Lighting bug please help!

[RyanH99]

I have had skyrim for about a month now and have been able to run it on medium graphics settings with gamebooster on (my laptop is absolute crap) I have not encountered any bugs until now.
I dont know what I did but now when I walk in a shady area (like under a tree or close to a house) the whole screen darkens and looks really horrible. I have tried everything i could think of to fix this. I have put my shadow settings to high, I updated my graphics card (again) and I even re-downloaded skyrim. Nothing works.

As you can see there is a screenshot of helgen as i was standing in the shadows

Details:
My Graphics adapter is an AMD M880G with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200
I have a 64-bit windows 7 PC
I know almost nothing about computers

Was there a Skyrim update recently that made this happen? Steam likes to update everything without telling me so i dont know.

I appreciate any help that you can give.
Thank you for your help

Oh and BTW sorry that im probably in the wrong section of the forums. Im a noob

 

[Rod Sandz]

Have you tried deactivating FXAA effects in the Advanced options?

 

[RyanH99]

That didn't work, but it did make my game run faster. It doesnt have the lines but everything still gets dark when i go in the shade.
Thanks anyways.

 

[Rod Sandz]

Does the darkness effect last for 1 or 2 seconds and then goes away?
The game does have an "eye adjustment" effect, that usually happens when quickly changing your sight from different light sources.

If not, try updating you catalyst drivers. I've seen multiple posts describing different visual bugs brought upon with the recent game update. Specially for ATi users.

 

[RyanH99]

Does the darkness effect last for 1 or 2 seconds and then goes away?
The game does have an "eye adjustment" effect, that usually happens when quickly changing your sight from different light sources.

If not, try updating you catalyst drivers. I've seen multiple posts describing different visual bugs brought upon with the recent game update. Specially for ATi users.

The darkness stays intill I move around.
I updated my drivers a month or two ago and updated them again after this problem. I have seen a different post that showed a visual bug that could be fixed by getting an earlier version of catalyst. Should i do that?
Seems like nobody else on the internet has the same problem as me.

 

[RyanH99]

Would updating my DirectX help? I dont really know how
I have DirectX 11

 

[Rod Sandz]

Nah, this is not a DX related issue.
Sounds like a video card incompatibility.

The game is giving a graphic instruction that your video card cannot process correctly.
Try changing Shadow quality from low to high, as well as Radial Blur.

Also, check out this post in gamespot. You might find a solution there:

Guide on how to fix Skyrim's shadows. - GameSpot.com

 

[RyanH99]

Well, for some reason I cant see screenshots on gamespot and radial blur and shadow quality on high make no difference.
I emailed bethesda explaining my problem but I dont know when they will get back to me. Until then I guess i can't play skyrim.
Thanks for all the advice.

 

[Bradwerd]

dude i hope u check this post again.. ive had the same problem.. it started recently and bethesda wont help because they say i dont have 512mb of dedicated memory on my graphics card when i really do but theyre stupid anyway because they make u send a dxdiag report and i guess the support guy cant read so yeah... but anyways like you, i have tried everything to get my game working again... before about a week ago i would play the game on high settings and have already completed the main story line and randomly it started doing the same thing your explaining... as i walk around the lighting will go completely dark or extremely light and theres lines on the screen in splotches of shadpws... it sucks because no matter what help i get it doesnt change anything... and now customer support pretty much told me im screwed because they're idiots that cant do thier jobs or are too lazy to do so? im not sure but yeah i cant even play the game now cuz the lighting bug is sooo bad... and i asked if it was possible to restore my game to a earlier version of it like before the last patch when i played and everything was fine and they said no... idk what to do... someone pleasee help!

 

[Bradwerd]

@ Rod Sandz, me and ryans problem isnt the shadow bug like in your post.. those people are fixing a minor bug caused by flickering shadows as the time changes.. me and ryans problem is a full on lighting catastrophy...

 

[RyanH99]

@ Rod Sandz, me and ryans problem isnt the shadow bug like in your post.. those people are fixing a minor bug caused by flickering shadows as the time changes.. me and ryans problem is a full on lighting catastrophy...

Its good to know im not the only one who has this problem.
I have emailed bethesda and if I get any information about fixing this problem I'll be sure to let you know.

 

[RyanH99]

So, I got an email from one of the tech support guys at bethesda and apparantly they are releasing a 1.5.3 patch update that will fix this problem.
I dont think its out yet because my update history in steam hasn't got it, but I guess it will be out any day now.
I hope that solves our problem.

 

[Rayven]

This is in addition to 1.5.26?

 

[Gigli]

I have same problem.

 

[Bradwerd]

i hope its soon i havent played skyrim in days

 

[Rod Sandz]

Hey there,

By any chance have you guys installed any graphic tweak Mods to the game?
Or have you edited the preferences .ini file?

Seems strange that the game was working fine, and suddenly got all messed up.
I still believe it's some king of software/hardware incompatibility with your graphic cards.

If that's the case, you might want to try backing up your save files, do a clean reinstall of the game (with no updates or mods) and reload your save games. I'm pretty sure that should clear up the problem and hold ya until that new patch comes along.

Hey Bradwerd and Gigli; by any chance are you guys using ATi video cards too? Are they dedicated cards or integrated (shared system memory)?

 

[Bradwerd]

ATI yes, dedicated and 515 dedicated memory and 2 gb total.. and no i dont use mods and ive tried re installing its unplayable without the first update which also includes the latest update

 

[Bradwerd]

Umm so whens this new update i keep hearing about? anyone know?? i actually paid 15.99$ for a month of WoW lol... i stopd playing when i got skyrim cause im already a glad this season on my Rshammy and my feral lolz... plops gets boring i wanna play skyrim so bad

 

[Rod Sandz]

They new patch will prolly be here in a day or two... It's funny since the pirate version of the update (cracked) is already out..

Anyways, why don't you try rolling back your catalyst drivers?
Try to remember what drivers you had when the game was working fine, and install those.

Btw, I don't get when you say "dedicated and 515 dedicated memory" Do you mean 512Mb of video memory?
What model ATi card do you have?

If you don't know, click the windows logo (or start menu on XP), and in the search bar (Run on XP) type: "Dxdiag" w/o quotes and hit enter. Go to the display tab and see Name, Chip type and Approx Total Memory.

 

[Bradwerd]

when the game stopd working right i had the same driver as when it worked.. now its a new one but its still messed up. i have a dxdiag report already and yeah i mean 512mb