Turning off Shadows : V

» Thu May 17, 2012 4:45 am

Hello everyone, like many of you i've spent the last few days trying to get Skyrim to run on my laptop. I have an Asus G73JH and the game pushes my CPU (i7 Q740) to its limits and has resulted in very bad overheating. However, I have found that turning off all settings relating to shadows in the .ini takes a SIGNIFICANT amount of pressure off of the CPU. It runs so cool now that the fans dont even bother spinning up. But this is where the problems start. The game runs perfectly when I start up a saved game, but over the course of the next few minutes the framerate steadily degrades until the game is unplayable. I have found that it degrades much faster when near water. I have also isolated the .ini line that causes the problem: iShadowMapResolution. Setting this to zero is what gives me the most performance gain, but it also causes this odd issue. Has anyone else managed to remove all the shadows and solve their performance issues without destabilizing the game?

Here is my .ini as it stands. Maybe I am missing something obvious.

Spoiler

[General]
fBrightLightColorB=1.0000
fBrightLightColorG=1.0000
fBrightLightColorR=1.0000
iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1
bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0
[Imagespace]
bDoDepthOfField=0
iRadialBlurLevel=0
[Display]
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=0
fInteriorShadowDistance=0.0000
fShadowDistance=0.0000
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=0
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=0
iShadowSplitCount=0
iMaxAnisotropy=1
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=3600.0000
fGamma=0.9200
fDecalLOD2=1500.0000
fDecalLOD1=1000.0000
fSpecularLODStartFade=740.0000
fShadowLODStartFade=0.0000
fLightLODStartFade=1520.0000
iTexMipMapMinimum=0
iTexMipMapSkip=1
iWaterMultiSamples=0
iMultiSample=0
iShadowMode=1
bTreesReceiveShadows=0
bDrawLandShadows=0
bFull Screen=1
iSize H=900
iSize W=1600
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=3072.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=4096.0000
iScreenShotIndex=2
bShadowMaskZPrepass=0
bMainZPrepass=0
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=3
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=10
bFloatPointRenderTarget=0
sD3DDevice="ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series"
bFXAAEnabled=1
iShadowMapResolution=0
fShadowBiasScale=0.0000
iShadowMaskQuarter=1
iAdapter=0
iPresentInterval=1
iShadowFilter=1
bTransparencyMultisampling=0
bDrawShadows=0
[Grass]
b30GrassVS=0
fGrassStartFadeDistance=2000.0000
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.0000
[MAIN]
bGamepadEnable=0
bCrosshairEnabled=1
fHUDOpacity=1.0000
bSaveOnPause=1
bSaveOnTravel=1
bSaveOnWait=1
bSaveOnRest=1
fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000.0000
[GamePlay]
bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1
bShowQuestMarkers=1
iDifficulty=2
[Interface]
bDialogueSubtitles=1
bGeneralSubtitles=1
bShowCompass=1
[Controls]
fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.0000
fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0420
bAlwaysRunByDefault=1
bInvertYValues=0
bGamePadRumble=0
bMouseAcceleration=0
[Particles]
iMaxDesired=750
[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=15.0000
[AudioMenu]
fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000
fVal7=1.0000
uID7=0
fVal6=1.0000
uID6=0
fVal5=1.0000
uID5=0
fVal4=1.0000
uID4=0
fVal3=0.7500
uID3=94881
fVal2=1.0000
uID2=466532
fVal1=0.8000
uID1=554685
fVal0=0.5500
uID0=1007612
[Clouds]
fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000
fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000
fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000
fCloudNearFadeDistance=9000.0000
[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=25000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=100000.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=32768.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=20480.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=0.7500
bShowLODInEditor=0
[NavMesh]
fObstacleAlpha=0.5000
fCoverSideHighAlpha=0.8000
fCoverSideLowAlpha=0.6500
fEdgeFullAlpha=1.0000
fEdgeHighAlpha=0.7500
fEdgeLowAlpha=0.5000
fTriangleFullAlpha=0.7000
fTriangleHighAlpha=0.3500
fTriangleLowAlpha=0.2000
fLedgeBoxHalfHeight=25.0000
fEdgeDistFromVert=10.0000
fEdgeThickness=10.0000
fPointSize=2.5000
[Trees]
bRenderSkinnedTrees=1
uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=20
[Decals]
uMaxDecals=100
bDecals=1
bSkinnedDecals=1
uMaxSkinDecals=35
uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=20
[LOD]
fLODFadeOutMultObjects=7.0000
fLODFadeOutMultItems=6.8000
fLODFadeOutMultActors=6.0000
fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000
[Launcher]
bEnableFileSelection=1
bShowAllResolutions=1
uLastAspectRatio=3
[BlurShaderHDR]
bDoHighDynamicRange=0
[BlurShader]
bUseBlurShader=0
[Water]
iWaterReflectHeight=512
iWaterReflectWidth=512
bUseWaterDisplacements=1
bUseWaterRefractions=1
bUseWaterReflections=1
bUseWaterDepth=1

» Wed May 16, 2012 11:39 pm

ya i tried turng off all shadows i thought it would help performance and the shadows look bad anyway, but when i turned them all off i was surprised to see that it actualy lowered my fps quite a bit