Hi-Res Texture pack causing Frame Rate drop

[Darksider1013]

So after toying around with my system all day today trying to diagnose the odd frame rate loss issue I've been having recently, I've officially narrowed it down to literally just the Hi-Res Texture packs.

 

Before you start going through the normal checklist:

 

NO, there are no mod conflicts with the texture pack. I've played with AND without any mods at all and the texture pack still seems to be killing me.

YES, I have been playing with the texture pack since the day it was released and have only had this issue up until the past few weeks.

YES, I did verify my game install through steam. Even so much as deleted and redownloaded the texture packs from Steam again as well.

YES, obviously my system can handle it because it has before without issue (AMD 965 black 3.4ghz 4-core, 8GB ram, Nvidia GTS 450)

YES, all of my drivers are in their latest versions. All drivers are 100% updated.

YES, I've tried Gamebooster. Doesn't do s*** for me.

YES, the framerate drops WHILE using ENB and WHILE NOT using ENB. (Though the frame rate drop is more easily re-produced when running with ENB enabled)

YES, I have changed the load order of the texture packs with mods enabled and when mods were NOT enabled. I have put the texture packs first, last and in the middle loading orders, with and without mods. Still same effect.

YES, I've tested different mods, even individually, to make sure they are not the cause. I have played with individual mods enabled as well as playing the game with ALL mods EXCEPT the Hi-Res texture packs.

YES, I have played WITHOUT the texture packs and have experienced NO framerate reduction at all. I have played WITHOUT the texture packs and WITH all of my other mods enabled and I still experienced no frame rate reduction. I also played with absolutely no mods enabled and again, no frame rate reduction.

 

The framerate drop is from about 50-60 fps to about 20 WITHOUT ENB. With ENB, the framerate drop is from about 15-20 to like 5-8 fps. The framerate drop ONLY occurs once I go to an inside area and then come back outside multiple times. The amount of times it takes for the framerate drop to occur is about 2-3 times. When I am outside in the environment and I go into a tavern, leave, then enter another neighboring building, then leave again, the frame rate drop kicks in. It's not just in buildings, it's when I leave caves or dungeons too. When I leave any inside area multiple times, the framerate drop kicks in. (Sorry if it seems like I'm talking down to you, I'm simply trying to spell the incident out word for word because everyone I've tried talking to the incident about has no clue what the hell I'm saying)

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: The frame rate DOES NOT DROP when I'm inside. Whenever I am inside an area, the framerate is constant and never drops. I could go from having a bad framerate outside and then go into a cave and the framerate will pick back up again and stay the same without a drop until I go back outside.

 

It has really been narrowed down to JUST the texture packs. Nothing else. I'm not sure where to go from here seeing as this is Bethesda's add-on (and a damn pretty one that I do not wanna get rid of). What the hell do I do?

Edited September 6, 2012 by Darksider1013

[ecksile]

Remove the texture packs and make sure it IS indeed the texture packs and not something related to the engine or your hardware such as the game not purging the memory correctly. If it is the game or hardware related it wont matter whether there is a texture pack installed or not because it will most likely be your hardware holding onto things it no longer should be causing your memory to become full and backed up and the game to slow down. It may take a little longer because the files aren't as big but it will still happen. The situation is just an example it could be countless things such as faulty Vram/Ram, Save bloating (not sure if that still exists), memory leaks, or just the crappy optimization of the game engine. I had a similar problem in Fallout 3, but I also had a bad Vram chip on my card (and I knew it), doesn't mean it is the same thing for you. Edited September 6, 2012 by ecksile

[Darksider1013]

Remove the texture packs and make sure it IS indeed the texture packs and not something related to the engine or your hardware such as the game not purging the memory correctly. If it is the game or hardware related it wont matter whether there is a texture pack installed or not because it will most likely be your hardware holding onto things it no longer should be causing your memory to become full and backed up and the game to slow down. It may take a little longer because the files aren't as big but it will still happen. The situation is just an example it could be countless things such as faulty Vram/Ram, Save bloating (not sure if that still exists), memory leaks, or just the crappy optimization of the game engine. I had a similar problem in Fallout 3, but I also had a bad Vram chip on my card (and I knew it), doesn't mean it is the same thing for you.

 

Forgot to mention that I already tried this. I'll add this to the list as well. Simply enough, yes I played without the texture packs and the frame rate drop did not exist.

[fms1]

Using the esp.'s for the HD DLC Textures have given some problems for other people also, Idk if this will help, but here goes.

 

"1. Disable the HighResTexturePack01.esp and HighResTexturePack02.esp

2. Go to your Skyrim Folder and find the Skyrim_default.ini file. In it look for this column and replace it with the following.

 

Original:

[Archive]

sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa

sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa

 

Replace it with:

[Archive]

sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, HighResTexturePack01.bsa, HighResTexturePack02.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa

sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa

 

3. Repeat the same with your Skyrim.ini file that you can find in your My Documents > My Games > Skyrim folder."

 

If it is something to do with the esp.'s this might fix it, AFAIK the esp.'s are a "dummy" esp. that serves only to load the bsa.'s that came with it, so deactivating those and following the steps above will just load the textures the same way the game engine loads all the default textures.

 

Those steps in quotes above were taken from this mod page: Fix That Wood - HD DLC Texture Fix

[Darksider1013]

Using the esp.'s for the HD DLC Textures have given some problems for other people also, Idk if this will help, but here goes.

 

"1. Disable the HighResTexturePack01.esp and HighResTexturePack02.esp

2. Go to your Skyrim Folder and find the Skyrim_default.ini file. In it look for this column and replace it with the following.

 

Original:

[Archive]

sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa

sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa

 

Replace it with:

[Archive]

sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, HighResTexturePack01.bsa, HighResTexturePack02.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa

sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa

 

3. Repeat the same with your Skyrim.ini file that you can find in your My Documents > My Games > Skyrim folder."

 

If it is something to do with the esp.'s this might fix it, AFAIK the esp.'s are a "dummy" esp. that serves only to load the bsa.'s that came with it, so deactivating those and following the steps above will just load the textures the same way the game engine loads all the default textures.

 

Those steps in quotes above were taken from this mod page: Fix That Wood - HD DLC Texture Fix

 

 

Attempted this method and I still experience the frame rate drop... It would be a lot easier to solve if it was simply a mod conflict, but it's not so it's driving me insane. Any other suggestions? :wallbash:

 

Thanks for the attempt though. :turned:

[ecksile]

How sure are you that it isn't Vram related? Seeing as how your card only has 1gb of memory, are you sure your not just using more vram then you have? I know it didn't happen in the past but as you add things thing change. Idk how much bigger the files are, but its something you may want to check. When it happens you can try to type PCB in console and see if it fixes it, since that will essentially purge all the cache for the cells you have loaded. Idk if they ever got that command working correctly in skyrim or not though, so it may not work. You haven't made any .ini tweaks to your game settings? Such as loading more world cells, adding more tress ect. Regardless it definitely sounds like your cache isn't being purged correctly, or there is save bloating. Have you tried testing from a new game or have you done all your testing from the same save? If you haven't try testing from a brand new game and see if it still happens.

 

Side note I remember I had this really weird bug in crysis (think it was crysis either that or thats the game that I got the fix from) where my computer was more then able to handle the game yet I would get sub par fps and removing my HDD page file and using only my ram it went away since I didn't have to wait for the hard drive anymore.

[Darksider1013]

How sure are you that it isn't Vram related? Seeing as how your card only has 1gb of memory, are you sure your not just using more vram then you have? I know it didn't happen in the past but as you add things thing change. Idk how much bigger the files are, but its something you may want to check. When it happens you can try to type PCB in console and see if it fixes it, since that will essentially purge all the cache for the cells you have loaded. Idk if they ever got that command working correctly in skyrim or not though, so it may not work. You haven't made any .ini tweaks to your game settings? Such as loading more world cells, adding more tress ect. Regardless it definitely sounds like your cache isn't being purged correctly, or there is save bloating. Have you tried testing from a new game or have you done all your testing from the same save? If you haven't try testing from a brand new game and see if it still happens.

 

Side note I remember I had this really weird bug in crysis (think it was crysis either that or thats the game that I got the fix from) where my computer was more then able to handle the game yet I would get sub par fps and removing my HDD page file and using only my ram it went away since I didn't have to wait for the hard drive anymore.

 

About 99.9% because I haven't an issue like this with any other game. Games like BF3, Nexuiz and Crysis 2 all at full ultra settings (Crysis 2 even has the HD texture pack enabled with DX11) run perfectly for me. This is the only game I experience it with. Save bloating is a negative. My saves are around 5 megs in size and obviously grow as I progress more into the game. I'm already pretty far so it's at a reasonable size. Also, negative on the ini tweaks. Haven't messed with much since I started messing with ENB. Back then I would tweak some dof settings and such in the Skyrimdefault.ini but those tweaks have been long gone. Now I just mess around in the enbseries.ini and effectsprepass.fx files if I wanna change graphics. Regardless, the .ini files are essentially untouched (except for bFloatRenderPoint=1 for ENB, that didn't have an effect on the framerate drop though because it happened still AFTER I verified my game install and before I reinstalled ENB.

 

I'll try PCB, I was just afraid it would purge all mod textures as well and I know some mods have a one-time-only load for textures that won't be applied if you rid them from the cache so I was always cautious about it. Though desperate times call for desperate measures.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Darksider1013

[Darksider1013]

Alright so PCB didn't work.

 

I've been digging and still haven't found someone with the same issue as me. I've tried every solution to a SIMILAR problem but nothing exactly like myself.

 

Regardless, I'm getting a GTX 460 in October so I will have that much more power available to me ontop of my GTS 450. Hoping that does something for me.

[Darksider1013]

UPDATE: When I experience the framerate drop, if I ctrl+alt+del out and then hit cancel, the framerate goes back to normal. WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?!

 

EDIT: Temporary fixed discovered: Whenever I experience the framerate drop, I hit esc and then ctrl+alt+del, hit cancel, exit the menu and the framerate goes back to normal. Temporary though I'd like to find something to have not do that everytime I go outside.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Darksider1013

[Darksider1013]

Last shameless bump for help...