Skyrim stuttering 2014

[Akreontage]

Hello good people of Nexus Forums!

It's 2014 and I still play Skyrim. And many of you do too!

It's best game of them all and stuff... But I have a little question:

 

Does somebody actually know now why does Skyrim stutter in specific locations? But please read my post to the end first!

 

"Update your drivers" suggestions and stuff like that will be considered as jokes.

 

So.

At the end of 2013 I found out about Skyrim ini setting "iFPSClamp" which when set to 60 completely removes stuttering on default uGridsToLoad. This was the only solution which truly removed stuttering from the game.

I believe there is absolutely no stuttering when using default uGridsToLoad but using anything higher will bring those stutters.

There are a few locations in Skyrim which bring stutters. Those are 1/100 of second stutters but still they do exist.

 

Example of such locations:

Bridge to Riverwood. When you look at the village from that bridge you will get 1-2 stutters when moving mouse left and right (at the specific parts of bridge, not on whole bridge).

 

But wait you say! The higher the settings > the higher the resources usage > the worse the performance!

Yes, you are absolutely right!

 

But the thing is... It's not true when talking about Skyrim.

Right now I did some benchmarks and can tell you this.

I installed Skyrim and USKP to ramdisk. To be 100% sure you know.

My hardware:

-i7 3930k running @ 4.4Ghz, Hyper-threading off.

-Gtx 680 @ 1205Mhz, 2gb vram @ 7Ghz (OC from 6Ghz give you 10~ extra fps).

-Corsair Vengeance 32gb @ 1600Mhz.

Won't tell you other parts. Those doesn't matter right now. Also I have 100% stable config and everything is configured properly.

 

First of all!

HDD, SSD, RamDisk.

Running Skyrim from 7200rpm hdd and from ramdisk does not affect Skyrim performance and does not improve situation with those stutters. At all.

That means this problem is not related to loading issues/cell transfer issues and people who say to upgrade from hdd to ssd are completely wrong. They are experiencing placebo effect.

Summarize

HDDs,SSDs,RamDisks do not affect stuttering.

 

GPU

When Skyrim stutters on default GPU clocks (@ 6Ghz) I see fps drops to 58~ and right after that fps rises to 62~.

As I said before if you set Vram to 7Ghz you'll get massive fps increase. +10~ fps everywhere. Theoretically you shouldn't see this 58 fps drop anymore.

BUT! @ 7Ghz skyrim stutters at the exact same locations. You see the exact same fps fluctuations (first 58 drop then 62 raise). Despite fps "reserve".

Then I tried to downclock my GPU. To 5Ghz.

Stutters were exactly the same.

In-game Vram usage: 800-1200Mb.

In-game GPU usage 30-80%.

Summarize

GPU clocks (both core clock and vram clock) affect in-game performance when paired with good capable CPU which doesn't bottleneck your system. It is recommended to OC Vram since core clock bring less performance and extremely raises GPU temperatures.

GPU clocks do not affect stuttering.

 

CPU

Cpu clocks affect skyrim performance. The higher the clocks the higher the in-game fps.

According to my benchmarks Skyrim properly utilizes 4 cores.

Cpu core utilization 10-80%.

Summarize

Despite CPU affecting performance, running Skyrim @ 3.2Ghz, 3.8Ghz, 4.4Ghz, 4.8Ghz does not reduce stuttering/affect it at all.

 

RAM

Ram was stress tested and benchmarked. Every module is 100% effective and fault-free.

Running RAM @ 1333Mhz and @ 1600Mhz does not affect Skyrim performance nor stuttering.

 

As you can see, I did some test there.

I am not really interested in fixing this issue anymore, and can play on uGridsToLoad 5 completely stutter free, but still I am very interested in your opinion what else could it be? Why does this game stutter with not default settings? Why does it choke?

Edited July 31, 2014 by Akreontage

[camaro_69_327]

What Vsync are you using....Skyrims..its bad. causes lag /stutter.

 

Three ways to handle Vsync...

1) Skyrims...NOT configurable, will not work with newer monitors that have a refresh rate at or above 100Hz. (physics engine needs 60 FPS or lower.)

2) ENB ...also not configurable, same as above , (useless with a 144 HZ monitor as i have.)

 

**3) Nvidia , configurable, its what i must use. it can be configured to a lower FPS. Using Nvidia i can set 1/3 Vsync netting me 33 FPS..yes still liquid smooth.

 

Their is a lot of technical stuff you can read up on, but Skyrim , like Oblivion has a timing issue , something about the tic rate is off just a little, so a couple frames of the 60 is faster then the rest. so you see a micro stutter. Lock your FPS to below 60, 58 is said to work well. In Oblivion their was a program to control this..Oblivion stutter remover. For Skyrim the control if to never go 60 FPS. something about the timing done at 64 HZ but game is doing 60 HZ by default. Don't fully understand it, but know ...when you have it, it can actually make you sick to your stomach. Makes me feel twitchy...lol.

 

Setting the FPS to a value that will never ever change, is what is needed to not ever see a variance AKA stutter. IF your RIG can do a steady 58 FPS and never go lower use that , if not lock the FPS to what ever you can maintain.

 

I think what did the most for me was a combination of things.......

An ENB , (allows memory and Vram to be used more efficiently), also has setting to use windowed mode FULL screen.

Nvidia to control Vsync.

SLI- a pair of 3 GB 580's,, ( i maintain at or below 2.8 GB VRAM usage)

SKSE w/SKSE.ini (controls memory allocation of first /second mem blocks.)

 

Good luck, if you see the stutter, it will always bug you, some say they don't have it,,,its that they are not bothered by it...everyone has it.

 

:)

[Akreontage]

Well... I know that thing about Vsync! It's good you mentioned it here though. Maybe it will be useful for somebody.

The thing is those stutters I am talking about appear even when vsync is turned off. Yeah I know about broken physics and stuff like that. I know that one should turn off vsync in this game and exceed 60fps. The problem is... Right now I was running skyrim at 30fps (Half-adaptive vsync for me). I use 60hz monitor...

Well you see, I never have fps below 30. To be more specific I don't drop below 71 fps. That is the absolutely minimum I get (I can check it if I turn vsync off as I mentioned before).

Yet it stutters on 30fps! Whenever this happens I see in msi afterburner that my fps was 31.5 for split second. That moment stutter appeared. Yet I am capped at 30fps with vsync. If I cap at 30fps with frame-limiter in nvidia control panel in addition to half-adaptive vsync stutters still occur but then I see 29.5 fps instead of 29.9 for that moment.

[camaro_69_327]

DO you use an ENB...even if only for the BOOST part.

 

in ENB config......Turn on Windowed mode and Full screen...do you still experience the stutters?

 

The slight drop/stutter you are getting could just be Skyrim accessing your HDD/sdd to load data??

Edited July 31, 2014 by camaro_69_327

[Akreontage]

As I mentioned before I don't use any enbs or mods. Also you can see that I did benchmarks while Skyrim was installed onto ramdisk.

Also "slight drop" is not actually slight drop. Stutter occur when there is "slight increase" also. Lets say you play at steady 30fps. For a fraction of second you see fps is 31. BAM! Stutter. Or else. Fps is showing 29.9 then 30.0 then 30.1. Everything is fine. THEN BAAM! 30.4 > stutter occurs.

This thing. I had something similar in Battlefield 3. Many people had this issue. What fixed this in bf3 was limiting in-game fps to 59.95. To do that you had to write command into config file.

Sad thing... There is no in-game fps limiter in Skyrim. Except iFPSClamp... Which is not actual fps limiter. : /

[Akreontage]

I did some tests with overclocking my monitor, running at different refresh rates.

What I definitely can say Skyrim can work well at 60 or 30hz only. For example If I set 50hz and add iFPSClamp=50 this game becomes choppy. Those are not stutters.

Nothing can be done with stuttering I think.

 

UPD:

There are absolutely zero errors or warnings in Event viewer when playing skyrim...

 

P.S. It seems that using default uGridsToLoad does not remove those stutters. They are exactly at the same locations.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Akreontage

[Lord Garon]

OP - "First of all!

HDD, SSD, RamDisk.

Running Skyrim from 7200rpm hdd and from ramdisk does not affect Skyrim performance and does not improve situation with those stutters. At all.

That means this problem is not related to loading issues/cell transfer issues and people who say to upgrade from hdd to ssd are completely wrong. They are experiencing placebo effect.

Summarize

HDDs,SSDs,RamDisks do not affect stuttering."

 

Absolutely contrary to my experience. Just having the textures folder (identified as primary location of high latency files via Windows Resource Monitor) loaded into ramdisk eliminated about 70% of the new cell load stutter on my machine. I/O stutter is caused by loading ASSETS (data files like meshes, textures, sounds), not plugins (esm, esp). Asset changes happen when your character is moving, or something is happening in-game.

 

EDIT: Esm's and esp's load once, during load screens.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Lord Garon

[Akreontage]

What I experience here is not actually stutters at cell transitions.

You see... Those stutters which people claim to be loading new cells were completely fixed for me by single option which I mentioned many times here. iFPSClamp... Which in fact weren't cell transitions at all.

That's when I understood this whole topic about stuttering because of new cells loading is pretty much just somebody's imagination.

I completely understand logic behind this and believe many people actually achieved some improvements. But for me this is not true since I don't have stutters at cell borders.

I think I should do some video to show you what's the problem exactly...

 

Upd: I did video, but it's pointless to upload since nvidia shadowplay doesn't capture actual performance.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Akreontage

[Reynard131]

What I experience here is not actually stutters at cell transitions.

You see... Those stutters which people claim to be loading new cells were completely fixed for me by single option which I mentioned many times here. iFPSClamp... Which in fact weren't cell transitions at all.

That's when I understood this whole topic about stuttering because of new cells loading is pretty much just somebody's imagination.

I completely understand logic behind this and believe many people actually achieved some improvements. But for me this is not true since I don't have stutters at cell borders.

I think I should do some video to show you what's the problem exactly...

 

Upd: I did video, but it's pointless to upload since nvidia shadowplay doesn't capture actual performance.

 

 

 

You have a O/S set-up issue you need to keep the pagefile off the C: Drive which is were windows defaults it to unless you change this your SSD or hard drive do not like them on the same drive.

 

 

 

I'm able to game and stream twitch.tv for hours with no crashes or stutters. streaming at 3000 k and game for hours.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUCKwD8219A

 

 

Simply set you pagefile per M/S suggestions.

 

Google is your friend!

[Akreontage]

But I turned off page file.

Is it still the issue when page file is turned off?