What can I change to improve performance from this mod setup?

FluxerCry · August 25, 2015

Alright, so I'm very new to modding, and I decided to give Skyrim a complete graphic overhaul. It was all working fine (and looking great) through the whole introduction, until I got outside. Then my FPS suddenly dropped to 20, and it just became unplayable. I've ried everything I could think of, but I couldn't seem to bring the FPS up by more than a single point. Here's a screenshot of exactly what I'm looking at when the FPS drops, and here's a list of the mods I'm using:

I am using an i5 4460, an r9 290 and 8gb of RAM. I'd like to bring my FPS safely above 30, but if I can do better with minimal loss of graphic quality then I'm all ears.

Edited August 25, 2015 by FluxerCry

postal001 · August 25, 2015

That link's not a screenshot.

Corwin1971 · August 25, 2015

Lots of things you can do.

Lower your shadow resolution.

Raise your iMinGrassSize.

Use lower resolution textures when it's an option (the difference between 1K and 2K is much less noticeable than the difference between 512 and 1K, and the difference is 2K and 4K is even less noticeable)

Use a less demanding ENB. Stop using an ENB and get your post processing effects another way (like SweetFX)

Reduce your draw distance.

Just for starters. Tweaking shadow settings alone might give you ~5 frames.

FluxerCry · August 25, 2015

That link's not a screenshot.

Oh, s***... sorry, fixed it.

Lots of things you can do.

Lower your shadow resolution.
Raise your iMinGrassSize.
Use lower resolution textures when it's an option (the difference between 1K and 2K is much less noticeable than the difference between 512 and 1K, and the difference is 2K and 4K is even less noticeable)
Use a less demanding ENB. Stop using an ENB and get your post processing effects another way (like SweetFX)
Reduce your draw distance.

Just for starters. Tweaking shadow settings alone might give you ~5 frames.

But shadows are my favourite...

~~Okay, so where can I find these shadow and draw distance settings? (Sorry, I'm really new to this).~~ Never mind, I didn't realize they'd just be in the regular game settings. I'll tweak them a bit, see what happens.

Edited August 25, 2015 by FluxerCry

Corwin1971 · August 25, 2015

You can fine tune these settings by opening the Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPref.ini files in a text editor. BACK UP YOUR INI FILES. It is possible to screw things up by making changes here, but don't let that scare you off. Just make sure you keep track of what you're changing so you can change things back if you have issues.

In SkyrimPref, you'll find fGrassStartFadeDistance and fGrassMaxFadeDistance (and a Min line as well, but leave that alone).....the default very high vanilla settings use the value 7,000, so use that as your guide. (the higher the number, the less pop-in you'll get)

Where grass is concerned, more important to frame rate than draw distance is density. You're using Verdant, which means you're using the so-called "Grass on Steriods" tweak. In your Skyrim.ini file, you'll see a line called "iMinGrassSize"...the higher that number, the LOWER the grass density. Try raising that number. If it's really low, like under 50, that is definitely hurting your frame rate.

Shadows are complicated to tweak, or at least they can be. There are a ton of different settings. Just keep in mind that shadows are one of if not the most demanding thing graphically on every game, so though it might seem nice to have 4096 resolution shadows with everything turned up, it will murder your frame rate.

There's a tweak guide that GeForce did (no, it doesn't matter if you don't have that brand of video card) years ago that still applies. It's helpful for showing what some of the settings do, what effect changes to them have in game, and how impactful those changes will be to your frame rate. It's a very good introduction to your .ini files. http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide#1

Edited August 25, 2015 by Corwin1971

FluxerCry · August 25, 2015

Okay, so reducing my draw distance settings helped a lot, so I'm usually much closer to 30-40fps now, sometimes 60 depending on what I'm looking at. But I still get massive framerate drops whenever I'm standing in a large amount of grass, and changing my iMinGrassSize doesn't seem to be helping (I turned it up to 100 and I'm still getting 20fps).

Edited August 25, 2015 by FluxerCry

Corwin1971 · August 25, 2015

I looked at the Realvision page and now I know where you got your mod list from. :)

Did you set your iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure=15 in your Skyrim.ini? That's the required setting for Verdant. Note that it's "texure", not "texture"....the spelling mistake was Bethesda's and it has to say that or it won't work. I have no idea if having that improperly set would lower your frame rate, but it's worth checking anyway or you won't see what you're supposed to be seeing.

FluxerCry · August 25, 2015

I looked at the Realvision page and now I know where you got your mod list from. :smile:

Did you set your iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure=15 in your Skyrim.ini? That's the required setting for Verdant. Note that it's "texure", not "texture"....the spelling mistake was Bethesda's and it has to say that or it won't work. I have no idea if having that improperly set would lower your frame rate, but it's worth checking anyway or you won't see what you're supposed to be seeing.

I actually got it from youtube. Probably is the same list though.

And I copied the lines straight from their description, so it is definitely correct.

Edited August 25, 2015 by FluxerCry

ironbender800 · August 26, 2015

Grass mods, textures, combined with ENB will kill your FPS. Grass and trees while a nice visual improvement.......murder fps worse than anything. Especially when combined with ENB. Shadow quality has a big impact as well. I advise using the "high preset".

Edited August 26, 2015 by ironbender800

FluxerCry · August 26, 2015

Okay, so based on all these comments I decided to see what would happen if I just uninstalled the grass mod.

instant 60fps, everywhere. I mean seriously, from 20 to 60 all because of one mod. I would be happy, except... turns out grass is probably my favourite thing. It's so pretty, and I miss it so much when it's not there. Is there anything else I could possibly change that might let me keep this mod? I keep hearing about the ENB, but a lot of my mods are dependent on it... could I get by just using a different preset, maybe? Any recommendations?

Skyrim

What can I change to improve performance from this mod setup?

Recommended Posts

FluxerCry

Link to comment

Share on other sites

postal001

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Corwin1971

Link to comment

Share on other sites

FluxerCry

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Corwin1971

Link to comment

Share on other sites

FluxerCry

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Corwin1971

Link to comment

Share on other sites

FluxerCry

Link to comment

Share on other sites

ironbender800

Link to comment

Share on other sites

FluxerCry

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Recently Browsing 0 members

Browse

Activity

My Activity Streams

Explore