Every time I start it from Steam, it automatically detects settings and despite what is a really good rig, and despite it setting itself for 'high' settings, the game runs in standard aspect ratio. This makes it a teeny tiny box on my widescreen.

Help, please!

Yep, I get that. Is weird. Here is a screen by screen of what I see:

It sounds like your settings aren't being saved correctly in the ini file which should be in your my documents folder. So the game tries to auto detect the settings every time it starts. Look in my documents\my games\skyrim and see if you have a Skyrim.ini and skyrimprefs.ini

Yeah, I checked those .ini files and they were at 1600x900. I was trying my native desktop, which is 1920x1080. I've tried 1600 x 900 too. I checked the show all resolutions and it has everything from 4:3 and 5:4 to the 1920x1080.

It's like it just defaults, even though the box says 1920x1080 on the preferences, to 800x600 or something similar. It is quite small (less than 1/4 of the screen, obviously).

Yeah, it's disabled already. I'm flummoxed.

Taking my daughter to the KU game in a bit and maybe I'll think of something in the interim. Please keep any ideas coming!

Okay. I think I know what is happening but don't know how to fix. When it autodetects for high it goes still stays at 4:3 and 800x600. Then, if I click "default" it runs the autodetect procedure again, and again says high. But after that, the resolution will read 1920x1080. I hit okay (there is not an apply button, it seems). If I hit play, it still plays in the tiny window of smaller resolution and 4:3 ratio.

If I click options again, it is back to showing 800x600 even though nothing has been changed. I think it is just not saving the resolution. I check the .ini files though and they read correctly.

Here's my specs:


Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 960 @ 3.20GHz
Mem_Capacity: 4096MB
Mem_BankLabel: DIMM #1
Mem_Type: DDR3
Mem_Bandwidth: PC3-10660 (1333 MHz)
Mem_Frequency: 1336MHz
Memory Module
Mem_Capacity: 4096MB
Mem_BankLabel: DIMM #2
Mem_Type: DDR3
Mem_Bandwidth: PC3-10660 (1333 MHz)
Mem_Frequency: 1336MHz
Memory Module
Mem_Capacity: 4096MB
Mem_BankLabel: DIMM #3
Mem_Type: DDR3
Mem_Bandwidth: PC3-10660 (1333 MHz)
Mem_Frequency: 1336MHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580

Make sure the ini files are not write protected.

If that doesn't help, change the resolution in the ini files manually, then write protect the files so that the setup program doesn't screw anything up.

Make sure it is SkyrimPrefs.ini that is being changed.

Mine is

bFull Screen=1
iSize H=1050
iSize W=1680

Don't know if that helps or not.

Guys, thanks. I looked at those too. I registered over there and posted.

Here is a guy who has the exact same thing. It's a shame. I may end up buying the console one, I guess....

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1257063-resolution-problems/

Hang in there Airdrop a fix is bound to come up. With it being new it just may take a little longer for the troubleshooters to pinpoint it and come up with something.

How about trying a simple reinstall? And after it installs, restart the computer first before starting it. I know that nowadays you don't really have to do that but that's what I did for the heck of it before I started it.

this. Chances are it's not running with admin privs and that means that the My Documents folder and subfolders are "protected" and windows won't let the game write to them.
Have you also tried editing the .ini files manually and then making them read only?

Thanks again, fellas. Re-downloading now to see (I'm sure it wasn't but worth a shot) if that was a problem. Then, I'll try the kramer's and no use's ideas. I did check to make sure they weren't read only yesterday. I manually edited the inis, saved and made them read only afterward, but still no joy. I'll try the other ones and that tool too. I've got the newest drivers (but not the beta ones).

I'm looking and finding more folks with the issue at the Bethesda threads but no one official appears to be reading it and those threads go to page 90 after like an hour! I remember now why I got a console to begin with in my old age LOL.

Long shot, but to me it sounds like the folder it's writing the settings too and the folder it's reading from are different. Maybe something to do with User Profiles. I know it sounds weird but it's something I learned in programming that whenever I know I have a variable set somewhere and the output is wrong it's usually because the program is accessing a different variable somewhere.

You can download Sysinternals Process Monitor or what's it called these days, see if Skyrim is really touching the .ini file when you load the game. I do not believe if it's properly reading the file that it would ignore the data.

Unless it thinks the file is corrupt. Have you tried removing everything from MyGames/Skryim, let it recreate these files at first load, then edit them by hand?

Where do you have Steam and Skyrim installed ?
If your running Vista or Win7 and you have it installed in Program Files or Program Files (x86) it could be UAC that's causing problems.
Best not to install any games to those locations then UAC wont stick its nose in where its not wanted.

Not sure if this makes a difference or not. I noticed that you had a check mark in the box for run in windowed mode.

Yeah, I've tried it both windowed and not windowed. I swear, this place is great. People with no reason to help other than the sake of others. I love it. Thanks again.

Almost done downloading it. Will take my boy to a soccer game and run some errands and then try again.

Mark, it is in the Program Files (x86). I'm the owner/admin but if there's something I can do to fix, I'll try.

Will try.

I just reinstalled. I don't have any Skyrim folder in the "My Games" folder in that directory. There is:

Panzer Corps
Civ 5
Wings of Prey

Back to the drawing board I suppose!

Tried that too just now. Same result. No joy.

That will be it then. UAC (User Account Control) treats anything installed there as protected and wont allow changes to it, being the owner/admin doesn't matter. there are ways around it but the best bet is not to install games there in the first place.
As all Steam games get automatically installed to the main Steam folder you would have to reinstall the Steam client elsewhere, A separate drive is best but if that's not possible then another folder on your C drive will do.

Agreed on moving it. Best thing is to have another partition to install your games on. At very least create another directory for games if you just have the 1 drive and partition. Always install there to avoid issues. Vista/7 just don't like games writing to the default directory.

If you don't have my documents/my games/skyrim where tge saves and three settings files should be then something is seriously wrong. Likely a permissions problem.

Oh and for testing you can copy the skyrim install folder around and directly launch tesv.exe, you don't need to modify Steam as Skyrim will happily run without Steam.

Okay. I think I got it. I have no idea why this happened.

It looks to me like for some reason the "owner" of the "My Games" folder was not open to me (I'm the only 'administrator' user on the system (there is another account set up for my kids with all sorts of filters, etc.). I found this out when I tried to manually put a skyrimprefs.ini file from the Steamaps folder into the Skyrim folder I manually made in "my games." It let me do this, but when I went to edit the copied file in my games, which went fine, and then save it, it refused to let me. I thus googled the permission/owner thing and came up with something else to try.

Yet another reason why I should (wifey!!) have a dedicated rig for ME and they can have their Facebook, Poptropica, Webkins and miscellaneous garbage machine.

Anyway, my guess is the software wasn't being allowed to put items in the 'my games' location. I got down to this after moving Steam to my unused D drive, which still didn't help (but did take a long time).

Then I was about to erase the whole thing and impose said "you will now have your own computer for what you do and we'll buy it at Costco and you won't touch mine" rule when I figured out I should check ownership of those folders.

I haven' had issues with other games, but maybe they put their stuff in their own spot.

Anyway, it seems to work.

Does anyone know what would cause folders I started with having full access to all of a sudden restricted??

Here is the link I used to figure this out in case anyone else has this problem of "ownership."

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/windows-7-access-denied-permission-ownership/

I'm going to cut and past this to the Bethesda forums.

I swear, pc gaming is a young man's game (or else someone with lots more free time than I have...!).

Welcome back to Tamriel...

And if you ever need to reinstall/move Steam like he was doing, you can take the steamapps folder (from your Steam directory) and copy it to a safe location. Then after reinstalling Steam copy the folder back into the new Steam directory, start Steam and ask it to "verify local game cache" for the games that you had installed before.