Vram limit

[Deleted21550714User]

I think I finally pushed my VRAM to the limit. Dl'ed Ordenador tool. I get mild fps drop in a few ETAC locations, so i ran it there. Just optimized a large merged armor pack I made.

 

My question is.... Are there files I should avoid optimizing? And any other advice would be cool. Little info. I had an npc that was turning a little black, that's what made me take action. I'm building a new load order and I added some texture mods and I think that pushed me over. My main body texture back is not that heavy, in fact I had slightly downgraded awhile back anticipating I was gonna go too far with new additions. MO user

[Deleted21550714User]

Incase anyone else is wondering. I run Ordenador for entire Skyrim. I'm a MO user so I pointed tool at common/Skyrim/MO/mods folder. Can't see any lose in quality. Heavily modded areas where I had fps drop has been greatly improved. Very happy with Ordenador.

[jones177]

Hi

 

Use Skyrim Performance Monitor to see how much vram you are using.

 

Video cards with more than 4gbs vram usually use more system ram. This can be a big problem with a 32 bit game. This will cause CTDs, not slowdowns.

I use a GTX 1080 ti & use only 3.5gbs vram max. Using more gets me too close to the 32 bit ram limit.

 

Not enough vram can cause CTDs as well. For example when I had 2gbs vram I could only have 5 followers with high res textures & armour in the same cell. One more & CTD. With 4gbs vram I could have more than 20 in a cell.

 

Slowdowns are usually caused by CPU workload. For Skyrim to run were you are not losing frame rate on a 4 core CPU the usage should be around 24%. At 50% you are losing frame rate. On a 6 core the number is lower. On a 2 core the number is higher.

 

To keep my CPU in the 24% usage I use high poly meshes on my character & followers only. I use textures & ENB to pretty up the game. Not meshes. I keep my frame rate above 42fps. In my game going lower will start the scripts backing up & lowering the frame rate more.

 

Since Skyrim came out in 2011 & most texture mods followed shortly after, If you have desant hardware you should not need to optimizer textures but add larger textures like aMidianBorn Landscape. I installed them in 2013 & I still use them playing at 4k resolution.

 

I did a test back when I used a GTX 970. I ran the game with the original textures, 2k textures & 4k textures. The frame rate was the same with all packs. The game ran smoothly indefinitely with the vanilla textures. The game ran smoothly for 3 to 5 hours on the 2k textures, depending on location. On 4k textures the game got choppy after 1 to 2 hours of play. The 4k pack used 3.7gb vram max.

4k textures didn't overwhelm my 970 but I am sure they could overwhelm a lesser card.

 

Frame rate drop with mods like ETAC are mainly CPU. Buying a CPU with higher IPS will minimize the lows but only a modern i7 will get rid of them altogether.

 

Also check your temps. Skyrim/SE & Fallout 4 with mods can get your CPU really hot & it will throttle. Check for dust in your CPU heatsink as well. Skyrim is the app the tells me when to clean the dust out of my case.

 

Later

[Deleted21550714User]

@ jones177 that's solid info you provided, thanks. I failed with SPM, sad, i really wanted use that program. I lean towards the fact my microsoft.net 4.7 is messing me up with SPM? SPM calls for 4.5 version? I recently checked temps, there good. I did tons of spot reading on black textures on npcs, fairly confident i had pushed vram a little too hard. Never really have had to endure any sort of rampant CTD'ing. Might of, had i tried a playthrough with current setup, had i not optimized my texture with Ordenador. All in all, Ordenador definitely made my rig run smoother. Highly recommend that program.

 

Thanks again for info

[jones177]

Hi

 

I have the same issue with SPM on my Win7 system. Sometimes I think Microsoft is sabotosing bits of 7 so I will upgrade.

 

If you get really close to the black textures using console command tfc & see triangles(polygons) your GPU is overworked.

I got this playing at 4k resolution with a GTX 98 ti. It has 6gb vram & I was only use 3.5 at most. I played at 1440 resolution without the black texture issue until I upgraded to a GTX 1080 ti. Now I can play at 4k resolution without it ever happening.

 

To test drop your resolution. Your vram will be the same but you will be taking the load off your GPU.

 

Later