I have these gray lines appearing as a form of shadows. As I move closer, or wait for the sun move, they move with the shadows. Below is the unmoded Vanilla.

The stone face, in the middle of the frame w/ the lines.
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/559812102321377783/9B64B673843C23F1B0DA6472716517F223B4EFE2/

Same shot. A little closer wo/ the lines.
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/559812102321362797/3523817B8EC2F87DAD35A7BFDD8C5D5EC5745D27/

I have been running on Ultra settings. Now that I am implementing mods, I need to back off to High settings. Doing so causes the almost vertical gray lines to appear. I can change the settings back to Ultra, and the are gone.

The shadow settings remain on the highest setting, in either Ultra or High.

I remember a member correcting this with an adjustment to an ini file. (I think) I can't remember what forum or topic. I tried to search, but to no avail.

I edited the OP. It seems that the Shadow values do in fact change in the High and Ultra settings...duh!

Since, I found the post regarding the ini change. However, it was considered "off topic" in that thread.


Checking my ShyrimPerfs.ini, I found no such fShadowBiasScale entry. In either the Skyrim/skyrim/ folder, OR the My Games/Skyrim/ folder. (Still do not understand why there are two in different locations....) I am truly a Derpnoob.

Alas there is an fShadowBiasScale entry in each of the low,med,high, and very high.ini folders.I noticed that the values are .5, .3, .25 and .15 respectively. I would think they would have been in the reverse order...That just adds to the confusion, for me. AND, at my age, that is not hard to do.

None the less, I assume those values are used when you select the setting, from the "Options" menu...correct? Thus one would just need to alter the ini file of the selected setting? And why do the not show up in SkyrimPrefs.ini?

It should be in your SkyrimPrefs.ini, the one located in your My Documents\My Games\Skyrim folder. Should be under the [Display] section, near the end. Mine looks like this (complete with tweaked ShadowBiasScale setting):

sD3DDevice="AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series"bFXAAEnabled=1iShadowMapResolution=1024fShadowBiasScale=2.0000iShadowMaskQuarter=4iAdapter=0iPresentInterval=1iShadowFilter=3bTransparencyMultisampling=0bDrawShadows=1

If you're having trouble finding it just at a glance you could try searching for it via Notepad's Find/Replace feature.

Thanks TR for the reply. I was starting to think I really pissed some people off around here...

After reviewing my situation. I did in fact find it. It is as you have stated. My old and somewhat feeble mind just could not see it. Which is sad because I never wear glasses. Hmmm, maybe it's time I started...huh?

None the less, I will use your settings and thus hope to back off the Ultra setting of shadows. I am starting to implement a lot of mods and performance is taking a front seat to some of these "Ultra" settings. Actually I can't tell the difference in general gameplay from High to Ultra, anyway. Yet another elderly advantage. It falls right up there with Short Term Memory Loss. Each playthrough is like playing for the first time...lucky me...

Thanks again.

- Mr. Five