Is it normal to experience major FPS drops as low as 10?

[DoubleTroubIe]

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970

 

CPU: i7-4770 @ 3.40 GHz

 

Relevant mods: Skyrim 2017 textures [] Skyrim Flora Overhaul [] Realistic Water Two [] Open Cities Skyrim [] Vivid Weathers [] Realistic Lighting Overhaul

 

All video options are on Ultra. SSEEdit was used to clean relevant .esm files. Loot used for mod order.

 

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So I understand I've got multiple texture mods and am running everything on Ultra meaning I'm definitely not tuned for peformance. I get that. Yet I still have a hard time believing I should be experiencing super hard frame drops from 60 fps down to 10 simply because I've walked 15 feet away from where I was previously.

 

I can be standing in the middle of a forest with crystal clear 60 fps, walk several feet in one direction and all of the sudden experience a drop. The reason does not seem very apparent. Is it an issue with how the game loads things? Maybe it drops because its loading something in the next cell or whatever?

 

When the drop happens, it stays in that low FPS range until I continue to move on. I will be at 60 FPS --> walk into some FPS drop zone ---> continue walking and eventually snap out of it.

 

This seemingly only happens in forested areas. But there are plenty of areas of a forest where my FPS is consistently fine.

 

Any ideas?

[Rasikko]

It's normal in the sense that if the forests are using high poly meshes, you'll get a noticeable drop in FPS, this is combined with the sheer number of them in the loaded cells(25 default).

 

Though, if anything is good at killing FPS, it's shadows.. so you can turn them all off and see if that makes a difference.

[QuagaarWarrior]

No I wouldnât say it was normal. If you only have those mods installed and are running it on that system I think you should expect better performance.

Maybe post your load order and full system specs

[FlyIgnite]

try sse fixes. apparently there is a bug that drops your fps if you have to much mods loaded into the game. Doesnt matter the size of the mod it will drop

[strawbqwerty]

He gets 10 fps and is complaining ? Luck bugger I say. Your GPU is a bit lacking in performance and capacity. If that it is a standard 4g GTX970. I have also a older GPU a R9390 8g which even with 8g of ram still struggles to handle much the same textures as you have installed. But I also have Whiterun Forest Borealis installed, So maybe you may need to some time in the future look at upgrading your card?

[hielkeskyrim]

I had a GTX970 before. That card has 4gb video memory which is a little on the low side for Skyrim 2017 textures if you also download a lot of other mods. If you have the tree version of Skyrim Flora Overhaul 10fps in foresty areas is certainly possible.

[LeddBate]

While VRAM amount (and speed) is certainly important for textures, regular RAM is also important for loading (and running) levels/areas. How much RAM do you have?

I'd also have to agree with others here that a stock 970 is a bit taxed by that mod load. Of course GPU prices suck right now (thanks, bitcoin. grumble, grumble.) But if you can afford the scratch, a 1080 with 8GB of VRAM will certainly handle any stable load thrown at it.

[DoubleTroubIe]

OP here

 

I fixed this issue by turning off AMBIENT OCCLUSION.

 

Seems like AO was the source of all my problems. Turning it off has kept my game running at 60 fps everywhere, including high-poly forests. And I still have ultra shadows!

 

GG.

[LeddBate]

Thank you for coming back and letting us know. Somebody with a similar problem might find this useful. Kudo given.

[sopmac45]

I do have a different approach which let me have a very .. very ...good looking graphic and textures and at the same time excellent performance, but before continue, my rig is : Nvidia 1070, 16gb RAM, Z170 mobo, i7-6700, SSD 1tb and a 165 Hz Monitor Viewsonic.

 

- Game option settings : 2560x1440, Anti-aliasing = off, all advance settings = minimum allowed, Godrays =off, LensFlare = off, Shadow Quality = Medium, Shadow Distance = Medium, Decal = medium, Distant Object Detail and Object Detail Fade = Medium ( my Depth of Field = off ) .... ( only by doing this, you will get a performance oriented game .. guaranteed ... and at the same time, your graphics will look much better than normal .. why ? Because by just turning the Anti-Aliasing = off, you turn your graphics more sharp. Nikon cameras ( and all cameras ) have an AA filter in front of the sensor but there are some cameras made without the AA filter ( like the Nikon D810 ) and it is proven that the AA filter, makes your pictures more soften so whichever camera does not has this filter, is going to produce sharper pictures. Same principle with your settings, turn off the AA filter and you will automatically have sharper game. )

- I only use one ENB ( SkyrimENB ) ... and I use the Color Correction option when installing this mod. This ENB allow you to increase : sharp, contrast, color, gamma, brightness, etc, etc, etc ....

- In combination with Vivid Weathers, Better roads, SMIM, Ruins Clutter, Enhanced Textures ( just mountains in the FOMOD installer ) and Vivid Landscapes ... I get the best graphics and still the best performance

 

My game runs at 60 fps 95% of the time. When it drops below, is never less than 55 .. never ...