OK I am a little ticked off now

[RitualBlack]

I've just removed my Sapphire 6990 from my rig as it was chuggin away at 30 to 40 fps (on ultra with quite a few texture mods and 1920x1080 resolution), I installed my old Asus Matrix 5870 2gig and the result ?

 

A solid 60 fps everywhere apart from the odd glitchy places with all the same settings and mods.

 

 

Which leads me to the conclusion that AMD still suck hard at crossfire profiles and drivers in general.

 

 

Gonna head for camp green for my next card upgrade I think.

 

I was thinking about the Nvidia way next time also. It pains me so much to say it because I love (maybe an 'ed' with be added) amd but I am feeling so cheated. New nvidia cards are getting solid fps in Skyrim. I suppose I am over reacting because all the other games run great, but amd is really dropping the driver ball now. Bethesda is equally at fault. AMD is not the only one I will blame for this mess :laugh: .

[Marthos]

I was thinking about the Nvidia way next time also. It pains me so much to say it because I love (maybe an 'ed' with be added) amd but I am feeling so cheated. New nvidia cards are getting solid fps in Skyrim. I suppose I am over reacting because all the other games run great, but amd is really dropping the driver ball now. Bethesda is equally at fault. AMD is not the only one I will blame for this mess :laugh: .

 

 

 

Agreed, AMD cards rock but you've got to wait months for good drivers, I'm no longer a high fps overclocking freak and I just want smooth and reliable performance when playing games.

 

A good single gpu card only for me in future, crossfire now makes my teeth itch.

[Dan3345]

I've just removed my Sapphire 6990 from my rig as it was chuggin away at 30 to 40 fps (on ultra with quite a few texture mods and 1920x1080 resolution), I installed my old Asus Matrix 5870 2gig and the result ?

 

A solid 60 fps everywhere apart from the odd glitchy places with all the same settings and mods.

 

 

Which leads me to the conclusion that AMD still suck hard at crossfire profiles and drivers in general.

 

 

Gonna head for camp green for my next card upgrade I think.

 

I was thinking about the Nvidia way next time also. It pains me so much to say it because I love (maybe an 'ed' with be added) amd but I am feeling so cheated. New nvidia cards are getting solid fps in Skyrim. I suppose I am over reacting because all the other games run great, but amd is really dropping the driver ball now. Bethesda is equally at fault. AMD is not the only one I will blame for this mess :laugh: .

 

you know a lot of people are saying this but when I search around to see if this is true and I search on boards for only nvidia cards, the result seems to be the opposite. Which leads me to suspect a bit of fanboi-ism is at work here. Perhaps they just do not want to fess up to it?

[Vagrant0]

Using a ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series, 1024 MB single card. Settings slightly above high.

 

Frame rate is high enough to where I don't really any choppiness (Reports at about 60 consistently with Fraps (occasionally drop to around 40 if I have shadows/decals on high, lower on ultra). Only issue I am running into are some artifacts with alpha masked animations (fire) and graphic memory running low after running the game for a few hours.

 

It's not the game, or even the manufacture, it's your setup, or you trying to push too much through your card just because "other games" can handle it. Skyrim isn't BF3. There are thousands more elements which are being loaded and dealt with in almost every place you can go. Make the game work to what is tolerable before adding graphics enhancers or higher resolution textures. It's common sense really.

 

*edit* With ATI cards, you're almost always best off having the catalyst manage the AA and anisotropic settings, so you'll want to turn these off in the launcher.

[RitualBlack]

Using a ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series, 1024 MB single card. Settings slightly above high.

 

Frame rate is high enough to where I don't really any choppiness. Only issue I am running into are some artifacts with alpha masked animations (fire) and graphic memory running low after running the game for a few hours.

 

It's not the game, or even the manufacture, it's your setup, or you trying to push too much through your care just because "other games" can handle it. Skyrim isn't BF3. There are thousands more elements which are being loaded and dealt with in almost every place you can go. Make the game work to what is tolerable before adding graphics enhancers or higher resolution textures. It's common sense really.

 

The problem I have with it is that it was running perfectly pre patch 1.1. I had it on ultra with fxaa+8aa and x16 filtering +1920x1080 res. I was even running smooth enough to put the grass load distance around 20% past what you can do in the sliders. Its not only the setting either. I put it to full ultra and get like 20-35 fps in demanding areas. I turn a graphics card off and get around 30-40fps (yes, higher and more stable if I turn a card off). I set it to lowest possible settings and get around 40fps. Even if I remove my 2048 texture pack the performance doesn't change. That combined with the horrible flickering in the pause menu and in world reflections renders it unplayable. There has to be something wrong with the game and the new drivers.

[Vagrant0]

The problem I have with it is that it was running perfectly pre patch 1.1. I had it on ultra with fxaa+8aa and x16 filtering +1920x1080 res. I was even running smooth enough to put the grass load distance around 20% past what you can do in the sliders. Its not only the setting either. I put it to full ultra and get like 20-35 fps in demanding areas. I turn a graphics card off and get around 30-40fps (yes, higher and more stable if I turn a card off). I set it to lowest possible settings and get around 40fps. Even if I remove my 2048 texture pack the performance doesn't change. That combined with the horrible flickering in the pause menu and in world reflections renders it unplayable. There has to be something wrong with the game and the new drivers.

Try having the Catalyst manage AA and filtering (turn it off in the launcher). This is common practice with ATI cards. Turning off fxaa might also be an idea.

 

The point I'm making is this... You're instantly trying to jump to as high, or in some cases higher settings than the game normally allows. Going beyond normal sliders, resolutions, and settings almost always results in significantly higher demands. If framerate is what really bothers you, you have to tune down the fidelity. If the fidelity bothers you you'll have to settle for lower framerate. Skyrim deals with very complex environments, arguably more complex than most other games due to its open world nature. You can't expect it to run the same as BF3... It's a whole different beast, with entirely different demands.

[Dan3345]

Vagrant, I am not going any higher than the normal sliders will allow. In fact I am forced to go beneath them (medium settings) if I want an acceptable framerate. To me acceptable does nto have to be high just constant. Constant 30 is all I really need, but I cannot even achieve this.

 

And I have been aware of using only CCC for AA and AF for skyrim. Look I don't mean to sound whiny or obnocious, but it does seem very strange to me that I cannot get constant framerates out of skyrim.

[RitualBlack]

The problem I have with it is that it was running perfectly pre patch 1.1. I had it on ultra with fxaa+8aa and x16 filtering +1920x1080 res. I was even running smooth enough to put the grass load distance around 20% past what you can do in the sliders. Its not only the setting either. I put it to full ultra and get like 20-35 fps in demanding areas. I turn a graphics card off and get around 30-40fps (yes, higher and more stable if I turn a card off). I set it to lowest possible settings and get around 40fps. Even if I remove my 2048 texture pack the performance doesn't change. That combined with the horrible flickering in the pause menu and in world reflections renders it unplayable. There has to be something wrong with the game and the new drivers.

Try having the Catalyst manage AA and filtering (turn it off in the launcher). This is common practice with ATI cards. Turning off fxaa might also be an idea.

 

The point I'm making is this... You're instantly trying to jump to as high, or in some cases higher settings than the game normally allows. Going beyond normal sliders, resolutions, and settings almost always results in significantly higher demands. If framerate is what really bothers you, you have to tune down the fidelity. If the fidelity bothers you you'll have to settle for lower framerate. Skyrim deals with very complex environments, arguably more complex than most other games due to its open world nature. You can't expect it to run the same as BF3... It's a whole different beast, with entirely different demands.

 

I was talking about running Skyrim on ultra, I don't play BF3. I will try forcing aa through the CCC but I am just a bit annoyed that I was at one point I was running it bug free (as far as a Bethesda game goes :biggrin: ) and with a fluid frame rate while on settings past ultra. After the first patch my frame rate dropped massively to the point of being unplayable. There is no way that 6970m crossfire are not able to run skyrim properly on even low settings when a game like Crysis on max settings runs great.

[Dan3345]

The problem I have with it is that it was running perfectly pre patch 1.1. I had it on ultra with fxaa+8aa and x16 filtering +1920x1080 res. I was even running smooth enough to put the grass load distance around 20% past what you can do in the sliders. Its not only the setting either. I put it to full ultra and get like 20-35 fps in demanding areas. I turn a graphics card off and get around 30-40fps (yes, higher and more stable if I turn a card off). I set it to lowest possible settings and get around 40fps. Even if I remove my 2048 texture pack the performance doesn't change. That combined with the horrible flickering in the pause menu and in world reflections renders it unplayable. There has to be something wrong with the game and the new drivers.

Try having the Catalyst manage AA and filtering (turn it off in the launcher). This is common practice with ATI cards. Turning off fxaa might also be an idea.

 

The point I'm making is this... You're instantly trying to jump to as high, or in some cases higher settings than the game normally allows. Going beyond normal sliders, resolutions, and settings almost always results in significantly higher demands. If framerate is what really bothers you, you have to tune down the fidelity. If the fidelity bothers you you'll have to settle for lower framerate. Skyrim deals with very complex environments, arguably more complex than most other games due to its open world nature. You can't expect it to run the same as BF3... It's a whole different beast, with entirely different demands.

 

I was talking about running Skyrim on ultra, I don't play BF3. I will try forcing aa through the CCC but I am just a bit annoyed that I was at one point I was running it bug free (as far as a Bethesda game goes :biggrin: ) and with a fluid frame rate while on settings past ultra. After the first patch my frame rate dropped massively to the point of being unplayable. There is no way that 6970m crossfire are not able to run skyrim properly on even low settings when a game like Crysis on max settings runs great.

and this essentially is the entire point of this thread. In my opinion, it is inexcusable that two 6950's cannot run skyrim on anything higher than medium without getting a severely impaired game. I honestly do not know who to blame though. AMD drivers are worthless for skyrim (and valve games it seems, as l4d2 for example is choppy), or is the culprit simply bad porting from bethesda? I don't honestly know. I just know that now I am one of those people who feels sad because from my point of view I bought a wonderful game that is in alpha.

 

Maybe a stupid fear built on nothing, but with the arrival of the new 7970 I also fear that AMD will neglect its older cards for driver support...

[Vagrant0]

and this essentially is the entire point of this thread. In my opinion, it is inexcusable that two 6950's cannot run skyrim on anything higher than medium without getting a severely impaired game.

And what you're missing is that my single card seems to work fine for the most part. I just am not pushing my game settings farther than I know my hardware can manage. It worked differently before because something in the game was changed. You just have to find a way to make it work better with the new version. If you can find out what exactly it is that is causing the sudden decrease in frame rate, you can probably figure out how to solve it.

 

My advice would be to start on the default "high" settings, keep AA and filtering under 4x, and work from there starting with those visual elements that are more important (fade distances). Keep adjusting one thing at a time until you can isolate that aspect that causes the most demand.