@17dizzi This issue has been present since at least Oblivion, possibly even Morrowind, I can't remember. I'm sure I fixed this issue in Fallout 3 with an ini tweak but I can't remember how.
In Fallout it was because distant areas were detailed with LOD boulders rather than terrain and these were fighting for room. In Skyrim this issue is caused by snow. You could remove the snow in Creation Kit, not surehow though. I'm just trying rebuilding the LOD atm. Don't know if it'll work
I've started a thread for this issue on the official Skyrim forums. The link can be found in my uploaded video (check my channel, it's my only uploaded video).
There is a poll there on the forum thread on how many got the problem, but also some information why this is happening to us. Moreover, there's a few tips there to reduce the flicker (but not fix).
For instance, I recommend everyone to do this:
Under [Display] section in Skyrim.ini, add "fNearDistance=25.0000" without quationmarks.
Oh man friggin' Z-Fighting! I had the same problem with the buildings in the PC version of GTA 4. I fixed it by using old drivers (I'm on ATI and I backrolled to 9.10 - the only version that fixed the Z-Fighting!). The Z-Fighting was gone but because the drivers were old, the performance was crap. This is just plain annoying and I feel sorry for you :(
@17dizzi From everything I've read, there is still no fix. It happens everywhere if the mountains are at a certain distance but it's most obvious west of Whiterun.
And yeah, medium distant detail seems to be the only viable "fix" but I prefer good looking mountains with flickering over that.
fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=300000.0000 , like hlvrn suggested, does slightly help by covering more distant mountains with fog/clouds.
Any chance someone has found a fix? I have lowered distant object detail to medium, and am not impressed with how that effects other stuff tho it seems to help. I am quite new to the game, does this only happen in Whiterun?
I have contacted Bethesda tech support about this problem. They recommended a few general things, but none solved it. Finally they said that what I told them about the problem has been passed on to the development team.
Let's hope they fix this.
In any case, this setting in SkyrimPrefs.ini can help: fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=300000.0000
It makes it so more clouds cover the mountains, thus covering a bit of this annoying flicker.
@hlvrn Thanks, I'll try that. Hopefully they will look into this issue but with all the other stuff going on with 1.2 I think it'll take a while if they ever do look at it.
The ini settings PedisTheFetus posted were also not effective. They did "fix" the Z-Fighting but only by entirely removing the distant LOD objects other than distant land. Setting distant object quality to medium fixes Z-Fighting and looks better than his settings, so his wasn't really a satisfying solution.
@PedisTheFetus Hm ok, I'll try this when I get home. So exactly how or what did it fix for you? I only know the TreeLoadDistance line which just draws trees further away. Not familiar with what the other settings change.
@antaurus8 Yes but keeping fBlockMaximumDistance = fBlockLevel1Distance = fBlockLevel0Distance will eliminate flickering when traveling from Battle-Born Farm to Valtheim Towers. It is also for this reason that I don't suggest using the medium settings. The fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=300000.0000 tweak that hlvrn posted seems to do a decent job of covering the bad distant LOD that results. A high fTreeLoadDistance makes the distant mountains look a bit better as well.
@hlvrn That's the weird thing. Some people running on ultra are reportedly not getting this bug. The only way I can get rid of the glitch is running on distant objects on medium detail. But that just looks outright horrible.
Maybe they just don't notice it, but that seems unlikely because it's extremely obvious and intrusive.
@lorfsor@hlvrn I'm getting it too, but the weird thing is I haven't noticed it anywhere except on that region outside Whiterun you filmed for the video.
I'm running on Ultra (still getting 60 in most places) and I'm getting this Z-fighting issue... it's the reason I got to this vid... at least I have a name for it now, "flickering snow" was not bringing up much...
@Carnage2K4 Well I've modded and modeled for games for a long time that's why I know the term Z-Fighting, which is actually something you encounter quite frequently if you let objects or meshes overlap.
In this case, it's some sort of error in the distant land calculation. Someone on the official forums replied he fixed this with a mod/tweak for Oblivion and Fallout but might not get around to doing it for Skyrim.
I hope a patch will fix it, but if not we just have to live with it.
I can handle the low-res shadows and the pop ins. And I'm afraid those won't get fixed because they seem to be integral parts of the game engine. Pop-ins can be lessened by increasing uGridstoload though, which makes them less apparent.
This Z-Fighting thing is the most jarring thing for me as I spend a lot of time wandering and watching the great vistas. And this constantly draws attention when I'm wandeirng Whiterun hold.
@lorfsor This is due to low precision z buffer, induced by limited console hardware. It does happen on consoles. Lets hope the ENB dude can force higher precision z buffer.
@LeoNatan25 Ýeah hopefully some people will start with a Graphics Enhancer soon. The game will look insanely good with some minor tweaks and a high res texture pack.
well if it isn't happening on consoles, i guess there's hope to fix it. there doesn't seem to be much talk about it in the modding community yet. go forth and raise awareness.
btw, it happens on a few rocks too. other things that bother me are the shadows, obviously, and the bad decal / texture pop-ins (trees and terrain around whiterun, e.g.)
I get this on all my games... :(
Is there ANYTHING I can do?!
Froggen88 2 weeks ago
Patch 1.4 just updated, just read the notes. Still not fixed.
I will be writing to Beth and complaining, in the strongest possible terms.
Can this be an engine issue if similar Z fighting happens in their other games? Annoying!!
17dizzi 3 weeks ago
@17dizzi This issue has been present since at least Oblivion, possibly even Morrowind, I can't remember. I'm sure I fixed this issue in Fallout 3 with an ini tweak but I can't remember how.
In Fallout it was because distant areas were detailed with LOD boulders rather than terrain and these were fighting for room. In Skyrim this issue is caused by snow. You could remove the snow in Creation Kit, not surehow though. I'm just trying rebuilding the LOD atm. Don't know if it'll work
gbushimprov 2 weeks ago
I've started a thread for this issue on the official Skyrim forums. The link can be found in my uploaded video (check my channel, it's my only uploaded video).
There is a poll there on the forum thread on how many got the problem, but also some information why this is happening to us. Moreover, there's a few tips there to reduce the flicker (but not fix).
For instance, I recommend everyone to do this:
Under [Display] section in Skyrim.ini, add "fNearDistance=25.0000" without quationmarks.
hlvrn 1 month ago
Oh man friggin' Z-Fighting! I had the same problem with the buildings in the PC version of GTA 4. I fixed it by using old drivers (I'm on ATI and I backrolled to 9.10 - the only version that fixed the Z-Fighting!). The Z-Fighting was gone but because the drivers were old, the performance was crap. This is just plain annoying and I feel sorry for you :(
allst4r666 1 month ago
@17dizzi From everything I've read, there is still no fix. It happens everywhere if the mountains are at a certain distance but it's most obvious west of Whiterun.
And yeah, medium distant detail seems to be the only viable "fix" but I prefer good looking mountains with flickering over that.
fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=300000.0000 , like hlvrn suggested, does slightly help by covering more distant mountains with fog/clouds.
lorfsor 1 month ago
Any chance someone has found a fix? I have lowered distant object detail to medium, and am not impressed with how that effects other stuff tho it seems to help. I am quite new to the game, does this only happen in Whiterun?
17dizzi 1 month ago
I have the exact same thing
RecoveryRx 1 month ago
I have contacted Bethesda tech support about this problem. They recommended a few general things, but none solved it. Finally they said that what I told them about the problem has been passed on to the development team.
Let's hope they fix this.
In any case, this setting in SkyrimPrefs.ini can help: fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=300000.0000
It makes it so more clouds cover the mountains, thus covering a bit of this annoying flicker.
hlvrn 2 months ago
@hlvrn Thanks, I'll try that. Hopefully they will look into this issue but with all the other stuff going on with 1.2 I think it'll take a while if they ever do look at it.
The ini settings PedisTheFetus posted were also not effective. They did "fix" the Z-Fighting but only by entirely removing the distant LOD objects other than distant land. Setting distant object quality to medium fixes Z-Fighting and looks better than his settings, so his wasn't really a satisfying solution.
lorfsor 2 months ago
IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: ENTERING THE GRAPHICS OPTION MENU IN THE GAME LAUNCHER WILL REVERT THOSE SETTINGS!
PedisTheFetus 3 months ago
@PedisTheFetus Hm ok, I'll try this when I get home. So exactly how or what did it fix for you? I only know the TreeLoadDistance line which just draws trees further away. Not familiar with what the other settings change.
lorfsor 3 months ago
I spent a lot of time tweaking these.
Change to these values in your SkyrimPrefs.ini located in My documents/My Games/ Skyrim
[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=125000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=80000.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=80000.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=80000.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=4.5000
PedisTheFetus 3 months ago 8
@PedisTheFetus
Only one of the parameters fixes flickering:
fBlockMaximumDistance = 100000.0000 (or less, NOT GREATER!)
Others can have default values or any others, but the main rule is:
fBlockMaximumDistance >= fBlockLevel1Distance >= fBlockLevel0Distance
This tweak has helped me.
antaurus8 2 months ago
@antaurus8 Yes but keeping fBlockMaximumDistance = fBlockLevel1Distance = fBlockLevel0Distance will eliminate flickering when traveling from Battle-Born Farm to Valtheim Towers. It is also for this reason that I don't suggest using the medium settings. The fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=300000.0000 tweak that hlvrn posted seems to do a decent job of covering the bad distant LOD that results. A high fTreeLoadDistance makes the distant mountains look a bit better as well.
PedisTheFetus 2 months ago
I have the problem too, but the strange this is... not everyone have this problem. Why? Why do only some people experience it, while others dont?
hlvrn 3 months ago
@hlvrn That's the weird thing. Some people running on ultra are reportedly not getting this bug. The only way I can get rid of the glitch is running on distant objects on medium detail. But that just looks outright horrible.
Maybe they just don't notice it, but that seems unlikely because it's extremely obvious and intrusive.
lorfsor 3 months ago
@lorfsor @hlvrn I'm getting it too, but the weird thing is I haven't noticed it anywhere except on that region outside Whiterun you filmed for the video.
SpinnyDervish 3 months ago
@lorfsor
I'm running on Ultra (still getting 60 in most places) and I'm getting this Z-fighting issue... it's the reason I got to this vid... at least I have a name for it now, "flickering snow" was not bringing up much...
Carnage2K4 3 months ago
@Carnage2K4 Well I've modded and modeled for games for a long time that's why I know the term Z-Fighting, which is actually something you encounter quite frequently if you let objects or meshes overlap.
In this case, it's some sort of error in the distant land calculation. Someone on the official forums replied he fixed this with a mod/tweak for Oblivion and Fallout but might not get around to doing it for Skyrim.
I hope a patch will fix it, but if not we just have to live with it.
lorfsor 3 months ago
I can handle the low-res shadows and the pop ins. And I'm afraid those won't get fixed because they seem to be integral parts of the game engine. Pop-ins can be lessened by increasing uGridstoload though, which makes them less apparent.
This Z-Fighting thing is the most jarring thing for me as I spend a lot of time wandering and watching the great vistas. And this constantly draws attention when I'm wandeirng Whiterun hold.
lorfsor 3 months ago
@lorfsor This is due to low precision z buffer, induced by limited console hardware. It does happen on consoles. Lets hope the ENB dude can force higher precision z buffer.
LeoNatan25 3 months ago
@LeoNatan25 Yep, just noticed it on 360 too.
PedisTheFetus 3 months ago
@LeoNatan25 Ýeah hopefully some people will start with a Graphics Enhancer soon. The game will look insanely good with some minor tweaks and a high res texture pack.
lorfsor 3 months ago
well if it isn't happening on consoles, i guess there's hope to fix it. there doesn't seem to be much talk about it in the modding community yet. go forth and raise awareness.
btw, it happens on a few rocks too. other things that bother me are the shadows, obviously, and the bad decal / texture pop-ins (trees and terrain around whiterun, e.g.)
xandre434 3 months ago
Haven't seen this happen on consoles though:/
PedisTheFetus 3 months ago
I hate this problem. Been trying for a fix since it came out with no luck:(
PedisTheFetus 3 months ago