hi all (sorry bad english)

again im struck in tweaking shadow, for me its still not good enough
still does not exists a good guide line per line , for ini tweaking skyrim...
i have already done posts similiar, but noone gave me a good tecnical answer, i hope i'll be luckyer this time

lets start:

fInteriorShadowDistance=
fShadowDistance=
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=
iShadowMapResolution=
OK... we already know what thoose do..... BUT

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iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=
iShadowSplitCount=
fShadowLODStartFade=
fShadowLODMaxStartFade=
what this 5 lines does EXACTLY???????? i havent find anything in the internet!!
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ingame playing its possible to see a line(at a fixed distance) that the part near to the player have a good shadow casting, the farther part is worse;
i thought that the iShadowMapResolutionPrimary was for the nears shadows, and the secondary one for the farther.... but changing thoose values dont do ANYTHING!!! it seems the only important line is iShadowMapResolution= ....

my aim is to move the line that split the 2 type of shadows, so i'll have good shadows up to a distance like 600 and then away up to max shadow distance i'll put low quality shadows to save a lot of fps...
(it would be also cool to have more lines, lowering shadow quality step by step... like 600 > 2500 > to 10000 (and a guide to tweak it propely).... its very VERY harrowing that bethesda still havent done something similiar, it would just work!!)

iShadowMode=
iShadowMaskQuarter=
iShadowFilter=
fShadowBiasScale=
also thoose lines are unknown to me

please tell me if its impossible to understand what i wrote here, i'll try again and again to explain if neccessary...
Skyrim was claimed as the game of the year, ok... but give us good shadows!! if someone can contact direcly a developer, do it! (LOLz)
we have good IA, HD textures, meshes, mods, AO (thanks to Boris), .... but still shadows need a fix...

if we could have a complete guide to thoose 9 lines of the .ini file...

please anybody... HELP!!

sorry for this messy post...

I am not sure that anybody has good information on that.

I agree.

Probably a good idea but might require major changes to the game engine.

iShadowMode= ?
iShadowMaskQuarter= Irrelevant, the game engine itself seems to switch to 4, even updating the ini file if it contains a different value.*
iShadowFilter= ?
fShadowBiasScale= Apparently affects how slantly a surface needs to be illuminated for there to appear a shadow?

*At least it does so in the latest released version, I haven't checked the 1.6 beta. Originally the quality presets were 3 for low/medium and 4 for high/ultra, but currently they are overridden by that 4.

If only...

Still, it is unlikely that significant parameters still exist that are not described in the nVidia tweak guide, that can be found through a link among the stickied threads at the top of the PC section. However, the 1.6 beta does introduce a toggle for grass shadows and for deferred shadows, whatever that is (somebody tested it and reported no observable effect).

I can give you the values I have in my SkyrimPrefs.ini :

iBlurDeferredShadowMask =5
fInteriorShadowDistance =2000.0000 (you can increase this value, if you have a good video card)
fShadowDistance =4000.0000 (same as above)
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary = 2048
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary = 2048

iShadowSplitCount=2
fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000
fShadowLODMaxStartFade= I don't have that line

iShadowMode=3
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iShadowFilter =3
fShadowBiasScale=0.6000

This is what I have for the lines you mentioned. I also have:

bTransparencyMultisampling =0
bDrawShadows =1

and (about the shadows on grass)

bForceHighDetailGrass=0,1
bGrassPointLighting=0
bDrawShaderGrass=0
bForceFullDetail=0
bDoTallGrassEffect=0

plus this line you'll have to add to your Skyrim.ini in the category [Display]:

bShadowsOnGrass=0,1

I hope I forgot nothing.

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary= (This is the primary resolution for reflected "lights" that you see on water, walls, cups, bottles and plates... so on.)
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary= (Same as above but its the secondary resolution.)
iShadowSplitCount= (How many times shadows are split. ie how many shadows one object can cast.)
fShadowLODStartFade= (Lod shadows fade time. ie do the shadows fade out slowly or faster the further away you get from them.)
fShadowLODMaxStartFade= (Like above but the max fade start.)
iShadowMode= (I allways thought this was the shader mode used. ie 1.0, 2.0, 3.0.)
iShadowMaskQuarter= (This controls the interior lights shadow mask, spolights, hemis and shadow onmis all have shadow masks.)
iShadowFilter= (Filters out the shadows. ie abit like anisotropic filtering for shadows )
fShadowBiasScale= (Afects exterior shadows look and position depending on the respective angle the pc is looking.)

Thank you very much for this information, Mr Reiper.

I have also tried to look for it at one point or another, but it has been most difficult to find.