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Update 1.4 Beta on Steam


vianns

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Kudos to Bethesda on this one. Like others I'm seeing a 10 FPS increase compared to Skyboost. Some of you reporting the standard hiccuping unless you start a new game should try the PCB command, it worked for me.

Could you please explain what the PCB command is and how to use it?

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Kudos to Bethesda on this one. Like others I'm seeing a 10 FPS increase compared to Skyboost. Some of you reporting the standard hiccuping unless you start a new game should try the PCB command, it worked for me.

Could you please explain what the PCB command is and how to use it?

 

Open console, type PCB, press Enter. PCB stands for Purge Cell Buffers, it clears any loaded cells (game areas) that were present in memory but not currently being displayed. This frees up memory, but it wouldn't help hiccuping because it means the game will have to reload those areas when you move within sight of them again.

 

The fix for the hiccuping is to save your game, then reload it. Apparently loading a game that was saved before the patch, will cause the stuttering when you load it with the new patch. But if you save it and reload it, the stuttering goes away. Evidently the patched game does some additional checking or cleaning up every time distant LOD gets loaded on an old save.

 

You'll also notice that the new save is smaller; for me they dropped by about 850K compared to saves made with 1.3.10.

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Ok, so I've installed the new beta patch, and I did some benchmarking with Fraps. I have made some chart primarily comparing Skyrim 1.3 (named Vanilla in charts) vs. Skyboost r3 vs. Skyrim 1.4beta. I did not include TESVAL in these comparisons as previous tests on my system showed that it is inferior to SkyBoost (not by much, though). I also tested how increasing ugrid from 5 to 7 had impact on the framerate. The last point, especially turned up some interesting results. The benchmark ran from the start of the intro sequence until the driver of the cart stands up after reaching Helgen.

 

System specs: i7 [email protected], 8GB RAM, GTX590. Operating system on OCC Vertex 2 SSD, game is installed on old 5400rpm HDD.

 

TESV 1.3 vs. SBr3 vs. TESV 1.4beta. UGRID=5

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad207/SpruceMoose/SkyrimBenchmarkTESV14betaugrid5b.jpg

 

 

TESV 1.3 vs. SBr3 vs. TESV1.4beta. UGRID=7

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad207/SpruceMoose/SkyrimBenchmarkTESV14betaugrid7b.jpg

 

 

SBr3 UGRID=5 vs UGRID=7

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad207/SpruceMoose/SkyrimBenchmarkSkyBoostr3ugrid5vs7.jpg

 

 

TESV1.4beta UGRID=5 vs UGRID=7

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad207/SpruceMoose/SkyrimBenchmarkTESV14betaugrid5vs7.jpg

 

 

What's interesting in these graphs are that the performance before reaching Helgen (ie. outside town) is pretty much equal when ugrid=5, the new beta patch then takes lead as the player enters the town. There is an increase in FPS compared to SkyBoost r3, allthough this is only present inside the town. Now, when running ugrid=7, both the old 1.3 and the SkyBoost take significant drops in FPS, but there is almost no drop when running the 1.4 beta patch. This is pretty good, and there is now no reason for me to keep playing with ugrid=5 at all.

 

Another way to look at it is to see how much time the FPS stays above 59 (v-sync cap at 60). This is a more real life test, allthough it doesn't take into account large and rapid variations in framerate which could create stutter. Comparing all measurements that I have done, the results looks very good for the 1.4 patch. In the table below, I have split the average FPS between the first half of the intro scene (first column) and the last half (second column). I have also counted number of measurements where FPS >59 (third column) and finally how much of the intro scene is rendered with an FPS >59.

 

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad207/SpruceMoose/FPStable.jpg

 

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Well,

 

This Beta solved the "Repairing the Phial" quest, and if the most of the fixes in this 1.4 Beta from Bethesda is like that I'll be happy. By the way the game version in this case show you 1.4.15.0.4 if you dared to update.

 

My normal seemly just plain less running around (read determined exploring :-) ) in Skyrim and peek and poke at things definitely has not been increased regarding total :blink: CTD %. Of course I just had a couple of hours playing with this so still some abnormals might show up, but at least it is not a major show stopper as far as I jumped around in Skyrim fantasy world.

 

I wished this lovely 1.4 beta also included a beta CK to play with, since the general purpose I think was to nail out if something in the coming official release of 1.4 (and CK) totally havoc game play. Well, you can always wish, but what you get might just be a one thousand pieces puzzle :biggrin:

 

I'm a bit puzzled about the "general" advice before accept this beta to only include your save games?? I might be a misunderstanding dude but if you really want to make a safe backup if this beta screw up things the task is to make a complete backup of your X:/whatever/Steam/steamapps/common/skyrim folder before you accept and apply this 1.4 beta.

 

But this is only a temporary solution whatever, IF you are addicted to only play Skyrim, NOTE that as fast as the official 1.4 is released including the CK there will be no turn back, since most modders will upgrade and use the CK to fix things that was obfuscated before and if you still like those upgraded mods you will need to upgrade anyhow. :tongue:

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I've just applied the patch and have since been playing for the last few hours. While I've been impressed with the FPS being higher and the game running smoother, I've been experiencing random game freezes. Every now and then the screen will just completely freeze up and the only way I can rectify it is to bring up task manager and kill the TESV process. For the record I'm running Skyrim with SKSE (with the latest SKSE patch for the 1.4 update and with TESVAL removed). I never had a single instance of the game crashing or freezing before installing the 1.4 beta patch.

 

Anyone else been experiencing this?

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I've just applied the patch and have since been playing for the last few hours. While I've been impressed with the FPS being higher and the game running smoother, I've been experiencing random game freezes. Every now and then the screen will just completely freeze up and the only way I can rectify it is to bring up task manager and kill the TESV process. For the record I'm running Skyrim with SKSE (with the latest SKSE patch for the 1.4 update and with TESVAL removed). I never had a single instance of the game crashing or freezing before installing the 1.4 beta patch.

 

Anyone else been experiencing this?

 

I was pretty stable until I pulled down the latest SKSE. It is not compatible with the uncapper mod, so I killed that one, and SkyUI is a bit flakey. I've had some odd freezes that didn't even allow the courtesy of a task manager kill (total lockup), so I stopped using SKSE and have been behaving ever since.

 

I think they are on the right track with this patch, but there is still more issues. I haven't had near the issues with Skyrim as I have had with Oblivion, FO and FONV, so they are slowly working the kinks out of an already dated game engine. :)

 

With that said, I still love this game and all the others that have caused me to let loose with impressive bouts of profane rantings.

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I've just applied the patch and have since been playing for the last few hours. While I've been impressed with the FPS being higher and the game running smoother, I've been experiencing random game freezes. Every now and then the screen will just completely freeze up and the only way I can rectify it is to bring up task manager and kill the TESV process. For the record I'm running Skyrim with SKSE (with the latest SKSE patch for the 1.4 update and with TESVAL removed). I never had a single instance of the game crashing or freezing before installing the 1.4 beta patch.

 

Anyone else been experiencing this?

 

I was pretty stable until I pulled down the latest SKSE. It is not compatible with the uncapper mod, so I killed that one, and SkyUI is a bit flakey. I've had some odd freezes that didn't even allow the courtesy of a task manager kill (total lockup), so I stopped using SKSE and have been behaving ever since.

 

I think they are on the right track with this patch, but there is still more issues. I haven't had near the issues with Skyrim as I have had with Oblivion, FO and FONV, so they are slowly working the kinks out of an already dated game engine. :)

 

With that said, I still love this game and all the others that have caused me to let loose with impressive bouts of profane rantings.

 

At first after installing the patch, I started the game directly via Steam without thinking (i.e. not via the SKSE launcher) and then experienced a few freezes, so I thought it was somehow due to that. After subsequently launching the game via the latter, it did initially seem that the freezes had gone as it seemed that I was able to play longer, but then eventually the game froze up again. I'm now exploring the possibility of the freezes relating to my CPU overclock, as the patch's increased game performance may mean increased CPU temperatures. I'm going to try reducing the overclock and see what that does. If that doesn't work I'll take a look at SKSE as being a possible suspect, i.e. removing that. Although the prospect of no SkyUI seems quite depressing...

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I'm a bit puzzled about the "general" advice before accept this beta to only include your save games?? I might be a misunderstanding dude but if you really want to make a safe backup if this beta screw up things the task is to make a complete backup of your X:/whatever/Steam/steamapps/common/skyrim folder before you accept and apply this 1.4 beta.

 

What they meant was that you should back up your save games, in case something in the beta hoses up your game, so you can always go back to your last save from before the beta.

 

There is no need to back up your ../Steam/.../skyrim folder. You can revert back to 1.3.10 by going into Steam and opting back out of the Skyrim Beta. Then the next time you start Steam it will download 1.3.10.

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