Distorted lighting effects using ENB Vividian

[Valtarien]

After completing all the steps detailed in SRLE (9/1/2014) and starting the game, I'm greeted with highly distorted lighting visuals (see screenshot). I've followed the guide to the letter, but I'll paste in the contents of my enblocal at the bottom of this post for clarity. Can anyone help in diagnosing the problem? FYI: I'm running twin XFX Radeon HD 7850 1GB graphics cards in Crossfire.

[PROXY]EnableProxyLibrary=trueInitProxyFunctions=trueProxyLibrary=d3d9_smaa.dll[GLOBAL]UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics=falseUseDefferedRendering=trueIgnoreCreationKit=trueForceFakeVideocard=false[PERFORMANCE]SpeedHack=trueEnableOcclusionCulling=false[MULTIHEAD]ForceVideoAdapterIndex=falseVideoAdapterIndex=0[MEMORY]ExpandSystemMemoryX64=trueReduceSystemMemoryUsage=trueDisableDriverMemoryManager=trueDisablePreloadToVRAM=falseEnableUnsafeMemoryHacks=falseReservedMemorySizeMb=128VideoMemorySizeMb=EnableCompression=trueAutodetectVideoMemorySize=true[WINDOW]ForceBorderless=falseForceBorderlessFullscreen=false[ENGINE]ForceAnisotropicFiltering=trueMaxAnisotropy=16ForceLodBias=falseLodBias=0.0AddDisplaySuperSamplingResolutions=falseEnableVSync=trueVSyncSkipNumFrames=0[LIMITER]WaitBusyRenderer=falseEnableFPSLimit=falseFPSLimit=10.0[INPUT]//shiftKeyCombination=16//f12KeyUseEffect=123//homeKeyFPSLimit=36//num /       106KeyShowFPS=106//print screenKeyScreenshot=44//enterKeyEditor=13//f4KeyFreeVRAM=115[ADAPTIVEQUALITY]Enable=falseQuality=1DesiredFPS=20.0[ANTIALIASING]EnableEdgeAA=trueEnableTemporalAA=falseEnableSubPixelAA=trueEnableTransparencyAA=false[FIX]FixGameBugs=trueFixParallaxBugs=trueFixAliasedTextures=trueIgnoreInventory=trueFixSsaoHairTransparency=trueFixTintGamma=trueRemoveBlur=falseFixSubSurfaceScattering=trueFixSkyReflection=trueFixCursorVisibility=true

[Neovalen]

Try disabling crossfire and see if the situation improves.

[Valtarien]

Disabling ENB  Crossfire had no effect. I'm still left with the distortion. If I disable ENB, the distortion disappears, but of course the graphics don't look quite right since it's configured for ENB Vividian.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Valtarien

[Aiyen]

But did disabling crossfire fix it ? Any issues what so ever when running multicard setups on any game.. you first try to disable one of the cards. 

 

If the problem persist using just one card then we can work from there. 

[Valtarien]

Sorry, I misstated eariler: disabling Crossfire had no effect. Disabling ENB does resolve the distortion.

[Aiyen]

Try to disable the effects one by one and see if it is any one of those in particular that is the cause. You do this under EFFECTS in enbseries.ini and you can do this from ingame by pressing shift + enter... the tab will be open by default. 

[hishutup]

disable speedhack... It does weird stuff...

disable the proxy for testing..

If it isn't those then your card is seriously messed up because Skyrim works on almost all newer cards...

 

VM windows on a Mac does weird stuff like that... fixable though

Edited September 2, 2014 by hishutup

[Valtarien]

Thanks all, for your suggestions. I resolved the distortion, by taking the following steps: 1) Updating the Catalyst drivers to the latest beta, 2) Not creating a separate application settings profile for TESV.exe. I had performed the latter as part of a prior STEP 229 installation, and just assumed would apply with SRLE.

I then was greeted with a an alternating black flickering face. To resolve this, I disabled the [Display] iTintTextureResolution=2048 tweak in the SRLE guide (section 5.1.1). The black flickering is now gone, but in its place was a flickering blurred face. Oddly enough, disabling Crossfire again brought back the original distortion problem I had initially. By re-enabling Crossfire, and disabling ENB during character creation using shift+F12, I removed the all currently noticeable issues. Unfortunately, re-enabling END brings back a terribly blurry screen. I will next try the suggestions mentioned in the preceding posts.

By the way, I have already encountered other reports of blurry DOF with ENB + Crossfire, and potential solutions here, here, and here. Unfortunately, in the first two, the directions only seem to apply to certain versions of the AMD Catalyst Control Center, since I am unable to access the "Assassin's Creed Brotherhood" profile through the 14.7 Catalyst version. In the last, I don't wish to fudge up SKSE to get ENB to work; the former is much more important, IMO.

 

I'll continue to post here all my findings for anyone else who might run into similar issues.

 

P.S. Does anyone have a 'cheat sheet' to re-configuring SRLE without ENB (just using ENBoost, like in STEP)? I'm not terribly picky about eye-candy, mostly just the gameplay and fixit mods. If not, I'll figure it out myself if it comes to that.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Valtarien

[Valtarien]

Upon trying with the updated Catalyst drivers, I was able to eliminate the blurriness with the method described here and here. Unfortunately, the distortion is back, like in the beginning. This seems to happen whenever I create a custom 3D application profile* for TESV.exe (which the previously referenced instructions require, to eliminate the blurriness with ENB + Crossfire). So in essence, if I want to remove the distortion, I get the blurriness, and if I want to remove the blurriness, I get the distortion. Since others have posted success in removing blurriness with a similar setup to mine, I'm inclined to stick with this method and see if I can get rid of the distortion. The latter issue seems an outlier, from what I have found. Here is another screenshot of what I'm seeing. I will keep trying disabling various ENB settings, as suggested before, but if this is familiar to anyone, please let me know. Disabling the proxy in enblocal.ini did not help, and I already had the speed hack disabled. I do not believe there is anything wrong with my cards, since I've played many other 3D games without issue.

 

* Customized with the Assassin's Creed Crossfire settings, and the rest according to STEP instructions here.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Valtarien

[DefyVelocity]

Launch Skyrimlauncher.exe from MO and disable Antialiasing and Anisoptric filtering. I know that you've probably already done this, but the same thing happened to me and I later found out that it randomly enabled them again from the Skyrimlauncher.exe.

 

If that's not it, try installing the enb without ENB manager. I know that this makes your Skyrim directory "not vanilla", but as long as you remove the d3d9.dll, then the ENB won't work and nothing is affected if you want to play vanilla. Personally, ENB manager only made ENB installation more difficult for me 😊

[Nozzer66]

If you're talking about character design screen with a DOF enabled ENB, the blur is a known issue. It's just the DOF doing that. My suggestion would be to open the ENB options (Shift + Enter) turn the DOF off for character creation and then re-enable when back out in the game.

[Valtarien]

Thanks again for the good advice. As it turns out, I turned off the DOF in the enbseries.ini (EnableDepthOfField=false) after reading that DOF was the culprit in causing blurriness with my setup. I don't miss it, so I may just leave it that way.

 

In order to get rid of the distortion, I specified TESV.exe as a pre-defined profile in the CrossfireX Mode setting, in my custom TESV.exe 3D application profile. I know that sounds redundant, and perhaps it is, but given the path I took to get to that point, it seemed the most sensible next step.

 

So far, the only issue I have now is that Skyrim with SRLE drops to the desktop when selecting food or the items menu (possibly others not discovered yet).

[phazer11]

You're using the SKSE .ini, and other ini edits, as well as having completed the Conflict Resolution portion of Neo's guide?

[Valtarien]

Yes, I followed the SRLE guide in its entirety.

[Valtarien]

In the end, here is what I discovered: due to my inexperience in using ENBs, and consequently the ENB Manager program, I specified an incorrect palette. According to the SRLE instructions (rev. 2014-09-07):

Open ENB Manager and Changer. *Note: Do NOT run this through Mod Organizer. DO run this as an Administrator.* On the "Files" pane, click [Add]. Navigate to <Mod Organizer Path>/mods/Vividian - Weather - Lighting Enhancement/Vividian ENB Install Files then select all files and folders contained within except enblocal.ini and click [Add].

 

By doing this, the file "EED_verasansmono.bmp" appears at the top of the palette box, and since I didn't know any better, I left it there, selected. This was the cause of my distortion, but only by gaining experience with the tool and typical ENB structures did I finally discover it as such. You may wish to make a note of this in the guide, lest other newbies (to ENB, anyway) get led astray as I had.

 

By the way, may I make just a quick plug for SkyTweak? Seems to me that this is a perfect addition to the tweaker's paradise that SRLE seems to be.