Crowdsourcing project: Configurator settings

[Tannin]

There has been a bit of discussion recently about the Configurator missing settings or incorrectly reporting settings to be placed in the wrong file.

madduma on Nexus has created and released a modified settings.json that adds missing parameters. A few I could verify were missing, some were relevant only to the launcher but not used by the game (which imho makes it pointless having them in the configurator) but many I couldn't see any effect.
But since there are a lot of settings in question and since it's possible some settings are only used under certain circumstanced I'd like to ask for the help of the community.

At the bottom of this post is a list of settings in question. If you can verify that one of these settings has any effect (or not) please post here, preferrably with a short description what effect the setting has, I will update the list occasionally as feedback comes in.
When I say "verify" I truly mean: make sure. Saying "when I enable that setting i think the game may feel smoother perhaps" is not very reliable. "I ran through the intro sequence with setting on and off and my minimum FPS went up by 5%" would be better.

In Skyrim.ini:

[Camera]
fOverShoulderAddY

[Combat]
f3PBoltTiltUpAngle

[VATS]
uVATSRangedPercentSneak
uVATSRangedPercentGlobal

In SkyrimPrefs.ini:

[Controls]
bMouseAcceleration

[Decals]
uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor

[Display]
iShadowSplitCount
sD3DDevice             - Launcher only?

[General]
fBrightLightColorB    - Creation Kit only?
fBrightLightColorG    - Creation Kit only?
fBrightLightColorR    - Creation Kit only?

[NavMesh]
fObstacleAlpha
fCoverSideHighAlpha
fCoverSideLowAlpha
fEdgeFullAlpha
fEdgeHighAlpha
fEdgeLowAlpha
fTriangleFullAlpha
fTriangleHighAlpha
fTriangleLowAlpha
fLedgeBoxHalfHeight
fEdgeDistFromVert
fEdgeThickness
fPointSize

 

EDIT

 

[blurShader]

bUseBlurShader

 

[blurShaderHDR]

bDoHighDynamicRange

 

 

bUseBlurShader and bDoHighDynamicRange are used by Oblivion and are read by the SkyrimLauncher but appear to be never read by Skyrim. More legacy settings?

[Aiyen]

The following fBrightLightcolorRGB are only relevant in the CK (To my knowledge). They are what determine the light you have on when you disable ingame lighting. By default this is just set as pure white. Perhaps they are just leftover values from the engine as they should be set in the CK .ini file not in the skyrimprefs. 

 

Mouse Acceleration have always been just that... same as in most other games that have that setting enabled. Actually unsure if it matters for me since I have a mouse with its own settings stored in its own memory (I can set mouse acceleration settings there separately if I wanted). But I always disable it since I in general dislike the effect. 

 

The sD3DDevice should just be what your current video adapter is. It should always be set by default... if you run the game and generate ini´s first. It will be whatever is reported by DirectX... which in turn depends on what is in your driver settings. It can be weird for optimus laptop users since they have two settings for it by default. 

[GrantSP]

Quite a few of these are listed in STEP's INI guide so if they aren't needed then a lot of users will need to adjust their inis.

[Tannin]

The following fBrightLightcolorRGB are only relevant in the CK (To my knowledge). They are what determine the light you have on when you disable ingame lighting. By default this is just set as pure white. Perhaps they are just leftover values from the engine as they should be set in the CK .ini file not in the skyrimprefs. 

 

Mouse Acceleration have always been just that... same as in most other games that have that setting enabled. Actually unsure if it matters for me since I have a mouse with its own settings stored in its own memory (I can set mouse acceleration settings there separately if I wanted). But I always disable it since I in general dislike the effect. 

 

The sD3DDevice should just be what your current video adapter is. It should always be set by default... if you run the game and generate ini´s first. It will be whatever is reported by DirectX... which in turn depends on what is in your driver settings. It can be weird for optimus laptop users since they have two settings for it by default. 

Thanks, this is good information.

 

What would you guys say: Should the configurator list settings that are only relevant to the CK or Launcher? Maybe I should add another "group" in addition to "Basic" and "Advanced"...

 

re Mouse Acceleration: The point is: according to my logs the game never accesses that value so unless there is something I'm missing that setting won't activate mouse acceleration.

 

sD3DDevice is also only accessed by the launcher, presumably to estimate the best settings, it's not read by the game.

[alt3rn1ty]

SkyrimPrefs.ini

[Controls]

bMouseAcceleration=1

 

Default =1

 

It would make sense if that does not work ..

 

When Skyrim was still receiving official updates, there was a time before one of the patches where vsync was causing a lot of problems for various video cards, sometimes people found altering this setting had something to do with the problem - But it was a bit hit / miss as to the results

 

A later patch fixed the problem, and it became widely known at the time not to mess with this setting any more because it was no longer needed for those that previously had success with changing it. I think that patch, while fixing the vsync problem, also may have disabled that setting at the same time.

 

Personally I have always had it set at its default 1 without any issue since 11/11/11

 

( It was also around about this time that iPresentInterval=0 was found to be a bad setting to mess with, best left at default )

 

--------------------------

 

Skyrim.ini

[Combat]

f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7

f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7

f1PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7

f3PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7

 

These have been extensively tested by Duke Patrick ( aka SpookyFX ), https://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1509367-duke-patricks-archery-heavy-light-and-h2h-combat

.. with the above setting of 0.7 is ideal for a realistic setting.

 

f1 and f3 = First person and third person camera perspectives

 

Arrow is self explanatory, Bolt is for Crossbows ( introduced by Dawnguard )

 

When you fire your bow at the aim sight cursor, you would expect in real life the arrow to fire straight at that point, but to fall lower as it gets further away, speed reduces, and gravity takes effect.

 

The default setting makes the arrow / bolt climb above the cursor height during its flight, so that the arrow / bolt hits the target where the cursor is pointing - Kind of a help me hit the target unrealistic game setting, even though the game has realistic flight physics

 

Default = unrealistic flight path
                        ------
               ------            -----
Shoot ------                              ---- + ( Aim Cursor ) Target


Adjusted to 0.7 flight path ( so that as in real life you have to aim high )

Shoot ------------------                       + ( Aim Cursor )
                         ------------
                                      -------- Target

I have been using these settings for the last two years. Its one of the few ini tweaks I do religiously.

Edited January 29, 2015 by alt3rn1ty

[Aiyen]

Okay just to make sure I looked up on the SkyrimEditorprefs.ini 

The FbrightColorRGB´s are in there under general and set to 1.0 by default. So that part is true at least. And altering them can be done with the CK open and altering its preferences. 

 

As for the sD3DDevice then that sounds reasonable. At least I am able to start the game even if I change my GTX 660 to a 970 in the .ini. ENB still reports the proper 660 as well so it does it´s own lookup it seems. 

 

Good to know about the mouse acceleration as well! Thanks

[Tannin]

Skyrim.ini

[Combat]

f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7

f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7

f1PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7

f3PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7

 

Please verify that f3PBoltTiltUpAngle actually has an effect. I can see in my logs that the game accesses the other 3 settings but f3PBoltTiltUpAngle is never touched.

I attempted to set f1PBoltTiltUpAngle and f3PBoltTiltUpAngle to 45 and sure enough, from first person the bolt shoots upward in a 45° tilt (very visible). in 3rd person the bolt still goes straight.

So while it would make sense to have f3PBoltTiltUpAngle I'm almost certain the Bethesda guys forgot to implement it.

[alt3rn1ty]

Erk, just noticed this before going back to work, will not be able to test before next week, but I reckon you are probably right with your finding on that one, I never run around in 3P mode

[z929669]

I cannot attest to anything other than the fact that ...

 

[Controls]
bMouseAcceleration

 

... has no impact at all in my game or in my menu interfaces. I suspect the same is true for all of those settings, but I cannot speak to them.

 

I also think that CK-only and Launcher-only (and whatever else does not impact the game directly) ... should be included but under an "advanced" option or within their respective categories under advanced.

 

Rationale: Comprehensiveness -give modders all of the information they need to learn and test (and hang themselves) as much as possible. "Black boxes" always leave questions, or worse, they leave impactful unknowns.

[Tannin]

If there is no more feedback I'll assume none of the remaining settings has an effect. Thanks to those that did help.

[DoubleYou]

Tested bMouseAcceleration and indeed it appears to do nothing anymore.

 

The blurshader ones I had tried change/tweak, and never noticed that they did anything.

 

I was pretty sure that iShadowSplitCount did something, but I'd need to test it.

 

One thing I would question is: Perhaps using Skyrim with an ENB/ENBoost results in some of these settings being disabled?

[z929669]

Good point. Verification should be on vanilla base game with no mods at all (and probably running the game via Steam as original devs intended).