Robathon

Nothing! I've been so exhausted from work that I haven't been in the frame of mind to even try. I think the highest temperature I've observed was 70 Celsius. Generally, though, it's in the 50 degree range. The 70 was alarming, but it only happened the once, and haven't seen it climb that high since. Really? I've been using a G.Skill 2x4 since 2014 and it hasn't caused me any issues. Nothing wrong with getting more, though! I hadn't heard about one Mountain and I never considered removing fog! I like the mystique it can add. I also went with the 250 GB SSD. Since I generally only play one game at a time, I simply adopted the habit of transferring games to and from my terabyte HD. What do you mean by initial scripts? I can't even walk into Honorhall Orphanage without FPS nose-diving to 10-15. Wherever scripted dialogue begins between NPCs, FPS takes a wallop! You know, excluding random banter and whatnot. Sapphire talking to the NPC out in Riften? No problems there. Conversations in the markets? Nothing. It's just certain things. Such as the "kind" ol' granny in Honorhall talking to the kids, the Jarl of Whiterun sending you on Bleak Falls Barrow, Viarmo welcoming you to the Bards College. These three instances I got the FPS drop. Even after the dialogue has ended, the FPS remains the same - regardless of me leaving or staying. Once I'm outside, it jumps back to 60, but going back in (only after this scripted dialogue) it declines rapidly.

When I first modded Old Rim back in 2014, which was my first time modding, I used NMM at the time and became familiar with it. So, this time around I went back to the tried and true, and thus I've never used Mod Organizer. That being said, I didn't have a problem then! twistedfatal and I attacked my hardware on this machine from every conceivable angle. Nonetheless, I will check out that Skyrim Project Stability guide to see if there's anything relevant to my setup at the moment. I'm not sure I'll need to use Skyrim Project Optimization. From what I understand of the mod, it focuses more on performance, and maximizing FPS for interiors. I never had a problem with interiors. It was exterior FPS. That problem has, after weeks of tinkering, seemingly been solved! RealVision was the culprit. A simple re-install and everything was magically fixed. Pretty sure it had something to do with its DoF. I installed the Performance version, which isn't compatible with its DoF, but somehow was getting the DoF effect. The re-install removed that, and Bob's your uncle. I use Climates of Tamriel at present. I had it on my ten year old system, with a 2.67 Processor, 6 GB of RAM, and a GTX 760, and it worked famously. Three years ago I built a new machine with a 3.2 processor, a SSD dedicated to my OS and games, 8 GB of RAM and a GTX 970. With or without CoT it makes zero difference! As for that lethal lightning mod, I ain't trying to die watering my plants! Lmao.

I use Alternate Start to skip the vanilla start of the game, but I did do a run-through of it with mods installed and it executed without error, stuttering or horrendous frame-rates. I haven't installed much else since then. Just a few cosmetics, I believe - nothing with scripts, for sure. As for starting over, that's not an issue. I'm not starting an actual play-through until the game is entirely modded and stable. Almost every test I do is a new save. And yes, I did clean my masters!

That sounds reasonable. Do you happen to have any suggestions?

I have things like SMIM and amidianborn textures, but otherwise nothing. It doesn't seem to be location specific. When I enter the Bards College for the first time, the dialogue that occurs tanks my FPS. When I report the Helgen incident to the Jarl of Whiterun, and am offered the Bleak Falls Barrow quest, the FPS takes a dive. However, it should be noted I can enter Dragonsreach prior to the quest activation without issue.

While it seems we resolved the abominable frame-rates (thanks SO much for all the help), I think I might be having some kind of script issue. I went into the Honorhall Orphanage, witnessed Grelod addressing the children, and watched the FPS plummet into the dirt. Even after the sequence was over, it remained abysmal. I left the orphanage, where the FPS returned to 60, then went back in to watch it fall back to 15. As the scripted conversation was already over at that point, I don't understand why my frame-rates were so drastically reduced! This is just like what happened at Dragonsreach.

I may have solved the problem! I uninstalled RealVision, then installed it all over again. When I launched the game and exited the Elysium Estate, my FPS was at 60. As I trekked through the exterior market around Whiterun, it dropped as low as 35, but climbed right back up to 60 the further I went along. It's never been above 40 outdoors before! Here's to hoping this isn't some kind of fluke.

Thanks for the tip! I did as instructed and eliminated all the orange from the list. It's done nothing for my FPS, but hopefully it prevents future issues!

I have not touched the uGrids at all. However, I did switch to the 'Optimized INI files uGrids 5' optional file listed on the RealVision ENB site at Nexus. I do not see a uExterior parameter in the configuration file, though. Perhaps that's what's causing this? I also checked my original Skyrim.ini. There is a uExterior parameter in that one, which I believe I manually added, but, alternatively, there isn't one for uGrids in the original. I will add uExterior to the downloaded .ini and see what happens! I do not use BethINI (never heard of it before now) and I have run Wrye Bash. ELFX and ELFX Exteriors are both orange because they want me to reorder my master files. Unique Shops and Stores, RS ChildrenPatch - Usleep, Fantasy Soundtrack Project and Alternate Start - New Beginnings are also orange, but moving them up or down the list doesn't make a difference. I read somewhere that some plugins will be orange no matter what you do. EDIT: I added in uExterior Cell Buffer=36 to the General section of the ini and it didn't make a difference to my FPS.

I did not disable all mods to test on a vanilla game. I was not aware you wanted me to do that, or I missed the instruction along the way. My apologies! Using NMM, is there a simple way to disable all of them? The only way I know is to hit the cross-out symbol on each one. If I remember correctly, this also changes the load order, and that'll have to be rebuilt using LOOT and Wyre Bash afterwards. Which means I'll pretty much be doing yet another fresh install.

It made no difference to FPS (60 indoors, 20 outside) and I still saw huge GPU drops in the Performance Monitor. However, I think those drops are either connected to zoning (moving from an interior cell to an exterior cell) or the opening of the menu.

I managed to do it in BIOS! It was set to auto and I changed it to PCI. It was several layers deep and labeled Primary Graphics Display.

I made it into the UEFI Bios Utility by hitting Del the moment my computer started. Literally have a split second to do it. Anyway, I do not have a Primary Graphics setting. The closest I have to that is PCI Express Slot and M.2 Bandwidth. That's set to "PCIeX1 1 and 2 slot at X1 Mode". Other option in the menu is M.2 Mode.

In the Advanced Settings tab, I have System Restore, System Image Recovery, Startup Repair, Command Prompt, Startup Settings and Go Back to the Previous Version.

It seems I'll need this assistance! I wasn't able to locate the UEFI Firmware Settings through Advanced Startup. I have an Asus Z-97A motherboard. For one reason or another, the model hasn't registered in my System Information either. Simply says Not Available. I had to pull my records to find out which one I had installed. As far as my power supply goes, I'll eventually upgrade it to something else! As is it's lasted me three years and gotten me through a modded Skyrim, Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda and a plethora of other games.