Screen Flicker and Sound Stutter

[Cruachan47]

Hi Guys,

 

This is my first post. I've been a Skyrim fan for quite a while now and recently reinstalled via Steam to my new Windows 7 Pro 64bit SP1/ Rampage V Extreme/ i75960X/GTX 980 x2 in SLI/ GSkill Ripjaws (4 x 4GB) DDR4 3000/ Asus ROG Swift PG278Q build. The system, as yet, has not been over clocked.

 

Everything has been running great and so I thought I would start to sample some of the delights offered by the modding community :smile:

 

I am now reasonably familiar with NMM, LOOT and TES5Edit. I have installed the FXAA Tool and am currently using the default settings.

 

I installed the following Mods in the order below and each was 'tested' briefly by loading/running Skyrim to my last saved position. Each test did not involve much moving around merely a quick look-around:

 

1. A Quality World Map - With Roads

2. Unofficial Dawnguard Patch

3. Unofficial Hearthfire Patch

4. Unofficial Dragonborn Patch

(Activated 2,3 and 4 in this order and then did not move the ESP files in the load plugins tab.)

5. Skyrim HD - 2K Textures

6. Relighting Skyrim

7. Static Mesh Improvement

8. FXAA Post Process Injector V2.1

9. Sounds of Skyrim - The Wilds, The Dungeons, Civilization

10. Purity

11. Purity Landscape Textures

 

After installing all of the above, and cleaning any files that required it as reported by LOOT, I decided to have some fun and started exploring. The visuals were superb and all seemed well...for a few seconds...and then I noticed screen flickering coupled with the lowering and raising of my weapon. Sound stutter accompanied these observations. Here is a brief YouTube video of my experience:

 

https://youtu.be/QYNByzlyiNQ

 

My monitor is pretty hi-spec and displays at 144Hz with GSync On.

Changing the frequency and switching off GSync appears to have no effect on the screen flicker and sound stutter.

 

I've tried running with all Mods disabled and uninstalled but the results remain the same. However, as I'm typing this, I've just remembered that FXAA Post Process Injector v2.1 is still installed. It's not listed in the Mod Manager. Could this be relevant?

 

Has anyone encountered this issue before? At this point I'm not sure what else I can try other than uninstalling FXAA PPI.

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

 

Edit: FXAA Post Process Injector V2.1 has now been uninstalled so, back to nearly vanilla Skyrim (skyrim.esm and update.esm still active) - sadly still no changes noted in behaviour :smile:

 

Edit (2): I've now verified integrity of game cash - "2 files failed to validate and will be reacquired" Unfortunately, it stops there and no files are reacquired - ran Verify again and same result. Interesting, as I ran it twice before uninstalling FXAA Post Process Injector - 7 files failed to validate but only 6 were reacquired. I gather having a residual single file failing to validate is quite "normal".

[jones177]

Hi

 

Try locking your frame rate to 60. You can do this with ENB or ENBoost.

 

Skyrim likes to run at 60fps. Most people use vsync to achieve this. In your case it is useless.

 

Later

[Cruachan47]

  On 9/29/2015 at 1:35 PM, jones177 said:

Hi

 

Try locking your frame rate to 60. You can do this with ENB or ENBoost.

 

Skyrim likes to run at 60fps. Most people use vsync to achieve this. In your case it is useless.

 

Later

Thanks, I'll certainly add that to my list of things to try. My only reservation about doing this is that vanilla Skyrim was running great for a couple of weeks after installation with silky smooth frame updates under Nvidia's GSYNC. Something has changed since I started modding and I feel at the moment it would be preferable, short of a fresh reinstall of Skyrim, to try and isolate the cause rather than fudge a solution (no disrespect implied nor intended). It's perhaps disappointing that uninstalling all the mods has not recovered a stable environment without these glitches. Had it been the case then tracking down the offending mod would have been relatively straightforward. Frustrating!

 

Regards,

Mike

[Cruachan47]

There may be another clue to the origin of this issue.

 

I fast travelled down river to Windhelm and encountered no issues while wandering around the area within the walls both outside and in the accessible buildings. However, as soon as I approached the river down at the quayside the flickering started again. It was not so severe and there were longer periods when there didn't appear to be a problem. Perhaps the warer textures are being implicated or is this just a coincidence and should be considered as being a red herring?

 

Same at Dawnstar: When I face the water the whole water surface flickers intermittently with rapid stuttering sound which matches the flicker. The rest of the screen and landscape textures appear stable. When I walk away from the water so that it is no longer in the field of view the screen image is stable but the sound stutters quickly as before. There is no affect on my weapon (appearing and disappearing from view as I walk) at both Windhelm and Dawnstar.

 

Mike

[Cruachan47]

Hi jones177,

 

Looks like I should be looking at your suggestion much more seriously. Someone else has posted with a similar problem and the same solution has been proposed:

 

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/616198623979665389/

 

I'll give it a try. Still, I remain surprised that GSYNC isn't continuing to handle things as that is what it is intended to do - I see excellent results in GTA5, Elite: Dangerous and Microsoft Flight with no issues whatsoever.

 

Regards,

Mike

[Cruachan47]

SOLVED!

 

Thank you jones177, you were and are absolutely correct!

 

I performed a restore of all settings in the Nvidia Control Panel (NCP) and re-enabled GSYNC for windowed and full screen mode. Then I set up my usual Global Settings which are shared by and work well for my other games:

 

Monitor technology: GSYNC

Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration: Single display performance mode

Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance

Preferred refresh rate: Highest available

SLI rendering mode: NVIDIA recommended

 

I reduced my monitor refresh rate frequency from 144 to 120Hz

 

Then, for Skyrim, made the following changes under Program Settings (NCP):

Anisotropic filtering: 16x

Monitor technology: Fixed refresh

Preferred refresh rate: Application-controlled

VSync: Adaptive (half refresh rate)

 

Happy to say all is now well. Now, on to reinstalling those Mods :)

 

Thanks again! I guess Skyrim is a different animal and requires individual attention to ensure optimum performance.

 

Regards,

Mike

[sleazymamba]

Worked for me too. Thx.