[Display]
bDeferredShadows
bDeferredShadows is believed to toggle deferred rendering of shadows. It has little if any effect on shadow appearance.
Default is 1.
bDeferredShadows=(0,1)
bDrawLandShadows
bDrawLandShadows toggles the ability of land objects such as rocks and mountains to cast shadows. It can be disabled for a slight performance gain.
Default is 0
bDrawLandShadows=(0,1)
bDrawShadows
bDrawShadows is believed to be unused by the game. It has been empirically verified that this setting does not disable or enable shadows. It is recognized by the game, but does not appear to have any effect.
Default is 1.
bDrawShadows=(0,1)
bFXAAEnabled
bFXAAEnabled toggles an almost zero-cost approximation of antialiasing using the FXAA technique. Do not use with other forms of antialiasing.
Default is 0. Low, High, and Ultra presets are 0. Medium is 1.
bFXAAEnabled=(0,1)
bFloatPointRenderTarget
bFloatPointRenderTarget toggles the ability of lighting to be rendered using floating point (decimal) values rather than only integer values. This increases the precision of lighting. It comes with a medium performance impact, and is recommended to be set to 0 if not using ENB. If using ENB, bFloatPointRenderTarget must be set to 1.
Default is 0 (although default set by the game without the value present is 1).
bFloatPointRenderTarget=(0,1)
bFull Screen
bFull Screen toggles the ability of the game to be rendered fullscreen. This setting cannot be changed in-game.
Default is 0.
bFull Screen=(0,1)
bMainZPrepass
bMainZPrepass toggles ZPrepass. Enabling ZPrepass tells the game not to render certain object to try to increase performance. It is recommended to remain disabled and to use ENBoost's ZPrepass instead. If set to 1, ENBoost's ZPrepass may not work.
Default is 0.
bMainZPrepass=(0,1)
bShadowMaskZPrepass
bShadowMaskZPrepass toggles ZPrepass on the shadow mask. Enabling this tells the game not to render shadows on certain objects to try to increase performance, but seems to fail and instead make performance worse with a side effect of increasing the quality of the shadows that are rendered? It would seem that freeing those resources merely gave shadows more to work with, thereby increasing the quality of the shadows cast, and causing shadows to be set more frequently? It is recommended to remain disabled and to use ENBoost's ZPrepass instead. If set to 1, ENBoost's ZPrepass may not work.
Default is 0.
bShadowMaskZPrepass=(0,1)
bShadowsOnGrass
bShadowsOnGrass toggles the ability of objects to cast shadows upon grass. The grass itself does not cast shadows. If using ENB, this must be enabled. This may be disabled for a minor performance increase.
Default is 1.
bShadowsOnGrass=(0,1)
bTransparencyMultisampling
bTransparencyMultisampling toggles transparency antialiasing on textures for better quality. Recommended to be disabled for better performance.
Default is 0.
bTransparencyMultisampling=(0,1)
bTreesReceiveShadows
bTreesReceiveShadows toggles the ability of trees to cast shadows on themselves. It may be disabled for a slight performance gain.
Default is 0.
bTreesReceiveShadows=(0,1)
fDecalLOD1
fDecalLOD1 sets the initial distance that decals are shown on LOD?
Default is 1000.
fDecalLOD1=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fDecalLOD2
fDecalLOD2 sets the secondary distance that decals are shown on LOD?
Default is 1500.
fDecalLOD2=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fGamma
fGamma sets the gamma brightness. It is changeable in the in-game Settings > Display menu as Brightness.
Default is 1.
fGamma=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fInteriorShadowDistance
fInteriorShadowDistance sets the distance that shadows are cast from the player while indoors. Wherever no shadows are cast, the place is put in a perpetual shadow, effectively decreasing the light cast indoors. See fShadowDistance for the outdoor shadow distance.
Default is 3000.
fInteriorShadowDistance=(0,0.0001,...)
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd sets the ending distance leaves are animated?
Default is 4600.
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart sets the starting distance leaf animations are lessened?
Default is 3600.
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fLightLODStartFade
fLightLODStartFade sets the distance when light will begin to fade. It is changeable in the in-game Settings > Display menu as Light Fade.
Default is 1000. Low is 200. Medium is 1000. High is 2500. Ultra is 3500.
fLightLODStartFade=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault sets something to do with meshes in LOD?
Default is 256.
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault sets the default percentage meshes fade?
Default is 1.2000000477.
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist sets the distance meshes begin to fade in LOD?
Default is 4096. Low and Medium presets are 4096. High and Ultra presets are 1e+007.
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance sets the distance tree meshes begin to fade in LOD?
Default is 2844.
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist sets the distance meshes begin to fade even more in LOD?
Default is 3072. Low and Medium presets are 3072. High and Ultra presets are 1e+007.
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance sets the distance tree meshes begin to fade even more in LOD?
Default is 2048.
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fShadowBiasScale
fShadowBiasScale sets the depth of the shadows applied to surfaces. Low values provides better depth, but causes more shadow striping. Slightly higher values cause increases the depth angle slightly, causing far less shadow striping. Extremely high values eventually remove shadows completely. Negative values remove the shadow depth progressively until everything around the player is covered in shadow, effectively removing the lighting around the player.
Default is 1. Low is 0.5. Medium is 0.3. High is 0.25. Ultra is 0.15.
fShadowBiasScale=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fShadowDistance
fShadowDistance sets the distance that shadows are cast from the player, using the resources allotted by iShadowMapResolution. If fShadowDistance is set to 0, shadows will not show up, but it will not impact performance, because this merely determines how far from the player that the shadows will be cast. It is recommended to be set to 4000 or higher, with a corresponding increase in iShadowMapResolution to improve the quality of the shadows cast.
Note the visible line of shadow quality stages in the videos below (iShadowMapResolution is set to its default value of 1024).
- fShadowDistance=0
- fShadowDistance=1500
- fShadowDistance=2500
- fShadowDistance=3500
- fShadowDistance=4000
- fShadowDistance=8000
Default is 2500. Low is 2000. Medium is 2500. High is 4000. Ultra is 8000.
fShadowDistance=(0,0.0001,...)
fShadowLODStartFade
fShadowLODStartFade sets the distance shadows begin to fade.
Default is 200.
fShadowLODStartFade=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fSpecularLODStartFade
fSpecularLODStartFade sets the distance specularity begins to fade. It is changeable in the in-game Settings > Display menu as Specularity Fade.
Default is 500. Low is 200. Medium is 500. High is 1000. Ultra is 2000.
fSpecularLODStartFade=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist sets the distance trees switch to their LOD versions?
Default is 3600. Low and Medium presets are 3600. High is 5000. Ultra is 1e+007.
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=(...,-0.0001,0,0.0001,...)
iAdapter
This setting does not appear in game-generated INIs--only ones created by the Skyrim Launcher via the preset files. It has been empirically verified that changing this setting in SkyrimPrefs.ini has no effect in game, but instead must be changed inside Skyrim.ini, otherwise the default value shall be used (which is 0). This can be confirmed by observing that setting it to 1 in Skyrim.ini will change the adapter from the default while removing or setting the value to 0 will cause the game to use the default adapter. Conversely, the same experiment shows that the default adapter is still used despite any value entered for it in SkyrimPrefs.ini.
Low, Medium, High, and Ultra presets are 0.
iAdapter=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iActorShadowCountExt
It has been verified that this setting is completely placebo. The game does not recognize the setting at all. It does not appear in game-generated INIs or in Launcher presets, however it appears to exist within the preset files, where its values for Low, Medium, and High presets are 2 and Ultra is 6.
iActorShadowCountExt=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iActorShadowCountInt
It has been verified that this setting is completely placebo. The game does not recognize the setting at all. It does not appear in game-generated INIs or in Launcher presets, however it appears to exist within the preset files, where its value for Low is 2, Medium and High is 4, and Ultra is 6.
iActorShadowCountInt=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iBlurDeferredShadowMask
iBlurDeferredShadowMask sets the amount of blurring applied to shadows. It is NOT dependent upon bDeferredShadows being enabled. Lower values make sharper shadows. Higher values make softer shadows. Negative values produces the maximum blur level. Lowering this value may help reduce the aura or glow around the player. This should be set to at least 1 if using ENB shadows. For vanilla shadows, this should be set to at least 3 (5 is recommended) to help blur the shadow striping away.
- iBlurDeferredShadowMask = 0
- iBlurDeferredShadowMask = 1
- iBlurDeferredShadowMask = 3
- iBlurDeferredShadowMask = 5
- iBlurDeferredShadowMask = -1
Default is 5. Low is 0. Medium is 1. High and Ultra presets are 3.
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=(-1,0,1,...)
iMaxAnisotropy
iMaxAnisotropy sets the level of anisotropic filtering. It is recommended to be set to 0 and force either driver AF or ENBoost AF in its place.
Default is 8. Low and Medium presets are 1. High is 8. Ultra is 16.
iMaxAnisotropy=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iMaxDecalsPerFrame
iMaxDecalsPerFrame sets the maximum number of decals displayed per frame.
Default is 10. Low is 0. Medium is 10. High is 30. Ultra is 100.
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame sets the maximum number of decals displayed on skin per frame. Dependent upon and should be a value equal to or less than iMaxDecalsPerFrame.
Default is 3. Low is 0. Medium is 3. High is 10. Ultra is 25.
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iMultiSample
iMultiSample sets the level of antialising. Recommended to leave off and use other methods of AA such as SMAA.
Default is 0. Low is 1. Medium is 4. High is 8. Ultra is 16.
iMultiSample=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iPresentInterval
This setting does not appear in game-generated INIs--only ones created by the Skyrim Launcher via the preset files where its default is 1. It has been empirically verified that changing this setting in SkyrimPrefs.ini has no effect in game, but instead must be changed inside Skyrim.ini, otherwise the default value shall be used (which is 1). This can be confirmed by observing that setting it to 0 in Skyrim.ini will turn off VSync while removing or setting the value to 1 enables VSync. Conversely, the same experiment shows that VSync remains enabled despite any value entered for it in SkyrimPrefs.ini.
iPresentInterval=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iScreenShotIndex
iScreenShotIndex sets the number of the screenshot made when bAllowScreenshot is enabled in Skyrim.ini. It increases incrementally with each screenshot taken.
Default is 0.
iScreenShotIndex=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iShadowFilter
iShadowFilter toggles the shadow filter on and off. If set to a value between 0 and 4, the shadow filter is on. If set to any other value, be it below 0 or above 4, the shadow filter is turned off, which causes buggy shadows that induce CTDs. It is recommended to leave at its default value, since all values between 0 and 4 appear to produce the same result.
- iShadowFilter=0, 1, 2, 3, or 4
- iShadowFilter=Any value other than 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4
- The buggy shadows produced by turning the shadow filter off.
Default is 3.
iShadowFilter=(0,1,2,3,4,5)
iShadowMapResolution
iShadowMapResolution sets the resolution of shadows. It can have a significant performance impact if set too high (or if set to 0 or -1). If set to 0, everything will be covered in a global shadow within the fShadowDistance or fInterorShadowDistance, and this is rather performance costly. Negative values (all negative values do the same) produces the maximum shadow resolution and is insanely performance unfriendly. A value of 1 gives the best performance, but produces buggy shadows within the fShadowDistance or fInterorShadowDistance. If it is desired to turn off shadows, set bDeferredShadows, bShadowsOnGrass, bTreesReceiveShadows, fShadowDistance, and iBlurDeferredShadowMask to 0, fInterorShadowDistance to a high value to preserve indoor lighting (e.g. 8000), and iShadowMapResolution to 1.
Default is 1024. Low is 512. Medium is 1024. High is 2048. Ultra is 4096.
iShadowMapResolution=(-1,0,1,...)
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary
It has been verified that this setting is completely placebo. The game does not recognize the setting at all. It does not appear in game-generated INIs or in Launcher presets. Its origin is from the SkyrimPrefs.ini file that resides inside the extra Skyrim directory inside the main Skyrim directory, where it is set to 2048.
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary
It has been verified that this setting is completely placebo. The game does not recognize the setting at all. It does not appear in game-generated INIs or in Launcher presets. Its origin is from the SkyrimPrefs.ini file that resides inside the extra Skyrim directory inside the main Skyrim directory, where it is set to 1024.
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iShadowMaskQuarter
iShadowMaskQuarter is a shadow setting that cannot be altered, whose default value is 4, and shall forevermore be 4. This value is written and rewritten to the INI file every time the game is run, needed or not. Indeed, setting the file to read-only mode is the only way to change the setting and it not be altered, but even then, the game still will only use a value of 4! It is impossible to change this setting's value!
Default is 4. Low and Medium presets are 3 (which will be replaced with 4 upon first run of the game). High and Ultra presets are 4.
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iShadowMode
iShadowMode is believed to be unused by the game. It is recognized by the game, but does not appear to have any effect. This has been empirically verified through extensive testing with various values, all producing the exact same shadow effects.
Default is 3.
iShadowMode=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iShadowSplitCount
It has been verified that this setting is completely placebo. The game does not recognize the setting at all. It does not appear in game-generated INIs or in Launcher presets. Its origin is from the SkyrimPrefs.ini file that resides inside the extra Skyrim directory inside the main Skyrim directory, where it is set to 2.
iShadowSplitCount=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iSize H
iSize H sets the height of the monitor resolution in pixels. This setting cannot be changed in-game.
Default is 480.
iSize H=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iSize W
iSize W sets the width of the monitor resolution in pixels. This setting cannot be changed in-game.
Default is 640.
iSize W=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iTexMipMapMinimum
iTexMipMapMinimum sets the minimum mipmap for textures to be used.
Default is 0.
iTexMipMapMinimum=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iTexMipMapSkip
iTexMipMapSkip sets the texture quality (determined by the number of mipmaps to skip).
Default is 0. Low quality is 2. Medium quality is 1. High quality is 0. Low preset is 1. Medium, High, and Ultra presets are 0.
iTexMipMapSkip=(...,-1,0,1,...)
iWaterMultiSamples
iWaterMultiSamples sets the level of antialising applied to the water. Recommended to leave off and use other methods of AA such as SMAA.
Default is 0. Low and Medium presets are 1. High and Ultra presets are 4.
iWaterMultiSamples=(...,-1,0,1,...)
sD3DDevice
sD3DDevice appears to only be used by the Skyrim Launcher to detect the correct preset. It has been verified that it is not used by the game itself, just the Launcher. If Skyrim is not using the correct graphics card, fix that elsewhere (i.e., the driver).
sD3DDevice="Name of Graphics Card"
