Yet another post about stuttering and cpu usage

[moozilbee]

Hi,

Yes, I am having stutters and ctds, and yes, I have looked at a bunch of other stutter posts asking for help and I still have am not completely sure of the cause.

Basically, Skyrim stutters horribly in most areas outside, and even more just outside towns (Riften and Whiterun mostly), and also stutters in certain towns like Windhelm.
I have tried and tried to fix this problem, but nothing seems to work, and I'm wondering if it's caused solely by my CPU, which I suspect it is, since my CPU runs at about 90 - 95% usage whilst playing Skyrim, somethimes peaking at 100% (often when I stutter or ctd), and my GPU is only at about 60-70% load.

Framerates are fine, I get about 30-40fps when looking straight forward, but then stutter when turning around and my fps drops to about 1 frame every 4 seconds for about 6 seconds before the game goes back to a smooth framerate.

 

But I am unsure of whether this is due to Vram usage as well, as sometimes when Skyrim has a CTD the vram usage is at around 1970 mb (of 2048 mb), it might be my cpu causing the stutters and my vram causing the crashes.

 

I would like other peoples opinion on this as then I will know whether buying a better cpu will mostly fix the problem, or whether it is due to having too many/too high res texture mods, or lack of system ram, or needing a faster drive.

 

Here are my specs:
RAM: 4gb crucial ballistix ram

OS: 32bit windows 7

HDD: 500gb seagate 7200rpm hard drive

PSU: XFX 550w

GPU: AMD XFX R9 270 (Stock speeds)

CPU: AMD phenom II x2 550 BE @3.5 ghz (Overclocked from 3.1 ghz to 3.5 ghz)

CPU cooler: Arctic cooling freezer 7

 

Skyrim mods:
Requiem

A few other non massive gameplay mods such as Epic gameplay overhaul, Hunterborn, Convenient horses, etc.
A few immersion, armour, weapon, animation, house, and other probably not performance affecting mods, such as wet and cold, immersive armours, etc

A few not too heavy NPC mods: Interesting npcs, inconsequential npcs, and populated roads paths lands (No other NPC mods)

Realistic water 2, the grim and somber ENB (game still stutters without enb), ELFX, Grass on steroids with imingrasssize @ 80, SMIM, unique grasses and groundcovers, Skyrim performance plus, Skyrim project optimization.

Running the enb in borderless windowed mode, with the recommended enb local tweaks for my system.

A bunch of texture mods, most of which only effect interiors, weapons, armour, and npcs. No landscape textures apart from Vivid landscapes all in one (performance version) & alternative snow 1k, no town retextures. Most of the textures are 1k, with some exceptions such as the amidianborn armour and weapons mods.

 

I realise that my cpu is vastly inferior to my GPU, this is because I have upgraded the GPU but not the CPU, I just want to know whether upgrading the cpu will fix the problem, or whether the problem lies with something else.

 

Here is a picture of Skyrim in a stutter heavy area (Windhelm) the game ctds and the memory usage drops at the end.
Sorry for the crude ms paint picture :)

 

 

[WickedCat]

The way your CPU and GPU are behaving is not normal.

Ideally, your GPU usage should be nearly 100% while your CPU's should not exceed 60%.

 

I have that HDD also in my rig, but I'm only using it for storage (movies, installers, minor programs).

Although I am running Skyrim on my SSD.

I would not even try running my Skyrim on any HDD.

 

You should probably invest in some 4 cores CPU as well as a SSD.

 

Considering your CTD, did you do the MemoryBlocksLog trick, to allocate more memory ?

Edited April 20, 2014 by WickedCat

[chanchan05]

What version of SKSE are you using? Do you have SSME? ENBoost?

[camaro_69_327]

This.....

 

OS: 32bit windows 7

AMD phenom II x2

 

You are to limited, you need a X64 bit OS. And a 4 core CPU with about 8 GB ram, to play the game the way you want.

The CPU can't feed the GPU fast enough, 32 bit cant address the RAM properly (RAM limit) that does not leave much for the Game as far as system RAM goes.

[moozilbee]

Thanks, I suspected as much.
Would you recommend windows 7 64bit or 8 64bit? I have had recommendations for both.

I will also buy a new cpu soon, does anyone have any suggestions for a cpu under £80? (Can be a bit more if required).
Also does this mean it is not my vram causing the stuttering? I expected 2gb vram to be plenty since I am running no landscape or town textures and I'm not running huge amounts of 4k textures either.

Oh and btw, Chanchan05, I am using the latest version of SKSE (I believe, I installed it about 2 weeks ago), and SSME, and the enb includes enboost.

[chanchan05]

Well, 8 has reduced RAM usage and is generally faster than 7 (I have systems with either OS at home).

[moozilbee]

Hi, I have recently upgraded my system to include an fx-6300, Asus m5a97 LE R2.0 Motherboard, and a CM hyper 212 evo CPU cooler.

I still seem to get these issues, but I have tried turning off my ENB and it seems to help a fair bit, but there is still a lot of stutters, even when running a vanilla mod profile, does anybody have any ideas what may be the cause? The CPU and Ram still seem to behave pretty much the same, ram usage high but not maxed out, all six cpu cores are being mostly used, and the vram usage is kind of middling with a lot of spare vram, gpu usage is about 60% and spikes every few seconds with an ENB, but doesn't spike without.

[camaro_69_327]

Hi, Welcome back....

 

Did you also upgrade to a x64 bit OS?...if not that is still your limiting factor....

 

Download "Skyrim Performance Monitor" run that while playing and post the graph....

[loki1944]

On the cpu, I have the same problem on an i7 4770k with a gtx 780, also had the same on an i7 960. Heads up anyway CPUs seem to have nada to do with it. Enboost/The memory blocks editor/lowered shadows/ugrids 5/low textures/lower resolution/borderless window/new inis none of that made one iota of difference, massive stutter when I turn around, like down to 0 fps. Stutter when walking intermittently as well. I've got Skyrim on an intel ssd and have 16GB of ram. Every nonessential program turned off while playing. I see lots of posts like yours but all that stuff I mentioned I tried is given as solutions and did nothing for me.

[Reynard131]

Hi, I have recently upgraded my system to include an fx-6300, Asus m5a97 LE R2.0 Motherboard, and a CM hyper 212 evo CPU cooler.

 

I still seem to get these issues, but I have tried turning off my ENB and it seems to help a fair bit, but there is still a lot of stutters, even when running a vanilla mod profile, does anybody have any ideas what may be the cause? The CPU and Ram still seem to behave pretty much the same, ram usage high but not maxed out, all six cpu cores are being mostly used, and the vram usage is kind of middling with a lot of spare vram, gpu usage is about 60% and spikes every few seconds with an ENB, but doesn't spike without.

 

 

 

 

The reason for your issue is that your Hard drive has declined from SATA to PIO mode you have the high CPU usage because of a declining hard drive or operating system or both.

 

If you get into disk management console you can observe the relative health of the hard drive and O/S.

 

Google is your friend !

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472