The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC Performance discussion

rumsey said:
It should be pretty playable. I have a similar setup:
Core 2 Duo e4300 @ 2.4ghz
4gb RAM
8800GTS 640mb X2 SLI

Frankly the game is entirely CPU bottlenecked, if you do a couple tweaks you should be able to get nice looking settings averaging 40-60fps. In a few of the really large towns that will drop to 20-35fps but luckily not a lot of "action" happens in the town so it shouldn't affect your ability to play. It's just because there are so many AI entities in the large towns.

If you could overclock your CPU up to 3.0-3.2 you could significantly improve those numbers as well.
Click to expand...
I've never overclocked. Don't even know how. Nice to know it's playable, though. I think I have to do this.
 
To make TES Skyrim gameplay smoother and to use more memory for it, modify skyrim.ini with these:
[Papyrus]
iMinMemoryPageSize=100000
iMaxMemoryPageSize=5000000
iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=1800000000

Thanks to Alexander Blade
Click to expand...

So do I just copy and past these values under the Papyrus section in the skyrim.ini file in My Game documents?
 
TheExodu5 said:
Anyone know if there is a mod to remove random dragon encounters from the game? They're tedious and far too numerous.
Click to expand...

I'm beginning to agree with you, although I wouldn't be able to bring myself to remove them entirely.

What I would like to get rid of is the fucking kill animations that happen to you, so annoying. I'll have most of my health and then get killed out of nowhere. Also not once has the Dragon death (where you jump on the head and stab until dead) not bugged out on me.
 
isoku said:
The source stated that it should be placed in skyrim.ini. It may also work in skyrimprefs though.
Click to expand...

Yeah.

Skyrim.ini by default is missing a lot of parameters, like iMinMemoryPageSize, but people found them all out by using the 'saveini' console command to have the game generate a new one.
 
isoku said:
Add under display in skyrim.ini:

fSunShadowUpdateTime=0
fSunUpdateThreshold=0

Note: your shadows will now move continuously instead of in increments

Edit:
fSunShadowUpdateTime=1.000
fSunUpdateThreshold=0.500

If you still want your shadows moving in increments. Nvm these are the default settings.
Click to expand...


THANKS
 
Arcipello said:
and i thought my shot was pretty.... you seem to have the grass etc distance turned all the way up there!

11biu77.jpg
Click to expand...

Would you mind posting your settings? Thank you sir.
 
leng jai said:
Doesn't anybody's framerate die in the ass as soon as they look over Whiterun? Mine plummets from 60+ to 30 :(
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Yup. Have had the same problem with all the TES (and Fallout 3 / NV) games since Gamebryo came into the mix. Both Morrowind and Oblivion had these issues for me, this is over various hardware configurations. It's pretty damn annoying when you've got a computer set up that runs it at 60fps constantly everywhere except these select areas that are rendering something you can't see.

Makes me wish even more that somehow, they got ID Tech5 early enough to make ESV with it. Can only imagine how awesome it would have been megatextured up and 60fps constantly (but then it'd probably still be in development).

Biggest problem with this is how drastic it appears to my eyes. I want to lock it at 30FPS, but when I do that, the load times actually slow down noticibly for some reason I'm not aware of. If I'm not screwed one way I'm screwed another.

And once again, just as I've tried with these games every time I see this, I OC'd my system just to see if it would make a difference in FPS in these select areas; as well as turned down settings to their lowest. Nothing helps (the FPS goes higher but still dips into the high 40's with a 3.4Ghz on Low as it does with 2.8GHz). It's a damn shame is what it is, and it really doesn't make sense to me that looking in one particular direction in a certain area will drop your frame rate to half. Then just turning about 45 degrees so the center of whatever was slowing it down is off screen it leaps back up.
 
Psy-Phi said:
Yup. Have had the same problem with all the TES games since Gamebryo came into the mix. Both Morrowind and Oblivion had these issues for me, this is over various hardware configurations. It's pretty damn annoying when you've got a computer set up that runs it at 60fps constantly everywhere except these select areas that are rendering something you can't see.

Makes me wish even more that somehow, they got ID Tech5 early enough to make ESV with it. Can only imagine how awesome it would have been megatextured up and 60fps constantly (but then it'd probably still be in development).

Biggest problem with this is how drastic it appears to my eyes. I want to lock it at 30FPS, but when I do that, the load times actually slow down noticibly for some reason I'm not aware of. If I'm not screwed one way I'm screwed another.

And once again, I OC'd my system just to see if it would make a difference in FPS in these select areas; as well as turned down settings to their lowest. Nothing helps (the FPS goes higher but still dips into the high 40's with a 3.4Ghz on Low as it does with 2.8GHz). It's a damn shame is what it is.
Click to expand...

This was speculated upon prior to the announcement of Skyrim, which prompted Carmack to later weigh in:

Carmack said:
"The megatexture direction [in id Tech 5] has some big wins, but it's also fairly restrictive on certain types of games," he said. "It would be a completely unacceptable engine to do [Bethesda's Elder Scrolls V:] Skyrim in, where you've got the whole world, walking across these huge areas."
Click to expand...
 
Jarmel said:
It's impossible for me to assign magic to my right hand.
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With hotkeys, or at all? That's the first I've heard of anyone having that problem. I know that hitting a hotkey once will always assign magic to the left hand by default, but hitting the same hotkey a second time will then assign it over to the right hand. Right clicking something from the favorites listing doesn't assign it to the right hand, though?
 
Wallach said:
With hotkeys, or at all? That's the first I've heard of anyone having that problem. I know that hitting a hotkey once will always assign magic to the left hand by default, but hitting the same hotkey a second time will then assign it over to the right hand. Right clicking something from the favorites listing doesn't assign it to the right hand, though?
Click to expand...

At all. I've tried doing it in favorites and tried doing it in the menus themselves.
 
JaseC said:
This was speculated upon prior to the announcement of Skyrim, which prompted Carmack to later weigh in:
Click to expand...
I am disappoint, and I'm betting that's about as true as "Crysis can't run on consoles" is :p.

TES is big sure. But even if it had to be broken up into 4 maps I'd rather see that. The frame rate issue is so odd, that I wonder how it would fare if it were set up like HL2 is, little areas making up one big constant world, loading sections at a time and pausing the game while doing so. I'm almost willing to accept that instead of this frame rate that drops so drastically.

I'd willing to buy another CPU to go with my relatively new 570 (maybe I should have gotten a 580?) if I thought it would actually help.
 
Wallach said:
Did you check to see if you accidentally un-assigned "Right Hand" in the Controls submenu somehow?
Click to expand...

I not only checked, I reversed the controls to see if it would help.

Blizzard said:
Have you tried pressing a hotkey twice? It should put the same spell in both hands, even if the mouse shortcut doesn't work.
Click to expand...

I'll try that right now.

Edit: Fixed. Weirdest shit. I had to unarm my sword and switch to a shield for my left hand in order to assign magic to my right. Now it works like it's supposed to.

2nd Edit:Apparently not. Now I can't switch from Flames in my right hand.
 
If anyone wants higher uGrid settings that are stable, let me know. I've figured out the sweet spot for uGrids and it performs almost as well as stock (5) ugrids.
 
BoobPhysics101 said:
If anyone wants higher uGrid settings that are stable, let me know. I've figured out the sweet spot for uGrids and it performs almost as well as stock (5) ugrids.
Click to expand...

Begone, foul temptress!
 
Can anyone with a similar rig post what you are using, if you have gotten the game smooth and running to your liking.

amd x4 phenom 3.2 ghz
GTX 480
4gb ddr3

I have been tweaking constantly and frankly have just given up as I just want to play the game. But I am still getting weird shadow bugs, flickering, streaming issues (geo and texture pop in).

The OP seems to focus on high end rigs and I feel mine falls short of that hardware. So using these tweaks and settings I dont get a smooth framerate.
 
I'm trying to find a way for the water to reflect everything at once. Currently it reflects everything except whats in the nearest grid.

In Oblvion, you could use these settings in the ini to force reflections on everything but they dont work.

bUseWaterReflectionsMisc=1
bUseWaterReflectionsStatics=1
bUseWaterReflectionsTrees=1
bUseWaterReflectionsActors=1

And in Fallout, you had these settings:
bForceHighDetailReflections=1
bForceLowDetailReflections=0

But nope, none of them work.
 
Game is massively CPU-bound, at least as far as clock speed goes.

Went from 74 frames to 98 frames in Winterhold by bumping up my CPU from 3.8GHz to 4.5GHz. On an i7-2600k.
 
BoobPhysics101 said:
If anyone wants higher uGrid settings that are stable, let me know. I've figured out the sweet spot for uGrids and it performs almost as well as stock (5) ugrids.
Click to expand...

Why not post the settings and let people decide for themselves?
 
BoobPhysics101 said:
If anyone wants higher uGrid settings that are stable, let me know. I've figured out the sweet spot for uGrids and it performs almost as well as stock (5) ugrids.
Click to expand...
What are you using? I've currently got it as:

uGridsToLoad=6
InteriorCellBuffer=24
ExteriorCellBuffer=106
 
Psy-Phi said:
I am disappoint, and I'm betting that's about as true as "Crysis can't run on consoles" is :p.
Click to expand...
No. Id tech 5 is made for a completely different scenario than what Bethesda's engine handles.

Psy-Phi said:
TES is big sure. But even if it had to be broken up into 4 maps I'd rather see that. The frame rate issue is so odd, that I wonder how it would fare if it were set up like HL2 is, little areas making up one big constant world, loading sections at a time and pausing the game while doing so. I'm almost willing to accept that instead of this frame rate that drops so drastically.
Click to expand...
Big no. If anything, I'd love for them to remove the small loading pauses when entering/exiting dungeons/buildings and move all cities back into the world map. That would also allow the return of levitation.

Psy-Phi said:
I'd willing to buy another CPU to go with my relatively new 570 (maybe I should have gotten a 580?) if I thought it would actually help.
Click to expand...
Well, it runs smooth with maxed out settings on my 460, so you most likely aren't GPU limited.

Izayoi said:
Game is massively CPU-bound, at least as far as clock speed goes.
Click to expand...
Bububu it doesn't use all cores! how can it be CPU bound?
(That's as I expected and explained 20 pages or so actually, thanks for doing a real measurement)
 
While doing all my driver installs and uninstalls and tweak testing, I finally managed to get some crossfire scaling working. Pulling 60fps outside with stock Ultra settings with 4xSSAA and the lowest it drops is 30 while in Whiterun.

Time to finally start doing some ini setting tweaks.
 
Finally got the game running awesome on my pc.

Used the skyrim better performance mod and dxtory to set it to a constant 35 fps so I get barely any frame drops now even in towns. Load times are still fast. It feels pretty really smooth now.

Running at 1080P high everything no AA but Adaptive filtering max and mip maping and catalyst AI max. I feel like AA doesnt even make a difference on my plasma 1080p tv anyways.


radeon 3850 overdrive and overclocked core2duo 7600 3.2ghz 4gigs ddr2 ram Wd 7200rpm drive
 
BoobPhysics101 said:
If anyone wants higher uGrid settings that are stable, let me know. I've figured out the sweet spot for uGrids and it performs almost as well as stock (5) ugrids.
Click to expand...

Alright, I'll have another go. Post the settings please, I'll go backup my saves.
 
Izayoi said:
What are you using? I've currently got it as:

uGridsToLoad=6
InteriorCellBuffer=24
ExteriorCellBuffer=106
Click to expand...

Always make uGrids an odd number.Change interiorcellbuffer to 3. Or just delete that setting. It does not need to be messed with.

Here's the formula for uGrids

(uGrids + 1)^2 = Exterior cell buffer

For example, default ugrids is 5... what is (5+1)^2? That's right, 36... which is the default exterior cell buffer setting. :)

SO if you want stable uGrids with similar performance to stock but a noticeable long distance image quality boost and the same stability as stock, here's what you set in Skyrim.ini

Code: 
[General]
sLanguage=ENGLISH

uExterior Cell Buffer=64
uGridsToLoad=7

Enjoy. Exterior/interior cells do NOT work the way you expect them to, btw, so raising them without reason will harm performance and stability.
 
BoobPhysics101 said:
Always make uGrids an odd number.Change interiorcellbuffer to 3. Or just delete that setting. It does not need to be messed with.

Here's the formula for uGrids

(uGrids + 1)^2 = Exterior cell buffer

For example, default ugrids is 5... what is (5+1)^2? That's right, 36... which is the default exterior cell buffer setting. :)

SO if you want stable uGrids with similar performance to stock but a noticeable long distance image quality boost and the same stability as stock, here's what you set in Skyrim.ini

Code: 
[General]
sLanguage=ENGLISH

uExterior Cell Buffer=64
uGridsToLoad=7

Enjoy. Exterior/interior cells do NOT work the way you expect them to, btw, so raising them without reason will harm performance and stability.
Click to expand...

Fantastic, thanks for this! Going to try soon.

I was just wandering about outside of Riften and I was having a peeve moment because uGrids at 11 causes crashes left and right and the plain yellow trees in the distance around Riften piss me off when I know they could be different.
 
Lol, crashed after twenty seconds.

I'll go back to my old settings, they worked just fine (70-100fps outside, reasonable draw distance).
 
Just to be sure:

If I'm messing arround with uGrid to test the performance I'm save as long as I backup my ini-file an don't save. If I'm saving, I will have to reset the ini-settings to it's defaul (5?) values?
 
I feel like the game looks better on my pc with the stock ultra settings and the memory tweak...what made the biggest difference for me was checking FXAA in the advanced options
 
Izayoi said:
Lol, crashed after twenty seconds.

I'll go back to my old settings, they worked just fine (70-100fps outside, reasonable draw distance).
Click to expand...

Sounds like you have instability somewhere else. I can play for hours just fine. So can others. Even uGrid=9 was pretty stable for me.
 
nicoga3000 said:
If you increase your carry weight via console command, can you reduce it ever?

E - I'm dumb, it's just -#. I typed modave instead of modav. Dumb.
Click to expand...

I have a question for you regarding this. I am aware you can increase your weight via console command. But I am really unsure if it's something I want to do. Do you any of you guys feel guilty about increasing your weight via "cheating" with the console? The weight restriction is a pain in the ass but a part of me wants to keep the experience of this game as pure as possible. So what should I do? Am I ruining the fun and challenge if I succumb to using the console to increase my weight or is it simply not that big of a deal?
 
DoctorZ said:
Can anyone with a similar rig post what you are using, if you have gotten the game smooth and running to your liking.

amd x4 phenom 3.2 ghz
GTX 480
4gb ddr3

I have been tweaking constantly and frankly have just given up as I just want to play the game. But I am still getting weird shadow bugs, flickering, streaming issues (geo and texture pop in).

The OP seems to focus on high end rigs and I feel mine falls short of that hardware. So using these tweaks and settings I dont get a smooth framerate.
Click to expand...
I'll share my ini files when i get back from school in 4 hours time.
 
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