Flaky or Fluctuating Performance

[meh12345]

I'm a sucker for pretty so I've got all kinds of mods installed, and only have a mediocre computer (Q9550/8GiB + GTX 560 1GiB (OC'd to 850MHz) 295.51b + SSD), naturally play at 1080p, and even manage to run ENB and FXAA. Stretching the limits, but I've been able to get it so that outdoor areas and cities (except Dawnstar for some reason) are mostly stable around 32-38 FPS, sometimes averaging closer to 40 depending on the area. Indoors 45+. Fights don't really cause any problems (even Warzones, now, with 50+ NPCs or more fighting). I have enabled all the Threading options in the ini, and disabled the thread ignores in enbseries (it seemed to average better that way, maybe I should test again?)

 

Not great, but on the whole very much playable.

 

However, there are occasional very clear performance drops (say, to 18-25 FPS average i.e. ~15 FPS drop), and while there's no absolute pattern to it, they're slightly more common when exiting dungeons (especially those little castles tucked away everywhere). They usually also clear out after a while, 5+ minutes, stabilizing back to the normal range. Typically I don't bother waiting, I just restart the game instead. I want to stress that this doesn't really happen in what I perceive to be intensive sequences (tons of mobs, lots of particles, big rooms, big open areas, lots of trees etc.), nor is it the characteristic kind of load lag when FPS drops briefly when loading into new content. This isn't really stuttering, either, which is typically much more burst-like.

 

Does anyone have ideas on why this might be occurring or, better yet, ideas on how to tweak things for possibly better results? To me, this suggests possibly something like texture unloading or caching problems.

 

I might just have to accept it as a fact of life with a non-high-end machine. It's not that bad, just strange. For example, not being able to climb ranks about 3 orders of magnitude higher in my list of problems.

Edited February 29, 2012 by meh12345