very low FPS for no apparent reason.

[Dan3345]

Every bethesda game since Oblivion has run like crap for me.

 

Oblivion avg FPS 15-45

Fallout 3 FPS 27-45

New Vegas FPS 37-70

And now with Skyrim I am getting on average in each town 10-47.

 

My PC Specs-

 

2gb VRAM 6950

6gbs RAM

1100T @ 3.7ghz (6 core FYI)

 

All of the above FPS were set using this system and nothing else. Which is very alarming especially when you look at Oblivion average FPS.

 

Things I have done to fix in the past-

 

Performance mods,

FPS caps,

Bug fixes,

Virus scans (never have found one)

Lower graphics,

lower resolution,

rolled back drivers,

turned off vsync and other performance inducing settings in catalyst control center,

modified each games .exe to run with 64 bit settings, and run as admin.

 

 

Eventually with mods I was able to "fix" new vegas and get it to run smoothly on ultra at 60 fps pretty much everywhere. Mind you that was on v1.4 and with some performance mods.

 

Now I can forget about oblivion and fallout 3, and even new vegas, because now I have obviously moved onto Skyrim. And as I have pointed out above, the FPS I am getting here is painfully low. When I first launched the game on Thursday night a week ago, the game set itself to "ultra." Only thing I have done is added these to the bottom of my prefs.ini

 

iPresentInterval=0

iNumHWThreads=4

bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1

bDecalMultithreaded=1

bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1

bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1

 

I also have a community mod from here that caps the FPS. Which works I must say, but it doesn't fix my problem it only covers it up.. Microsoft is sending me a 64bit recovery disk for my windows 7 home premium which I will soon be using. See, I literally built my friend the exact same computer as me and he plays skyrim and money others on ultra without the problems I have... I'm sorry if I sound like I am whining but I just feel like I am out of options, and perhaps starting over completely will give me a chance to correct whatever errors I made in the past. Perhaps I have old registers that are messed up, or just software conflicts. So would anyone like to give me advice before I go through with this? Any suggestions on what the problem might be?

 

I would greatly appreciate all answers, and suggestions.

[nic1357890]

setting shadows to high instead of ultra gave me +20 fps so try that first.

[dreigen]

You can have all cores you want, Skyrim will only use 2 threads at full capacity, so I'd recommend you to OC your CPU and leaving 3 cores on (if that helps oc'ing, I'm not sure). By the way, the game is completely CPU relying, but it's a crappy port, so it doesn't use all current PC resources. I bet that GPU is not being used half its capacity, you could enable some demanding GPU filters, such as SSAA.

[saldu]

Your answers totally avoid his problem. It's obviously not a problem of bad hardware, that system should easily be able to run it. If not at 60, then at least at some staple number between 30 and 60 fps, but not some crazy random number between 10 and 47.

 

My suggestion: Have your friend whom you build the same computer send you his skyrim ini files and be sure to have the exact driver versions for verything he uses, disable all background programs that he doesn't use, etc, and see if that helps.

Edited November 17, 2011 by saldu

[Snake57]

I think something is wrong with your computer, i am getting an absolute low of 45 fps, mostly it is between 70-90 and thats on Ultra.

You should be able to get at least around 50-70 fps on average.

Do you have any stability issues normally?

 

I am running:

intel Core i5 2500k @4.5 GhZ

GTX 580 (1572mb)

8gb ddr3 ram @ 1333

 

Now, what i would suggest:

try CCleaner to clean up some crap on your harddrive (especially make use the registry fix option).

 

Updating Mainboard drivers? (i know it's annoying to update drivers, and it is suggested every time... but it often helps out!)

 

Check the temperatures (CoreTemp is a good program)

 

If nothing helps try reinstalling windows...

Edited November 17, 2011 by Snake57

[fleeingfish]

There is a mod that changes the .exe to allow the use of more ram. That helped mine as well.

[Dan3345]

Thanks to everyone offering suggestions and feedback. To those wondering I have in fact been using CCleaner and checking temps of all hardware, and all are good. Both GPU and CPU never rise above 45 degrees Celsius. CPU never even gets 40 degrees. I have checked and updated and downgraded in some cases, all my drivers. I have booted up the computer in a clean boot (no background programs allowed to start up) and even that didn't work.

 

I can only imagine this is a mixture of bad resource usage by most bethesda games, and a bit of my fault by packing on useless programs that can possibly be interfering. And to the person who asked if I get this performance often, the answer is yes with bethesda games. Not others. For instance BF3, always at 60 fps, dues ex HR 60 fps, red orchestra heroes of stalingrad 60 fps...

 

So thanks again to all your help, but I think I will just go ahead and reinstall windows. My gut feeling says there is a problem with my first windows installation because I have gadgets that don't work and a copy of borderlands which is stuck with a General Protection Fault that cannot be fixed.

 

Well Wish me luck on the recovery I suppose...

[wtfitsed]

I have a quad core i5, 8gb of ram, nvidia gtx 460 1gb, I should be able to blow this game out of the water with a solid 60 fps. However even with my .exe allowed to use more than 2gb of ram and several 'fixes' my FPS jumps wildly and randomly between 60 - 30 there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. Even been using nvidia's beta driver for Skyrim. Nothing seems to be fixing this.

[dreigen]

Your answers totally avoid his problem. It's obviously not a problem of bad hardware, that system should easily be able to run it. If not at 60, then at least at some staple number between 30 and 60 fps, but not some crazy random number between 10 and 47.

 

My suggestion: Have your friend whom you build the same computer send you his skyrim ini files and be sure to have the exact driver versions for verything he uses, disable all background programs that he doesn't use, etc, and see if that helps.

 

No, it doesn't, I'm pretty sure it's its CPU, a Phenom II doesn't have such performance per core like a C2D/Q, and far less a i5/i7, he can have its cpu at 3.7ghz, it will be like a C2D at 3.2ghz or so, as the game will only use two cores, if it was optimized for a quad core CPU at least he'd be fine, but that Phenom II at 2/6 cores is like an old C2D, deal with it.

Edited November 18, 2011 by dreigen

[saldu]

That's not what I meant. I meant that the fps number should never vary between 10 and 47, no matter the system. Either it always sucks, or it's always good, but not that. Plus he claimed his friend with 100% identical system has none of his issues, so it's obviously not a performance, but a general hard/software issue.