Changes to exterior dont work [OPTIMUS]

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Changes to exterior dont work [OPTIMUS]

Hey guys.

New user here, this is my first time experimenting with ENBs as well and im having some trouble.

I grabbed the Grim and Somber ENB for Skyrim a couple days ago and have been trying everything possible to get it to work properly, with no luck. I also attempted to briefly install a couple other ENBs and encountered the exact same issue, which leads me to believe it isn't the specific ENB setup.

The problem I have is that the sky outside is extremely, blindingly bright. I attempted to alter nearly every setting I could find with no luck and then I realized that I was able to change interior settings, but not those of the exterior. So interiors and dungeons look fantastic, but the outdoors looks terrible. It does seem also as if interior changes are being applied to the exterior, but no matter how I change the exterior values, nothing changes. I can barely see walking around Windhelm as everything is so glaringly white. I believe I know which values to change based on my tampering with the interior, so im pretty sure if they would work properly, I could apply them to the exterior, but it doesn't alter.

I re checked my Skyprefs.ini and everything looks good, all the adjustments are made properly as far as I can tell. I don't believe its an installation issue. This is only a few days ago so my ENB is the most up to date.

I do play on a laptop with Nvidia Optimus, which I understand can be an issue for many. So I attempted to use the injector and encountered even more problems, so I reverted back to the wrapper again. I have also attempted to run the ENB with no mods, but without success. The only mod I have that would possible interfere is ELFX anyways.

Does anybody have any thoughts on this? As im basically at the end of my Google capabilities.

-Carnivore

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Re: Changes to exterior dont work

I don't remember why this may happen, but first of all Optimus is really the problem (not Optimus itself, but Intel GPU which completely out of support). So let's pretend everything is fine (if not, try injector with all suggestions). Some mods modify shadows and lighting, so sun appears everywhere, even in interiors, it can be the case only if such mod was updated, but usually it do things on the contrary - no interior setting works. Another case, when shadow setting in skyrimprefs.ini modified wrongly, there are mask setting for it, prepass, other things and you should make backup of it, delete it, try to run game launcher to generate it again and check if problem still exist. If it do exist, then maybe mod manager replaced config, you need to delete all configs which it dublicating then try again. If it will be fixed, then try to compare what setting were wrong (i'm using Beyong Compare for this). Of course if you have outdated non steam game, it also can be issue, but it's very rare. Maybe you have in launcher videocard name "ENB", this means forcefakevideocard=true set in enblocal.ini, set it to false and start launcher again. Though for Intel GPU is may always be fake videocard, because it simply do not support some hardware features which amd/nvidia cards have.
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Re: Changes to exterior dont work

Thanks for your quick reply.

Ill try and go through one at a time here...

Both the game and the ENB on startup claim to be using the integrated Intel GPU, but I don't think its true. I set the Nvidia control panel to force the game to use the proper GPU and I see both an FPS increase and that Skyrim is drawing on the Nvidia GPU in the activity tracker. So whatever they say, I believe they are still using the proper card....

I also have tried already to remove the Renderer info and Skyprefs and allow the game to re detect but I always get the exact same thing.
It also occurred to me that NMM may have replaced its own config, as I know the other Mod Manager does, but I wasn't able to find anything on that either in NMMs space or on Google.

I don't think its a mod conflict as I attempted to run the game with nothing but the ENB and still got the same outcome. I cant think of any other mod it could be anyways as all I have are weapons, armor, bodies, textures etc. But nothing that effects sky, weather, lighting or anything else except ELFX, which I completely removed before attempting for the first time. The ENB actually looks better with it as it helps drain some light away.

I have the most up to date Steam version of the game with all 3 DLCs, all legit, nothing pirated.
I also checked the enb.local for forced video card but it wasn't there.

I could fool around with the injector again, I attempted it once already but couldn't get it to give me different results.

I may have to just wait it out on ENB until I replace this laptop.

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Re: Changes to exterior dont work

Interior and exterior are detected from sun shadow drawing, if it not drawed or drawed in some strange way (rendering pipeline changed), then it's interior. Or when depth can't be captured. Can you check if enbseries folder is empty and there only enbhelper.dll plugin and nothing else? May help.
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Re: Changes to exterior dont work

Hey. Thanks for helping me out, I appreciate it.

I made a few changes before I read your message. I attempted, based on a Google search idea, to install RCRN and use their Optimus DLL fix with the ENB (The other Optimus fix on the Nexus did nothing)

The issue is still present but seems slightly better. It now looks like the sun is still overwhelmingly powerful, but there are shadows on the ground and characters now, where before they were being improperly rendered. Previous to this I was getting a white horizon and nearly black near my characters feet. I believed it was in the ENB settings but given that its fixed with RCRNs patch (or the way it installed the enb?) im assuming that wasn't it.

I also noticed, after waiting a dozen or so days, that the sun is only overwhelming now during the day, and only when the weather settings are relatively clear.

I still cant make any adjustments to the ENB as no exterior settings work. Interior settings still do work.

I also attempted to play with disabling specific effects the enb uses but to no effect, very few except bloom had any significant change when switched on/off. Some slight color differences etc.

enbhelper is in the proper folder I believe. I had to move it to the main Skyrim folder with everything else as RCRN doesn't seem to recognize anything outside of the main folder.

Im not sure it helps, but here is my Skyrimprefs.ini General and Display settings.

[General]
fBrightLightColorB=1.0000
fBrightLightColorG=1.0000
fBrightLightColorR=1.0000
iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1
bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0
[Imagespace]
bDoDepthOfField=1
iRadialBlurLevel=1
[Display]
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3
fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000
fShadowDistance=4000
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048
iShadowSplitCount=2
iMaxAnisotropy=0
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=3600
fGamma=1.0000
fDecalLOD2=1500.0000
fDecalLOD1=1000.0000
fSpecularLODStartFade=1500
fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000
fLightLODStartFade=3500
iTexMipMapMinimum=0
iTexMipMapSkip=0
iWaterMultiSamples=0
iMultiSample=0
iShadowMode=3
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
bFull Screen=1
iSize H=768
iSize W=1366
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=3072
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=4096
iScreenShotIndex=2
bShadowMaskZPrepass=0
bMainZPrepass=0
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=10
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=30
bFloatPointRenderTarget=1
sD3DDevice="Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000"
bFXAAEnabled=0
iShadowMapResolution=2048
fShadowBiasScale=0.25
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iAdapter=0
iPresentInterval=1

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Re: Changes to exterior dont work

I found another large forum discussion on this topic with somebody having nearly the exact same issue as I am with the sky. The solution seems to be with the Skylighting effect (for them anyways). I cant modify it however, and disabling it doesn't seem to do anything either. It doesn't seem as if any changes I impact in the enb are reflected in the exterior.

Anyways, might be a thought to narrow down the problem.

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Re: Changes to exterior dont work

Setting you provided seems fine. Skylighting can be disabled only by manually editing enbseries.ini while game is not running. And it can't be the reason of issue.
How about to check if mod works at all? Did you try to watch at the sun behind walls? If it do not work, then often sun is visible behind walls (as bug). Or if you try to use ssao (ambient occlusion) or depth of field, these effects looks very buggy. Did you try this? If they do not work, then it means depth not captured, so there are much more serious issues (like antialiasing forced in nvidia control panel or it is still intel gpu running).
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Re: Changes to exterior dont work

Im not sure I understand how to turn off all the effects, but I have seen a lot of complaints about the sun coming through objects. I don't have that.

Im pretty sure the effects are working as the enb looks quite a bit better than the regular game, objects and images are sharper. It looks quite close to the screenshots on the Nexus enb site with the exception of the still blinding sun that I cant change. When I go in game to the effects (like bloom) and turn them on and off I do see a difference on the screen for some (but not all).

I do still suspect it could be something to do with my GPU. When I set up the monitor in the Nvidia control panel and start Skyrim, it shows that the Nvidia GPU is in use by the Skyrim exe. In the Nvidia control panel I have AA and all other features set to just let the application control them. I attempted previously to turn them off completely but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I will explore this depth of field thing a little bit more and poke around further.

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Re: Changes to exterior dont work

I don't know if its important, but here is something I just realized.

With the enb active and the RCRN fix. If I delete my Skyrimprefs.ini and render info, the launcher crashes when trying to redetect my GPU settings,

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Re: Changes to exterior dont work

I believe I found a solution.

I reinstalled my game to be safe (but I don't believe that was the problem), so once I reinstall all my mods and test it out for an hour or so I will reply after the weekend with a full detailing of the steps I took in case anybody else needs it.

If it is fixed, it was really an issue with Optimus that required a workaround. Right now the game detects my Nvidia drivers properly and doesn't seem to be piggybacking off the GPU but using it fully, this is reflected in a further FPS boost.
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