Sudden and constant fps drop (from 50 to 15), often after entering new

[spookymunky]

This has been driving me a bit nuts also, I'm not sure when it started and always assumed it was due to mods I may have added, though I have been through them all quite a few times and never found any particular one that caused this, right now after a clean install of skyrim the only hd textures I have installed is the official dlc one. I vaguely remember something similar happening in fallout 3 after the last time I installed it and pimped it up with all the latest hd texture packs, similar but different.. in skyrim it only seems to be when I go from interior to exterior world spaces, seemingly at random (cannot replicate it by restarting skyrim and going in and out of the same buildings, and might happen after 5mins or 5 hours) .. in fallout 3 it would just happen while I was walking along, though again completely random and unreplicatable.

 

Strangely I never had this Issue in oblivion once, and the amount of mods and hd texture packs etc I installed on that was insane.. so it *might* be a more recent issue with the engine that hasnt been addressed, understandable in the past since if its hd dlc textures that break theyr engine they are hardly at fault, now that its official hd textures though they might have to find that leak :) .. That or it has been there all along and one of the unnoficial updates for oblivion inadvertantly fixed it. Or they are completely unrelated issues, or highly system dependant that is beyond bethesdas control hehe (I note you ahve a gtx460... I have a gtx470.... lol).

 

 

A dirty workaround until the real causes are found may be using a memory monitor utility able to periodically clean it from those loose chunks (working in the background, like gamebooster does. Maybe gamebooster itself has that feature, I don't remember), at least delaying the problem.

 

I dont think its a system memory issue, but I always advise people to install http://www.pcwintech.com/cleanmem anyways, great little app that stops windows itself from becoming bloated, and at the time I origionally came across it, it was the only free memory cleaner I could see that worked for >4gig ram

 

 

No, if you have 4GB, 2GB of that is being used by your Operating System. If you have Vista, 3GB are being eaten by your OS before you even start playing the game. That leaves only 1 or 2GB for Skyrim. The same thing happens to me, and I have 4GB of RAM. I'm getting 8GB as soon as possible, and hopefully that'll fix it.

 

Hmm.. I agree that 4gig for vista is below optimum (though I also think that anything under 8gig is below optimum regardless of os ;)), but 3gig for vista alone seems a bit high. I am running vista 64 with 8gig, as I have been since the first commercial release came out (people love to hate vista but at the time ..first proper 64bit os with drivers that worked, played games aswell as being badass for cg etc hehe...after so many years of 32bit bs causing bluescreens and ctds etc etc.. I was instantly in love), and right now my total memory usage is...just over 1gig, lol. Thats with firefox open with 16 tabs, skype running, irc, avast.. lotsa other little junk apps, drivers etc aswell as full vista pro with aero n desktop background etc.. I dont find that too unreasonable :tongue: .

 

I dont think I changed anything major in vista over the years to get it this way (though I could be forgetting something huge hehe). I go through services now and then and make sure there is nothing unneccesary running, same as should be done on any os.. for example there is no point in running something in the background 24/7 purely incase you may one day want to plug in a dial up modem or something :biggrin: , also kill readyboost if you arent actually using it with a badass usb3 memstick plugged in, think that might be a memory hog if I remeber right. Just basically recommend running services from the start menu and arranging by status so you see the ones running and googling any you are unsure about, disabling all the bloat. Apart from that I guess I have set cleanmem as mentioned above to run every 10 / 15mins or so..

 

One thing to remember with vista / win7 is that whilst they are taking up a lot of space they will also get out of the way quickly to a certain degree when something needs more memory than would otherwise be unavailable, atleast the 64bit versions do. This may create a short slowdown when playing games on a 4gig system, but *shouldn't* be a constant thing, windows is fast to free up memory and slow to reclaim it, otherwise it would be a constant battle and nothing would work well.

 

Since skyrim is a 32bit game, it should only really look for about 2gig ram.. the >2gig switch only stops some 32bit apps ctd when / if they reach the 32bit limit of 2gig (assuming you have a 64bit os and there isnt any huge issue in the coding itself causing ctd at over 2gig). It wont in itself turn an application into something 64bit that will make *full* use of whatever memory you have.. I certainly havent seen skyrim go much higher than 2gig. So If I pulled out 4 gig o ram and left os the same, I shouldnt notice the slightest bit of difference in performance on vista since on 8gig with skyrim running, aswell as firefox and other apps mentioned above, whole system is at about 38-40% memory usage. Sorry for people in here that have just bought 4gig more for skyrim hehe, but it wasnt a mistake and welcome to the >4gig club.. you'r only 5 or 6 years late to the party but I dont think you'll regret it much :D .

 

If there are any working ini setting or any other hacks to force the game to constantly use ~6-7gig of ram please show me how, I'm guessing itd have to be in the form of a preloading memory hack .. e.g. as you get close to houses / citys itd preloaded them onto the ram.. basically a 4gig ramdrive that is constantly loading up the next areas of the game to be accessed... thatd be nice, one can dream :rolleyes: failing that, my next system will be 24/32gig ram atleast, and just copy games to a big enough ramdrive that can fit everything hehe.. if games refuse to be 64bit I will force them that way :)

 

edit: hehe, just been going through some other games checking how much ram they use, lol.. even the ones that were specifically designed pc only (hmm.. two worlds 2, the witcher 2) dont use more than 2gig, so its not a consol dev only limitation :).. I think ms is to blame.. they should never have released a 32bit vista, and definately not a 32bit win7.. I guess the only way for gamedevs to drag themselves outa the dark ages is if the next lineup of consols are 64bit.. so another couple years haha, been waiting so long already.. (didnt go 64bit with 8gig for games, was work hehe.. but still, woulda thought 5 + years later some more memory would be used instead of loading screend :P)

Edited March 26, 2012 by spookymunky