Skyrim is black flashing Randomly when sli is enabled

[Carry On!]

I have been playing Skyrim in my system and with SLI enabled I have found that the screen is flashing black rapidly and at that time the sound also skips for some seconds and after that things appear to be fine but then this happened mostly when I am playing the game and walking through a forested area, the same does not happens in town and all, I have tried playing the game with walking through a forested area by selecting it form the nvidia control panel keeping the SLI enabled and I have found that the same black flashing happens there as well but then it is not that frequent, I think that there is some issue with the black flashing, I have checked out for the same and I have not found anyone to be reporting the same by now,I also wanted to add that I am having a 120Hz monitor and I have tried to capture the flashing with FRAPS but then I don’t know why it just recording at 60fps, I have tried capturing the same but then I have not got any success, is there anyone who has faced the same and has an idea in fixing it out??

[Dhaani]

I have been playing Skyrim in my system and with SLI enabled I have found that the screen is flashing black rapidly and at that time the sound also skips for some seconds and after that things appear to be fine but then this happened mostly when I am playing the game and walking through a forested area, the same does not happens in town and all, I have tried playing the game with walking through a forested area by selecting it form the nvidia control panel keeping the SLI enabled and I have found that the same black flashing happens there as well but then it is not that frequent, I think that there is some issue with the black flashing, I have checked out for the same and I have not found anyone to be reporting the same by now,I also wanted to add that I am having a 120Hz monitor and I have tried to capture the flashing with FRAPS but then I don’t know why it just recording at 60fps, I have tried capturing the same but then I have not got any success, is there anyone who has faced the same and has an idea in fixing it out??

Before I suggest you something about the same I just wanted to know your system specification, just post it here so that I can have a better idea of the issue that you are facing and I will try to help you further, other than this I also wanted you to just try out the below settings and then let me know what response you are getting for them:

• SLI enabled + low settings
• SLI enabled + low settings + vsync disabled
• SLI enabled,+ run monitor at 60Hz
• SLI disabled + run monitor at 120Hz

Just check out these things and then let me know the response that you get for them.

[Carry On!]

Below are the requested information:
System specification:

• i7 2600k OC'd to 4.4GHz
• 8GB RAM
• GTX 580 SLI
• 285.79 Beta drivers
• Windows 7 x64

Test result:

• SLI enabled + low settings - black flashing
• SLI enabled + low settings + vsync disabled - black flashing
• SLI enabled,+ run monitor at 60Hz- No black flashing
• SLI disabled + run monitor at 120Hz - No black flashing

I just wanted to share that I have never faced the same in any of the games that I have played so far, I know that sli is not working out great for many people and there are some issues with the same but then I think that this can be fixed with some drivers update, I am not sure if the issue is just in my case as I have mentioned in the very first post that I have not come around one having the same issue so I am pretty much confused regarding what is causing the issue.

[Kunal ?]

I just wanted to add that you are just not the one having this issue as I am facing the same in my case as well, I am having the below system.

• MSI 560 Ti Hawks IN SLi
• 285.79 Drivers
• i7 920 @3.8 stable
• Have not overclocked the GPU's
• 6GB G,Skill Ram

I have come across the black flashing in mountains and while wandering in the forest as you have already mentioned, I have found that when the black flashing then there is some kind of sound distortion as well but then it stops after some seconds and then things appears back to normal, by now I have tried disabling the Vsync by going in to the control panel but then it is just not making any difference but then the issue does not appears as soon as I disable SLi, I think that there is some kind of driver issue but then I am not very sure about the same as I am not having any such issue with other games, I also wanted to add that some time the game just crashes as well in between without giving any error message, so now I am just running out of ideas? Have you found any solution to get rid of this?

[AjunD^Rock]

I think that I can help you guys here, I was having the same issue previously but then after a lot of research I was finally able to solve it out, the fix is using FPS Limiter for limiting the framerate to 100 and after that the issue will disappear in SLI mode as well, for those who are not aware of the FPS Limiter, it is a utility which basically helps in capping Frames Per Second and helps in limiting the same as well, as far as the installation process is concerned you will just have to download it and after that extract antilag.cfg and d3d9.ddl to your skyrim folder which is basically in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\. Here I just wanted to add that you will have to v-sync on in your GPU control panel so as to avoid tearing, here the same wont work for Amd cards and Optimus cards but then it will surely work out for Nvidia cards as I have tried out the same in my case.
RenderAheadLimit: You will have to limit no of frames for reducing input lag by default it will be 0
FPSlimit: You will have to limit this for smoother gameplay by default it will be 0 you will have to change it to 0 to disable
If you want then you can also try using the file in conjunction with ENBSeries.ini but then for that you will have to follow the below solution:

• Fist rename FPS Limiter's D3D9.dll to D3D9FL.dll and then move the same to the Skyrim folder
• When you are done with the same then just open the ENBSeries.ini and edit "ProxyLibrary=PathToDLL" to "D3D9FL.dll" other than this just make sure that you are setting "EnableProxyLibrary=xx" & "InitProxyFunctions=xx" to true, if you miss this out then it will not load the additional required dll files, so dint forget it.

Just try out the same and then let me know if the issue is getting solved or not, if you have any further queries then feel free to ask.

[Carry On!]

I am really thankful to you for posting that as I have tried out following the above solution and it has really helped me out, the reason I think it has worked out for me is because I am having a 60Hz monitor because of which 60Hz monitor is running smoothly, I am just feeling lucky to come around this solution and now I am enjoying the game and everything is working fine now, I know that it is a temporary issue but then I think that it is the best one until nvidia/Bethesda come with an fix for this, anyways I just wanted to ask that have you noticed any difference in performance/stutter/lag etc when you have set the pre-rendered frames to by going in the nVidia control panel, any further help for the same will be highly appreciated.

[Dhaani]

It good to hear that you have solved out the issue, actually I was checking about the same and I was thinking that there was some issue with the irregular mouse input across X/Y axis or it is something related to the FPS / Vsync, I have come across some people who were having the same issue and they had mentioned that the issue was solved in their case by having Vsync on, anyways I just wanted to know from ….. that how does this utility work, I mean are the two files that has been mentioned in your post 2 extra config files or they are .dll of the Skyrim directory for enabling some kind of options and so, can you just let me know about the same in detail???

[AjunD^Rock]

In that case I will like to inform you that the dll basically gets modified by the txt file we just have to change two variables, they are the ones that I have mentioned in the post, in my ae I am not having any issue and the game is just working fine with with FPS limit at 100 along with the pre-rendered frame setting at 0, so here I don’t think any in game settings is getting added, anyways you have mentioned something about x/y mouse axis? Actually I have been facing the same and things get worst when I am moving towards the counter top or table and so, this mostly happens when the frame rates are really high and it has become uniform in my case after limiting the frames to 100, can you just let me know if there is a solution for that, it seems as if you are aware of it.

[Dhaani]

Yes I am aware of it there are some Tweaks that you can try out for improving the Skyrim with .ini File and they are as followed:

• Disabling mouse smoothing/acceleration:
  First go to the Steam Directory -> steamapps -> common -> skyrim -> Skyrim and then make a backup of the SkyrimPrefs.ini file and then open the file and move down to bMouseAcceleration=1 and just change the same to bMouseAcceleration=0 and then save it and exit.

• Fixing the vsync “laggy mouse” problem:
  First go to the Steam Directory -> steamapps -> common -> skyrim -> Skyrim and then make a backup of the SkyrimPrefs.ini file and then open the file and move down to [Display] and just add iPresentInterval=0 at the bottom of the section and then save it and exit.

• For changing the FOV
  First go in to My Documents -> My Games -> Skyrim -> skyrim then make a backup of the SkyrimPrefs.ini file and then open the file and move down to general and then add fdefaultfov=XX (where XX is the FOV value you want to change to) at the bottom of the section and then save it and exit.

• Fir enabling tree and rock self-shadowing:
  First go in to My Documents -> My Games -> Skyrim -> skyrim then make a backup of the SkyrimPrefs.ini file and then open the file and move down to bTreesReceiveShadows=0 and then change the same to bTreesReceiveShadows=1 and then save it and exit.

Just try these things out and then let me know if they are helping.