Immersive Lighting non-enb and some other questions

[Marthenil]

First things first, just finished installing the new version of STEP and I can't help but love the people working on it :D

Anyways, on to the topic at hand. I want to use non-enb lighting for performance reasons mainly. I suppose the effect can be accomplished with a combination of mods.

If so which ones do you suggest? 

Secondly, the shadows in this game are a real PITA. The whole game looks brilliant ( With STEP installed of course, otherwise, well, not so much :P) except for the bloody shadows.

I use the high setting as suggested by the guide but the shadows are so jagged they burn my eyes most of the time. Any way to fix that without that much of a performance hit? 

Thanks a lot in advance, I do apologize if this is the wrong forum to post such questions, just woke up and couldn't think of a better place to ask them .

[TechAngel85]

Can you post a screenshot of your "jagged" shadows so we can better help you? Also, there are a TON of lighting mods and most have no performance impact. I'm personally using Realistic Lighting Overhaul (RLO), but search our Mod Suggestion forum for a list of others being used (might have to go a few pages in to find them all).

[torminater]

Try to increase iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3 to something higher. Reduce your fShadowDistance=4000 to something as low as you can stand it and increase shadow resolutions: iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024, iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048, and iShadowMapResolution=2048 to 2048 or if possible to 4096. Also experiment with fShadowBiasScale=0.25 and set it lower (Min. at about 0.15 because lower settings usually cause shadow striping), maybe also trying a higher value, be aware that very high values will cause shadows to be moved away a little bit from the objects casting them, which makes an odd appearance...

[Marthenil]

After some testing (well not really testing, was just trying to get some screenies for you guys) I realised that it happened mostly on moving shadows.

example:  

 

Sometimes though the shadows are plain bad: 

 

Regarding lighting, was considering using Climates of Tamriel along with RLO. Is CoT fixed for dawnguard? (The author has disabled comments on his mod and the description is outdated and/or vague)

[TechAngel85]

Moving shadows are referred to as dynamic shadows. What are your AA settings?

[Marthenil]

The default STEP ones from the launcher, haven't touched anything else :P

i.e 4 sample AA FXAA turned off

[TechAngel85]

Are you using an ENB that uses an ENBSeries version newer than v0.119?

[Marthenil]

Nope, default lighting, no enb

[TechAngel85]

Can you post your SkyrimPrefs.INI file? Wrap it in spoiler tags.

 

[spoiler]
text text text
[/spoiler]

[Marthenil]

 

 

[General]

fBrightLightColorB=1.0000

fBrightLightColorG=1.0000

fBrightLightColorR=1.0000

iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1

bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0

[imagespace]

bDoDepthOfField=1

iRadialBlurLevel=2

[Display]

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3

fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000

fShadowDistance=4000.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

iShadowSplitCount=2

iMaxAnisotropy=16

fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000

fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000

fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=5000.0000

fGamma=1.0000

fDecalLOD2=1500.0000

fDecalLOD1=1000.0000

fSpecularLODStartFade=2000.0000

fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000

fLightLODStartFade=3500.0000

iTexMipMapMinimum=0

iTexMipMapSkip=0

iWaterMultiSamples=0

iMultiSample=4

iShadowMode=3

bTreesReceiveShadows=1

bDrawLandShadows=0

bFull Screen=1

iSize H=1080

iSize W=1920

fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000

fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000

fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=10000000.0000

fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=10000000.0000

iScreenShotIndex=10

bShadowMaskZPrepass=0

bMainZPrepass=0

iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=25

iMaxDecalsPerFrame=256

bFloatPointRenderTarget=0

sD3DDevice="NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti  "

bFXAAEnabled=0

iShadowMapResolution=2048

fShadowBiasScale=0.2500

iShadowMaskQuarter=4

iAdapter=0

iPresentInterval=1

iShadowFilter=3

bShadowsOnGrass=1

bTransparencyMultisampling=0

bDeferredShadows=1

bDrawShadows=1

[Grass]

b30GrassVS=0

fGrassStartFadeDistance=7000.0000

fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000

fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.0000

[MAIN]

bGamepadEnable=1

bCrosshairEnabled=1

fHUDOpacity=1.0000

bSaveOnPause=1

bSaveOnTravel=1

bSaveOnWait=1

bSaveOnRest=1

fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=500000.0000

[GamePlay]

bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1

bShowQuestMarkers=1

iDifficulty=2

[interface]

bDialogueSubtitles=1

bGeneralSubtitles=1

fMouseCursorSpeed=1.0000

bShowCompass=1

[Controls]

fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.0000

fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0125

bAlwaysRunByDefault=1

bInvertYValues=0

bGamePadRumble=1

bMouseAcceleration=0

bUseKinect=0

[Particles]

iMaxDesired=750

[saveGame]

fAutosaveEveryXMins=15.0000

[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=9000.0000

[TerrainManager]

fBlockMaximumDistance=500000.0000

fBlockLevel1Distance=140000.0000

fBlockLevel0Distance=75000.0000

fSplitDistanceMult=4.0000

bShowLODInEditor=0

fTreeLoadDistance=25000.0000

[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=20

[Decals]

bDecalsOnSkinnedGeometry=1

uMaxDecals=1000

bDecals=1

bSkinnedDecals=1

uMaxSkinDecals=100

uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=60

[LOD]

fLODFadeOutMultObjects=15.0000

fLODFadeOutMultItems=15.0000

fLODFadeOutMultActors=15.0000

fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000

[Launcher]

bEnableFileSelection=1

bShowAllResolutions=1

uLastAspectRatio=3

[blurShaderHDR]

bDoHighDynamicRange=1

[blurShader]

bUseBlurShader=0

[Water]

iWaterReflectHeight=512

iWaterReflectWidth=512

bUseWaterDisplacements=1

bUseWaterRefractions=1

bUseWaterReflections=1

bUseWaterDepth=1

 

 

[TechAngel85]

Moved to troubleshooting forum. Anyone else care to jump in here?

 

This isn't shadow stripping so Torminater's suggestions I don't think are going to work. There are a few shadow settings I'm not familiar with in your INI (iShadowMode and iShadowFilter) and aren't present in my INI file. Your AA is set to 4x so it shouldn't be that and you're not using an ENB so your AA isn't being cancelled out... Got to honest, I'm a bit clueless at the moment, but it is 4:30AM. Maybe I'll think of something after I get some sleep.

[Marthenil]

Apart from that, could i get your insight on CoT ? is the dawnguard "bug" fixed? :P

Oh and that being said, even increasing the shadow size to 4k, they are still jagged albeit a lot less and the performance hit is too visible. Also shadow mask is not of much help unless its set to 7 (i think max is 7 right? ) in wich case though they still look like crap due to too much blurr :P

[TechAngel85]

As far as I know the Dawnguard bug has not been fixed; however, it will likely be fixed with his next release.

[torminater]

Well I know that there is a Dawnguard Patch for COT. Dunno whether there is any new Dawnguard bug you're referring to...

Just try out what I posted earlier. It might help your Dynamic Shadows, too, actually I think that bad normals or light maps might cause your jagged dynamic shadows...