0
fMouseCursorSpeed=1.0000
bShowCompass=1
[Controls]
fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.9000
fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0125
bAlwaysRunByDefault=1
bInvertYValues=0
bGamePadRumble=0
bMouseAcceleration=1
[Particles]
iMaxDesired=1313
[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=5.0000
[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=0.4000
uID2=466532
fVal1=1.0000
uID1=554685
fVal0=0.8000
uID0=1007612
[Clouds]
fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000
fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000
fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000
fCloudNearFadeDistance=15750.0000
[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=125000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=437500.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=122500.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=61250.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=2.6250
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=70
[Decals]
uMaxDecals=1750
bDecals=1
bSkinnedDecals=1
uMaxSkinDecals=175
uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=105
[LOD]
fLODFadeOutMultActors=26.2500
fLODFadeOutMultItems=26.2500
fLODFadeOutMultObjects=26.2500
fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=0.2500
[Launcher]
bEnableFileSelection=1
bShowAllResolutions=1
uLastAspectRatio=4
[BlurShaderHDR]
bDoHighDynamicRange=1
[BlurShader]
bUseBlurShader=0
[Water]
iWaterReflectHeight=2048
iWaterReflectWidth=2048
bUseWaterDisplacements=1
bUseWaterRefractions=1
bUseWaterReflections=1
bUseWaterDepth=1

 

Oh, btw... I cannot tell how much of those settings are pure nonsense... sorry ^^

[Vond]

Didn't have time to properly read thru everything you posted yet as I've been swamped, but the

bShadowMaskZPrepass=1 value has had some issues in the past atleast when using ENB. Will have a look properly later though