Tweak Guide

Go to Documents/My Games/Skyrim and find SkyrimPrefs.ini file. First, to be on the safe side, make a copy of back up of this file and save it somewhere on your hard drive. Open SkyrimPrefs.ini with any text editor and find these lines to tweak them per your requirement. I will walk you through the effects of changing these configuration variables what benefits they bring at how much system resource. If you are tweaking Skyrim for performance, you may need to find a good balance between eye candy and performance. GENERAL TWEAKS You can disable or enable these ini tweaks to improve either graphics quality or performance of the game. HOW TO DISABLE MOUSE SMOOTH ACCELERATION Open SkyrimPrefs.ini with a text editor and look for bMouseAcceleration=1 under [Controls] and change it to bMouseAcceleration=0. HOW TO DISABLE VSYNC Open SkyrimPrefs.ini with a text editor and add iPresentInterval=0 at the bottom under [Display]. HOW TO TWEAK FOV Open SkyrimPrefs.ini with a text editor and add fdefaultfov=XX at the bottom under [General]. Replace XX with your desired FOV. A value of 90 is a good choice if you want to increase default narrow FOV. HOW TO SET ULTRA SETTINGS AND MAX ANTIALIASING AND ANISOTROPIC FILTER Open Advanced Graphics Options and max out everything but leave FXAA and Object Detail Fade unchecked.

TWEAK VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL MOUSE MOVEMENTS Open SkyrimPrefs.ini, and check for [Controls] section. Add fMouseHeadingYScale=0.0200 and fMouseHeadingXScale=0.0200 (You can tweak these values to what suits you best). SKYRIM MEMORY TWEAK LAG FIX AND PERFORMANCE BOOST Open skyrim.ini, and check for [Papyrus] section. You can add this section to your config and then add the following values under it, if it isnt present. Add iMinMemoryPageSize=100000 and iMaxMemoryPageSize=5000000 Add iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=1800000000 Be careful with these variables, especially iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes, setting it too high may result in random crashes and freezes. HOW TO ENABLE TREE AND ROCK SHADOWS More geared towards enhancing the graphics, this tweak will give your game an eye candy boost. Open SkyrimPrefs.ini Change bDrawLandShadows=0 to bDrawLandShadows=1 Change bTreesReceiveShadows=0 to bTreesReceiveShadows=1 HOW TO DEACTIVATE QUEST MARKER Open SkyrimPrefs.ini, and search for [GamePlay] section. Change bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1 to bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=0 Change bShowQuestMarkers=1 to bShowQuestMarkers=0 HOW TO DEACTIVATE COMPASS Open SkyrimPrefs.ini, and search for [Interface] section Change bShowCompass=1 to bShowCompass=0

Tweak Guide

SKYRIM .INI TWEAKS GRAPHICS AND PERFORMANCE iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3 It improves the sharpness of the shadows and has a least effect on the performance so you may not see any FPS loss even when you have set it to high. It is recommended that you change this value to 1 but if the shadows are too sharp, you can set it to 2. fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=0.0000 It improves tree LOD distance. You can change it to 10000000.0000 if you want to improve the LOD distance or keep it as it is. fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000 It improves LOD distance of shadows. You can change it to 1000.0000. iShadowFilter=3 It improves shadow filtering. You can set it between 1 and 4 (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). You can set it to 4 to improve shadow filtering or lower the quality of shadow of filtering if you want to improve performance. bTransparencyMultisampling=0 Change it to 1 to enable Transparency MS. iWaterMultiSamples=0 It improves Water AA sampling. You can change it from 1 to 4 (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). Change it either to improve the eye candy or to improve the performance or find a good balance between two. bTreesReceiveShadows=0 It improves the tree shadows You can change it to 1 to enable shadows on trees or keep the shadows disabled if you are looking to squeeze performance out of your machine. bDrawLandShadows=0 It enables land shadows You can change it to 1 to enable land shadows. Again, shadows eat a lot of system resources and video card memory, keep it disabled if you are looking to squeeze performance. fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.0000

It improves grass distance. Greatly effects performance. I have tested it up to 400.0000 you can tweak it this variable either for graphics or performance. iWaterReflectHeight=512 / iWaterReflectWidth=512 It improves Water Reflection Resolution, which obviously will use your system resources. You can either keep it as it is, if you want to improve the performance or even lower it. Or change both to 1024 for eye candy. bMouseAcceleration=1 If you want to disable mouse acceleration, you can change it to 0. You will need to increase the mouse sensitivity in-game when you disable the mouse acceleration. uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=20 If you are experiencing low textures and other textures related graphics issues, you can tweak this variable to improve texture and skin rendering. You can set this value to 40 to start with. Or keep it as it is, if you are looking to squeeze performance. Additionally, you can add following ini tweaks at the end of the your SkyrimPrefs.ini file: bUseWaterReflectionBlur=1 bReflectExplosions=1 iWaterBlurAmount=4 bAutoWaterSilhouetteReflections=0 bForceHighDetailReflections=1 The above five ini tweaks improve water rendering Again, you can keep either lower the value or set them as it is, to make water look gorgeous. fBlockLoadDistanceLow=50000.0000 fBlockLoadDistance=125000.0000 fHighBlockLoadDistanceLow=20000.0000 If you want to improve mesh on long distance in Skyrim, add the above three ini tweaks at the end of the configuration file. These tweaks will improve the mesh distance.

Tweak Guide

If you want a ready made solution, copy the config below for great graphics and performance settings. If you have an average PC and want to squeeze as much performance as you can at the loss of least eye candy, you should use this config Take note of how the variables are set. [General] fBrightLightColorB=1.0000 fBrightLightColorG=1.0000 fBrightLightColorR=1.0000 iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1 bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0 [Imagespace] bDoDepthOfField=1 iRadialBlurLevel=2 [Display] iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3 fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000 fShadowDistance=8000.0000 iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024 iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048 iShadowSplitCount=2 iMaxAnisotropy=8 fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000 fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000 fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=10000000.0000 fGamma=1.0000 fDecalLOD2=1500.0000 fDecalLOD1=1000.0000 fSpecularLODStartFade=2000.0000 fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000 fLightLODStartFade=3500.0000 iTexMipMapMinimum=0 iTexMipMapSkip=0 iWaterMultiSamples=1 iMultiSample=4 iShadowMode=3 bTreesReceiveShadows=1 bDrawLandShadows=1 bFull Screen=1 iSize H=1050 iSize W=1680 fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000 fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000 fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000 fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000 fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=10000000.0000 fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=10000000.0000 iScreenShotIndex=4 bShadowMaskZPrepass=0

bMainZPrepass=0 iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=25 iMaxDecalsPerFrame=100 bFloatPointRenderTarget=0 sD3DDevice=NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 Do not copy this value, leave it as it is in your .ini bFXAAEnabled=1 iShadowMapResolution=4096 fShadowBiasScale=0.1500 iShadowMaskQuarter=4 iAdapter=0 iPresentInterval=0 iShadowFilter=3 bTransparencyMultisampling=1 bDrawShadows=1 iPresentInterval=0 [Grass] b30GrassVS=1 fGrassStartFadeDistance=7000.0000 fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000 fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.0000 [MAIN] bGamepadEnable=1 bCrosshairEnabled=1 fHUDOpacity=1.0000 bSaveOnPause=1 bSaveOnTravel=1 bSaveOnWait=1 bSaveOnRest=1 fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000.0000 bUseWaterReflectionBlur=1 bReflectExplosions=1 iWaterBlurAmount=4 bAutoWaterSilhouetteReflections=1 bForceHighDetailReflections=1 [GamePlay] bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1 bShowQuestMarkers=1 iDifficulty=2 [Interface] bDialogueSubtitles=0 bGeneralSubtitles=0 bShowCompass=1 [Controls] fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.0000 fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0180 bAlwaysRunByDefault=1 bInvertYValues=0 bGamePadRumble=0 bMouseAcceleration=0 [Particles] iMaxDesired=750 [SaveGame]

Tweak Guide

fAutosaveEveryXMins=5.0000 [AudioMenu] fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000 fVal7=1.0000 uID7=0 fVal6=1.0000 uID6=0 fVal5=1.0000 uID5=0 fVal4=1.0000 uID4=0 fVal3=0.1500 uID3=94881 fVal2=0.0500 uID2=466532 fVal1=1.0000 uID1=554685 fVal0=0.9000 uID0=1007612 [Clouds] fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000 fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000 fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000 fCloudNearFadeDistance=9000.0000 [TerrainManager] fTreeLoadDistance=75000.0000 fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000 fBlockLevel1Distance=70000.0000 fBlockLevel0Distance=35000.0000 fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000 bShowLODInEditor=0 [NavMesh] fObstacleAlpha=0.5000 fCoverSideHighAlpha=0.8000 fCoverSideLowAlpha=0.6500 fEdgeFullAlpha=1.0000 fEdgeHighAlpha=0.7500 fEdgeLowAlpha=0.5000 fTriangleFullAlpha=0.7000 fTriangleHighAlpha=0.3500 fTriangleLowAlpha=0.2000 fLedgeBoxHalfHeight=25.0000 fEdgeDistFromVert=10.0000 fEdgeThickness=10.0000 fPointSize=2.5000 [Trees] bRenderSkinnedTrees=1 uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=20 [Decals] uMaxDecals=1000 bDecals=1 bSkinnedDecals=1 uMaxSkinDecals=100

uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=60 [LOD] fLODFadeOutMultObjects=15.0000 fLODFadeOutMultItems=15.0000 fLODFadeOutMultActors=15.0000 fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000 [Launcher] bEnableFileSelection=1 bShowAllResolutions=0 uLastAspectRatio=4 [BlurShaderHDR] bDoHighDynamicRange=1 [BlurShader] bUseBlurShader=0 [Water] iWaterReflectHeight=1024 iWaterReflectWidth=1024 bUseWaterDisplacements=1 bUseWaterRefractions=1 bUseWaterReflections=1 bUseWaterDepth=1 Save the SkyrimPrefs.ini and exit. Start Skyrim and enjoy!