Skyrim Graphics Problems Options

[Acadian]

I've got some graphic weirdness going one in my lightly modded game. I'm posting a new thread for this instead of in the mods section because I'm not sure if it is a mod problem or a computer/graphics card problem.

Sometimes, when outdoors, I get sort of a neon starburst effect that seems localized to one (random) area. Like this. If I exit and reload, the problem goes away. If I turn away from the problem and move on, I can leave it behind.

I'm not sure how to proceed. Here is info that may help troubleshoot:

GPU: Nividia GeForce GTX 460 with latest updated driver. It is not a new card and I have had a couple of minor problems with it in Oblivion; that is why my gut tells me the problem may be here.

Mod Stuff (NMM install):

ESM’s:
Skyrim
Update (not positive what this is)
Dawnguard
Dragonborn
Hearthfires
AzarHair (Ponytail Hairstyles)

ESP’s:
HiRezTexPacks 1,2,3 (DLC)
Viadani’s Bag of Holding
Portable Campsite
The Eyes of Beauty
Triss Armor
Summoning Jewelry (added after problem started)
Oblivious Horses (added after problem started)

No ESP or ESM:
CBBE (body mod)

I appreciate any ideas on how to isolate and fix the problem.

[SubRosa]

Wow, I have never seen that one before. It looks like maybe a mesh is getting all stretched out perhaps? Or possibly something completely different. I think the first thing to do would be to disable/remove the mods and see if it persists. Make sure you are not just turning .esp/.esms off from loading, but also removing any textures or meshes they add.

If it persists then, we know it is something in the vanilla game. My next thought would be to log onto Steam and update the game cache. That will restore the vanilla files to their base settings. You might to make backup copies of your .ini files first, as it will probably blow away any changes you might have made to them.

Go to the top where it says Library-> All Games

It should give you all the games you own through Steam. Right click on Skyrim, and click on Properties.

Go to the Local Files tab in the new window, and click on Verify Integrity of Game Cache. This will restore any files that are missing or have changed. It will also force an update to the most current version of the game (since I believe you have Legendary Edition, you have the final version anyway).

You can also delete the entire game from your hard drive from here, and reinstall it if you want. If the problem persists after doing everything else, I would try that. But make a copy of your save games first. You can find them in your My Documents\My Games\Skyrim folder.

If you still have problems after doing all of that, my thought runs to the video card. You have the latest driver, so its probably not a driver issue. You might look into a new video card. Nvidia is up to the GTX 600s and 700s now, and even some monster called the Titan.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jun 21 2014, 11:10 PM

[SubRosa]

BTW. I believe the Update.esm is a plugin that Bethesda uses to put in all of their patch-related changes. It is installed with the game, and you need to make sure it is always enabled. Otherwise some things in the game won't work. For example, they added mounted combat with one of the patches. I had it turned off, and the mounted combat would not work for me. But once I turned Update.esm on, I could draw a sword or bow while on horseback and fight.

[Acadian]

Oh, thanks so much. I was curious about the 'Update' esm. That makes sense now.

The shop that built puter (and her predecessors - I've been with them for about 10 years now) provides free service for the life of the puter. The anomalies I'm getting vary from what you saw to getting a black vertical plane sometimes and some other inconsistent things. And I have had a few temp black screens in Oblivion that came back after a few seconds with a notice that my graphics driver had failed to do something and had recovered. That has happened a few times through two or three driver update to the newest drivers. So I think that I'll take puter to the shop this coming week. They told me when I first had those black screen probs that they could test the driver and see if it is the prob. Plus I also have a couple more differing screens to show them the probs. I wouldn't mind giving puter a 'mid-life' upgrade to include a newer graphics card etc if that is part of the problem.

Thanks very much for the info on troubleshooting and reinstalling - specifically how it relates to Steam. I'll probably pester you some more if it turns out not to be a hardware prob.

[ghastley]

The fact that it goes away if you exit and reload tells me it's unlikely to be mod-related. And the artifacts have ends to the spurious polygons. Unweighted meshes tend to stretch to infinity, so it's probably not that, either. I'm afraid that the last time I saw that effect was before an old video card died.

I'm surprised that you're not using the Unofficial Patches, as there's so much that they fix - none of which is graphic effects like that, however.

[SubRosa]

The more you say, the more it sounds like your video card I am afraid. But you can buy a new card for just a few hundred dollars that has much more 'ooomph' than your current one has.

[Acadian]

To be honest, I've gotten good service from my vid card and don't mind upgrading it at this point. I'll actually be relieved if that is the problem because I know that can be fixed (replaced) easily enough.

Yep, I think puter's going back to the guys who built her for some service this upcoming week.

Thanks again. When I posted, I was hoping both of you two would chime in. I value your tech expertise greatly.

Hopefully, I'll be able to deliver a happy update on puter within a week.

[Acadian]

Thought I'd provide an update here. Puter went into the shop for a couple days. We decided a 'mid-life upgrade' was called for.

Specifically, Puter had her RAM doubled up to 16 GB. Then she had her graphics card upgraded from a GTX 460 to a GTX 770. Finally, she had her primary hard drive replaced by a 256 GB solid state one (the back up HD remains unchanged). Happily, they were able to clone everything on the older hard drive onto the new one and thereby avoid having to reinstall any software.

Sure enough, both Oblivion and Skyrim remain perfectly installed, including mods tweaks etc.

All in all I'm very pleased and have been playing Skyrim most of today with no graphics problems at all.

[SubRosa]

Good news! Looks like it was the video card after all.

[Acadian]

Thanks for the help, all.

Rather than starting a new thread, let me change subjects here with a question about my game. We play with Buffy set to 'always walk' and hold down the run key during those rare times when an illusionist with a fast horse might need to actually run. Yet, every time we start her game, she defaults to 'always run'. So every session I have to tap the 'always run' key to disable that. Is it normal that the game defaults to always run every session? If so, is there a fairly simple way to have her default to where we leave her (always walk)?

[SubRosa]

Wow, I do not know. I always default to always run, so I never tried the other way.

[ghastley]

If so, is there a fairly simple way to have her default to where we leave her (always walk)?

Carry something really heavy?

[Grits]

Hmm, good question. I habitually hit the caps lock key as soon as the game loads and then later type everything in all caps until I notice. It never crossed my mind to change the default. A quick search yielded no answers, sorry.

I’m glad your other issue is resolved!

[Acadian]

Thanks for the help and well-wishes, everyone. At least it seems that 'always run' is the default, so tapping a key each time I start is simple enough. With the new upgrade, puter is still running wonderfully!

[mirocu]

Glad to hear your puter is stronger and better than before, Acadian!

[Acadian]

For a month or two I’ve had a problem of my screenshots not coming out about two thirds of the time. Example.

The other third of the time they come out fine.

I’ve changed nothing that I can think of that would cause this. I use the screenshot ability that comes with the game and simply press ‘Print Screen’ which causes a capture to be sent to my hard drive. That is, no steam or Fraps involved. No changes to my mods or settings as it relates to graphics. My GTX 770 graphics card is less than a couple years old and impeccably kept up to date with the most current drivers.

I’d appreciate any ideas on what the problem might be.

[ghastley]

No real clue, but I went over to using Fraps when Oblivion gave me greyscale skewed screenshots all the time. But that was consistent, not a hit-and-miss thing. Intermittent implies it's content-related, so backing off a level of video driver may undo the problem.

I have an issue with mouse and keyboard locking up (can't even CTRL+ALT+DEL when it happens) that probably started with an nVidia driver update, but I've had too many Windows updates since, and can't back out far enough. nVidia update frequently because they have a lot of bugs!

[SubRosa]

I remember Rome Total War used to give you solid black screenshots if you played the game with anti-aliasing turned on. I started using FRAPs in all of my games because of that. This sort of reminds me of that. But I am not sure what might be doing it.

[Acadian]

I'm afraid there have been numerous driver updates since the problem began.

Thanks for your thoughts and ideas.

Sounds like a good option might be for me to try Fraps. I'll try downloading it and see if I can figure it out.

[Acadian]

Nvidia just released a new driver update for my video card and I installed it. It did not change anything.

So, I installed Fraps and was happily surprised that it seems pretty easy to figure out. I've disabled the FPS and movie stuff and got the screenshots working.

For those using Fraps, how does this sound: I have it set to start with Windows and run minimized. That seems to ensure that it will always be available while I'm playing. I tried taking a screen while it was not running and it didn't so that. I don't think I want to turn it on and off every time I play. So I guess just leaving it on whenever Windows is running makes sense.

Like the game-organic screenshot feature Fraps (free) takes BMP shots. I'm used to converting those to jpeg using Paint already so nothing new there.

So far so good. It seems easy and effective.

Thanks again for the help and ideas.