Skyrim Special Edition Stuttering for No Apparent Reason

[DrFog1996]

The problem in a nutshell: Skyrim SE stutters without dropping frames, and I have no idea what's causing it.

 

I've seen other people post similar issues, and I've tried troubleshooting this for about 3 days straight now to no avail. I have no mods installed, and I'm running standard ultra settings. My computer's specs should be overkill when it comes to this game, so I'm assuming it's either a problem with the game engine or some issue with Windows 10/DirectX12/Some other background application.

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K Coffee Lake (8-Core)

Mobo: Z390 AORUS ULTRA LGA 1151 (300 Series)

GPU: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2080 (8GB)

Memory: Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB

RAM: G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 16GB (2x8GB) 228-Pin DDR4 SDRAM

PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 (Platinum, 850W)

Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240R

Monitor: ASUS ROG Switft PG279Q 27" 165Hz 2560x1140 2K (w/ NVIDIA GSYNC)

OS: Windows 10 Home (64 Bit)

 

As you can probably guess, this thing can run whatever the hell I want it to at max settings with the exception of some broken-ass games developed by people who don't know what they're doing (i.e. Minecraft needing like 64GB of RAM <3).

 

A few other things to note:

 

- Skyrim SE and Steam are both installed outside of the programs folders, but they're on the same drive as Windows because I only have one drive as of right now.

 

- I've tried messing around in .ini files to some extent. I've disabled VSync in game and enabled it in NVIDIA Control Panel - The Skyrim SE launcher WILL NOT recognize my GPU, and as such, defaults to the "low" settings, but when I check in the Skyrim.ini, it shows that it CAN see what GPU I'm using. This means that I don't have access to certain parts of the launcher config, like disabling Anisotropic Filtering. I'm guessing this is because Skyrim SE came out before the 2080 series.

 

- I don't have any integrated graphics cards as far as I can tell, and have set both Skyrim SE and the launcher to default to NVIDIA through the graphics settings in the display settings under system settings.

 

- I've updated the drivers and set the Skyrim SE settings through optimizing the game in GeForce Experience. This for some reason bumps the graphics up higher than my native monitor settings, but I've tried lowering it, and it doesn't really change anything.

 

- I've disabled Windows 10's memory compression

 

- I make sure to close out everything that's not strictly necessary before running the game.

 

- I have BitDefender as my antivirus. I'm not sure that's relevant, but given how freaking overpowered it is, requiring me to unblock just about every damn application I install, I'm not going to discount it just yet.

 

Another thing: I could be totally wrong about this because I'm very new to the modding scene, but I believe the stuttering might be caused by cells loading. When I start a new game, I spaz the mouse around to test and see if the stuttering is still going on, and at first, everything seems fine. Once I reach a certain part on the cart ride though, I get a stutter, regardless of if I'm moving the mouse or not. These stutters don't drop any frames (somehow), and they're not microstutters (where you see a stutter but it doesn't slow the game down), they're macrostutters (where the game and input slows down for 1-2 seconds).

 

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? I'm at my wit's end with this, and I'm on the verge of just giving up on Bethesda games until they hopefully fix their engine issues with TESVI. This is a major letdown for me, because part of the reason I built a gaming computer was so I could specifically play a modded version of Skyrim. Any help and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. =(

[AsaHerring]

Might sound like a dumb question. Are you playing in Fullscreen, windowed, or borderless, and are you using vsync? Depending on your monitor and your nivida display settings, the problem could be vsync is fighting too much screen tearing, which causes stuttering but no frame drops. This can act differently depending on your monitor's refresh rate if you're playing in fullscreen or not, and if you have vsync on or off. I would start by turning off vsync, if it's on, and seeing what that does. If you're getting too much screen tearing with it off, then that's why you're getting the stutter but no frame drops.

Edited October 18, 2019 by AsaHerring