[REQ] disable font antialiasing : V

» Wed May 16, 2012 4:12 am

my gaming rig died like a week before Skyrim came out so i've been playing it on a pretty terrible laptop with an Intel GMA 4500M. i've managed to fiddle with the ini enough to get it running sort of playably (like 15fps average, dipping to ~9 in a lot of places) at 640x480 but today i had the brilliant idea to throw logic to the wind and run the game at 320x240.

it works GREAT. i can actually manage good framerates in most places and it looks like a PS1 game which is hilarious and i'm totally willing to play like this until i can afford to get my [censored] fixed.

BUT because i'm playing at such a ridiculously low resolution the smaller fonts are pretty much entirely unreadable.

so does anyone know if it's possible to disable font AA and, if so, how? alternatively, could i just replace the fonts with something sort of geared towards low-resolution use (like some weird pixel font) and hope that works? i don't care about LOOKS at all as long as i can read dialogue options and subtitles and books/notes.

» Wed May 16, 2012 1:39 am

Christ, man. I really wish I could help you, but sadly I have no idea. I don't suppose you could post your specs/some screenshots, just do ease my curiosity on what the game actually looks like for you? I hope someone knows how to do it, though, because you actually need your mod, unlike most of us here for pleasure or whining about how horrible xyz thing is.

» Wed May 16, 2012 3:09 am

You really don't understand how much you appreciate your computer (even if it is bad) until you're forced to play on a CoCo..

» Wed May 16, 2012 9:22 am

my gaming rig died like a week before Skyrim came out so i've been playing it on a pretty terrible laptop with an Intel GMA 4500M. i've managed to fiddle with the ini enough to get it running sort of playably (like 15fps average, dipping to ~9 in a lot of places) at 640x480 but today i had the brilliant idea to throw logic to the wind and run the game at 320x240.

it works GREAT. i can actually manage good framerates in most places and it looks like a PS1 game which is hilarious and i'm totally willing to play like this until i can afford to get my [censored] fixed.

BUT because i'm playing at such a ridiculously low resolution the smaller fonts are pretty much entirely unreadable.

so does anyone know if it's possible to disable font AA and, if so, how? alternatively, could i just replace the fonts with something sort of geared towards low-resolution use (like some weird pixel font) and hope that works? i don't care about LOOKS at all as long as i can read dialogue options and subtitles and books/notes.

LoL.
Forgive my irrelevant comment, but LoL.

» Wed May 16, 2012 12:29 am

Christ, man. I really wish I could help you, but sadly I have no idea. I don't suppose you could post your specs/some screenshots, just do ease my curiosity on what the game actually looks like for you? I hope someone knows how to do it, though, because you actually need your mod, unlike most of us here for pleasure or whining about how horrible xyz thing is.

http://localhostr.com/file/jeah3SL/2011-11-22_00003.jpg. none of the others really do the settings justice, they just look like [censored] graphics at an insanely low res. this one really shows off the experience - the mountains in the distance look like a skybox straight out of Arena.

i mean i actually kind of LIKE HOW IT LOOKS - the textures and everything are absolutely horrendous but it's too low-res for me to even notice for the most part, and it runs great. it makes me feel like i'm playing some old dungeon crawler from the early '90s that i'd missed the first time 'round but with mouselook. my only problem is the font is harder to read than i'd like.

i did manage to alleviate it somewhat by downloading a mod that set everything to Arial but everything's still pretty hard to make out. http://localhostr.com/file/7sxCA8m/2011-11-22_00013.jpg http://localhostr.com/file/p0cRh2g/2011-11-22_00011.jpg i mean in these it's a bit easier to read but i'm playing with the resolution upscaled to my laptop's native vertical res (1280x800) so it's harder in-game and i don't really want to disable scaling.

as for specs:
intel pentium dual-core T3400 @ 2.17ghz
intel gma 4500m, running some custom driver i found on youtube (without the driver the game's textures were completely broken and it was unplayable)
2gb RAM
vista home premium 32bit (windows experience index rating is 3.1 :3)

LoL.
Forgive my irrelevant comment, but LoL.

dude that's a great post you should post more.

» Tue May 15, 2012 10:13 pm

Ran across a thread talking about ini settings, and thought one of the posts might help you out:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1274769-open-console-saveini-intresting-read/page__st__40__p__19403226#entry19403226

Maybe if you zoomed it in a bit you might be able to read something? I'd suppose it's worth a try, at least.

» Wed May 16, 2012 10:15 am

Ran across a thread talking about ini settings, and thought one of the posts might help you out:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1274769-open-console-saveini-intresting-read/page__st__40__p__19403226#entry19403226

Maybe if you zoomed it in a bit you might be able to read something? I'd suppose it's worth a try, at least.

oh dude this totally made it so i could read books and notes. i couldn't do anything with the interface itself but i can deal with that for now. thanks a ton, bro!

» Wed May 16, 2012 3:25 am

I just had to reply because you have to be the most epic Skyrim-player alive. I LOL'd.

» Wed May 16, 2012 12:12 am

my gaming rig died like a week before Skyrim came out so i've been playing it on a pretty terrible laptop with an Intel GMA 4500M. i've managed to fiddle with the ini enough to get it running sort of playably (like 15fps average, dipping to ~9 in a lot of places

Could you please post your INI ?

» Wed May 16, 2012 10:09 am

Could you please post your INI ?

SkyrimPrefs.ini

Spoiler

[Display]iMultiSample=1iWaterMultisamples=1bTransparencyMultisampling=0iMaxDecalsPerFrame=100iTexMipMapSkip=0iTexMipMapMinimum=0fDecalLOD1=500.0000fDecalLOD2=1000.0000iActorShadowCountInt=0iActorShadowCountExt=0fSpecularLODStartFade=0.0000fShadowLODStartFade=0.0000fLightLODStartFade=0.0000bDrawShadows=0iShadowFilter=0iShadowMapResolution=1fShadowBiasScale=0.0000fInteriorShadowDistance=0.0000fShadowDistance=0.0000iBlurDeferredShadowMask=0bFloatPointRenderTarget=0iShadowMaskQuarter=0bFXAAEnabled=0fGamma=1.0000iShadowMode=3bTreesReceiveShadows=0bDrawLandShadows=0bFull Screen=1iSize H=240iSize W=320fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=0.0000fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=0.0000fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=0.0000fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=0.0000fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=0.0000fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=500.0000fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=1000.0000fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=1000.0000fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=1500.0000iScreenShotIndex=0bShadowMaskZPrepass=0bMainZPrepass=0iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=0iMaxAnisotropy=1sD3DDevice="Royal BNA Driver"[LOD]fLODFadeOutMultActors=7.2000fLODFadeOutMultObjects=2.4000fLODFadeOutMultItems=1.0000fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000[TerrainManager]fTreeLoadDistance=0.0000fBlockLoadDistanceLow=500.0000fBlockLoadDistance=1000.0000fSplitDistanceMult=0.2500fHighBlockLoadDistanceLow=500.0000fBlockMaximumDistance=0.0000fBlockLevel1Distance=500.0000fBlockLevel0Distance=250.0000bShowLODInEditor=0[Grass]b30GrassVS=0fGrassStartFadeDistance=400.0000fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=400.0000[Imagespace]bDoDepthOfField=0iRadialBlurLevel=0[Water]bUseWaterRefractions=0bUseWaterReflections=0bUseWaterReflectionBlur=0bUseWaterDisplacements=0bUseWaterDepth=0iWaterReflectWidth=128iWaterReflectHeight=128bReflectExplosions=0iWaterBlurAmount=0bAutoWaterSilhouetteReflections=0bForceHighDetailReflections=0[BlurShaderHDR]bDoHighDynamicRange=0[MAIN]fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=0.0000bGamepadEnable=0bCrosshairEnabled=1fHUDOpacity=1.0000bSaveOnPause=0bSaveOnTravel=1bSaveOnWait=1bSaveOnRest=1[GamePlay]bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1bShowQuestMarkers=1iDifficulty=1[Interface]bDialogueSubtitles=1bGeneralSubtitles=1bShowCompass=0[Controls]fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0500fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=3.5500bAlwaysRunByDefault=1bInvertYValues=0bGamePadRumble=1bMouseAcceleration=0[Particles]iMaxDesired=0[SaveGame]fAutosaveEveryXMins=60.0000[AudioMenu]fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000fVal7=1.0000uID7=0fVal6=1.0000uID6=0fVal5=1.0000uID5=0fVal4=1.0000uID4=0fVal3=0.6000uID3=466532fVal2=1.0000uID2=554685fVal1=1.0000uID1=1007612fVal0=1.0000uID0=94881[Clouds]fCloudLevel2Distance=0.0000fCloudLevel1Distance=0.0000fCloudLevel0Distance=0.0000fCloudNearFadeDistance=0.0000[General]iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0[Trees]bRenderSkinnedTrees=0uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=0[Decals]uMaxDecals=1000bDecals=1bSkinnedDecals=1uMaxSkinDecals=100uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=60

Skyrim.ini

Spoiler

[Display]sD3DDevice="Royal BNA Driver"iPresentInterval=0[Grass]b30GrassVS=0[Water]bReflectLODObjects=0bReflectLODLand=0bReflectSky=0bReflectLODTrees=0[General]sLanguage=ENGLISHuGridsToLoad=1uInterior Cell Buffer=1uExterior Cell Buffer=12[BlurShaderHDR]bDoHighDynamicRange=0[MapMenu]bWorldMapNoSkyDepthBlur=1[Imagespace]bDoRadialBlur=0[Interface]fNoteDistance=70.0000fBookDistance=90.0000fBookPosWidthPercentage=0.5000fBookPosHeightPercentage=0.5000[LOD]fLODLandDropAmount=200.0000fLodDistance=300.0000[Menu]iConsoleTextSize=10iConsoleSizeScreenPercent=90

there's a lot of weird hacks that i don't entirely understand that mostly just involved finding big numbers and making them little numbers and also setting a bunch of things to 0. some stuff is specifically geared towards my running at 320x240, like the book/note FOV and the console text size. also i'm sure like 80% of those values don't actually do anything and only serve as a placebo.

i also just took a bunch of screenshots in/around Whiterun at 800x600 to sort of show off how those settings look at the kind of resolution a normal person would play at.

http://localhostr.com/file/bYUXKZ0/2011-11-22_00015.jpg
http://localhostr.com/file/lLmKaHT/2011-11-22_00016.jpg
http://localhostr.com/file/qYfw1NL/2011-11-22_00018.jpg
http://localhostr.com/file/9KoHQz9/2011-11-22_00019.jpg
http://localhostr.com/file/LUu44DM/2011-11-22_00020.jpg
http://localhostr.com/file/uUI0nBN/2011-11-22_00021.jpg
http://localhostr.com/file/CJ6sZcq/2011-11-22_00022.jpg
these last two show off what i THINK is going on - the game never loads the full-quality mesh, only LOD meshes. this is good because the full meshes would probably wreck my [censored], but it leads to some oddities like this (though if you're playing at 320x240 immersion doesn't count for much anway)
http://localhostr.com/file/k2ciEXQ/2011-11-22_00023.jpg
http://localhostr.com/file/mUHAutx/2011-11-22_00025.jpg

i never went above 15fps in any of these, and Whiterun is one of the best areas in the game for me performance-wise, so if you're thinking of using them yourself and you've got similar specs keep that in mind. 640x480 runs pretty poorly too but is generally sort of playable. 320x240 runs great but looks like a DS game.

» Wed May 16, 2012 4:56 am

Thanks