GTX GeForce 670 and Skyrim: the FPS lag that never ends

[erehwonnz]

So, here's the story.

 

I've been playing Skyrim since it came out, but I upgraded my hardware about a year ago to take advantage of the beauty of the game that modding makes possible. I installed an Asus GeForce GTX 670 on my machine and went off about my questing. The only annoyance was a persistent FPS drop when panning quickly in both indoor and outdoor spaces. I tried the usual suggestions, such as running the game in windowed mode and toggling VSync--to no avail. My framerate drops from 55/60 to 1/2 every time I look around. Eventually, I assumed this had something to do with the hundred or so mods I'm running and decided to live with it.

 

However, a friend of mine recently build a computer with precisely the same parts as mine, except that he installed a GTX 660 rather than a 670 and 8 rather than 16 GB of memory. He installed precisely the same mods as me, except that he added about ten more and chose the ultra high textures rather than the "lite" versions I chose. And on his machine, with a lower graphics card, less memory, and higher-res textures, on Ultra mode (I run mine on High) and running an ENB (my machine cannot in any event sustain even resource-light ENBs) his game runs beautifully, with nary an FPS drop.

 

What am I missing? Do I have any options? I was content with how things were, but now I feel like I might be missing something critical.

 

If it's useful, some parts:

Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5Hz Quad-Core

ASRock Z77Extreme

16GB Ares Series DDR3 memory

Samsung 830 128GB SSD

Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM internal hard drive

Asus GeForce GTX 670 4GB

 

Any sugestions? I'm at a loss here. Thanks for any feedback you might have!

Edited November 4, 2013 by erehwonnz

[Drax8]

I'm afraid I won't be much help, but I can tell you something is defintiely wrong. You should not have that issue, and should be able to run ENB no problem. I have a system similar to yours, and 60 FPS with ENB on, on Ultra, with High-Res textures.

 

I see you tried windowed mode etc, which I would have suggested too, so I'm not sure where to go. That's pretty odd.

 

My system as a comparison:

i5-2500k 4.5GHz

Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3

16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3

Intel 120GB SSD

EVGA GTX 670 4GB

[jmike00]

Try deleting your Skyrim.ini and Skyrimprefs.ini. Start the game and let the launcher regenerate fresh ones. I have found that trying to overtweak my inis can result in the problem you are describing, especially in open areas where there are tons of trees and distant LOD. I haven't tried any of the latest versions of Skyrim Flora Overhaul but I think it's 1.79? combined with some slight tree distance tweaks in the ini would really bring my fps down.

 

as a comparison my system is similar to yours:

[email protected]

16gb Corsair Dominator@2133

Asus RIVE

Samsung 840pro 128gb

2x EVGA GTX 670 4gb

 

My texture folder is around 14gb and I have around 150 esps so needless to say I'm heavily modded. I do recommend not going for many of the 4k resolution textures. It's not that your PC can't handle it but the game engine itself. I couldn't tell you what my fps is normally since I have it capped at 60fps due to screen tearing and water flickering but it pretty much stays locked at 60fps except for exterior areas that are heavily modded.

 

You should also look into overclocking that 3770k, it's a shame to have that processor NOT at least sitting at 4ghz. You can hit 4gz with a very minimal increase in temp.

Edited November 6, 2013 by jmike00

[erehwonnz]

Thanks for the responses!

 

I've actually deleted every file and reinstalled Skyrim a couple times without results. I'm only using 1024-ish textures, for what it's worth. Same results each time.

 

One thing I did notice--and should probably have noticed previously--is that my fan doesn't seem to ever pick up speed, even if I manually set it to a higher speed. Unless it's the quietest fan in the universe, something doesn't seem right. At the same time, my system maintains 70-80 degrees F at peak usage, 30 F at least.

 

I do note that the issue is reduced by lowering distant textures; however, given my system I'd like to be able to make fewer compromises--not running on ultra, not using high-res textures, not using ENBs, etc.

 

Hmm...

[Reynard131]

Thanks for the responses!

 

I've actually deleted every file and reinstalled Skyrim a couple times without results. I'm only using 1024-ish textures, for what it's worth. Same results each time.

 

One thing I did notice--and should probably have noticed previously--is that my fan doesn't seem to ever pick up speed, even if I manually set it to a higher speed. Unless it's the quietest fan in the universe, something doesn't seem right. At the same time, my system maintains 70-80 degrees F at peak usage, 30 F at least.

 

I do note that the issue is reduced by lowering distant textures; however, given my system I'd like to be able to make fewer compromises--not running on ultra, not using high-res textures, not using ENBs, etc.

 

Hmm...

 

 

 

 

This sounds to me like more of a setup issue You need to go into the BIOS and verify that you are not running on optimized defaults that make the memory run with High CAS.

make sure that the memory is running on the appropriate profile. DDR 3 1600/1333 is the default and setting it above that does nothing as far as performance that is not always able to be done, and adds nothing to performance on this platform the JEDEC DDR 3 defaults are DDR 3 1600/1333 @ 1.5 volts.

 

Then go into the control panel advanced tab virtual memory/page file, and get the page file off of the O/S drive and manually set it physical RAM initial and 2x physical RAM Maximum.

 

Make sure that the driver has Skyrim as one of the 3D apps

 

See if that helps !

[erehwonnz]

Thanks for the response. Sorry for not replying sooner--I've been away from here for a little while. I took the steps you recommended and found that my memory was set to 2/4 GB. I tried increasing it, but I saw no change. Skyrim freezes and jitters when panning no matter what I do.

 

I didn't see if Skyrim was set as a 3D app--any advice on where to set/check that?

[erehwonnz]

Anyone? I'm pretty baffled about this. Done many a clean install to no avail...