Shadows in Skyrim.ini : V

» Sun May 27, 2012 9:14 am

Strange, I can change the shadow size in the Skyrim.ini but it has zero effect on what is visually displayed. Only editing the shadow resolution in the SkyrimPrefs.ini effects what is visually seen.

HOWEVER

Though changing the shadow resolution in the Skyrim.ini has no visual impact it does have a performance impact. In fact. I just lowered it to 64 from 4096 (4096 is what I use in SkyrimPrefs.ini) and I have gained about 10+ frame per second but see no loss in visual quality at all. It's almost as if the game engine is rendering the shadows twice, and the first time (thru Skyrim.ini) is not being displayed, but has an impact on frame rate.

Also, ShadowFiltering=X in SkyrimPrefs.ini has a huge impact on performance but very small impact on visual quality. I lowered it to a value of 1 from 3 and gained another 5+ frames per second. I used ShadowBlur in the SkyrimPrefs.ini set to 32 and it definitely makes shadows blend better with little performance impact.

My Setup:

Windows XP SP3 (32-bit)
2GB DDR2
Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 @ 3.2-ish GHz (Stock is 2.9-ish GHz)
EVGA Geforce GTX 550Ti 1GB GDDR5
Soundblaster Audigy 4 PCI

» Sun May 27, 2012 2:03 pm

Hmm that's interesting if true, I'll have to give it a go. I figured the shadowmapprimary and shadowmapsecondary were outdated unused settings...

» Sun May 27, 2012 3:13 am

Interesting...

I use Skyrimprefs.ini but I will test your findings and see what I get. Will report soon, thanks!

» Sun May 27, 2012 2:09 am

I tried reducing the one in skyrim.ini and it had no impact on anything for me, I suspect that anything in skyrimprefs.ini just over-rides anything in skyrim.ini.

Hmm that's interesting if true, I'll have to give it a go. I figured the shadowmapprimary and shadowmapsecondary were outdated unused settings...

Yah I'm still not 100% sure what they do but I suspect they manage how much memory is allocated to the inner ring of shadow quality vs the outter ring. What I do know is if I lower them below a certain threshold it drastically kills performance for me so I keep them both at 4096.

The one I'm genuinely baffled about is what iShadowSplitCount does.

» Sun May 27, 2012 7:54 am

Ya, I am seeing no difference...

» Sat May 26, 2012 11:43 pm

The overall performance is definitely improved by lowering the shadow resolution in the Skyrim.ini. My processor is not that strong and shadows are rendered through the CPU (Software). I'd imagine that i7 CPU's or anything better than an E7500 will not see much improvement.

Also, here are my ini files for reference just in case another setting in the ini has some influence on how the Skyrim.ini shadow resolution impacts performance.

SKYRIM.INI

Spoiler

[General]
sLanguage=ENGLISH
uInterior Cell Buffer=3
uExterior Cell Buffer=36
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseThreadedBlood=1
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
bUseThreadedTempEffects=1
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseThreadedTextures=1
bUseThreadedMeshes=1
bUseThreadedLOD=1
bUseThreadedAI=1
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1
bBackgroundLoadLipFiles=1
bBackgroundCellLoads=0
iNumHWThreads=4
bEnableProfile=0

[Display]
fShadowLODMaxStartFade=1000.0
fSpecularLODMaxStartFade=2000.0
fLightLODMaxStartFade=3500.0
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=64
bAllowScreenshot=1
fSunShadowUpdateTime=0.2500
fSunUpdateThreshold=6.0000
fdefaultfov=75

[Audio]
fMusicDuckingSeconds=6.0
fMusicUnDuckingSeconds=8.0
fMenuModeFadeOutTime=3.0
fMenuModeFadeInTime=1.0

[Grass]
bAllowCreateGrass=1
bAllowLoadGrass=0

[GeneralWarnings]
SGeneralMasterMismatchWarning=One or more plugins could not find the correct versions of the master files they depend on. Errors may occur during load or game play. Check the "Warnings.txt" file for more information.

[Archive]
sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa
sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - Voicesixtra.bsa

[Combat]
fMagnetismStrafeHeadingMult=0.0
fMagnetismLookingMult=0.0

[Papyrus]
fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0
bEnableLogging=0
bEnableTrace=0
bLoadDebugInformation=0
iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=1700000000
[Water]
bReflectLODObjects=1
bReflectLODLand=1
bReflectSky=1
bReflectLODTrees=1

SKYRIMPREFS.INI

Spoiler

[General]
fBrightLightColorB=1.0000
fBrightLightColorG=1.0000
fBrightLightColorR=1.0000
iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1
bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0
bEnableProfile=0
[Imagespace]
bDoDepthOfField=0
iRadialBlurLevel=0
[Display]
fdefaultfov=75
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=32
fInteriorShadowDistance=1000.0000
fShadowDistance=3000.0000
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=4096
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
iShadowSplitCount=2
iMaxAnisotropy=1 (forcing 16x Anisotropic Filtering thru the nvidia control panel as it seems to perform better than thru the Skyrim application)
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=5000.0000
fGamma=1.0800
fDecalLOD2=1500.0000
fDecalLOD1=1000.0000
fSpecularLODStartFade=740.0000
fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000
fLightLODStartFade=1850.0000
iTexMipMapMinimum=0
iTexMipMapSkip=0
iWaterMultiSamples=0
iMultiSample=0
iShadowMode=3
bTreesReceiveShadows=0
bDrawLandShadows=0
bFull Screen=1
iSize H=1050
iSize W=1680
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="ENB" (using the ENB mod to stop the random freezing/pauses on XP)
bFXAAEnabled=0
iShadowMapResolution=4096
fShadowBiasScale=1.0000
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iAdapter=0
iPresentInterval=1
iShadowFilter=1
bTransparencyMultisampling=0
bDrawShadows=1
[Grass]
b30GrassVS=0
fGrassStartFadeDistance=7000.0000
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.0000
[MAIN]
bGamepadEnable=1
bCrosshairEnabled=1
fHUDOpacity=0.9000
bSaveOnPause=0
bSaveOnTravel=0
bSaveOnWait=0
bSaveOnRest=1
fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000.0000
[GamePlay]
bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1
bShowQuestMarkers=1
iDifficulty=2
[Interface]
bDialogueSubtitles=1
bGeneralSubtitles=0
bShowCompass=1
[Controls]
fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.0000
fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0125
bAlwaysRunByDefault=1
bInvertYValues=0
bGamePadRumble=1
bMouseAcceleration=0
[Particles]
iMaxDesired=750
[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=60.0000
[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=1.0000
uID3=94881
fVal2=0.5000
uID2=466532
fVal1=1.0000
uID1=554685
fVal0=0.8000
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
bEnableTreeAnimations=1
[Decals]
uMaxDecals=100
bDecals=1
bSkinnedDecals=1
uMaxSkinDecals=35
uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=20
[LOD]
fLODFadeOutMultObjects=7.5000
fLODFadeOutMultItems=2.4000
fLODFadeOutMultActors=8.5000
fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000
[Launcher]
bEnableFileSelection=1
bShowAllResolutions=1
uLastAspectRatio=4
[BlurShaderHDR]
bDoHighDynamicRange=1
[BlurShader]
bUseBlurShader=0
[Water]
iWaterReflectHeight=512
iWaterReflectWidth=512
bUseWaterDisplacements=1
bUseWaterRefractions=1
bUseWaterReflections=1
bUseWaterDepth=1

» Sun May 27, 2012 5:56 am

Changing shadowresolution to 64 in Skyrim.ini didn't improve my FPS at all.