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...

[torminater]

Ok, so I've been making a video but because of unknown reasons I didn't get the black circles as bad as before. maybe I'll have to disable 3d again.- just did that and ... NO CHANGES! What the hell? kind a weird, and I didn't change any drivers. well my girlfriend killed my system by pulling my keyboard out of my tower whilst trying to create a playlist. so i had to hardreset the BIOS and voilà all the problems seem to have decreased (not only relatively):- z-fighting decreased

- water-bug by SLI decreased. only minor abnormalities left

- black-circles close to INEXISTANT

I'm absolutely baffled. Just looked up if there had been some sort of new patch for skyrim but so far... nothing.

No clue but I do like it a lot ;-)

So different setup:

beta-drivers

HD-DLC& BethHiResOptimized(https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9957)

ultra-settings

Nvidia-settings

SLI active, 3D active

fshadowbiasscale=1.5

fSplitDistanceMult=5.0000

Let's see.

Min FPS=60

z-fighting LOD only: pretty strong

z-fighting mid-distance: very few seconds until new textures popup automatically.

shadows seem to move when moving towards them, they get lighter at midday. I don't know what's causing it but so far that's the only new problem I discovered (might have been there before.)

Wow. Found the sweet spot for testing z-fighting for LOD.

Just around Helgen. Looks awful ;-)

By the way: z-fighting causes longdistance-clouds to blink madly. So this tweak doesn't really help at all. you may decide if you want dark blinking or white blinking xD

 

I'm going to start testing again by changing one parameter at the time until z-fighting seems to be the least disturbing.

[torminater]

Z-Fighting-Elimination-Crusade

 

What I will try to do is the following:

Z-fighting became a far greater nuisance with the beta-patch for me. Don't ask me why, but that's the way it is...

This is how I will try to get rid of z-fighting without loss of graphic quality (if possible):

 

Setting:

- Skyrim 1.5.26.05

- Launcher by SKSE

- near Helgen (Screenshot will be added.)

- daytime: afternoon 2 pm.

- viewing the mountain range behind the lake (strongest z-fighting for me EVER)

 

Nvidia-Drivers:

- Download the 5 latest drivers for my graphics-card: incl. latest beta, the 4 newest WHQL-certified versions: 280.26, 285.62, 295.73, 296.10, 301.24.

- Check where there is the least z-fighting.

- Not used: 3D, SLI, Nvidia-tweaks, HD-DLC, Mods, ini-tweaks and on Ultra-Settings only.

 

NVidia-CP:

- SLI activation: +/-?

- 3D activation (hiding effects): +/-

- Not used: Nvidia-tweaks, HD-DLC, Mods, ini-tweaks and on Ultra-Settings only.

 

Nvidia Inspector:

- try out all different tweaks using if possible the skyrim profiles

- every positive effect will be noted by it self

- all positive effects will be tried out together and adjusted to create the best effect.

- Not used: HD-DLC, Mods, ini-tweaks and on Ultra-Settings only.

 

Skyrim Graphic Profiles:

- try out, whether Low-, Medium-, High-Setting lets z-fighting vanish or become close to invisible; if not good enough ULTRA will be used to continue

- best profile will be used to continue

 

HD-DLC & Mods:

- will be implemented to look for any positive effects (using STEP 2.0.1.a and STEP 2.1 mods)

- focus on: LOD-, shadowing-, clouds-, fog-, light-, HD- and terrain-mods and other promising mods (suggestions are welcome)

 

INI-Tweaks:

- tweaks of which I know that they have/had a positive effect

- implementing tweaks as proposed by various forums

- analysing ini configs by DNA , Kieranh7, people who don't have any z-fighting or got rid of it.

 

Conclusion:

- summary of all my collected data posted in this forum for reference.

 

 

Comment: Everybody who has too much time to get rid of it can join me. Every help is thankfully accepted! :)

[Bealdwine]

Good work Torm, look forward to seeing your results.

[torminater]

Hey, it's me again.

Work is doing good so far. I'm going to post an update on the drivers asap.

What I'ld like to know is if by any chance it might be possible to get every single Skyrim patch as a separate download. I couldn't find anything like that so far. I'ld like to check, whether z-fighting became a lot worse with new updates as I've figured out for myself and especially which update is responsible for that. Maybe that might help some other people who actually know something about programming to find what's causing some graphic cards trouble and others not.

Anybody with some leads?

[frihyland]

anyone running windows with full file protection going (the default) will have everything backed up automatically, I just reinstalled windows myself so I've got nothing.

[torminater]

Ok, so where do I find them?

I'll probably have all the files only back to version 1.3 cuz I started late with Skyrim ...

[frihyland]

Ok, so where do I find them?

I'll probably have all the files only back to version 1.3 cuz I started late with Skyrim ...

 

 

Control Panel, System Security, System, System Protection, System Restore on Windows 8 its the same for win 7 with probably some minor variations in names I forget.

 

 

 

You'll get a listing of every program intall and update ever done on your computer. Just rollback one step at a time and backup each exe. By the way if you have up to 1.3 that's a fine place to start 1.2 was a complete catastrophe.

[torminater]

Thanks a lot!

I'll check it out.

Here's my recent update!

 

I've made a video comparison of the very same in game situation with 5 different nVidia drivers.

Here's the link:

I would like some feedback: which of the different drivers do YOU think is the best considering z-fighting?

 

You'll have to get maximum resolution first (bottom right corner). Otherwise you cannot see the difference.

I included lots of detail in the description. Thanks for your help! :)

[torminater]

So, I'm ready for the next step:

- Driver 295.73 had the least z-fighting, but Driver 296.10 has similar results. I'll proceed with Driver 295.73 as of tomorrow with my tests.

- In the end there isn't a whole lot of difference between the different drivers, so the choice of the driver should be considered wisely. I recommend choosing the driver which presents you with the most performance of all.

- The next week will show, whether z-fighting can be reduced a lot or not. Given the time, I might make tweak-tests for the newer drivers, too.

[Bealdwine]

Sounds good Torm :) Luck with the testing and I for one look forward to seeing your results. I'm still waiting for the next nVidia driver release but as I'm still on an old 8800 GT I don't expect to see that '20%' performance boost, lol.

[Vond]

Nice job. :) Figured I'd point out however that there is a newer beta-driver out (very recent), 301.25 (https://downloads.guru3d.com/Nvidia-GeForce-301.25-Beta-64-bit-download-2901.html ). It had no changelog however so not sure if any of the Skyrim-issues are fixed, will look through the discussion-thread over on guru3d.

 

Edit: Only mentions of Skyrim in the thread was this:

 

 

Skyrim285.62 whql - 48.2 fps

295.73 whql - 69.9 fps

301.25 beta - 73.8 fps

 

Good performance in Skyrim and L.A. Noire and Dirt 3. Constant 60+ fps in Alan Wake

I played Skyrim, Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3 mainly. Crysis 2 and Skyrim are definitely smoother, BF3 looks kind of the same, still few stutters here and there but nothing too harsh. Also I gained +10% on 3dmark stuff.I think you should give them a try

 

[torminater]

Thanks for the input!

I'll check the 301.32 Beta driver 64-bit out, and maybe then I'll go back to 301.25 (It says it's supposed to be for gtx 670 and 680, I got GTX 570 SLI). I'll post some feedback, but probably no videos (unless a miracle happens as I try them out and all of the z-fighting vanished)

[Vond]

Thanks for the input!

I'll check the 301.32 Beta driver 64-bit out, and maybe then I'll go back to 301.25 (It says it's supposed to be for gtx 670 and 680, I got GTX 570 SLI). I'll post some feedback, but probably no videos (unless a miracle happens as I try them out and all of the z-fighting vanished)

 

 

 

Oh 301.32 came out during the night aswell? Great great :) And yes, 301.25 is for 670/680 but if you use the .inf file from .24 or so you can install it fine. I have 560 myself

[torminater]

how do I use the .inf file? i never installed any drivers that didn't come from the manufacturer's homepage...

[stoppingby4now]

The 300 drivers support all cards, it just adds direct support for the 600 series. I have a 580, and I definitely notice smoother gameplay and increased FPS (release notes say it should be around 20%, and so far I'm seeing it).