Problems with decreasing VRAM usage and increase FPS in basic setup

[Drullo321]

Hello,

 

I made a fresh Skyrim SSE setup with basic mods (see below). I'm having a relative high VRAM usage (>3GB) where I expect no more then 1,5GB for a fresh basic setup compared to Oldrim and decreased FPS (48) in areas, where it should be higher (arround 60). So my question are:

1. How does Skyrim SE handles VRAM differently then Oldrim besides not copying it into RAM (Dx9) and using bloated HighRes (2k) textures. What can I do to improve the VRAM usage to make room for stuff like aMidians armor/weapons and NobleSkyrim HD 2k?
2. What are the most FPS consuming settings which can be tweaked, to improve my FPS (without setting Godrays Low to Off or going below Shadows Medium)?

 

My rig (should be powerful enough):

• i7 4790k
• R9 290 4GB
• 16GB DDR
• Crucial M500 SSD
• 2560 x 1440 resolution
• Fresh Windows 7 x64 install with updates, up2date drivers, etc.
• MSI Afterburner for Overlay

Further I'm using:

MO2

BethIni (Tweaked only some gameplay relevant settings like NPCs use ammo)

Cleaned Master Files

LOOT

Just a "basic" mod setup (SKSE64, SkyUI, USEEP, Open Cities and some fixes which does not affect anything)

 

My only texture/mesh mods:

Simply Optimized Textures for SSE (Either loose or bsa, saves ~100-200 MB VRAM)

SMIM

Skyrim Flora Overhaul 2.7.2 (+ optional files)

Total Character Makeover

Enhanced Bloot Textures

Realistic Water Two

 

I experimented with Half sized / Quartersized SSE textures instead optimized textures, resulting in 500-600 MB less VRAM used but that was ugly and still way too high VRAM usage then expected.

 

Skyrim Ini Archive section:

[Archive]
bInvalidateOlderFiles=1
bLoadArchiveInMemory=1
sArchiveToLoadInMemoryList=Skyrim - Animations.bsa
sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes0.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes1.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa
sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices_de0.bsa, Skyrim - Textures0.bsa, Skyrim - Textures1.bsa, Skyrim - Textures2.bsa, Skyrim - Textures3.bsa, Skyrim - Textures4.bsa, Skyrim - Textures5.bsa, Skyrim - Textures6.bsa, Skyrim - Textures7.bsa, Skyrim - Textures8.bsa, Skyrim - Patch.bsa

Godrays low,

Shadows medium

 

 

 

I attached two screenshots (and Overlay results), Whiterun and Whiterun Watchtower which shows the VRAM/FPS right after loading the game.

 

 

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ocXCp-Rr8r7jYyOiiUmwuDwQoSM4AmWm?usp=sharing