I found out why Skyrim stutters?

[fms1]

I don't see anything wrong with it, it's not some flagship overclock model, but as long as it's working right it'll be fine. Here's a link to it on Newegg. ASUS M4N68T-M V2 I think the real problem is your CPU dropping to 1-2% and then spiking to 100%, Mine stays fairly consistent as I've posted higher in the thread.

[Rennn]

I don't see anything wrong with it, it's not some flagship overclock model, but as long as it's working right it'll be fine. Here's a link to it on Newegg. ASUS M4N68T-M V2 I think the real problem is your CPU dropping to 1-2% and then spiking to 100%, Mine stays fairly consistent as I've posted higher in the thread.

 

Yeah, I was worried it might be causing the CPU problems, but probably not. Everything else works as it's supposed to. If my mobo was causing problems you'd think my GTX 460 would be having problems.

[Elsarian]

Also it helps to unlock all of your cores which can be done in your BIOS. What that does is cause all of your cores to be running at max performance. If this does not fix your problem, man, then I have to clue what to tell you.

[fms1]

Also it helps to unlock all of your cores which can be done in your BIOS. What that does is cause all of your cores to be running at max performance. If this does not fix your problem, man, then I have to clue what to tell you.

 

Yes, you should check your BIOS for your CPU and see if everything's set right.

[VileTouch]

just wondering... what size/rpm hard drive you have? how much free space? i noticed a huge performance boost when i installed my first 2tb hdd. also the size of your page file does influence the kind of performance you get (as a rule of thumb make it 2.5 times your ammount of ram. unless you have more than 4gb ram then you experience diminishing results in which case you should decrease the ratio in excess of 4gb * 2.5 until you reach 8gb ram and up. at this point a ratio of 1:1 is more than enough)

 

if you can afford a solid state disk it's great for dedicated page file drive too.

 

 

also get RID of windows's system protection

 

see if that helps

 

Yes, a faster HDD is always better, but Rennn's problem is that his CPU keeps dropping off to 1-2% usage while trying to play Skyrim and then spikes up to 100% usage, I have a 6 core CPU that doesn't get below 20% usage EVER while having Skyrim open and it NEVER goes above 35%. AFAIK page file wouldn't do this either...

 

thing is if the game gets to a point where it's waiting for a very large and slow disk activity to finish, proccessing of the game would stop until the bottleneck is resolved and then it starts proccessing again until the buffer fills again and then it would fall back to disk activity again...think about it

[Ragicka]

Those periodic spikes of CPU activity suggests a process of some kind. Whether it's skyrim or something else, I suspect the latter but I can only guess at this point. Does Task Manager show those same spikes when you're not playing?

 

What I usually do in a case like this is to look at the Task Manager/ Process tab. If you click on CPU, it will arrange the list so that the most active process jumps to the top. Whatever is causing those 100% CPU spikes will be jumping to the top of the list every few seconds or so. Hopefully, this way we can identify the culprit.

 

Another thing to try is a clean startup. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

The idea here is to uncheck all non MS 3rd party services and startup programs. If skyrim runs smooth in this environment, then the problem is caused by one of your installed programs. If there's no change, then at least we've eliminated that possibility.

[Rennn]

Okay, I've tried some stuff. I tried a clean startup, but that didn't help, so it's not a program causing this.

I disabled all my mods, but that didn't help at all, so those aren't causing this. (already knew that, since I tried with a clean install before and still got this problem)

 

I entered the BIOS and enabled the Asus Core Unlocker. Is that it, or do I need to do something else now? Do I need to run something, or was enabling it enough? Simply enabling it didn't affect the problem at all.\

 

Edit: I just tried overclocking, and I can safely say I'm not trying that again. My PC's fans sounded like they were trying to reach a low orbit, and there was no noticeable stutter decrease, lol. I'm not even sure how that's possible, come to think of it. If my 460 was actually OC'd and bottlenecked by the cpu, there shouldn't have been a fan increase because it wouldn't be working any harder than usual.

 

Is it possible that my RAM is filling up, and the cpu runs at full load for a second as it clears the RAM? That would explain why the stutter didn't decrease with a more active video card, and it could explain why the CPU is normally almost idle but spikes up suddenly. It's possible that my CPU is hardly stressed at all by Skyrim, since I keep the shadows fairly low, but it might be stressed at intervals clearing RAM every time I turn around. Possible, y/n?

Edited May 5, 2012 by Rennn

[GomuGomu64]

Aha!

 

Go into your SkyrimPrefs.ini and turn "Preemptivelyunloadcells" (Or something like that, pretty sure I have it right) to 0 "Preemptivelyunloadcells=0"

 

See if that works.

[Lifferds]

I have the same problem, momentary hiccups where the screen stops refreshing and then suddenly responds to your mouse movement. When panning side to side, rather than a smooth movement it is jittery.

 

I have seen this indoors, outdoors and in the ladies pantry. I have also noticed it when in a menu such as inventory or save/settings. I doubt it is a GPU (AMD HD 6900 Series) or CPU (Intel i5-2500K @ 3.30 GHz) problem (the cpu never goes above 35-40%). I have also noticed that SR never seems to use more than about 2.5 gb of my 16 gb RAM even when set at ultra. I consistently run between 30 and 45 fps on ultra with all fades maxed out. Even set at low, though my fps goes way up, there is still an occasional hiccup, even in menus.

 

I sure wish someone would come up with the solution.

 

Edit: Tried Clean Boot, no mods, couldn't find "Preemptivelyunloadcells" var.

Is it just me or did this seem to get worse with the last update?

Edited May 5, 2012 by Lifferds

[vertex23]

I've been having the same problems. It's so bad in Whiterun that I can't even go into the city because it just takes way too long to even walk one step. And when it does finally load, as soon as I hit the center well, it's not rare for my game to just lock up and crash. It's really been keeping me from playing :(

 

Looking at the Skyrim performance link that someone posted, my mobo should be able to run Skyrim at around 64FPS...I get 30. My settings are custom between medium and high. The only thing on Ultra is Decals.