The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC Performance discussion

INDIGO_CYCLOPS said:
Is there a list of which console commands disable achievements? I found one that increases walking speed, which Ive been trying to figure out how to do, but I don't want to mess with anything like that if it ruins things.
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Judging from reports here, nothing in the console disables achievements.
 
Pazuzu9 said:
Yes, I know, I'm trying to tell that to LiquidMetal, as he keeps suggesting it to everyone.
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Not necessarily, matter of fact, I suggest doing it in game. I should word that into the OP as there is mixup.
 
I haven't tested all of the console commands, obviously. But I've heard of people still getting achievements after using all sorts of cheaty stuff. Rage blocked achievements, Skyrim doesn't.
 
epmode said:
I haven't tested all of the console commands, obviously. But I've heard of people still getting achievements after using all sorts of cheaty stuff. Rage blocked achievements, Skyrim doesn't.
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From everything I keep reading that is the case. Who cares about achievements anyways :P
 
epmode said:
I haven't tested all of the console commands, obviously. But I've heard of people still getting achievements after using all sorts of cheaty stuff. Rage blocked achievements, Skyrim doesn't.
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Yup. I have changed my attributes, my perks, given myself gold, and changed FOV and I'm still getting achievements.
 
En-ou said:
2500k stock
560ti
8 GB RAM
Win 7 64
1080p

everything ultra, 2x AA, 8x AF, did the ini tweaks in op

getting 60 fps everywhere.

now i am ready to rock and roll. my advice is dont waste too much time trying to tweak every single thing and you will enjoy the game a lot better. the opening of the game looks like ass, but damn it gets pretty once you hit riverwood.
Click to expand...

60 fps in towns?
 
irriadin said:
What's the consensus about the best kind of AA to use? To FXAA or not to FXAA?
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A few posts back, one reported that FXAA is worth the gains even if slightly presenting aliasing. Seems worth a shot at least.
 
irriadin said:
What's the consensus about the best kind of AA to use? To FXAA or not to FXAA?
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FXAA gives slightly softer image, which suits the game well. The normal AA solution is more accurate, but I get an annoying thin line across the top and the left borders of my monitor during the black loading screens. FXAA doesn't have this problem, so it gets my vote.
 
irriadin said:
What's the consensus about the best kind of AA to use? To FXAA or not to FXAA?
Click to expand...
If you can afford it, MSAA (with transparency AA forced via drivers) gives the most accurate, smooth and pleasing image. FXAA looks good in screenshots, but it doesn't prevent sub-pixel structures flickering in motion (and it hides some texture detail). The advantages of FXAA are that it's usually faster and handles transparency AA by default.
 
LiquidMetal14 said:
From everything I keep reading that is the case. Who cares about achievements anyways :P
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Never understood this myself. Who really cares?

Good game design doesn't need cheese and the fact people avoid games without them seems kinda stupid.
 
LiquidMetal14 said:
From everything I keep reading that is the case. Who cares about achievements anyways :P
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That's true, I honestly don't care, however, I was worried about using console commands and having it screw up achievements and have Steam do something crazy.

I'm not really concerned about the achievements, but theres been a few times where I've wanted to use the gold/lockpick commands and was worried about what would happen.
 
Even though I have no disease or status effect and I'm not overencumbered, I'm not able to run anymore. I have to stick to walking which makes the game unplayable. Is this a known bug?


my computer is so shitty the game often freezes for seconds or crashes. Any good tricks to improve performance? don't care about the graphics being worse
 
animlboogy said:
*crazy ass artifacting*

This happens to me after loading between areas sometimes. Almost always when I'm going back to the open world. Crazy shit. No problems in other games.
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That's the sound of your GPU screaming for help as it's being roasted by the temperatures inside your case.
 
Max said:
How does changing the fov mess with achievements? I'm scared I missed some now
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It doesn't. I changed my right after loading the game up and have been playing for 15 hours or so with all achievements being earned as I go with zero issue.
 
Okay so how do you get hotkeys to work? I tried hitting F did nothing, tried Q for the favorites... nothing came up. Seriously confused.
 
Ferrio said:
Okay so how do you get hotkeys to work? I tried hitting F did nothing, tried Q for the favorites... nothing came up. Seriously confused.
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So, when you are in your normal inventory, hitting F with an item/spell/power highlighted adds it to your favorites. You can put whatever you want in your favorites list.

Then during normal gameplay hit Q to bring up the favorites list. From that list you can hotkey things just by highlighting them and pressing 1-8 to assign them to that key.
 
Thanks for the tips on the AA. I'm using FXAA and all is good. I really hate that you have to turn off vysnc to get good mouse movement in the game. Screen tearing drives me nuts :/ There's no way to get non-janky mouse movement with vsync enabled?
 
Well, my game crashed right after loading a save, at first I could still hear the game, but the display got stuck on the load screen; after that, it just plain crashes after hitting "Continue".
Any fixes?

Edit: Seems like disabling AA and Anisotropic Filtering did the trick.
 
game has been running smooth. only major problems have are:

random missing textures on objects. gives off like a pale purple look, seem like it is almost just displaying the normal map.

flat out just crashes to the desktop when entering a new area or just trekking across the world. no windows error box or anything....just closes the game. weird.

I actually might stop playing this week and see if there will be a patch or something put out.

Other than that I am loving the game.
 
Wallach said:
So, when you are in your normal inventory, hitting F with an item/spell/power highlighted adds it to your favorites. You can put whatever you want in your favorites list.

Then during normal gameplay hit Q to bring up the favorites list. From that list you can hotkey things just by highlighting them and pressing 1-8 to assign them to that key.
Click to expand...

F doesn't do that for me though :(


edit: Figured it out, i t's whatever button Toggle Pov is bound to, but doesn't change the tip at bottom of screen.
 
Subjective, I know, but I think the complaints about the UI and mouse/keyboard controls are blown way out of proportion. Once you get used to them, the controls work beautifully. Mouse wheel to scroll quickly through items, 'E' to confirm, TAB or 'A' to go back/exit the menu is a really smooth process. Everything is in close proximity and lets you do what you need to do without stretching or moving your hand.
 
So i'm wondering if anybody can comment on my performance. My specs are:

AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2ghz
GTX 460
4GB RAM

Even with everything set to low, when i'm in certain areas (towns, in particular) my framerate takes a nosedive. We're talking sub 25 fps. Everything else is mostly in the 60 range. And even when settings are in the high/ultra range, my framerate never seems to stay near a locked 60, it hovers wildly in the 40-60 range, which doesn't seem right. Any tips? I really just want a locked 60 fps, regardless of how terrible the game looks, and I can't seem to reach that. Until I buy a gamepad, sub 60 fps is unbearable for me with M/KB. I'm fairly certain my CPU is holding me back a bit, but I don't want to hear that :/
 
Pandoracell said:
So i'm wondering if anybody can comment on my performance. My specs are:

AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2ghz
GTX 460
4GB RAM

Even with everything set to low, when i'm in certain areas (towns, in particular) my framerate takes a nosedive. We're talking sub 25 fps. Everything else is mostly in the 60 range. And even when settings are in the high/ultra range, my framerate never seems to stay near a locked 60, it hovers wildly in the 40-60 range, which doesn't seem right. Any tips? I really just want a locked 60 fps, regardless of how terrible the game looks, and I can't seem to reach that. Until I buy a gamepad, sub 60 fps is unbearable for me with M/KB. I'm fairly certain my CPU is holding me back a bit, but I don't want to hear that :/
Click to expand...

Try setting shadows to High if they're already on Ultra. May also want to consider reducing the amount of AA and AF.
 
Pandoracell said:
So i'm wondering if anybody can comment on my performance. My specs are:

AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2ghz
GTX 460
4GB RAM

Even with everything set to low, when i'm in certain areas (towns, in particular) my framerate takes a nosedive. We're talking sub 25 fps. Everything else is mostly in the 60 range. And even when settings are in the high/ultra range, my framerate never seems to stay near a locked 60, it hovers wildly in the 40-60 range, which doesn't seem right. Any tips? I really just want a locked 60 fps, regardless of how terrible the game looks, and I can't seem to reach that. Until I buy a gamepad, sub 60 fps is unbearable for me with M/KB. I'm fairly certain my CPU is holding me back a bit, but I don't want to hear that :/
Click to expand...

My 1,5 year old budget laptop performs better than that. Something's very very wrong.
 
I had AA off, AF at 4, and shadows at low during the testing I mentioned above. Playing at 1080p, though dropping to 720p only made a marginal difference.
 
6950 2gb
8gb ram
i5 750 @ 3.2ghz

I am noticing that I actually get higher fps with 8x AA (set in the launcher) than I do with it turned off. I used FRAPS to note FPS at a particular spot in Whiterun, Quicksaved, and then exited the game. I reloaded a few times to make sure FPS was consistent with each reload to establish a base. I then tested various AA settings, reloading back to that save to compare with the baseline. AA off yielded me 45 FPS, 2x-8x gave me 53fps. Off with FXAA stayed at 45. 8x with FXAA stayed at 53.

I am running at 1920x1080, ultra preset. The only settings I have modified in the .ini are the drawlandshadows and the treesreceiveshadows variable (both set to 1).
 
Well, i fixed the ugridstoload crash by deleting the ini files and running the game with default generated ini's. Then i edited the ini (the shadow, water etc) to my liking.

It's been working well so far. Man, i thought i was doomed and had to start the game again...

Maybe add the bolded to the OP in case any one breaks their saves with ugrid changes.
 
The threads at the Bethesda forum are very interesting to read. The game really is a technical mess on PC, they just screwed us PC gamers over for no reason. They got their fanbase on PC, no silly sales excuses this time.
 
I swear to god the glitches get worse every time I run the game. It's like a new graphical mess every time I boot up. Thankfully the game crashes pretty quickly so I don't have to look at it too long.
 
Oh thank God, a mod to get rid of the strawberry jam on the screen. I'm not squeamish in the least, but it's completely pointless since there's a health meter at the bottom of the damn screen.
 
Might try pushing uGrids to 13 in a minute.

Has anyone found a way of increasing the grass density? The original Oblivion settings don't seem to make any difference.

6338830932_59f240c0e4_o.jpg


6338077593_5e19acb6c0_o.jpg
 
I'm going to post two screenshots to show my issue. These were taken with the 'low' preset, nothing else changed. In the first screenshot, i'm getting ~30pfs. In the second, 60. I'm in the same location, I simply turned around before taking the second shot. I understand the scene in the first shot is a fair bit more complex, but it shouldn't cut my framerate by nearly half.

5T1yC.jpg



J4Nsx.jpg
 
So you're having trouble with Skyrim and your hardware is pretty beefy, huh? Let's see what we can do.

Skyrim Tweak Guide by BoobPhysics101
NOTE: These tweaks are focused on high end rigs.

For example, my rig:

Intel Core i5 2500k @ 4.5 Ghz
Nvidia GTX 570 @ 900/2100
8 GB DDR3 RAM
Asus P8Z68-V mobo
90GB Vertex 2 SSD
42" 1080p HDTV
etc

This rig has a ridiculous CPU, a GTX 570 that's as fast as a GTX 580, fast hard drive, lots of RAM, etc. YMMV but if you have a similar level of hardware, these settings/tweaks should get you to my level of performance.

General Tweaks/Tips

BEFORE WE DO ANYTHING:

Go to the Skyrim config program (Start up Skyrim from Steam, go to Options), set your resolution etc, set MSAA to 8x, set Anisotropic Filtering to 16x. EVERYONE SHOULD BE USING 16x AF, it has almost ZERO performance hit on any system!

Beneath that, under Detail, click Ultra. Go to Advanced, make sure everything is maxed out, TURN OFF FXAA (unless you like it, blech.)

Nvidia users:
Make sure to have 285.79 (these are the latest betas and have the most recent driver profiles for Skyrim
AMD users: Use the 11.10 Preview 3 or whatever is newest

Nvidia Inspector Tweaks:

1. Download Nvidia Inspector
2. Open Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim profile
3. Make it look like this:
RqtSv.jpg


Skyrim.ini and Skyrimprefs.ini tweaks (Location: My Documents/My Games/Skyrim)

Skyrimprefs.ini:

Under [Display], change these settings as shown:

Code: 
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=1
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
iWaterMultiSamples=4
iPresentInterval=0

Under [Grass]:
Code: 
[Grass]
b30GrassVS=1
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=400.0000

Skyrim.ini
Under [Display], make sure to put this:
Code: 
iPresentInterval=0

EXPERIMENTAL STUFF, USE AT OWN RISK, YMMV, NOT FULLY TESTED/SAFE... but fun!

Skyrim.ini
Code: 
[General]
sLanguage=ENGLISH
uInterior Cell Buffer=12
uExterior Cell Buffer=64
fdefaultfov=90
uGridsToLoad=9

Skyrimprefs.ini

Change these settings. I found these in the Skyrim main folder under VeryHigh.ini, so ensure these are set appropriately:

Code: 
[Display]
iMultiSample=16
iWaterMultisamples=4
iMaxAnisotropy=16
iTexMipMapSkip=0
iTexMipMapMinimum=4
fDecalLOD1=500.0000
fDecalLOD2=1000.0000
iActorShadowCountInt=6
iActorShadowCountExt=6
fSpecularLODStartFade=2000.0000
fLightLODStartFade=3500.0000
iShadowMapResolution=4096
fShadowBiasScale=0.15
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3
bFXAAEnabled=0
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=9999999.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=9999999.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=9999999.0000
fShadowDistance=8000.0000
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=100
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=25


[LOD]
fLODFadeOutMultActors=15.0000
fLODFadeOutMultObjects=15.0000
fLODFadeOutMultItems=15.0000

[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=75000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=70000.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=35000.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000

[Grass]
b30GrassVS=1
fGrassStartFadeDistance=7000.0000

[Imagespace]
iRadialBlurLevel=2

[Water]
bReflectLODLand=1
bReflectLODObjects=1
bReflectLODTrees=1
bReflectSky=1

[BlurShaderHDR]
bDoHighDynamicRange=1

[Decals]
bDecals=1
bSkinnedDecals=1
uMaxDecals=1000
uMaxSkinDecals=100
uMaxSkinDecalPerActor=60

Give that a shot, ymmv, adjust to preferences. I still need to work on those settings as they MAY cause random CTD's (crash to desktop).

I will add further tweaks as they are confirmed working/tested by me and the other pros in this thread.

TO DO:
Give AMD users some love with Catalyst Control Center settings/RadeonPro configs
Add in Large Address Aware .exe
Make things look purty
Give low/medium-end rigs some love
Figure out a way for Skyrim to run at 120 FPS on a GeForce FX5200

Credit
Liquidmetal14 for the OP/constant vigilance when it comes to updating the OP
TheExodu5 for tweaks/experimenting and reporting results
TheOctagon for Large Address Aware tweaking/results
Durante for a previously posted 'mini-tweak guide'
Anyone I missed
 
Dmax3901 said:
Love you BoobPhysics (lol), gonna fiddle with all that now.
Click to expand...

I love boob physics too...


goodfella said:
No Vsync Biophysics?
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Nope. The game is wonky with Vsync, and although my avg FPS is 60+, I just use an FPS limiter linked in the OP to cap myself.

Dmax3901 said:
Maybe add in which skyrimprefs.ini to edit and its location, for those who are new to it.
Click to expand...

Added! Thanks!
 
Do You guys get random crashes to windows?

I've noticed it to happen mostly when i'm chasing something or using spells after chase, so dont know if its my GPU overheating [havent got any problem in BF 3 at all] or uGrid=7 is screwing with me, or its just a Skyrim thing on my config and drivers ...
 
blergh what gives, ugrids 11 is really unstable, getting totally random crash to desktops from time to time, is this inherent while using that setting? I've made sure that the game has laa or whatever it was called.

edit : ^ lol yeah I think ugrids is messing things up.
 
KKRT00 said:
Do You guys get random crashes to windows?

I've noticed it to happen mostly when i'm chasing something or using spells after chase, so dont if its my GPU overheating [havent got any problem in BF 3 at all] or uGrid=7 is screwing with me, or its just a Skyrim thing on my config and drivers ...
Click to expand...

I'm using ugrids9 and getting the same thing. I think it'd work more stably @ 7. I'm also trying to figure out if any of the buffers variables are working so the game will more readily use 2+ GB of RAM.
 
Pandoracell said:
I'm going to post two screenshots to show my issue. These were taken with the 'low' preset, nothing else changed. In the first screenshot, i'm getting ~30pfs. In the second, 60. I'm in the same location, I simply turned around before taking the second shot. I understand the scene in the first shot is a fair bit more complex, but it shouldn't cut my framerate by nearly half.
Click to expand...
I don't see why not. All the town is behind you on the second shot. I have a drop in performance there too.
 
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