Guides - The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim Tweak Guide - GeForce

Guides: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Tweak Guide - GeForce
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Tweak Guide

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Published: December 6th, 2011. Updated: December 20th, 2011. Game Version Used: 1.3. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is the fifth title in the epic The Elder Scrolls role playing game series. Skyrim presents a vast, detailed fantasy world that you can explore at your leisure. As with the other games in the series, Skyrim allows you to choose how you approach the game. Be a warrior, a mage, a thief - or a mix of all three; be good, evil, or something in between; ignore the main quest and just head off in a random direction looking for treasure. All of these possibilities and many more are available to you, because Skyrim is about as open-ended as a PC game can be. When the game's developer, Bethesda Game Studios, says that there are literally hundreds of hours of content, it's no exaggeration. The length of gameplay all depends on just how inquisitive and adventurous you're feeling. In terms of graphics, the world and its citizens look more alive and more realistic than ever before. The whole package is capped off with a beautiful soundtrack, by the same composer of the music in Morrowind and Oblivion, which only adds to the richness of an outstanding game. The aim of this guide is to allow you to better understand and utilize all of the configuration options available in Skyrim, as well as a selection of advanced tweaks to enhance the game. Before proceeding further, make sure you meet the game's minimum requirements as provided below, with the recommended requirements in brackets: Processor: 2 GHz dual core CPU (Quad Core CPU) Memory: 2GB (4GB) RAM Hard Drive: At least 6GB of free space Video Card: DirectX 9 compatible (GeForce GTX 550 Ti or GeForce GTX 260, or above) Sound Card: DirectX compatible Internet Access required for Steam OS: Windows XP, Vista or 7 What follows are full descriptions for all of the settings available in Skyrim's options menus. Screenshot comparisons are provided where relevant to highlight the impact on image quality of each setting. Performance information is also provided for every setting, although bear in mind that the precise impact on your particular system depends on your specific hardware combination and and your other game and systemwide settings. The aim here is to give you enough information so that you can make an informed choice as to the settings you enable or disable to obtain a balance of visual quality and performance acceptable to you.
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http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide?sf2686171=1[28/1/2012 9:56:38 PM]
Almost as important as any in-game setting is the way your Windows installation is configured. A great many problems and performance issues, especially stuttering, crashes and slowdowns, can be traced directly to sub-optimal settings in Windows and out-of-date or badly configured drivers. Take a look at our Stable Gaming Guide for tips on how to get your PC in the best shape. At the very least make sure to update your graphics drivers to the latest available version.
Performance Measurement
To successfully conduct any tweaking, you will need some way of objectively measuring your performance in Frames Per Second (FPS). The easiest way to do this is to use the free FRAPS utility. Download, install and launch FRAPS before starting up Skyrim. You will now see a yellow FPS counter displayed in the corner of your screen. Pay attention to your FPS during the game, particularly during graphically intense scenes, such as in heavy combat or in large outdoor areas, especially around cities. If your FPS dips into the low double or single digits for example, this is a good indication that you need to adjust various settings until your minimum FPS is consistently above around 25 FPS so as to maintain appropriate responsiveness. Note that in Skyrim a form of Vertical Synchronization (VSync) is enabled by default, and cannot be disabled using the in-game settings. This means your framerate will be capped to your refresh rate (typically 60 FPS), and you may also experience mouse lag. Several alternatives for dealing with this form of VSync are covered in the Advanced Tweaking section of the guide.
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General Settings
Before covering the various graphics-related settings which have the most significant impact on performance and image quality, this section examines the other settings. To access the in-game settings, launch Skyrim and load up a saved game, or start a new game. Then press the ESC key and select the Settings item.
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The graphics-related options are covered later in the guide, for now we look at the Gameplay, Display and Audio settings. The settings below have no significant impact on performance.
Gameplay
Invert Y: If this option is ticked (a cross appears in the box), then moving your mouse forward results in your character looking down, and moving the mouse back will make your character look up. If this option is unticked, the arrangement is reversed. Look Sensitivity: This slider determines the level of responsiveness of the mouse to your movements. The higher the slider, the more responsive the mouse will feel. Keep in mind that if your mouse movements feel laggy even after raising the slider, you should check your framerate. If your framerate falls below around 2025 FPS at any time, you will need to adjust your settings to improve FPS and hence keep your mouse feeling suitably responsive. There are several settings which can help alleviate mouse lag in the Advanced Tweaking section later in this guide. Vibration: If you have a controller capable of vibrating and it is being used in Skyrim, then you can tick this box to enable the game's vibration functionality. Otherwise untick this option. 360 Controller: If you have an Xbox 360 controller connected to your PC, you can tick this box to allow it to be used in Skyrim. If you have a 360 controller connected to your PC but don't wish to use it in Skyrim, make sure to untick this option and/or disconnect the controller as otherwise it can cause problems. Difficulty: There are five difficulty levels in Skyrim. In order from lowest to highest, these are: Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, and Master. The higher the level of difficulty, the harder combat will be in terms of enemies requiring greater damage to kill. However, unlike Oblivion, enemies in the Skyrim game world will not automatically scale to match your current level; you will frequently encounter much weaker and much more powerful enemies as you play. Furthermore, the difficulty setting can be changed at any time
and will come into effect immediately, so adjust as required. Show Floating Markers: In your Journal you can determine which quest(s) are active by left-clicking or pressing Enter on the relevant quest name. A small marker appears next to each active quest in the Journal, and in turn a marker arrow will appear on the compass at the top of the screen. If the 'Show Floating Markers' setting is ticked, a small version of that marker arrow will also float above the relevant quest character/object/location when it's nearby. Unticking this option will remove the floating markers, but does not affect the display of other quest markers. Save on Rest: If ticked, whenever you Sleep, the game will create a new automatic save point just before you go to sleep. Save on Wait: If ticked, whenever you use the Wait feature, the game will create a new automatic save point prior to commencing the wait. Save on Travel: If ticked, whenever you use the Fast Travel feature, the game will create a new automatic save point prior to travelling to the new location. Save on Character Menu: If this option is not set to Disabled, it determines the length of time that must pass in minutes before the game will create a new automatic save point the next time you access the Character Menu (default TAB key). Auto Save slots generated by any of the above four options are distinct from the Quick Save and the numbered manual save slots, and will not overwrite them. However there can only be a maximum of three Auto Saves at any time, so older Auto Save slots will be automatically overwritten by any new ones that are created. The four options above are designed to facilitate regular creation of auto saves so that should you forget to manually save or quick save, then you will have at least one reasonably recent save point to fall back on. If you frequently quick save or manual save, they don't need to be enabled.
Display
Brightness: This slider controls the overall brightness of the game. Adjust it to suit your taste, or set it to the mid-point of the slider for the default brightness level. HUD Opacity: This slider controls the transparency of the main Heads Up Display (HUD) elements: the compass bar, the crosshair, and your health, magicka and stamina bars. The further to the left the slider is taken, the more see-through these elements become, until at the farthest point to the left they become completely invisible. If you find the HUD intrusive at times, you can reduce the HUD Opacity slider, leaving the HUD elements visible but making them less distracting. Actor Fade, Item Fade, Object Fade, Grass Fade, Light Fade and Specularity Fade: All of these have an impact on performance and image quality, and are covered in more detail later in this guide. Crosshair: If ticked, a context-sensitive crosshair appears in the center of the screen. If unticked, the crosshair is removed. However even if you disable the crosshair, when sneaking, an eye symbol will still be displayed in the center of the screen to indicate the level of detection. Dialogue Subtitles: If ticked, this option displays text subtitles for any dialogue spoken by characters you engage in direct conversation. However anything they say outside of an actual conversation with you will not be subtitled. General Subtitles: If ticked, this option determines whether any words spoken by characters outside of an actual conversation will be shown as subtitled text. The difference between the two settings can be demonstrated in an example: If you walk near a character and they mutter something, or if you are in combat with them, their words will be shown as subtitled text only if you have the 'General Subtitles' option ticked. If you choose to speak directly to a character and the dialogue interface is open, then anything they say will be subtitled only if the 'Dialogue Subtitles' option is ticked. If both options are ticked, all spoken words will be subtitled.
Audio
Master: This slider is the master volume control, affecting the level of all sound in the game. Effects, Footsteps, Voice & Music: These sliders control the volume of the relevant audio elements in the game. Many of the gameplay, interface and audio aspects can be adjusted further as covered in the Advanced Tweaking section of this guide. On the next page we begin our look at the various graphics-related settings in Skyrim.
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Video Settings
The full range of video settings can be found under the Options section of the Skyrim Launcher that appears whenever you launch Skyrim from Steam. In the following pages we'll go through each of the video settings and see how they affect performance and image quality.
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In the performance graphs shown, for each setting we start with a "baseline" where all options are set to the High detail preset and VSync is forced Off as covered in the Advanced Tweaking section. From this baseline, we vary individual settings to measure their effect on performance and image quality. To see how various combinations of settings work for other NVIDIA GPUs, check out the Optimal Playable Settings section of the site.
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Tweak Guide

About Your GPU

Sun Jan 22, 2012

Latest Optimization Guide

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Tweak Guide

General System Optimization

http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide?sf2686171=1[28/1/2012 9:56:38 PM]