Pogo
1601
Depends on how well you run it, for sure. I would rather drop 5fps from higher quality lighting and anisotropic filtering than from higher resolution textures.
There’s also increasing grass/foliage draw distance and as you just mentioned, ugrids=7 or ugrids=9 is a substantial increase in detail
Wolff
1602
I always wondered what does the ugrid setting actually control?
It controls the distance at which environmental details and textures are drawn in (like the windmill blades, etc.) The most important setting in the game for visual quality.
Daagar
1604
It basically controls how much ‘stuff’ you see at once, especially off in the distance. At ugrid 5, maybe you see 3 buildings, 10 rocks, etc. At ugrid 7, now 6 buildings and 15 rocks can be seen at the same distance. At ugrid 9, you see through to the other side of a black hole before your CPU collapses into a singularity because of the strain. Or something like that.
This may be a little out of date if some optimization patches came out, but here’s a guide to graphics settings tweaks that I found invaluable:
http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide?sf2686171=1#1
Pogo
1606
Optimization patches didn’t make those tweaks obsolete. What it made obsolete were some programs that fixed some simple optimizations that the original code should have been compiled with, but wasn’t. Sadly, people still think those optimizers actually work.
GeForce is a good guide, but to tweak stuff like that one could use one of many .ini tweaker programs that organize those settings into a GUI and let you adjust them there.
Item and Object fade are big performance changers. Items are insignificant details, knowing that there is an item sitting on a table in the distance that you can pick up isn’t worth the loss in frames. Object fade, however, has a very clear impact on medium/long distance scenes, especially when overlooking something like Whiterun.
Although I agree with your point in general (text is fine), actually as far as Skyrim mods with voice-overs go, Interesting NPCs would like to have a word with you. What the voice actors in this mod lack in skill (and actually most of them aren’t too bad), they make up for in charm and enthusiasm, and for once, most of the dialogue doesn’t sound it was recorded on a headphone mic.
To my surprise, Interesting NPCs has been the most fun Skyrim mod I’ve found in terms of extra stuff that fits in lore-wise and fleshes out the world. I’m constantly getting into curious, well-written wee conversations with odd characters, that actually allow you to rp your character somewhat. I often take them on board as companions too.
Someone above mentioned the amazing Nehrim Oblivion TC. Those naughty Germans are at it again: Enderalis going to be the upcoming Skyrim equivalent, done by the same folks. Definitely something to watch out for!
As a general point, I’ve been getting even more into Mod Organizer, and can’t recommend it highly enough. All the other mod managers are stone age in comparison. I cannot stress enough that if you enjoy modding, you owe it to yourself to try it out if you haven’t already. Takes a bit of getting used to, and changing your mindset slightly (you “install” into a pool of mods in the first instance, then you activate/de-activate them for different “Profiles”, which are like virtual installs), and like any bit of software it has its own quirks. But once you’re in the saddle, you will look down haughtily on all those plodders who aren’t able to play Skyrim as they are modding it. I’ve got 3 gameplay characters going each with totally different stable mod collections (1 vanilla-ish, 2 trying out Requiem and Skyrim Unleashed), and several other “broken” profiles where I’m trying to figure out what’s giving me CTDs. The thing is, I can be tearing my hair out as one often does with mods, but at the click of a button I can be instantly playing Skyrim with a stable mod configuration. It’s utter genius.
Daagar
1608
+1 for Mod Organizer. While a bit more noob-unfriendly than NMM, it is worth learning if you are a compulsive mod tinkerer. If you are happy enough to follow a guide that someone has already done the work to optimize and ensure playability (ala STEP or whatever), it is probably not as required. But chances are, once you start following a guide you’ll find “just one more” mod that you simply must have…
I’m getting discouraged!
Too many variables, especially now that I’ve got a multi-monitor display running the game at 5040x1050. But holy crap does it look amazing until it crashes.
I’m tempted to wipe clean and start again and maybe even move my entire Steam installation away from Program Files but what a hassle. I haven’t even gotten to the texture packs and mods yet. :/
Joe_M
1610
rrmorton: try running BOSS and see what it says about mod compatibility? You have some mods installed, correct? Or is this a totally vanilla install?
rrmorton
1611
It’s just vanilla so far, but I used Steam Mover to move the install directory out of Program Files (not sure if that’s a wise approach) and made a bunch of tweaks to the prefs and ini files. I experimented with an aggressive ugrids setting and made it through the tutorial keep/caverns and out into the wilderness and it looked great for about 4 or 5 minutes, then it crashed and now my last 3 or 4 saves won’t load. Gotta backtrack to the start of the keep and see how it plays with ugrids at 7.
Meanwhile I’m worried that I screwed up the SKSE install and the multi-monitor HUD is a disaster awaiting SkyUI. Looks a bit like this:
As STEP recommends, I’m just trying to make sure my vanilla install is crash free and runs smoothly in populated areas. A lot of work to even get to that point!
Joe_M
1612
Aha, sounds like you’re on the right track. Ugrids is a prime cause of instability if your PC can’t handle it. Personally, I still have it at default because I’m too lazy to deal with the save issues if I find myself having to undo changes.
No, this is a verrrry good idea. It doesn’t hurt anything and it can prevent some issues with administration privileges.
godhugh
1613
I’m going to go against the tide (other then Joe. M) and recommend against bumping the uGrids settings. When you do that, you also have to bump up the “uExterior Cell Buffer” setting. This setting controls how many cells are loaded into memory and it increases exponentially whenever you increase uGrids. Here’s the formula for how you have to increase it: (uGrids+1)^2
uGrids = 5; uExterior = 36
uGrids = 7; uExterior = 64
uGrids = 9, uExterior = 100
uExterior controls how many cells are loaded into memory. This includes everything that is in those cells, including NPCs, monsters, and woodland creatures. Even in the vanilla game, 64 cells worth of stuff can eat up a LOT of memory. Add in a few mods, especially ones that add NPCs or creatures, and you have a recipe for a very unstable game. Another problem with the whole uGrids thing is that, as Joe M. mentioned, once you save your game with an increased setting it is almost impossible to ever decrease it. So, I would recommend just keeping it at 5 and loading up on all the graphic enhancers you can handle.
EDIT:
Oh, and if anyone really wants to send themselves down the rabbit hole of Skyrim modding, check out http://www.skyrimgems.com/. It’s like STEP, but for gameplay mods. Tons of great little mods to be found in there.
Pogo
1614
uGrids should never be fucked with on an actual important saved game. You really, really should have copies of saved games if you’re going to mod.
You can recover your game if you need to, just do a search for the solution.
And those cells contain a lot less than you think. If your distance settings are at a default, then the extra cells are only loading geometry, not NPCs or items.
One of the post-release patches for Skyrim has made adjusting uGrids downward a little less of a scary thing.
Now you start the save game you want to adjust down, alt-tab and open the skyrim.ini file, change ugrids and the uExterior Cells value. Save and close it. Alt-tab back to your Skyrim game. Press the ~ key, and in the console, type “refreshini” without the quotes. Press the ~ to close the console. Save your game.
Golden.
godhugh
1616
NPC and NPC AI packages (and creatures, of course) are absolutely loaded into the cell buffers. That’s why you can see them moving around and doing stuff from further distances when you increase the uGrid setting.
One easy way to test if memory issues are causing stability problems (and to test if SKSE is loaded correctly) is to install the MemInfo plug-in - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2006. It will place a little text in the top left of your screen with the current memory usage, the peak memory usage, and your FPS. If you notice your game is crashing consistently when memory usage hits a certain limit, then that’s your problem. If it isn’t, then you’ve probably got a problem with one of your mods.
Pogo
1617
You’re right, the maximum distance of loaded actors increases but it doesn’t have to, you would know right away if your computer couldn’t handle the increased memory usage, and the solution is that you scale back the sliders (or the .ini numbers) on distance details, especially items and actors. Although I’m still confused about the dynamic lighting, I can’t seem to get that to show up at far distances no matter what I change it to.
Ultimately I think you’re right, it’s better to concentrate on visual modification (HDR lighting being my personal favorite), and immediate visual results, than to increase uGrids.
I also have a feeling that a lot of uGrids increases are done in areas that are suddenly hit with details that aren’t properly loaded into the saved game. I’ve had a uGrids crash in a location that went away when I went indoors, enabled uGrids (which has no effect in caves), and then went back outside.
Spent the weekend modding up Skyrim in preparation for another playthrough.
For visual enhancements, everyone tends to focus on the various ENB options, but I settled on something called “RCRN” (Realistic Colors and Real Nights), which tweaks the lighting, weather effects, and nighttime/dungeon darkness. I haven’t been too fond of the color/saturation changes I’ve seen with the ENB mods, and this one really hits a sweet spot for me, adding some contrast and depth without changing the overall aesthetic. Plus, it’s nearly idiot proof, doesn’t seem to hit performance, and is nicely supported.
I am loving how Skyrim looks with this mod, and it’s so nice to finally have an Elder Scrolls engine that performs great even when maxed out.
Reemul
1619
That looks great, good job.
Wow, that looks really nice…I had been using Climates of Tamriel, but the lighting gets funky at times, perhaps I should switch to this instead.
