Requesting help to improve my modded SSE gameplay performance.

[JWRaven]

OK, checked vsync and everything is good there. I also did Testing between adding mods.

 

I started a new game and repeated the previous gameplay for testing comparison. Started with Vanilla and then added texture mods in groups of 5 - 10 and recorded performance monitor results. No surprise that as 4K and 2K textures are added - VRAM usage increases and FPS drops while GPU remains high at 88 - 91%.

 

What does not change is CPU and RAM usage. In all tests the CPU % was steady at 30-33 and RAM averages were 1.4 - 1.6 MB. Something is preventing CPU and RAM usage from expanding, so the graphics card is getting overloaded.

 

I know from research that others experience much higher CPU and RAM usage with SSE and my Rig does as well when running Oldrim. Why it won't do so for SSE is beyond me. <heavy sigh>

 

Next step is to go through the BOSS guide and see if something there solves this. I'll post an update afterward (in a few days).

[JWRaven]

Update: No improvements from BOSS guide (even lost some performance with a few INI tweaks and Razer Cortex had no affect). Only options that seem to be left are to reduce graphics mods, tweak INI settings on grass, shadow, god rays, etc. and limit my mods.

 

Thanks again to those who responded with ideas! If anyone has any other ideas about how to get my Rig to uncap the CPU% and RAM usage - please let me know.

[jones177]

Hi

 

I did test with vanilla SE before I stared modding it. There are areas that use up to 4.8gbs vram. Vram handling is not one of the things that this game is good at.

I still use the vanilla terrain textures & my max usages is 5.2gbs.

 

The vanilla texture are 2k. Test using them first. The terrain ones are good & look fine at 4k screen resolution.

Texture packs can cause stutter. It is why I install textures one at a time manually. I have only added textures to Whiterun.

 

This game was unplayable with stutter on my GTX 1080 for the first 6 month of owning the card. It was a driver issue. Fallout 4 was affected as well. The card ran fine with all other games. Check the AMD forums. I found my solution on the Gforce forums.

 

When I used a GTX 980 ti I got lots of stutter that was caused by ENB/ENBoost. Using an older version of ENB fixed it. That may be your problem sine your vram it too low.

 

Your frame rate is to low. On a heavily modded game going below 40fps will cause scripts to back up & that causes lag. Your oldrim frame rate is where your SE frame rate should be.

 

Your CPU usage in both games is high enough to lose frame rate. For a 4 core 24% is ideal & for a 6 core 16%. Things don't get really bad until you get into the high 50s.

 

Between the 2 games my CPU & ram usage are about the same with vram about 2gbs higher on SE.

 

With GPU usage my highest was with a GTX 980 at 91% & the game ran fine(1440 resolution). On the same game/resolution with a GTX 980 ti GPU usage was down to 72% & average frame rate want from 42fps to 60. No difference in game play.

 

More power is the easy but expensive way to fix your problems.

Tweaking Reshade is the best way to gain frame rate. Bloom is good for 10fps on my computers. I have it off on my 4k rig(GTX 1080 ti) but use it on my 1440x3440 rig(GTX 1080).

 

Later

[JWRaven]

Update of sorts (and maybe some ranting as well :rolleyes:). No matter which SSE setup I run (Vanilla, graphics only, 200+ mods, etc.) my RAM usage is stuck between 1.7 - 2Gb. I know it's an SSE specific issue because Witcher 3 uses as much RAM as it needs (between 2.5 - 4 Gb).

 

At this point (rant alert)... I'm giving up searching Google and various forums for a solution to my Low RAM usage. Most search results are related to the opposite problem of high RAM usage or VRam. There's already a lot of info and guides to address VRam strain with lower textures, ini settings, etc. (or buy a new Graphics card).

 

Unfortunately, the few search results I've found of other SSE Users with the same Low RAM problem - no suggested fixes are mentioned.

IF anyone comes across this topic with some RAM uncapping suggestions - Please post here or PM me. Thanks!

[JWRaven]

Resolved by upgrading to a GTX 1060 6gb. No surprise that an upgrade would resolve it, but results prove that (at least with my RIg) when playing SSE the RAM usage is directly connected (limited) to the VRam (or the Graphics card). First test with the new card showed average RAM jumped to 2.5 Gb compared with 1.5 - 1.6 in previous tests. VRam average increased by almost the same % confirming the correlation.

 

Thanks again for those who responded with suggestions!

 

For others that run into this scenario, I'm still hopeful that some tech savvy individual will figure out a way of uncapping RAM / VRam on SSE (like we have for Oldrim).

 

BTW - The upgrade is nirvana! SSE plays buttery smooth in vanilla, heavy graphics and fully modded (over 200 mods).