The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC Performance discussion

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...


first make sure you upgraded to the latest nvidia driver. second make sure you dont have stuff forced on in the driver.

my brother has phenom II 945 3.0ghz, gtx 275 and it runs fine in 1080p with 4xAA 8xAF, everything is set to max except shadows = high, light fade = 12, specularity fade = 6
 
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
So is there any news on anyone working on a UI or Inventory mod? It's atrocious.

Luckily I did just figure out how to use hotkeys, since it was not explained ANYWHERE on any of the menus.
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I feel bad for people who dont figure out how to do favorites then hotkey them in the favorite menu
 
neoism said:
Damn it guys... :( I got another problem . See if you guys can help. For some reason my grass is not working. I have the ini file and prefs file tweaked... but everytime I load the game up the slider is all the way down.. not sure what I did This what I have.
in prefs
[Grass]
b30GrassVS=1
fGrassStartFadeDistance=6000.0000
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=6000.0000
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=6000.0000
in ini

[Grass]
bAllowCreateGrass=1
bAllowLoadGrass=1


also should I have those files in read only every-time I change something.
the world looks bland without grass.. :/
Click to expand...
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance should be 0 for future reference.
 
Shai-Tan said:
I feel bad for people who dont figure out how to do favorites then hotkey them in the favorite menu
Click to expand...

After playing for around five hours not knowing how to do it, so do I. Now is there some mystical unexplained way I can make hand-specific hotkeys? I doubt it. I bet it's really going to mess things up because I switched which mouse button controls which hand, too. Makes so much more sense to have left-click = left hand and vice versa.
 
Also, to change how far the grass is rendered, max out the slider 'Grass Fade' in-game.

Same goes for all the other elements.
 
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
After playing for around five hours not knowing how to do it, so do I. Now is there some mystical unexplained way I can make hand-specific hotkeys? I doubt it. I bet it's really going to mess things up because I switched which mouse button controls which hand, too. Makes so much more sense to have left-click = left hand and vice versa.
Click to expand...
I don't think there is a way yet, but what you should be able to do is press hotkeys twice. You might need to switch this for switched hands, but for the normal setup I think it's (for spells, for example):

Press hotkey once = spell goes into left hand
Press hotkey twice = spell goes into right hand as well

So you can press one spell key twice, then press another key to put something else in your left hand I -think-. I'm not sure how it works if you press a button twice for a one-handed weapon you normally wield in your right hand.
 
Did a fair bit of testing on my i7 rig. My CPU is old, 920, but the game can't seriously be CPU limited. During the most intensive scene, my fps dropped to 18. This was with everything on ultra + ugrids at 9.

Only four threads were in use, none of them maxing out. This game isn't even using all dat juice.
 
Truant said:
Did a fair bit of testing on my i7 rig. My CPU is old, 920, but the game can't seriously be CPU limited. During the most intensive scene, my fps dropped to 18. This was with everything on ultra + ugrids at 9.

Only four threads were in use, none of them maxing out. This game isn't even using all dat juice.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's unfortunately not optimized for anything more than a dual-core from what I've read. Hope that can be fixed with a mod, or even better, a patch.
 
Tip for the day...




33nexrs.jpg




Also put
this in both files...
fDefault1stPersonFOV=85.0000
fDefaultWorldFOV=85.0000
fDefaultFOV=85.0000
:)
 
The hotkeys for spells primarily control your left hand, with weapons being focused on the right hand. It's nice when you have something in your right hand like a staff or a blade and you want to quickly cycle through various spells with the left hand. But if you happen to have stuff equipped in the left hand it can sort of be annoying to put spells in specific hands without going into the favorites menu.
 
So Bethesda hasn't given *any* type of timetable for a PC optimization patch? Ugh. And AMD needs to step their driver support up. Isn't Skyrim a crazy popular release? Oh well, I must learn to be patient...or start OCing my shit to compensate.
 
Truant said:
Did a fair bit of testing on my i7 rig. My CPU is old, 920, but the game can't seriously be CPU limited. During the most intensive scene, my fps dropped to 18. This was with everything on ultra + ugrids at 9.

Only four threads were in use, none of them maxing out. This game isn't even using all dat juice.
Click to expand...
That doesn't mean the game isn't CPU limited. I explained this a few times, but what you get to see in the task manager isn't the full picture, not by a long shot.

What could be happening is that the game only has some parallelism that allows it to utilize a few cores well at some points during its per-frame computation, but that there is a main sequential part that is not parallelized, and that is limited by single core frequency. However, the OS assigns scheduling slices on different cores for that thread, so it looks like none of the cores is fully used.

The fact that we see game performance scale with clock speed even though none of the cores are being "fully loaded" according to task manager is a very strong indication that something like the above is the case.
 
Blizzard said:
I don't think there is a way yet, but what you should be able to do is press hotkeys twice. You might need to switch this for switched hands, but for the normal setup I think it's (for spells, for example):

Press hotkey once = spell goes into left hand
Press hotkey twice = spell goes into right hand as well

So you can press one spell key twice, then press another key to put something else in your left hand I -think-. I'm not sure how it works if you press a button twice for a one-handed weapon you normally wield in your right hand.
Click to expand...

How does this work if I am dual casting and want to equip a shield + weapon? Will the shield default to my left hand? I actually don't think you can equip them in a right hand. I am left handed so it would be more intuitive for me.
 
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
How does this work if I am dual casting and want to equip a shield + weapon? Will the shield default to my left hand? I actually don't think you can equip them in a right hand. I am left handed so it would be more intuitive for me.
Click to expand...
Someone else with the game in front of them will have to test it. I would guess that if you used a sword + shield previously, but are now using two spells, pressing the sword key will bring back the sword + shield combo. And no, I don't know a way to put the shield in your right hand. I'm guessing a mod may fix that.
 
I'm sorry if this question has been answered before but this thread is huge and I didn't see anything about it in the first post. I'm getting weird white outlines whenever I enable anti-aliasing (AMD 5870/Catalyst 11.11). Is there any way to avoid it?
 
This is from Kieranh7 on skyrimnexus.com. Not sure if it's been mentioned here yet or tested by anyone.

Also, to utilize more of your CPU's power, you can also use the .exe launcher tweak.

If running the game through steam:

1: Right-click the steam taskbar icon (bottem right by your clock, network icon), and click library.
2: scroll to Skyrim, and right click it. Then go to properties.
3: In the general tab, click 'set launcher options' and in the text field type +fullproc and click ok.

If running the game locally, without steam:

1: Right-click the desktop shortcut, and go to properties.
2: In the target field (should have something similar to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\skyrim\SkyrimLauncher.exe" click the end of the string, (after the .exe") and press the space bar, and type +fullproc.
3: click apply and exit.
Click to expand...
 
azxza said:
I'm sorry if this question has been answered before but this thread is huge and I didn't see anything about it in the first post. I'm getting weird white outlines whenever I enable anti-aliasing (AMD 5870/Catalyst 11.11). Is there any way to avoid it?
Click to expand...

I have heard this mentioned either here or on the Bethesda forums. I've seen it myself; it tends to happen to my weapon model when my character is in shadow. Looks like Skyrim: Human Revolution. I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you, but if you search, you may find something.

Mammoth Jones said:
Can anyone confirm if this helps at all?
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah, I'd like to know, too. +fullproc kinda sounds like "-makeawesome Y" but if it's a real thing, that'd be sweet...

Also, if using RadeonPro, where's the best place to add these kinds of switches?
 
TheOctagon said:
This is from Kieranh7 on skyrimnexus.com. Not sure if it's been mentioned here yet or tested by anyone.
Click to expand...
Someone needs to test that. More performance is always better which means more fancy effects.
 
LiquidMetal14 said:
Someone needs to test that. More performance is always better which means more fancy effects.
Click to expand...

May as well add the rest of his tweaks for dissection:

1: uExterior Cell Buffer=288 - loads more cells into memory to reduce suttering on the world map.
2: bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseThreadedBlood=1
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
bUseThreadedTempEffects=1
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseThreadedTextures=1
bUseThreadedMeshes=1
bUseThreadedLOD=1
bUseThreadedAI=1 - these split the rendering processes, and order them in threads.
3: bEquippedTorchesCastShadows=1 - torches/flames cast shadows.
4: bActorSelfShadowing=1 - loads shadows on character's geometry (body)
5: bDynamicWindowReflections=1 - windows change at time of day.
6: iActorShadowIntMax=12 - increase the amount of actor shadows inside, as fps is usually much higher in doors.
7: bGrassPointLighting=1
bDrawShaderGrass=1 - increases the lighting detail of grass.
8: iMaxDesired=5000 - increases the particles to render on screen for smoke, spell effects, lighting etc.
9: bEnableTreeAnimations=1- Trees gain lighting animation, and sway in the wind
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1 Render tress in multiple cpu threads.
10: bBackgroundLoadLipFiles=1
bLoadBackgroundFaceGen=1
bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1
bBackgroundCellLoads=1 - loads object files in the background (this one is not fully tested, but works in other besthesda games)
Click to expand...
 
Mammoth Jones said:
So Bethesda hasn't given *any* type of timetable for a PC optimization patch? Ugh. And AMD needs to step their driver support up. Isn't Skyrim a crazy popular release? Oh well, I must learn to be patient...or start OCing my shit to compensate.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't blame AMD on this one , the engine is extremely old and really they should have added support for quad core and greater cpus and made it large address aware
 
What does almighty GAF think?

I'm on 266.58, would switching to 285.79 Driver improve my performance?

I'm quite pleased with my stability (only 1 CTD within 25h)... :/
 
So it appears that mouse sensitivity drops when FPS drops? annoying as hell.

Any fix out there? I've disabled both Vsync and Mouse acceleration.
 
54-46! said:
So it appears that mouse sensitivity drops when FPS drops? annoying as hell.

Any fix out there? I've disabled both Vsync and Mouse acceleration.
Click to expand...
What framerates are you getting? I use vsync + triple buffering with D3DOverrider, and as long as my framerates are 25-60 fps the mouse seems to work fine.
 
How are you guys getting such bad performance with your i7's? I have a Q9450 and I'm pretty damn sure I'm getting high FPS. I haven't used any FPS checker though so I could be wrong ,but it sure doesn't seem like 30 fps.
 
I think most people with i7s are getting 60fps in the outdoor areas, but stuff comes crashing down in towns. Certainly the case for me. Whiterun kills my framerate to what feels like about 30fps, or even slightly lower when looking in a certain direction. In dungeons and the outside world it feels super smooth 60fps virtually all the time.
 
CabbageRed said:
Dual wield and hotkeys make sad.
Click to expand...

Bound weapons and hotkeys make me sad. They go away the instant you assign something to a hand, even if you change them back before exiting the menu.

It makes using the 2H Bound Axe pretty annoying.
 
Has anyone managed to fix the stuttering while turning issue on AMD cards? Only thing that's still bugging the living shit out of me in terms of performance.
 
+fullproc gave me no extra FPS and I didn't notice any extra CPU activity (half-assed monitoring using ATI Tray Tool's OSD).

Edvardelis said:
Bound weapons and hotkeys make me sad. They go away the instant you assign something to a hand, even if you change them back before exiting the menu.

It makes using the 2H Bound Axe pretty annoying.
Click to expand...

Once they come out with a PC port of the PC port I'm sure that everything will be fixed.
 
I know this is totally geeky, but I'd love a mod like the hardcore mode in New Vegas, have to eat, sleep and drink to survive. Maybe even wear appropriate warm gear in the super frozen parts of skyrim.

Yeah totally geeky..
 
I'm wondering if there's a way to mod the game's music.
Don't get me wrong, it's one of the best soundtrack of this gen and i love it, but i feel the need to add this track to the list, when i'm exploring mountains and stuff.
 
TheOctagon said:
This is from Kieranh7 on skyrimnexus.com. Not sure if it's been mentioned here yet or tested by anyone.
Click to expand...
I've not seen a game where +fullproc actually makes a difference yet. People said the same thing for games like TF2, BC2, Homefront, Brink, etc but each time either devs or the community say it doesn't do anything. I doubt this time is any different. It always seems to pop up when new games release
 
And so it begins...

Skyrim Interior Retexture (BETA)

This guy is already starting to retexture interior things like chairs, chests, etc. Looks really nice compared to vanilla. He claims he's still using the vanilla Normal maps though, so with improvements in that we should see some really nice looking textures.

I'm starting to get excited!

BEFORE
238-1-1321356859.jpg

AFTER
238-2-1321356860.jpg


What's everyone think?
 
INDIGO_CYCLOPS said:
And so it begins...

Skyrim Interior Retexture (BETA)

This guy is already starting to retexture interior things like chairs, chests, etc. Looks really nice compared to vanilla. He claims he's still using the vanilla Normal maps though, so with improvements in that we should see some really nice looking textures.

I'm starting to get excited!

BEFORE
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/238-1-1321356859.jpg[IMG]
AFTER
[IMG]http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/238-2-1321356860.jpg[IMG]

What's everyone think?[/QUOTE]
Too clean but he's working on an update to make them dirtier. Looking forward to it.
Click to expand...
 
isoku said:
Too clean but he's working on an update to make them dirtier. Looking forward to it.
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree there - still, looks much better than vanilla, and with some tweaking and better normal maps, could look great. I'm sure some of the more prominent texture modders of the ES scene will do something really nice, but it's encouraging to see people starting to do this stuff so early.

Can't wait!
 
I just played Skyrim in 3D. HOLY CRAP. Climbing mountains, the snowstorms, Dragons in the distance, wow. Pretty damn awesome. This is easily one of my favourite games in terms of 3D now.

I adjusted convergence so that when I have a spell readied my fingertips are at the screen plane. I find that gives me the best trade-off between pop-out and sanity, but I'd like to hear from other 3D users what they settled on.

The only problem is the framerate in some of the cities, since you really can't drop much below 60 (30 effective) for a smooth picture.
 
INDIGO_CYCLOPS said:
And so it begins...

What's everyone think?
Click to expand...

That's really nice, actually. Too clean but an excellent base. Bang goes my theory that the art style would suffer at the modders' hands. Still worried that the ceiling for HD textures is a helluva lot lower this time, though.
 
You guys that are getting these drops from 60 -> 30, it sounds like triple-buffering is not enabled?

I'm using d3doverrider and my framerate is @ 60, almost all of the time. (2600k @ 4.5GHz)

(1080p 8xAA / Ultra settings with modified ini)
 
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