Large FPS drop after interior->exterior cell travel until restart

[ihatefallout]

Hi iv spent the last 4 days trying to solve this issue, the same one you having, etc. entering exiting cell space.

 

For example I'm standing in Windhelm Max graphics with Realvision ENB and 90 fov with 70 fps, smooth as butter. But then all I have to do Is quickly bring up the in-game map and close it again and... Boom 15 fps. Here's the interesting thing if I alt+tab back in to the game... my fps gradually regenerates back to 70. Where I can then repeat.

 

List of things I've tried so far...

 

Re-installed Nivida graphics drivers an tried back dated drivers

Re-installed Skyrim completely

Tried backdated versions of ENB binary

Disabled all mods except for SKSE

Checked GPU temperature and Skyrim isn't reaching dangerous levels of memory usage (all fine :)

Concluded that the issue must be associated with either SKSE or ENB

 

Continuing...

 

Disabled all antivirus software

Enabled SKSE in the Nivida control panel.

Experimented with different suggested for ini tweaks etc. video memory, shadow resolution, 4 gig patch.

Tried turning off ENB in-game which obv reduced the severity of the fps drop but didn't in anyway fix it.

 

 

Two weeks ago I was playing heavily modded Skyrim with little to no performance issues but now I've spent so long working on this that I'm starting to question my own sanity lol Looking at the results I have concluded that if the issue doesn't exist in (vanila Skyrim) then it is being introduced possible by a number of different things. The fact that other people are experiencing this issue is actually encouraging because now I know the problem isn't unique to my gaming machine. Also we can rule out mods as I've disabled them all and the issue persists. I also don't believe its Mod Organizer or NMM because I've run the game strait from the SKSE exe. I've replicated the issue using different ENB's and with no ENB. So that just leaves SKSE... Its like Sherlock always says "once you've eliminated every other possibility..." I'm not giving up just yet. I know this much if your PC is capable of rendering something at X frame rate... there is no reason for it to suddenly plummet. I guess the obv thing is to try it without SKSE but that just leaves vanilla Skyrim?

 

Please help me so I can start my new life in Skyrim without the walls of reality crashing in around me.

 

Nivida 770

I5-4670

16 GB

64-bit Windows 7

 

[ihatefallout]

After a few more days I cracked it. The Skyrim random performance doping issue.

 

Basically I had power saving mod enabled on my PC which lowers performance to save power, it can even restrict your CPU speed! Which explains why the problem appeared to be a memory leak.

 

Anyway if you are experience random performance drops in your games with no explanation... it might me worth checking your PC's power saving settings by searching (Power management) in the windows start button an select performance mode.

 

If this solution doesn't work for you, don't give up, nothing makes sense in IT, an nothing seems to make sense in Skyrim, but keep looking through forums like these, the solution is out there.

[Miekael]

Okay, at first it appeared that the 4gb patch had taken care of this entirely, but upon further review it seems it only extends the amount of time i can play without the issue returning. My new fix is to, immediately after exiting an interior, hit ctrl+alt+del, click task manager (this is windows 8.1) and the task manager will instantly minimize, skyrim screen goes black for about 5 seconds, everything comes back kind of bright for a sec like the shaders hat been reset or something and it works great til the next time i come outside. Much faster than restarting the game. Btw, using gtx 650ti, amd quad-core, 8gb ram, realvision b full and 255 esp/esms activated

Thanks for posting that! Why does this actually work for me? lol

[ihatefallout]

Oh good did it fix the problem for you then?

 

I also use ENboost with RealVision and Skyrim Startup Memory Editor to make the game run smoother.

 

Oh and Ready Boost USB but don't think it makes any difference.

 

Yet even with my high end gaming rig an all of these performance tweaks I still get fps issues when looking at that dam water wheel in markath! lol

 

[Radeon23]

Hi, in my case is this fps drop caused by shadows on "ultra". I just changed it on "high" and it's ok.

 

Sorry for bad english.

[shomwow]

Did you modify 'uGridsToLoad=' in skyrim.ini? If so make sure to modify the line 'uExterior Cell Buffer=' as well. The value for uExterior Cell Buffer should be your grids to load plus one and taken the second power. For example:

 

uGridsToLoad=7

 

7+1=8

 

8²=64

 

Therefore uExterior Cell Buffer=64.

 

BTW ugridstoload above seven is not recommended, if you haven't heard already.

 

Ostensibly the engine performs this operation on the fly, however it seems that when loading exterior cells after exiting interiors, the game reverts so to speak to the default exterior cell buffer, 36.

 

I was having the same issue as you describe, so I decided to experiment with the uExterior Cell Buffer= line. I had read a recently posted stability guide on Nexus stating that modifying the value for uExterior Cell Buffer= was unnecessary. Looking at the charts on MSI Afterburner I could see that at the times my frame rate dropped most dramatically, the GPU usage and temp dropped to web browsing levels. So it seemed to me that somewhere after loading back in to an exterior the game wasnt telling my GPU that it had work to do, and therefore the frames dropped. After adjusting uExterior Cell Buffer= it seemed to be working properly again. I'll update this post if these results turned out to be erroneous.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Heebro

[johcor]

I know this thread hasn't been updated for the past 4 months, and my post may draw the ire of those reviewing updates, but simply for the benefit of those who encounter this fps frame drop issue, I'll say that I resolved this exact issue by doing what Radeon23 did. I can run around all day outside at 30 fps, but when I go inside and then go back outside, it tanked to 10 fps almost every single time. Simply running Skyrim Launcher from within MO and changing shadows from ultra to high fixed the problem 100%. Thanks to those who suggested the fix, and I suggest folks try this non-invasive approach first before editing your ini fles and adding more patches.

[shArk87]

So dropping Shadows from ultra to High fixed the lag issue? Thank you Captain GINIUS!!!
Actually, the cause of these frame drops can be about anything really..
Outdated hardware, Mods, High Texture size, Fragmentation, 3rd party programs running on the bakground while playing, bad load order, bad .ini tweakings, etc...

I've mastered Skyrim in every way possible, i just know about anything about it to the point to exactly know what's causing the drops!
In my case mine were several that caused the issue.. Mainly because of skyrim's game engine ;)
The other one was running SKSE with Borderless Window (SKSE unlocked 4GB ram memory access)
The other one was increasing Mesh lods, Tree distance and proper shadow tweaking.. (Yup increasing mesh and tree)
What this does is ofc, put on stress in your CPU/GPU sacrficing a few frames instead of a sudden FPS drop..
And i applied the unofficial patches and skyrim optimizer esp. from nexus!
Well i really did everything to at least reduce the micro stutter and the annoying FPS drops when loading new cells..

Nowadays, nobody even touches skyrim launcher settings since its inaccurate! that's why i love tweakings making every setting unique

[speash]

I had the exact same problem and the shadows setting totally fixed it! No more fps drops when leaving interiors! Thank you very much Radeon23, now i finally dare to feed some more mods to my skyrim as i thought the amount i already had was the problem :D

[Zuperbuu]

I've tried everything mentioned in this topic and I still can't get above 18FPS with a fresh install of skyrim with 0 mods at all, on medium. My laptop isn't old or that bad either, it should at least reach 25FPS. On very specific occasions (inside towns like Whiterun and Windhelm) my FPS drops to 5! But outside and around towns in the world (like Morthal or Winterhold) I do not have this problem unless I go inside a building and then come outside.

My loading screens are insanely fast because this laptop is actually good compared to my old one; loading screens barely stay on the screen longer than 4 seconds before I am at my new destination, and I get no lag at all using menus. I occasionally get save-game loading crashes, but my game itself never crashes during play.

 

EDIT: Lowering my graphics to low has minor increase in FPS, but it does not seem right for my machine to struggle on medium when it can handle far more taxing games without graphical hindrances. My game automatically is set to high as well whenever Skyrim detects my graphics card; having it set on high yields the same FPS as medium with no visible difference.

 

Here are my specs:

HP Pavilion Notebook - 15-p157na (ENERGY STAR)
Intel Core i5

Intel Iris Graphics 5100

8GB RAM

Windows 8.1 64bit

Edited May 16, 2015 by Zuperbuu