Weird FPS drops...

[MiniComic]

Hello, I apologize if this isn't the correct place to post this, albeit this is my first time posting in here, but I was curious if anyone can help with an issue I've been having the past couple of days:

 

I recently made the switch from Oldrim to SSE, and I was surprised that it ran smoother considering the former had difficulty maintaining 40 FPS with my current setup, an MSI GS65 Stealth, but then again, wasn't really well versed in the differences between the two. Now, with SSE, it's been nicely sitting capped at 59-60 FPS, and with the edition of ENB and other mods, Skyrim has never felt so beautiful to me, all while maintaining the max FPS cap almost everywhere I go/look.

Now I'm not sure when this happened or what mod may have caused this, but lately the game would suddenly drop from 60 to under 15 FPS, and just stay there until I either load into a new area or load a previous save from the Main Menu.

 

In the open world, it would rarely happen, though I don't know what may trigger it. Since I have the Alternate Start mod, I would start off at Solitude's ship docks then casually make the long journey to Helgen, and this sudden drop has probably only ever happened once out of the many times I restarted the game (I normally test and restart when I add new mods, just to be safe). However, I noticed it happened a lot more often in Riverwood, namely inside the Sleeping Giants Inn. In the open world instance of Riverwood, it happened only once when I stood before the Smithy with Hadvar. As for the Inn itself, it happens pretty frequently. When testing, nothing really occurred when I stood around for a couple of minutes, but movements of any kind (by me) would trigger the eventual FPS drop, though the time for it to actually happen varies, but normally it happened rather soon after said suspected trigger.

 

Now I've tried to read up as much as I could to resolve this, but so far nothing has really worked. Learning from my experiences from Oldrim, I tried my best to install graphical mods that weren't too heavy for my laptop, like only really using 2k replacement texture mods or aiming for the regular versions of certain mods rather than their heavier variants. One solution I read about was to watch out for mods that increased population size or add DLC-sized content, but as far as I can tell I have nothing of the like, at least mods that purposefully aim to add more NPCs.

 

Hopefully someone can help me out with this, while I can simply just exit to the Main Menu and reload a save, i would like to just have it completely gone if possible, as I'm assuming Riverwood won't be the only place to cause these sudden FPS drops.

 

As for my laptop specifics: I'm working with an MSI GS65 Stealth that contains Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 with 6GB of VRAM.

 

Update: So after playing for a couple more hours, no FPS drops occurred, having went through Bleak Falls Barrow (rather casually, so enough time passed for something to happen) and exploring Dragonsreach for a bit, I entered the Bannered Mare to rest up, and low and behold, it finally happened, quickly dropping down to 20-15 FPS, and gradually went down under 10 FPS where it locked in place. So from this I'm assuming certain interior locations have something inside them that is causing this problem, seemingly Inns in particular.

 

Update 2: As suggested, here is my current load order for SSE, as sorted by vortex with only about two rules in place:

landscape fixes for grass mods.esp loads after realisticwatertwo.esp

Bathing in skyrim se -rwt watercolor.esp loads after realisticwatertwo - watercolor.esp

Skyrim.esm

Update.esm

Dawnguard.esm

HearthFires.esm

Dragonborn.esm

RSkyrimChildren.esm

Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch.esp

ClimatesOfTamriel.esm

Campfire.esm

Apachii_DivineEleganceStore.esm

OSA.esm

Schlongs of Skyrim - Core.esm

SMIM-SE-Merged-All.esp

Lore Weapon Expansion - Relics of the Crusader.esp

Lore Weapon Expansion - Goldbrand.esp

Lore Weapon Expansion - Daedric Crescent.esp

EnhancedLightsandFX.esp

Verdant - A Skyrim Grass Plugin SSE Version.esp

Ambriel.esp

Hothtrooper44_ArmorCompilation.esp

Hothtrooper44_Armor_Ecksstra.esp

Lore Weapon Expansion.esp

SkyUI_SE.esp

ClimatesOfTamriel-Nights-L2.esp

CiriOutfit.esp

InigoPerkPointGiver.esp

RaceMenuHH.esp

DM BDOR Pack by Team TAL.esp

CommunityOverlays2_31T50.esp

Chesko_WearableLantern.esp

SetYourSkills.esp

reflection-levelupmessages.esp

CommunityOverlays1_0T30.esp

Tentapalooza.esp

Inigo.esp

AmazingFollowerTweaks.esp

018Auri.esp

SexLab-AmorousAdventures.esp

BecomeABard.esp

SofiaFollower.esp

RSChildren.esp

HearthfireMultiKid.esp

HearthfireMultiKid_LastName.esp

HothFollower.esp

Unique Uniques.esp

The Huntsman.esp

RegentSword.esp

skyforgedWeapons.esp

Apachii_DivineEleganceStore_Patch.esp

MoreVampireEyes.esp

ElysiumEstate.esp

Eli_RiverwoodShack.esp

Recorder Follower Base.esp

Lucien.esp

Zikoru Swords.esp

PrvtIRoyalArmory.esp

The Paarthurnax Dilemma.esp

isilNarsil.esp

My Home Is Your Home.esp

Bathing in Skyrim - Main.esp

FNIS_PCEA2.esp

GoToBed.esp

VWA_VanillaWarpaintsAbsolution.esp

SOS - Smurf Average Addon.esp

SOS - VectorPlexus Muscular Addon.esp

SOS - VectorPlexus Regular Addon.esp

Schlongs of Skyrim.esp

Bijin_AIO-SV 2018.esp

Serana.esp

Bijin Wives.esp

Bijin NPCs.esp

Bijin Warmaidens.esp

Brows.esp

KSWigsSMP.esp

KSHairdosSMP.esp

KS Hairdo's.esp

The Eyes Of Beauty - Elves Edition.esp

TheEyesOfBeauty.esp

SOSRaceMenu.esp

RaceMenuMorphsCBBE.esp

CBBE.esp

FNIS.esp

RaceMenu.esp

XPMSE.esp

RaceMenuPlugin.esp

RealisticWaterTwo.esp

RealisticWaterTwo - Watercolor.esp

Bathing in Skyrim SE - RWT Watercolor.esp

Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods.esp

Alternate Start - Live Another Life.esp

ELFXEnhancer.esp

Bathing in Skyrim SE - Alternate Start.esp

Landscape Fixes For Grass mods - Alternate start Locations.esp

Realistic Water Two - Landscape For Grass Mods Patch.esp

RealisticWaterTwo - ELFX Enhancer Patch.esp

Also, have tested out changing/removing certain mods, ensuring I run them through a save cleaner, SMIM (uninstalled and reinstalled to customize it, discovering the "everything version" held some 4k textures inside) and Climates of Tamriel Interiors - Warm (removed after believing it may be conflicting with ELFX) don't seem to be a problem at the moment.

And for anjenthedog, you may be onto something there, as when I first started adding mods and testing, I would use Alternate Start to send me to the Sleeping Giant Inn in Riverwood, then exit and travel down to Whiterun to see if any CTDs occurred before exiting, adding, and restarting the game. Though it is curious that it only really occurs in certain location, namely the taverns. For now, I'll do just that, kinda power through it until I can figure out something.

FINAL UPDATE (Hopefully...): Unfortunately, I ended up uninstalling and rebuilding SSE w/ my desired mods from the ground up, however, as I tested each mod as I installed them, starting within Breezehome, thanks to the Alternate Start mod, and travelling to the Bannered Mare (One of the other locations where I suffered sudden, huge FPS drops) to test things out, I soon discovered the possible culprit to it all: HDT-SMP involved mods, namely KSHairdos SMP! It was odd but it made a bit of sense. As I tested out each mod, I would normally use a default female character so I can quickly playthrough and experiment. It wasn't until that I installed said Hair Mod that I opted to use one of my saved presets. Once I entered the Bannered Mare and did my usual routine (running around, talking with some of the NPCs, then just standing between the main entrance and fireplace to watch for FPS drops) that the problem once again reemerged! From there I quickly restarted and tested things out to be sure, to which I was able to confirm that it was indeed the problem. From there, looked around the HDT-SMP mod page and all related and was able to find people who were also suffering from the bug. Unfortunately, that's as far as it goes, no one has managed to find a solution for it yet, best that's given is an "smp reset" command as the problem occurs due to the collision mesh bugging out every once in a while... sigh happy to at least find something on it. For now, hopefully this post will help anyone looking for more clues if they've encountered this problem too.

Edited February 19, 2020 by MiniComic

[anjenthedog]

I've noticed that spending too much time in the richly appointed external world can lead to video memory getting peaked out...fwiw.

 

Most of the CTDs I experience are when I've spent too much time walking cross country, off road...

 

If you know that's what you're going to be doing, or maybe just in general, try doing a periodic save (to new save, not auto), then load that save and carry on. I can't be certain, but it "feels" like the game reload forces some sort of garbage collection subroutine to run, that goes unexecuted otherwise.

 

One thing I've also been doing recently is firing console tg (toggle grass) occasionally (it seems to self-reset perhaps at cell boundaries or some other way) when I'm in the bush, to reduce resource loading (both static objects and associated script).

[williaal2]

You probably need to post your mod list.

[JimmyRJump]

You shouldn't be bothered too much about fps, as long as it's not visibly disturbing. Places that have several NPCs drop fps. The more NPC at the same time, the more the fps can drop. Physics mods also drop fps because of the constant change in rendering position of the moving body parts. Especially when using a 2K body and/or 2k or higher clothing/armour mod.

 

I don't keep an eye on fps but I do keep one (the right) on memory use as that's where I'm 'suffering' the most.

[anjenthedog]

 

 

I don't keep an eye on fps but I do keep one (the right) on memory use as that's where I'm 'suffering' the most.

 

 

This ^^^^^

 

I have 64G primary memory, an i9700k proc, and a 6G video card and still have to watch memory usage (primarily video memory). I run the game in ultra mode, and it definitely can (and does) peak out, and as a result, either CTD or otherwise become unstable enough I have to kill it using task manager.

[Deleted119721User]

If you have a lot of mods and you load a save and use the coc command to go somewhere ,,,,, both your script latency and FPS will be messes up until you enter an interior and exit