Hello fellow forumers.

I would like to enlist your help in further tweaking my SkyrimPrefs.ini (and maybe the Skyrim.ini if needed).
My PC is very much low end (in fact, under minimum requirements) but it can run the game relatively well so far.
My main issues currently are water, light reflection/torches and indoor dust, which give me some very choppy gameplay. Other than that it runs reasonably, with a mini freeze every minute in outdoor areas and fluent play indoors when there aren't too many reflections (such as draugr dungeons and dwemer ruins - those are bad)

I also noticed that over the 70 some hours played, areas that used to run good have deteriorated in performance somewhat. Maybe this is due to the savegame size increasing? Any pointers on that separately?

My specs currently are:
WinXP SP3 32bit
Core Duo 2.16GHz
2MB RAM
256MB NVidia GeForce Go 7900 GS

My system is very well maintained and optimized so it tends to run better and crash-free compared to similar systems. Haven't had game crashes on any games for a long time (except when it is an inherent problem with the game)

Without further ado, here's my SkyrimPrefs.ini:

[General]fBrightLightColorB=1.0000fBrightLightColorG=1.0000fBrightLightColorR=1.0000iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0[Imagespace]bDoDepthOfField=0iRadialBlurLevel=0[Display]iBlurDeferredShadowMask=0fInteriorShadowDistance=1.0000fShadowDistance=1.0000iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=256iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=256iShadowSplitCount=2iMaxAnisotropy=1fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=1.0000fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=0.5000fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=1.0000fGamma=1.0000iShadowFilter=0fDecalLOD2=1500.0000fDecalLOD1=1000.0000fSpecularLODStartFade=0.1000fShadowLODStartFade=0.1000fLightLODStartFade=0.1000iTexMipMapMinimum=0iTexMipMapSkip=2bTransparencyMultisampling=0iWaterMultiSamples=0iMultiSample=0iShadowMode=3bTreesReceiveShadows=0bDrawLandShadows=0bDrawShadows=0bFull Screen=1iSize H=900iSize W=1440fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=3072.0000fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=4096.0000iScreenShotIndex=2bShadowMaskZPrepass=0bMainZPrepass=0iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=0iMaxDecalsPerFrame=0sD3DDevice="NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS"bFXAAEnabled=0iShadowMapResolution=256fShadowBiasScale=0.5000iShadowMaskQuarter=3iAdapter=0iPresentInterval=0bFloatPointRenderTarget=1[Grass]b30GrassVS=0fGrassStartFadeDistance=0.1000fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=0.2000fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.1000bDrawShaderGrass=0[Water]iWaterReflectHeight=256iWaterReflectWidth=256bUseWaterDisplacements=0bUseWaterRefractions=0bUseWaterReflections=0bUseWaterDepth=0bUseWaterHiRes=0[MAIN]bGamepadEnable=0bCrosshairEnabled=1fHUDOpacity=1.0000bSaveOnPause=1bSaveOnTravel=1bSaveOnWait=1bSaveOnRest=1fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=20000.0000[GamePlay]bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1bShowQuestMarkers=1iDifficulty=2[Interface]bDialogueSubtitles=1bGeneralSubtitles=1bShowCompass=1[Controls]fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.0000fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0350fMouseHeadingYScale=0.1800fMouseHeadingXScale=0.0350bAlwaysRunByDefault=1bInvertYValues=0bGamePadRumble=0bMouseAcceleration=0[Particles]iMaxDesired=200[SaveGame]fAutosaveEveryXMins=5.0000[AudioMenu]fAudioMasterVolume=0.5000fVal7=1.0000uID7=0fVal6=1.0000uID6=0fVal5=1.0000uID5=0fVal4=1.0000uID4=0fVal3=0.3500uID3=94881fVal2=0.5500uID2=466532fVal1=0.8000uID1=554685fVal0=0.6500uID0=1007612[Clouds]fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000fCloudNearFadeDistance=1000.0000[TerrainManager]fTreeLoadDistance=2500.0000fBlockMaximumDistance=75000.0000fBlockLevel1Distance=25000.0000fBlockLevel0Distance=15000.0000fSplitDistanceMult=0.4000bShowLODInEditor=0[NavMesh]fObstacleAlpha=0.5000fCoverSideHighAlpha=0.8000fCoverSideLowAlpha=0.6500fEdgeFullAlpha=1.0000fEdgeHighAlpha=0.7500fEdgeLowAlpha=0.5000fTriangleFullAlpha=0.7000fTriangleHighAlpha=0.3500fTriangleLowAlpha=0.2000fLedgeBoxHalfHeight=25.0000fEdgeDistFromVert=10.0000fEdgeThickness=10.0000fPointSize=2.5000[Trees]bRenderSkinnedTrees=0uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=1[Decals]uMaxDecals=0bDecals=0bSkinnedDecals=0uMaxSkinDecals=0uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=0[LOD]fLODFadeOutMultObjects=5.0000fLODFadeOutMultItems=3.0000fLODFadeOutMultActors=6.0000fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000[Launcher]bEnableFileSelection=1bShowAllResolutions=1uLastAspectRatio=4[BlurShaderHDR]bDoHighDynamicRange=0[BlurShader]bUseBlurShader=0

Please let me know what additional lines I can add and which variables I can change to further improve performance. I really don't care much about how the game looks as long as it runs fluently.
Note that I have avoided 0 values for several variables as others have pointed out that this can tune a variable to "infinite" instead of "off".
It is also possible that for some water/shadow values I may have gone too low for the game to recognize and those are then read differently. Please let me know if that is the case.
Any way to reduce light reflections and dust in particular would be very very welcome.

Also, excuse my noobishness, but I have mainly been editing the SkyrimPrefs.ini file in My Documents\My Games\Skyrim as opposed to the game directory SkyrimPrefs.ini so I am not sure if these need to be duplicated or amended or somesuch.

Thank you in advance. Please feel free to use this also yourself to help you boost your game performance.

Bump...

Not even sure your PC meets min specs for the game.



http://donotargue.com/cfg-makers/skyrim/

Use that and dial the settings down as much as you can.

I really think you're in a situation where you're probably not going to be real happy with what you end up with. If you can't afford some hardware upgrades or a new machine...do you own a console? You honestly might be better off getting the game on a console if you already own that console vs. the likes of this.

Good luck.

As I said, it runs very smoothly, the only issue I have it torches, reflections, dust and water which really kill my performance. Anything else is perfect

don't touch the game directory ini, that one is the fallback default one used if the My Documents/My Games one needs to be recreated. ONLY edit the ones in My Documents/My Games/Skyrim.

Might be a driver issue, whats the date of the driver you are using now? I know its sometimes hard to find the right older driver for discontinued legacy cards.

There used to be graphics issues with flickering torches etc with certain drivers in Oblivion if I recall, I'll go see what I can find on that. Might be some transparency setting in nvidia control panel.

My kids are playing on a semi similar system, but a singlecore FX-55 cpu and an older radeon x1900xtx. Sometimes ini tweaks can introduce new problems so also on occasion try moving all 3 of the files in My Documents to a TEST subfolder to force the game to recreate a default vanilla one, and compare how that did. (Its possible messing with or editing the game directory default will mess this up)

Thanks for posting your .ini settings, GhostSky! I have Skyrim installed on both my home gaming rig and my uni laptop, the latter being so far below minimum requirements that I've had to run it 800x600 on the lowest possible settings and even then it lags terribly. Thanks to your .ini tweaks I gained at least 2-4 FPS, which is all the difference between 'unplayable slideshow' and 'laggy but sorta playable'.

BTW, the laptop in question has an Intel Core i3 U380 1.33 GHz, Intel HD Graphics and 4 GB of RAM, so it's a miracle it gets me even 12-18 FPS.