Skyrim LE Shadow Optimization

[DoubleYou]

 

I'm a little confused by this iShadowMapResolution setting, so I'll ask a few questions.

• Which textures are influenced by this setting? Terrain only? Do you see the same issues in cities as in the wild?
• What happens with systems with a mixture of 1K, 2K or 4K textures?
• How does this interact with the fShadowDistance setting?
• Does it make a difference if you are near a cell boundary?

 

• It isn't related to the textures being used on objects, say, the wall texture. I've seen this all over the place and thought it was just a bug in the shadow system until TechAngel's observation. What I believe was happening was that, due to the value being the wrong size, it would flicker between the set size and the nearest correct size.
• Shadows and textures being used don't matter.
• fShadowDistance doesn't affect iShadowMapResolution (I believe). There is a bug with vanilla shadows where there is an obvious change in the shadow quality at low fShadowDistance values that I believe is hardcoded (the shadow LOD settings appear to be non-working). The solution is to move fShadowDistance out farther to 4000 or more. See the videos showing this effect here: https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:SkyrimPrefs_INI/Display#fShadowDistance
• Good question. Testing this with the cell borders on might prove useful.

[Guest]

I updated the OP for ENBs:

 

;Somewhere between 0.1 and 0.6 is best for fShadowBiasScale

 

to

 

;Somewhere between 0.4 and 1.0 is best for fShadowBiasScale

 

 

This is going to be user preference on how they want the shadows look and could change depending on the ENB Preset used, but going too far down causes shadows to start covering entire surfaces which is not desired. I currently have mine set to 0.6 as a happy place. Some shadowing on the face of the rocks is natural and desirable but too much doesn't look good. ENB used is Vividian Vanilla V7.

 

fShadowBiasScale=1.0 >> fShadowBiasScale=0.4 >> fShadowBiasScale=0.15

Sorry, but is it your ENB or do those rocks usually look like burned plastic? What mod is that? AOF? The small rocks look fine.

Edited September 9, 2015 by Guest

[Spock]

Cool. I'll set it back to 1024 and distance back to 4000. I've been playing with the distance to see just have far it is and 2800 was way too short a distance for exteriors.

I'm not too sure about that. If I remember right, it is the right distance for the lod switching bug (which is fixed by ENB). Even with an ENB I had a better experience when using a shadow distance of about 6500 then going all the way to 8000. Since Skyrim produces one shadow map, the larger the size the lower the quality.

Edited September 9, 2015 by Spock

[Yakuza]

So like, what else is needed for vanilla shadows..? I'm pretty sure I just solved the case, Jones, and I need to know if you guys think you understand shadows yet. Didn't know about this topic beforehand, I just looked into it myself.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Yakuza

[Yakuza]

Yeah I'm 99.99995% sure I know how to control shadows now. I have no problems running high distance shadows (8-12k+)

[lupus_hegemonia]

Okay, fellas... I really really REALLY need help, here.

As you may know me, I'm playing the SSE since is been released (I've dropped the LE since then).

 

So, I'm trying to get the best ini settings I can afford (and trust me, I have a monstrous PC).

But... whatever I do, I simply CAN'T HAVE good shadows, d@mn it! Whatever I do, I still have blur shadows and very flickering. I believe I've changed the skyrim.ini & skyrimpref.ini settings a couple... million times and STILL I don't have the proper shadows!

 

PLEASE, I need serious help, here. I tried almost all in this topic, nothing changed. I followed like "Bible" the STEP settings, no better shadows so far...

I'm playing with 2560x1440 resolution, GTX 1070, and I want to get the best visuals I can get...

 

Regards for every help.

[TechAngel85]

Okay, fellas... I really really REALLY need help, here.

As you may know me, I'm playing the SSE since is been released (I've dropped the LE since then).

 

So, I'm trying to get the best ini settings I can afford (and trust me, I have a monstrous PC).

But... whatever I do, I simply CAN'T HAVE good shadows, d@mn it! Whatever I do, I still have blur shadows and very flickering. I believe I've changed the skyrim.ini & skyrimpref.ini settings a couple... million times and STILL I don't have the proper shadows!

 

PLEASE, I need serious help, here. I tried almost all in this topic, nothing changed. I followed like "Bible" the STEP settings, no better shadows so far...

I'm playing with 2560x1440 resolution, GTX 1070, and I want to get the best visuals I can get...

 

Regards for every help.

Have you tried using BethINI? I don't have any issues with its preset shadow settings.