Smoothing the experience

[PullThePin07]

Okay, I've looked up different mods and did what I could but can't seem to get the game running as smooth as I'd like. Not sure if anyone here has some ideas that would help me out. :wallbash:

 

Upon starting the game it told me to run on high.

I have the following installed;

(Bethesda) HD textures installed,

fps background booster,

windows mode,

bethesda Hi-Res DLC Optimized,

Realistic Lighting with Customization,

Unofficial Skyrim Patch,

W.A.T.E.R.

 

Using NMM for almost everything and BOSS for load order. Everything else is just items, armor, weapons, smithing overhaul, nothing I would think that makes the game work more. I'd like to have the game running smooth and still look good is why I ask this.

 

PC specs:

Windows 7 64 bit

RAM (installed) 10 GB (9.77 GB usable)

AMD FX 6120

Six Core Processor

3.50 GHz

 

Nothing awesome or anything but it should be smoother with that kinda specs right?

 

Maybe I'm doing something wrong or I'm missing something. Heard there was a mod to make the game use multi-core but thought that was fixed in a patch.

 

Also tried HighAlgoBoost but it made things fuzzy when moving...(maybe I'm using it wrong) gave me a headache and still only a slight improvement.

 

Thanks for any help. :biggrin:

[MShoap13]

GPU? HDD or SSD? If HDD, details could be useful.

[PullThePin07]

AMD Radeon HD 7450, and 10GB DDR3 system memory.

 

If any other details are needed please let me know and be specific.

[MShoap13]

AMD Radeon HD 7450

 

Ouch, that Card really isn't for gaming at all. Very weak performance. At a bare minimum I'd recommend upgrading to an nVidia 550 TI (or the AMD equivalent).

 

I was asking if you were on a standard Hard Drive or a newer Solid State drive, with that GPU it really won't matter though.

 

First, off you may need to tone down some of your graphics settings (Resolution, AntiAliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, etc.). Grab FRAPS and set it up to display your FPS in-game. Stand at the top of the steps in Whiterun, right past the short bridge that goes to the main entrance of DragonsReach, and look down towards the large tree in the middle of marketplace courtyard. From this vantage point you want to shoot for an FPS around 35 (or above).

 

A few things you can do now that may help with overall smoothness are:

Grab Simple Borderless Window. This may actually lower your FPS slightly (or increase it) but it will usually result in less stuttering, etc.

Grab the Medium Resolution addon for WATER

Make sure you have the Optimized Hi-Res DLC setup for either Hybrid + 1024 Normal Maps or just plain 1024 (if you have to lower your resolution below 1440x810 you're probably better off with just the plain 1024 version).

 

You could also make a few tweaks to your confing files found at \Users\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\.

In Skyrim.ini you could try out:

[Papyrus]
iMinMemoryPageSize=100000
iMaxMemoryPageSize=5000000
iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=1800000000

[General]
uGridsToLoad=5
uInterior Cell Buffer=24
uExterior Cell Buffer=64
iPreloadSizeLimit=262144000
fMasterFilePreLoadMB=100.0000

 

If either the [Papyrus] or [General] sections already exist in your Skyrim.ini, simply add the lines below the relevant section. If either section doesn't exist yet, feel free to add it anywhere. These settings deal with how much stuff the game will preload into System RAM resulting in less frequent and often less dramatic load stutter when moving between cells. Most of these are recommended maximums and may negatively impact your game's stability if you increase them beyond the values shown here.

 

In SkyrimPrefs.ini you can add the following line under the [Controls] section:

bMouseAcceleration=0

 

This turns of hardware acceleration for the mouse which results in less choppiness while moving the pointer.

 

Also in SkyrimPrefs.ini, under the [Display] section:

iPresentInterval=0

 

This setting turns off the game's built-in VSync. VSync synchronizes the games FPS to your monitor's refresh rate which results in less visual tearing (very noticeable horizontal lines) at the cost of FPS and sometimes choppier gameplay. If you start notice a lot of screen tearing, feel free to turn this setting back on.

 

Most people set the files to read-only once they get them set up to prevent the game from overwriting them should it ever feel like rescanning your hardware.

 

You could also try out an FPS limiter (there's quite a number of them here on the Nexus).

[PullThePin07]

I have another Graphics card, a Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT. Would that be better than the AMD one?

[MShoap13]

If the 9500 is a 1GB model maybe, but not by much. If it's a 512 MB model it would probably run out of vRAM pretty quickly without any extra textures installed so it probably wouldn't be worth trying.

[PullThePin07]

I changed the settings you posted and it def. helped. Looking into buying a better card sometime soonish. something around 100 - 150 is my budget range. any recommendations are welcome.

 

Thanks for all the help, really means a lot to me.

[MShoap13]

A 550 TI 2GB would be a great choice in that price range.

 

That's the only one I could find on Newegg with 2GB of RAM and unfortunately it's out of stock on there. Similar cards may be available over on Amazon though. They usually have better availability and price competitively with Newegg so you could find a deal there.

 

The only reason I recommend the 2GB version for Skyrim is because this game has a really bad memory leak due to it trying to keep everything in RAM until it's forced out by another resource. 1GB cards run out of vRAM pretty quickly with just a few 2048 texture packs installed and once they do your gameplay turns into a slideshow. Alt+Tabbing out of the game and then back in or using the "PCB" console command in Skyrim restores performance but only temporarily.

 

For $160 they have a 650 TI 2GB which would be a small (but probably noticeable) upgrade. For the same price as the 650 TI, a Radeon 7770 2GB would perform worse than the 550 TI mentioned above and a 7850 is ~$185 (would outperform all of these cards).

Edited December 1, 2012 by MShoap13