pchclx Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 hi, i get decent performance on skyrim (mid 20s - 30fps) but not great, on my laptopusing amd system monitor and other tools, however, i've found that my CPU handles it fine, usually sits at around 20% loadand RAM is never a problem (skyrim seems to only use a gig or so at max(?), even w the laa updates etc)but my GPU is always maxed at 100% working hard can anyone point to mods, tips or .ini settings that specifically take the load off GPU?so many teaks and mods are focused at taking the load off CPU (which seems to be most people's bottleneck) i've got i7 2720QM @ 2.2GHZ processor and a AMD Radeon HD 6400M GPU, w 6gig RAMusing skyboost and lots of .ini tweaks, and the latest 12.1a catalyst preview package. any thoughts are welcome, thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthWolf Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 (edited) To me 20% load sounds like your CPU is being underused, not that it's sufficient. Quad core at such a low speed doesn't sound powerful enough to me, but I'm not hardware savvy enough to tell you with certainty what's happening. Edited January 23, 2012 by NorthWolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pchclx Posted January 23, 2012 Author Share Posted January 23, 2012 thanks for the reply. not sure what you mean exactly about underused.. here's a screenshot of system monitor snapped mid gameplay http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/51/systemuse.th.png Uploaded with ImageShack.us my gameplay is pretty smooth, to be honest, i can't complain too much. i just wish i could use enbseries without dropping into the low 20s to high 10s in fps. its a super current cpu (new laptop a few mo ago), assumed it was just a great processor and was doing its job well- and that the pretty low level 6400M card was my bottleneck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthWolf Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 (edited) Could be mistaken. Are you running SkyBoost? If not, try it, and if it offers no tangible improvement it's probably your GPU. I'd say it probably is your GPU and I was just mistaken, but it's a decent way to test. Edited January 23, 2012 by NorthWolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dingenskirchen Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 He asked for a way to reduce GPU usage, so i guess he's well aware that it's his GPU. No offense. Btw Skyboost targets only at CPU usage.Afaik GPU is always or almost working at nearby 100% or at least this is my experience with my Card.As long as the fps are fine, this shouldn't be the problem,but this doesn't count for you.Your running Skyrim on a Laptop, so maybe your Rig just becomes too hot. This could crop your fps.If that's the case, it could even be enough if you just clean the fan of your Graphic card, though i don't know how easy or difficult that would be with a Laptop.But first of all, you could try this .dll from AntiFREEZE performance patch 9 ENBSeries.Gave me an overall increase of 10fps with my HD5770. So if you're lucky that will be enough.Other than that, i can't help you. Hope it works out for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthWolf Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 (edited) I admit I was wrong to question the cause of the bottleneck. And I'm aware of what SkyBoost does -- read my post. Just doesn't make sense in context of what I just said. That being said, I haven't offered any solution to reducing GPU usage, sooo... :tongue: I'll scamper back to helping with what I'm decent with. Hope Dingen's suggestion helps, good luck! Edited January 23, 2012 by NorthWolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nosisab Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 (edited) Still you may not be wrong, NorthWolf, and trying to cover the max of performance bottlenecks is not bad thing. Notebooks are strongly driven at energy consumption reduction and sometimes the combination of the CPU boost (turbo) and Windows power plans may lead to CPU under usage. It's particularly true when the video-card is already running at the limit (for some reason the CPU reduces processing power to wait the graphics). One way to test if it is the case is setting Windows power plan to "Performance" or set yourself the parameters if you are at easy with doing so. This would force the CPU to work at it's peak capacity (nominal capacity, btw) all the time. Don't forget to return the power plan to the same is used normally after the game's session. Keep an eye on the overall temperature too and do the best to provide the laptop with good airflow. Now, about reducing the GPU usage, avoid all kind of texture resolution increase, where possible reduce it. Shadows are among the most demanding and you should consider reducing their number and "quality". Edited January 23, 2012 by nosisab Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pchclx Posted January 23, 2012 Author Share Posted January 23, 2012 thanks for the replies, all. i will give that .dll a try, though i have messed around w various d3d9's a bit and settled on one i liked (was generated by a program that detected my grapgics card, highly recommend) as for power plans, i have my power settings cranked in all the right places, i believe and no power-saving modes are enabled. there are options for that in the CCC and even in my BIOS for the processor, i have been careful to set everything to max performance where i'm able. and you're probably right on the money with textures- i didn't mention that i run Skyrim HD Textures (the LIGHT version at least), and i bet that's not helping my performance hehe. i will try to disable it and see what kind of changes i get, but i'm don't think i'll ever be able to go back to vanilla, the mod is that good! thanks again for the replies yall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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