Fade distances and grid loading

[Spock]

Hi folks,

 

I recently got a new monitor and in order to keep my 30fps in vsync with baseline STEP+ENB @2560x1600 I had to cut some options in my enblocal.ini. The other thing that came to mind was cutting some of the fade distances. My experience from Oblivion was that keeping fade distances at max wasn't the best idea, even if your machine could handle it because more objects would pop in when a new grid was loaded. This resulted in more load stuttering on grid transitions (a cause of instabilities), less overall performance and more noticeable pop ins of visuals.

 

It would be really helpful to know what the maximum fLODFadeOutMult values are until visuals start to pop in at unfavorable grid load angles (if you are closest to the newly loaded grid, this may vary a bit depending on how you move).

The other thing that would be interesting is whether the other fade distances like fShadowDistance, fGrassStartFadeDistance are actually the same distances ingame and what the maximums of those values are until you see pop ins.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Spock

[Aiyen]

Start with grass draw distances, and density for increases in performance.

 

If that is not enough then move on to object draw distances. Even small decreases in them can provide a few FPS.

Grass density can provide massive boosts. Shadow distances provide some but nowhere near what the others are. Here of course assuming you are only using 1k resolution on your shadows to begin with.

[Spock]

Thank you for your reply but this is more about visual quality then about performance (a little performance is a nice side effect though).

 

For example: In Oblivion with the standard max grass distance if the game loaded a new grid suddenly BAM the grass was there. It didn't fade in, it was all loaded when the game loaded a new grid. The same is true for objects.

In Skyrim this effect is much less noticeable but it's still there. I spend hours finding the right fade distances for Oblivion to have a smoother fade in of grass and objects, I thought maybe someone around here has done this for Skyrim.

[Aiyen]

I just started using my CoT overhaul to help blur the medium/far distance etc. so that there are not that many sharp edges.... I know some people cant stand it, but I personally cant stand super sharp textures in the distance.

On my end then most of the time the loading of new cells is so fast that the default ultra fade distances seems to be able to keep up.

Only huge stuff like forts etc. pop into view when they change from the LOD to the near... but this is essentially impossible to fix without higher ugrids.