Pixilated Shadows with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Hei]

I have a fresh install of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. While installation, I clicked on the advanced and then set that to the highest. When I started the game then I found that it was showing some Pixilated Shadows. This is very strange and I am not able to get this problem resolved. So I am leaving this question over here and I hope that I will get the solution for this soon.

[Irene-I]

If your system is not satisfying the minimum requirement of the game then there is possibility that you can get the issues like this. So my suggestion to you is to compare your system specification with the minimum system requirement for the game and it will give you idea that if this is due to low system configuration.

[DaAusPicious]

Is there anyone who has played around with this more? I have been scouring the web for the past 2 hours trying to find a way to get rid of the blocky shadows without destabilizing the game or ruining long distance shadows. Will 1000/2000 (interior/normal) shadow distance accomplish this? There are tons of other tweaks that have been posted to fix this and I'm just not sure what to think anymore.

[DougWison]

I have tried with the distance fix and it worked to a point. I got as low as 600 interior and there were still jaggie shadows but they weren't as drastic. I also raised all the shadow map resolution entries to 4096 and made sure to launch from the main exe (if you use the launcher it supposedly resets some values). While the combination of these two changes did improve things, it decreased FPS significantly. I'm hoping someone will come up with a mod or Bethesda can fix this w/o ruining frame rate. I'm convinced it's a bug because it happens even on ultra and it's very widespread. It wouldn't make sense that the shadows closest to you are the least detailed. With the default ultra settings, shadows that are a medium distance away look fine.

[Ashley Parker]

The draw distance determines how far your shadow map is 'stretched', so having a low figure (like 400) means it can be nicely condensed and detailed. Setting it to a high figure (like the ultra default of 8000) means that shadow map gets spread across a much larger area for greater view distance on shadows, but also stretches it into a blocky mess.

[Shae]

We have done a few experimenting through this in different shadow and it seems 4096 is the highest you can go for shadow map resolution in exteriors. However, it is not capped for interiors and setting the shadow map to 8192 makes a significant difference for me. Not just in detail of shadows though but performance too. I dropped from 60fps in a well lit area with shadows using Ultra defaults to about 35fps when I doubled the shadow map resolution to 8192. It practically halved my frame rate.

[Wyl]

May be reinstalling the game solve the problem for you as in many of the similar issues get solved with this.

[Bageshri27]

While the consolidation of the aforementioned several modifications did upgrade things, it diminished FPS altogether. I'm trusting someone will concocted a mod or Bethesda can alter this w/o destroying edge rate. I'm persuaded its a bug for the reason that it happens even on ultra and its absolutely far reaching.