Performance issues with a beasty config (IMO)

[nico53laval]

I've run thrgouh everything recommended by STEP (including texture optimizing to 2048K), set the viewing distance to 7 and I've installed a few mods (Immersive Environments instead of RCRN, Amazing Follower Tweaks, Script Dragon with POS1 horse spawn, auto level... and some body and hair mods). I've enabled VSync because without it, I experience huge tearing issues. But with it, I sometimes drop to 40 or 30 and that makes the whole game feel laggy although those frame rates should be quite acceptable. Also, I experience some freezes and (rarely) CTDs but that's the less important issue to me. The question is : why does that when I've got a far better config than the STEP writer (sorry, forgotten his name ^^).

AMD Phenom II *4 965 BE @ 3800 MHz

Gigabyte GTX 670 @ 1360 MHz max core and 6400 max memory

8 gigs of Kingston HyperX genesis @ 1600 MHz

defragmented HDD (no SSD)

Skyrim v 1.5

Thanks for your help and advice.

[MadWizard25]

Odd. How are you disabling vsync? Via the skyrim ini tweak or using the nvidia control panel? If your still getting tearing even with fps cap, then something is wrong. Your settings and changes may not be getting applied properly.

 

What sort of tearing are you getting btw? Is it scrolling/ moving? Or static? That could help pin point the issue.

 

Edit: I still think that you may overhigh expectations with your rig, regarding skyrim. Im pretty sure even with the newest cards, you cant max out skyrim with *all* the possible eye candy tweaks. You should expect fps differences in exterior scenes if you have a modded skyrim, with large fps drops when transitioning. These can be high enough to make a smooth game feel laggy.

[nico53laval]

Odd. How are you disabling vsync? Via the skyrim ini tweak or using the nvidia control panel? If your still getting tearing even with fps cap, then something is wrong. Your settings and changes may not be getting applied properly.

 

What sort of tearing are you getting btw? Is it scrolling/ moving? Or static? That could help pin point the issue.

 

Edit: I still think that you may overhigh expectations with your rig, regarding skyrim. Im pretty sure even with the newest cards, you cant max out skyrim with *all* the possible eye candy tweaks. You should expect fps differences in exterior scenes if you have a modded skyrim, with large fps drops when transitioning. These can be high enough to make a smooth game feel laggy.

I'm getting one big horizontal tearing line somewhere (anywhere) on the screen whenever I move the mouse up. I disabled VSync in the .ini and set it to Application controlled in the control panel. I think it may be a drivers issue since I tried out some games I didn't play with on my new GPU and I've got low FPS even in Darksiders (!) and some tearing in Anno 1404 (with VSync)

[MadWizard25]

Yep, if other games also have low fps, then either its a bad gpu or a bad driver. Hope you get it fixed!

[LeetMiniWheat]

BTW, if you purchase a 1000 bucks GPU, you should at least know about adaptive VSync.

adaptive vsync sucks, I can't stand the horizontal line tearing. and it still results in occasional skipping as the GPU takes like 100-200 ms to flip vsync off or on.

[Freyrgjurd]

I have an I7 3770K, 16Gb RAM, SSD and a GTX 670.

 

With High Quality SSAO, 4xMSAA in game, 4xTrSSAA and ENB I'll be arround 30.5 ~ 45 fps.

All max textures and mods that STEP suggests.

 

I leave VSync App-Controlled and via NVIDIA Inspector, CAP to 58 fps. It reduces the input lag a lot.

Even with vanilla, vsync + cap 58 is the way to go, for me at least.

 

I use ENB for the shadow engine fix.

[JudgmentJay]

I too have an absurdly powerful PC, and the only time I drop below 60fps is when I'm overlooking Whiterun with the Beautiful Whiterun mod enabled (50fps). I game at 2560x1600, 4x AA, 4x TrAA, 8x AF, maximum resolution textures from the STEP guide, and RCRN. Vsync is enabled. While my FPS is great, I do get stuttering when loading textures due to being VRAM capped (2gb). I assume there's nothing I can do to alleviate this except buy video cards with 4+ gb vram?

[torminater]

optimize your textures using ddsopt or texture optimizer.

[JudgmentJay]

optimize your textures using ddsopt or texture optimizer.

Yeah, I use it without the resize option. When I resize textures to 1k my vram caps out at about 1.6gb and all stutter is eliminated. Unfortunately the game looks very noticeably worse. So basically I have to decide if I want amazing textures, some stutter, and no Skyrim Distance Overhaul or less amazing textures, no stutter, and Skyrim Distance Overhaul.

[torminater]

then resize to 2k. there's no need for you to go to 1k textures immediately.

or use ddsopt, which is a lot better tool in my opinion. it has a new beta, if you want to check it out, it has it's own thread in this forum.

[JudgmentJay]

then resize to 2k. there's no need for you to go to 1k textures immediately.

or use ddsopt, which is a lot better tool in my opinion. it has a new beta, if you want to check it out, it has it's own thread in this forum.

Hmm, I had assumed that since most of my textures were around 2k it wouldn't make a big difference. I'll try it out though, as well as check out the ddsopt program. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

EDIT: Also going to try out disabling Aero to free up ~100-200mb of vram since I'm fairly certain I'm right on the threshold of 2gb usage.

[JudgmentJay]

So I noticed that I get heavy stuttering around Ivarstead even if I'm nowhere near my maximum VRAM. This even happened on a vanilla install when I was only using like 1100mb of VRAM. There's absolutely no reason for this... my PC is a monster. I tried disabling vsync, increasing the maximum number of pre-rendered frames, running in single GPU mode instead of SLI, and running in windowed mode. Windowed mode seemed to help a tiny amount (not nearly enough), but everything else was worthless. As I said it was a vanilla install, so no mods/hd textures were used. Any ideas?

[frihyland]

Poorly optimized meshes and/or scripting can bring any machine to its knees. You might try running just USKP and SMIM and see if it makes a difference.

[JudgmentJay]

Poorly optimized meshes and/or scripting can bring any machine to its knees. You might try running just USKP and SMIM and see if it makes a difference.

Both are part of my normal install, so no luck there.

[torminater]

Poorly optimized meshes and/or scripting can bring any machine to its knees. You might try running just USKP and SMIM and see if it makes a difference.

Both are part of my normal install, so no luck there.

he meant to only apply SMIM and USKP to a vanilla install. leave out all of the other mods.

[JudgmentJay]

Blarg. Well I don't plan on re-installing again, but I'll definitely try that next time I'm about to. Any other suggestions? I don't think it could be HDD-related as I'm using 2 Intel 520 SSDs in raid0.

 

EDIT: Reading this thread gave me some good ideas to try.