[Skyrim] Useful INI Settings

[Arthmoor]

Tweaking the ini for any of the TES and Fallout games is something of an arcane art. Lots of stuff in the files, only very few of which actually works.

 

So I figured we should have a thread here for Skyrim ini tweaks that work and don't cause undue stability issues with the game. When discussing INI tweaks, all of them should be applied to the files in the C:\Users\Documents\My Games\Skyrim folder in Vista and Windows 7. (Someone with XP remind me what the path is!)

 

I'll start with a super simple one. I hate depth of field blur effects with a passion. In SkyrimPrefs.ini, under the Imagespace setction:

 

bDoDepthOfField=0 (default 1)

 

This turns off the blur on distant views. There is no noticeable affect on performance with this one. (Rendered useless by Patch 1.5)

[Arthmoor]

Shadows normally "crawl" in 5 second intervals at default settings. This can produce a jarring effect while playing and all around looks terrible considering the sun doesn't jump in the sky either.

 

Skyrim.ini, under the Display section, add these two lines:

 

fSunShadowUpdateTime=0

fSunUpdateThreshold=0

 

Your shadows will now update in real time and it won't be nearly as jarring. You still have the blocky crap shadows and the irritating moire pattern but they're far less noticeable.

[Arthmoor]

Don't like quest markers? Want to be rid of them forever? You don't need a mod filled with incompatibilities anymore.

 

In SkyrimPrefs.ini under the GamePlay section:

 

bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=0 (default 1)

bShowQuestMarkers=0 (default 1)

 

No more markers!

[Thomas Kaira]

Disable Archery arc compensation auto-aim

 

Add these two lines to your Skyrim.INI under [Combat]:

 

f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.0

f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.0

 

Add this line under [Actor] in Skyrim.INI:

 

fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=12288.0000

 

Mask shadow blockiness

 

Apply these tweaks in your SkyrimPrefs.INI

 

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=20

fInteriorShadowDistance=2200.0000

fShadowDistance=2500.0000

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024

iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048

fShadowLODStartFade=2500.0000

bTreesReceiveShadows=1

bDrawLandShadows=1

bFloatPointRenderTarget=1

iShadowMapResolution=2048

fShadowBiasScale=0.2500

iShadowMaskQuarter=3

iShadowFilter=4

 

Shadows will be very blurry, but the blockiness and shimmering should not be noticeable anymore.

 

View map in full 3D

 

Add this set of entries to your Skyrim.INI:

 

[MapMenu]

fMapWorldMaxPitch=360.0000

fMapWorldMinPitch=0.0000

fMapWorldYawRange=3600.0000

fMapWorldMaxHeight=130000.0000

fMapWorldMinHeight=130.0000

fMapWorldCursorMoveArea=0.9000

fMapWorldHeightAdjustmentForce=100.0000

fMapWorldZoomSpeed=0.0500

fMapLookMouseSpeed=3.0000

fMapMoveKeyboardSpeed=0.0005

fMapZoomMouseSpeed=5.0000

 

Remove map cloud effects

 

Add this entry to Skyrim.INI:

 

[MapMenu]

sMapCloudNIF=0

 

(Both map editing sections have been rendered useless by Patch 1.8)

[AndalayBay]

I've linked to this thread from Dark Creations. Lots of good stuff here - thanks guys.

 

Oh, and I think the path under XP would be:

 

C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Games\Skyrim

[Mael]

Add these lines to your map section to get rid of the heinous blurring action. I can go all the way to ground level except in towns with these lines added.

 

uLockedObjectMapLOD=8

uLockedTerrainLOD=8

bWorldMapNoSkyDepthBlur=1

fWorldMapNearDepthBlurScale=0

fWorldMapDepthBlurScale=0

fWorldMapMaximumDepthBlur=0

 

(These have been rendered useless by Patch 1.8)

[Mael]

Also, nVidia released a new beta driver -- 290 series -- today that adds support for ambient occlusion in Skyrim. More settings to tweak!

[lemsta]

Similarly, ATI beta:ATI Beta Driver

[Arthmoor]

Thomas found this one for the CK and grass:

 

Oh, and in case anyone was interested, here is a nice INI tweak for the Creation Kit (add to both SkyrimEditor.INI and SkyrimEditorPrefs.INI):

 

bAllowLoadGrass=0

bAllowCreateGrass=1

bDrawShaderGrass=1

 

This allows the generated grass to update automatically as you edit. Something previous editors sorely needed. Makes it really easy to track down and eliminate grass bleed.

[Thomas Kaira]

Those go in the [GRASS] section, by the way. :tongue:

[Leonardo]

Oh, and I think the path under XP would be:

 

C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Games\Skyrim

I can confirm this about the path on XP.

[Aurielius]

Ok have simple question. in the INI...Nvidia tweaker suggests setting the Grids to 7 and the buffer to 72. I understand what the grid are ( distance that you can see rendered in detail) but what exactly is the buffer number..vram?

[Arthmoor]

It's the cell memory buffer. I'd suggest strongly though that you avoid messing with those things. It never ends well, and Solstheim doesn't play nice with anything other than the defaults.

[SIGMALOG]

To add to Arthmoor's post if you change the Grids to 7 or anything different from the defaults your save will eventually will be come bloated and cause a whole mess of issues in your game.

[NightStar]

Yeah, stay away from editing uGrids. Everything was roses for me for almost a year until official 1.9 update came and blew it up to my face for some reason. Still don't know why, but messing with uGrids may suddenly give you random freezes and/or CTDs.

[VaultDuke]

two setting i use in my Skyrim.ini:

[HAVOK]

fInAirFallingCharGravityMult=2.3000

iSimType=2

the first one affects player fall down speed. the value chosen makes it so your fall speed is comparable to your jump speed. i thought this gave to most natural feeling. changing the value up or down will adjust your fall speed to your liking.

the second one is a bit more mysterious. it was found during the oblivion era and just like back then it changes the havok behavior of miscellaneous objects. with this setting objects will fall and settle faster. they behave less bouncy than in vanilla. think of it as the "realistic ragdoll and force" for objects. this is a rather unknown setting and i can not vouch for it's complete compatibility with skyrim. my ingame time is way too low to say with any confidence that this setting is stable. use with caution and if you encounter increased CTDs or other problems, delete the line.

[Leonardo]

I always use this setting in Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim and that's about where you want the screenshots to be saved instead of having them floating around in the game folder, but make sure to backup the existing Skyrim.ini first.

 

Skyrim.ini

 

[Display]

iScreenShotIndex=2
sScreenShotBaseName=<path>\ScreenShot

 

Note that this "sScreenShotBaseName=<path>\ScreenShot" line need to be like this...

 

iScreenShotIndex=2sScreenShotBaseName=<path>\ScreenShot

[Audio]

 

...in Skyrim.ini otherwise the filename for your screenshot will have this "<path>\Screenshot[Audio]<X>" filename there X is the number of how many screenshots you currently have.

 

Of course this works, but you'll still need to rename the screenshot[Audio]X filename in case it looks strange.

[Arthmoor]

Here's a useful one I stumbled over at random. It's a problem that's been in the game from day one. When you pick stuff up, the game always makes you wait until the second attempt to hear the right sound. eg: Picking up a gold coin plays the generic pickup sound. Picking up a second gold coin plays the right sound, and this will last until you leave the area or switch to picking up other things. This ini setting cures that, and now all pickup sounds (so far anyway) play correctly on their very first attempt.

 

Skyrim.ini:

 

[Audio]
uMaxSizeForCachedSound=4096
 
The default value, which is usually not stored, is 262144. Yes. Bethesda set the maximum sound cache size in the game to 256MB rather than the far more sensible 4MB. There was no discernible impact on performance, and who knows, it may have a favorable impact on in-game memory use as well.

[alt3rn1ty]

Disable Archery arc compensation auto-aim

 

Add these two lines to your Skyrim.INI under

 

[Combat]:

f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.0

f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.0

 

 

Spooky researched these settings extensively, and found a good setting for them is as follows :

 

f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7

f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7

 

The arrow still fires straight towards your cursor ( point of aim ), and fall off as gravity takes effect, which means you need to raise your aim as in real life to compensate for the fall off rate over distance.

 

Same can be applied to Crossbows for people with Dawnguard : Again in the skyrim.ini ..

 

[Combat]

f1PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7

f3PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7

 

 

For people who do not use Wrye Bash, heres one of its very useful tools ( complete with a range of ini tweaks for Skyrim ) .. in the next post ..

[alt3rn1ty]

Anyone wants those "Skyrim INI Tweaks Xtra BAIN" I use :

 

Contents of the archive includes the sound fix tweak posted by Arthmoor, and a few of the ones I use regularly, but a few which are going to be useless to anyone else cut out ( although a couple of window mode position ones will probably be redundant for other machines .. edit them to do what you want )

 

 

 

Download from Dropbox - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/86040572/Skyrim%20INI%20Tweaks%20XTra%20BAIN.7z

 

To use it, just put the archive in your Bash Installers\ folder, load up Wrye Bash, go to the installers tab, right click the BAIN and choose install

 

 

 

Go to the INI Tweaks tab. You will see my tweaks listed now among the default Wrye Bash ones. Be sure to set the correct ini - in the Wrye Bash drop down choice highlighted in the screenshot below - to apply them to ( skyrim.ini or skyrimprefs.ini - the tweaks are named appropriately )

 

 

[alt3rn1ty]

Here's a useful one I stumbled over at random. It's a problem that's been in the game from day one. When you pick stuff up, the game always makes you wait until the second attempt to hear the right sound. eg: Picking up a gold coin plays the generic pickup sound. Picking up a second gold coin plays the right sound, and this will last until you leave the area or switch to picking up other things. This ini setting cures that, and now all pickup sounds (so far anyway) play correctly on their very first attempt.

 

Skyrim.ini:

 

[Audio]

uMaxSizeForCachedSound=4096

 

The default value, which is usually not stored, is 262144. Yes. Bethesda set the maximum sound cache size in the game to 256MB rather than the far more sensible 4MB. There was no discernible impact on performance, and who knows, it may have a favorable impact on in-game memory use as well.

 

Arthmoor I have a few concerns with this .. Though, not really concerns but I think in a lot of cases this might be an excessive thing to set on some peoples machines ( ie, in the USKP ini ).

 

1. First would you be able to confirm that the setting is kb, so 262144 would equal 256mb

 

Personally I believe it is correct, with the amount of music ( some music tracks decompress to circa 100mb ) and sound files the game has to keep flowing and caching on the fly as you transit cells, animal sounds, footfalls, voice files, ambient sounds etcetera, different music fading from explore to combat to discovery ..

.. In other words the game is busy in the audio department, and having made a rough ( very rough ) estimate of how much the game can have waltzing around your data buses and ram, I think the default setting sounds about right at 256mb.

 

( I did a rerun on a test I have done before, earlier today, to prove the game still streams all the sound and music files even when the volume setting is turned down, which it does .. But also to get a refreshed idea of how much the game is pulling into memory - screenshot using ProcMon )

 

In my mod Kill The Orchestra, I provide 8k replacement files for all the music files, so compared with the original music files there is quite a saving in terms of how much caching needs to be done ..

.. So I can afford to recommend people bring down there setting to 8192 ( 8mb )

 

This also as you know has the additional advantage of solving the stuck sounds problem

 

USKP has a huge audience

 

USKP sets 4096 ( 4mb )

 

USKP has not had a mass of people complaining about the same

 

 

My feeling is that 4mb is too little for what the game has to throw around in audio files - I am not after you change your setting so that it complies with my ideal setting for this ...

 

But I think your setting needs to be bigger than mine

 

By how much - Therein lies the problem.

 

 

2. How many people use SSDs these days, who use the USKP ( I am not seriously seeking an accurate answer )

 

My thought here is I reckon a majority of Skyrim players also benefit from having a machine which sports SSD technology ..

 

And so a cache for those people is not so important.

 

Whereas anyone playing skyrim with an old fashioned spinning platter IDE HD, needs a memory cache for sound files so that the HD does not have to work a lot harder feeding the game with audio files ( and potentially being a sound bottleneck )

 

The latter group of people probably could benefit from a better setting, giving more cache, but not so big as to let the old stuck sound problem come back.

 

So do you know who originally found this fix, and if they had any detailled description of the level of cache where stuck sounds are freed ?

 

Could it be 128mb or 64mb or 32mb instead ?, just enough to do the job, but providing as much cache as possible without bringing back the problem.

 

 

I'm hoping you have some informed idea, because finding the ideal for this could be a pain of trial and error ( and I have never had the stuck sounds problem personally, so would not know how to prove it is actually working at any given setting - I know for a fact people get the problem, I just cannot replicate it .. But then these days I always run the game with my tiny music replacer files anyway so maybe I could have had it at some point, but my setup helped prevent it anyway )

 

The only thing I can think of for people to test the idea, is to have a mod ini file of their own, which is guaranteed to load later than USKP, and so its ini setting will trump the USKP one ( say a bashed patch, 0.ini ) .. I use a smashed patch.ini to get my setting of 8mb.

[Arthmoor]

I think you've already hit the nail on the head when you said the USKP hasn't generated any complaints from this setting. So I honestly see no reason to revisit it. Nobody out there is complaining about strange lag associated with audio.

 

I'm fairly well convinced this has no bearing on music files at all since those are handled through an entirely different system. Plus, it has no real need to cache the music tracks since they aren't likely to change as often as these miscellaneous effect sounds do.

 

Yes, MB is the only measure that makes sense. Even the smallest of small sound files in the game is larger than 4KB so a cache size of a mere 256KB likely wouldn't cut it and we'd never have noticed an issue with it. I don't think it needs to be raised without valid evidence of an actual problem.

[alt3rn1ty]

Yep, I have no evidence, it was more a suggestion as a pre-emptive measure .. Just in case.

 

I think you are right about this setting probably not actually having anything to do with music either, and is just a sound fx cache - In which case those are mostly small.

 

There are two other settings ( again hidden settings by default, which can be applied to skyrim.ini ), which maybe could apply to music seperately, DoubleYou over on the STEP forum mentioned them today uiInitialCacheSize ( set at 1gb ) and uiMaxAudioCacheSize ( set at 2gb )

They both fall under [Audio] if you do a saveini from the console

[Arthmoor]

I seriously doubt either of those settings could be measured in GB since that would consume more than the entire game's memory pool combined.

[alt3rn1ty]

These are the defaults

 

[Audio]

uMaxSizeForCachedSound=262144

uiInitialCacheSize=1048576

uiMaxAudioCacheSize=2097152

 

So if we assume 262144 is 256 meg, then the others are 1gb and 2gb