Performance absolutely tanking when the game ran perfectly fine previously (Vanilla)

[Guest deleted237617522]

I took about a year's break from Skyrim and decided to jump back in. I downgraded my game to 1.5.97 as well as installed some modding utilities (MO2, Loot, Kezyma's Root Builder and Curation Club etc.). Fired up SKSE (2.0.2) through MO2 just to run a quick test and my FPS is absolutely atrocious. I don't have a beefy computer but I used to run Skyrim on High with consistent 60FPS, now the FPS tanks to 20, goes up to 40, down to 30, up to 55 without me even moving. I used to run this game perfectly fine before but now its unplayable.

Quick list of things I tried to do to fix it:

• let the engine load and then tried playing
• tried setting the graphics option to Low and Medium - had some improvement but the game would still drop to 20 FPS on occasion
• tried re-installing the game
• tried re-installing the game and running with the latest update (1.6.1170 I believe)
• I also don't use any of the CC content

 

So I'm a little stuck and I was wondering if anyone ever experienced this, also sorry if this has been posted before I'm a little new to the forums.

My specs if this might help

Spoiler

• Windows 10
• CPU: i5-4430
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
• Memory: 20GB

Like I said not beefy but I can run most game fine and I've even run Skyrim SE before no problem. Also according to several benchmark/can I run it websites/programs I should be able to play this game no problem

 

Thank you in advance,

[radiusrsatti]

default questions, nvidia drivers up to date? the drive you installed Skyrim to, it's not like 90+% full or anything? have you monitored task manager when running the game, see how resources are being used or overused?

don't know your familiarity level with MO2, but the settings for Low/High/Ultra stored in the Skyrim INIs are self-contained in MO2, you can't use the in-game or default Documents/Skyrim settings files for changes... also recommend BethINI to generate said files and copy into MO2

are you running any mods? running base with just what you mentioned should be close to a perfect game... mod suggestion to try, SSE Engine Fixes

[weiht68]

Can you take a look in the in game overlay from Nvidia (Alt+R) and check cpu and gpu percentage? Check also in Nvidia control panel if you have everything according to your setup under 3D.

When you was making a bigger update on Win10 (H22xx) then it is maybe also necessary to reinstall NET and VC runtime.

If you are running Armoury crate check that you have it on high performance as also in Windows (not sure if you have this also in Win 10 under Graphic).

[Guest deleted237617522]

Hey radiusrsatti, so my Nvidia drivers are up to date, my drive is like 95% empty, and sorry I should have mentioned I did use BethINI to set my settings for low/medium. Not running any mods, but I did install Engine Fixes + Bug Fixes + Scrambled Bug Fixes which had no effect on performance.

However, I did use the Nvidia game overlay and my CPU & GPU would jump around 60%-90% constantly, and the best I would get is like 48FPS. I'm not a computer expert but I feel like my GPU/CPU reaching critical mass while I'm not doing anything isn't a good sign

I feel like I might have to invest in some new computer parts it's just weird that I never had this problem before. The only other games I really play is EU4 and that one has always been consistent, no issues there.

Edited December 30, 2024 by Zexuiss

[Guest deleted237617522]

Hey weiht68, on the Nvidia control panel everything is set to use global settings, I never really tinkered with this before. I ran the updates for .NET & VC but that didn't help with the performance, and I also set the game to high performance in the Windows graphics menu but no change.

I did use the Nvidia game overlay and my CPU & GPU would jump around 60%-90% constantly, and the best I would get is like 48FPS.

[weiht68]

On 12/30/2024 at 11:14 PM, Guest deleted237617522 said:

Hey weiht68, on the Nvidia control panel everything is set to use global settings, I never really tinkered with this before. I ran the updates for .NET & VC but that didn't help with the performance, and I also set the game to high performance in the Windows graphics menu but no change.

I did use the Nvidia game overlay and my CPU & GPU would jump around 60%-90% constantly, and the best I would get is like 48FPS.

Normaly you should have on both CPU/GPU not more as 30-40% with high load with CPU's from 5-6 years ago. At first you should set your 3D settings in N-Controlpanel especially for Skyrim. You can find a lot info on the web. I am on a laptop so my settings are maybe a little bit different when you are playing on a desktop but it should help.

Go first to Manage 3D settings

Under Preferred graphics processor set "High performance Nvidia ..."

Go now to Program settings

Select The Elder scrolls Skyrim skyrimse.exe

Select the preferred graphic processor for this program to High-Performance Nvidia

Specific settings:

Image Sharpening      Sharpening off (for upscaler by me or the standard sharpening)

Anisotropic filtering    Off

Antialiasing -FXAA     Off

Antialiasing -Gamma correction Off

Antialliasing mode     Off

Background application Max Frame Rate Off (or what ever you like)

Cuda-GPU All

Cuda Fallback Driver Default

Low Latency Mode Ultra

Max Frame rate Off

Multi-Frame Sampled AA On (no difference observed in my setup)

Open GL GDI compatibility Auto

Open GL rendering CPU Nvidia Geforce XXXX

Power management mode Prefer maximum Performance

Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample On

Texture filtering negative LOD bias Allow

Texture filtering High Performance

Texture filtering Trilinear optimization On

Threaded Optimization On

Trible buffering ON

Vertical sync On

Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames 1

Vulkan/Open GL present method Auto

 

Also i would advise to install Skyrim upscaler https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/80343 and also SSE display tweaks.

For upscaler it is possible that you don't get the ingame menu but you dont need it because when you installed the upscaler base plugin correctly you get automatical the right settings. If you would change things you can change in the ini file (only 5 parameters inside when i remember correctly).

[Zexuiss]

21 hours ago, weiht68 said:

Normaly you should have on both CPU/GPU not more as 30-40% with high load with CPU's from 5-6 years ago. At first you should set your 3D settings in N-Controlpanel especially for Skyrim. You can find a lot info on the web. I am on a laptop so my settings are maybe a little bit different when you are playing on a desktop but it should help.

Go first to Manage 3D settings

Under Preferred graphics processor set "High performance Nvidia ..."

Go now to Program settings

Select The Elder scrolls Skyrim skyrimse.exe

Select the preferred graphic processor for this program to High-Performance Nvidia

Specific settings:

Image Sharpening      Sharpening off (for upscaler by me or the standard sharpening)

Anisotropic filtering    Off

Antialiasing -FXAA     Off

Antialiasing -Gamma correction Off

Antialliasing mode     Off

Background application Max Frame Rate Off (or what ever you like)

Cuda-GPU All

Cuda Fallback Driver Default

Low Latency Mode Ultra

Max Frame rate Off

Multi-Frame Sampled AA On (no difference observed in my setup)

Open GL GDI compatibility Auto

Open GL rendering CPU Nvidia Geforce XXXX

Power management mode Prefer maximum Performance

Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample On

Texture filtering negative LOD bias Allow

Texture filtering High Performance

Texture filtering Trilinear optimization On

Threaded Optimization On

Trible buffering ON

Vertical sync On

Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames 1

Vulkan/Open GL present method Auto

 

Also i would advise to install Skyrim upscaler https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/80343 and also SSE display tweaks.

For upscaler it is possible that you don't get the ingame menu but you dont need it because when you installed the upscaler base plugin correctly you get automatical the right settings. If you would change things you can change in the ini file (only 5 parameters inside when i remember correctly).

Hey, same guy that made the original post just my account kept bugging out so I made a new one.

 

I tried all the settings you recommended, and my CPU/GPU usage went down a little bit but I would still have sudden FPS drops, it would go to 60, then without doing anything it would just drop between 30 and 50. I will give the upscaler a go and see if that improves anything.

Thanks for all the advice and tips!

[weiht68]

On 1/5/2025 at 10:35 PM, Zexuiss said:

Hey, same guy that made the original post just my account kept bugging out so I made a new one.

 

I tried all the settings you recommended, and my CPU/GPU usage went down a little bit but I would still have sudden FPS drops, it would go to 60, then without doing anything it would just drop between 30 and 50. I will give the upscaler a go and see if that improves anything.

Thanks for all the advice and tips!

If you have still sudden drops on the fps after install upscaler it could be a high script load. Then you have to check your mods - for exempel Sands of time mod has a lot scripts running in the background or also Wetfunction redux if this is configured wrong.

If you are also using sse display tweaks take a look at the ini file. If i remember correctly in the standard ini it opens up the game to the max fps/frequency your display can handle. I (144Hz laptop display) was getting a lot better performance if i was setting the max framerate to 85. If you have 60Hz display set also max framerate to 60.