Does This Look Right? : V

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 6:22 am

I have Skyrim set on Ultra with my view distance maxed out. I've never really noticed, until tonight, anything "wrong" looking... but doesn't this look like the view distance--in terms of detail-- is rather short for maxed+ultra? The terrain seems to flatten too close to my view. Maybe I've just never noticed before... but something doesn't seem right to me:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/castrostaal/lrsky.jpg

Edit: I get nice little [img] tags instead of the image appearing in the thread. That's...great...

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:08 am

To be honest, even though I can't play on ultra mode due to lag. I can play on what I describe as medium-high, but not ultra.

The view distance for objects like the windmill or whatever that is looks about right, but the terrain does look a little odd. Do you have the distant LOD on max as well? That might be the problem.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:29 am

Aye, everything is maxed...

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:23 am

Hmm, that's odd, because it almost looks like the grass fade is at around 1/4 of the normal fade distance, and if the object LOD detail was maxed, I believe the trees would look better than that. Have you made sure your graphics card drivers are up-to-date?

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 8:58 am

Yes, I just updated them a couple weeks ago.

I just looked up how to increase view distance details via Skyrim.ini and the page I'm looking at suggests,

"uGridsToLoad=5 → 9
uExterior Cell Buffer=36 → 100"

...I don't even HAVE those option in my Skyrim.ini file. Mine says:

[Display]
sD3DDevice="NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460"
[Grass]
b30GrassVS=0
[Water]
bReflectLODObjects=1
bReflectLODLand=1
bReflectSky=1
bReflectLODTrees=1
[General]
sLanguage=ENGLISH

...and that's it. Nothing about a ugrid or cell buffer...

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:38 am

I agree with Jake, ground textures seem missing.
Are you running any mods? Dlc texture pack?
What happens when you lower the settings?

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:20 am

I didn't have a ugrids option in my ini. I deleted skyrimprefs.ini and skyrim.ini so they'd reload. There's still no ugrids option showing itself in my skyrim.ini file, but the uexterior one has appeared.

I'm running an HD texture pack from the nexus. The "lite" version. And a host of other mods. Maybe I'll start shutting some off via the mod manager to see if things look better?

Any idea WHY the ugrids option is not in my skyrim.ini?

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:09 am

I have Skyrim set on Ultra with my view distance maxed out. I've never really noticed, until tonight, anything "wrong" looking... but doesn't this look like the view distance--in terms of detail-- is rather short for maxed+ultra? ...
Edit: I get nice little [img] tags instead of the image appearing in the thread. That's...great...

Images are not allowed in threads, neither in signatures. :smile:

Where did you take that shot, that I can go there and take one for comparison? Thanks.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:49 am

The structure you see in the picture is the farm Cicero is broken down in front of. You can see his cart in the picture. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Loreius_Farm

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:40 pm

The structure you see in the picture is the farm Cicero is broken down in front of. You can see his cart in the picture. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Loreius_Farm

Okay, I should easily find the place. You're not in a hurry, are you? I must go work before doing this.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:47 am

Here's another pic of me right BESIDE his cart... easier to get in the same place :smile:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/castrostaal/TESV2012-05-3003-08-04-81.jpg

Just look at that crappy-looking hill.

I wonder what's wrong. I've even disabled most of my mods and it didn't fix anything.

Take your time. Thank you for investigating!

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:51 am

Here's another pic of me right BESIDE his cart... easier to get in the same place :smile:

Take your time. Thank you for investigating!

Yes, that one is more precise. I'll do that when I get back. :smile:

In the meantime, what graphic card do you have? Is it recent? Are you using the most recent drivers? Did you somehow tweak your ini files? etc.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:08 am

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460... an update for the card released last week I think. Or the week before. I installed it so it's up to date. I've played the game since it released on ultra and it's always looked beautiful... this is the first time I ever looked out over the expanse and thought, "That's ugly." I did not intentionally tweak any ini files, however in an effort to fix the problem I deleted the skyrim.ini file and the skyrimprefs ini file and reloaded them fresh in hopes I'd see a change, but I did not. Maybe I need to reinstall.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:50 pm

The ini installed by default only has select settings immediately available to tweak. You'd have to console command a generated ini. Sorry don't recall the exact command- I had done it so long ago. Ill drop back if I do.
Ill check my at that location of that shot when I'm back on my system as well to compare.

When I run into weird issues like this, where something just doesn't look right, I usually reinstall any mods I that would affect that particular shot, and ensure any and all are correctly overwritten to my taste. Typically I find mix and matching the appropriate combination does the trick.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:23 am

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/castrostaal/lrsky.jpg

Here's another pic of me right BESIDE his cart... easier to get in the same place :smile:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/castrostaal/TESV2012-05-3003-08-04-81.jpg

I think I found the two places. Here is what I have:

- http://pix.toile-libre.org/upload/original/1338386214.jpg

Here it's not much conclusive because the weather and the time of the day are not the same.

- http://pix.toile-libre.org/upload/original/1338386460.jpg

Here the angle is not the same, sorry.

I quite don't see much difference, do you? In fact, your photos look better than mine or is it because of the weather?

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:58 am

Hmm... No, both look pretty much the same as the images I provided. :S I'm surprised. I guess all is well after-all?...Still though, I don't particularly remember ever being distracted by this before.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:35 am

Hmm... No, both look pretty much the same as the images I provided. :S I'm surprised. I guess all is well after-all?...Still though, I don't particularly remember ever being distracted by this before.

I think the images show the maximum I can expect from my laptop; it doesn't mean that yours cannot do better. If you spotted this, there must be a reason.

The settings of my game are "high" but I tweaked them a bit. In the options of the launcher, I put "Distant object details" and "Blood decals" on "ultra" and "radial blur quality" on "medium".

In the in-game display settings, I put all the sliders completely to the right (except for brightness that I lowered by two stops). Did you verify that all the in-game display settings sliders are all to the maximum?

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 8:01 am

Honestly the draw distance looks very small for being maxed i play on ultra too but it looks much further, maybe i should try to be higher up too.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 10:51 am

Honestly the draw distance looks very small for being maxed i play on ultra too but it looks much further, maybe i should try to be higher up too.

Draw distance? How to you tweak that? Are you talking about this?

http://hardocp.com/article/2011/11/23/tweaking_skyrim_image_quality/3

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:28 am

Well you can mod draw distance there are a lot of guides over internet how to do btw i haven't done it i was only shocked to see that the draw distance was so short since i never really paid attention to it, yeah i meant something similar but it was a different guide though.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:01 pm

Well you can mod draw distance there are a lot of guides over internet how to do btw i haven't done it i was only shocked to see that the draw distance was so short since i never really paid attention to it, yeah i meant something similar but it was a different guide though.

From this guide, I take it that tweaking fGrassStartFadeDistance= in the SkyrimPrefs.ini and uGridstoLoad= in the Skyrim.ini could do the trick... if the game can stand it, of course.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:07 pm

Yep, worth a try i guess just make sure to have a back up save just in case it crashes, think i'm gonna try it later because the draw distance does bother me a bit.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 6:32 pm

There are two lines that set grass fade:

fGrassStartFadeDistance=
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=

both at the same value (7000.000). They didn't mention that in the guide...

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 8:16 am

Well i guess both need to be modded for best result then or atleast go with max fade that seems most likely.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 8:15 am

I tweaked both lines and put them to 14000.000; I also put uGridstoLoad to 9 instead of 7 as mentioned in the guide and here are the results. No crashes on startup; and all I did is run from the first spot to the second one :

- http://pix.toile-libre.org/upload/original/1338391335.jpg
- http://pix.toile-libre.org/upload/original/1338391382.jpg

I'm going to try this a bit further and see if both the computer and the game can stand it. Thanks for the heads up about draw distance! :smile: