Skyrim - ENB - V-sync - Threaded Optimization

[surg23]

Hi there,

 

 

I cannot seem to get Skyrim to run properly with V-sync or Threaded Optimization. Doing so usually results in my game crashing during cell transitions and/or saving. I always know when it's about to crash, when i interface with the Map and there are no sounds.

 

 

 

I'm using Jasmin ENB-7679 with ENBseries Version 0119.

 

 

If i turn off V-sync and Threaded Optimization, the game becomes stable, but I get hideous screen tearing and Micro-stutter. The only good part is that it gets rid of the horrible mouse lag in menus.

 

 

 

I would like to ask if anyone has been successful if running ENB with these options turned on, And if so how ?

 

 

 

Some other mods i have running:

 

Unofficial Skyrim Patch

COT: Climates of Tamriel

Realistic Lighting + Better dynamic snow

Apachii Skyhair

Ran's headmesh variants

Dimonized UNP body

UNP-Blessed Body + BBP

Envision Face

Sky-UI

SKSE - Skyrim script Extender

Victoria's High heel walk animation + BBP

 

 

OS: Windows 7 Pro 64bit

[MShoap13]

The game has built-in VSync unless you turned it off through your SkyrimPrefs.ini:

iPresentInterval=0

0 is off, 1 is on.

 

If you're on an nVidia card, you can force an FPS limit through nVidia Instpector. 58 or lower is recommended to avoid most tearing; you'll still have some in the map menu and very rarely you'll notice a line if you look around vertically very quickly. This method helps to eliminate the delayed response the game sometimes has with it's VSync on.

 

I've never had any problems with Threaded Optimization, but I know it deals with I/O requests to and from the CPU. Perhaps try limiting your game to running on two physical CPU cores, disabling HyperThreading (if you're on an HT Intel chip) or limiting the game to only run on physical cores instead of outright disabling HT. A lot of people see performance increases and/or reduced stutter when limiting the number of cores the game can run on because it doesn't thread very well. If you find it runs better, you may want to look into something like Process Lasso to automatically adjust core affinity, etc. every time a given program is run.

[surg23]

I do apologize for such a late reply.

 

 

Thank you very much for that information, I think it has partially relieved my problem. Sadly, my issues have gotten worse since i posted this. Now Skyrim will just hard crash losing signal from my GPU and a distorted sounds coming from the speakers. At this point i have to power down my machine just to get signal back. Still pretty sure it's ENB related.

 

 

I have tried using Process Lasso, shutting off all virtual cores plus turning off V-sync in the Skyrimprefs.ini and setting NVCP to use Application controlled settings. I have not had another "hard" crash in the last 3 hours, but the game did freeze just a moment ago as i was transitioning to a different cell, though, this could be caused by me Alt+tabbing out of Skyrim to set the Core Affinity for the process, I know Skyrim cannot handle Alt+tabbing, especially with heavy mods.

 

 

I have read the Lasso FAQ, but am still not able to figure out how i can set the Affinity of a process before i start it. Besides that, i will update my Graphics driver and see how that works.

 

 

Also, I searched around for what causes the "hard" crashing Signal-loss. Bethesda suggested to change the audio output frequency down to 24bit 44.1khz, which made no difference for me.

 

 

However, something very strange happened a few days ago. While i was in game, in Riverwood, I was initiating dialogue with an NPC when the game just dropped about 40fps And stayed that way even if i restarted it or loaded different save files. I had to restart my machine to get the performance back. Though that only occurred once so far, but i fear it's strongly related to the ENB crash mentioned above.

 

 

Thanks again for the help. :)

[MShoap13]

In Process Lasso, Options > CPU > Configure default CPU affinities.

 

Just putting tesv.exe in the box will work.

 

For default priorities above normal or high would be as far as I'd try to push it. This won't really do much for the game though.

[surg23]

Hi again.

 

 

Thanks for that. Apparently it remembered the core affinity after i set those options, though i did not know how it worked exactly. No hard crashing lately, but there's still something funky going on during cell transitions.

 

I tried running cores 0-2-4-6 (physical cores apparently) and also just cores 0-2. With 0-2 the game stutters a bit and still freezes. With cores 0-2-4-6 the game is smooth, but still freezes. The only difference being that with Cores 0-2 it gave a hint that it would crash as i changed cell i got heavy micro stuttering, then went to equip my bow and it froze.

 

 

I have set the priority to run at high, though i have also tried Above normal. Something i notice prior to changing this is Lasso told me that it had dropped priority below normal because it was draining system resources, though Skyrim only uses about 1/4 of my system resources.

 

 

I am really at a loss, but i am still fortunate enough to be able to play for 3 or so hours without a freeze. I'll keep playing with it, And i thank you again for your help mate.

[MShoap13]

You want to limit it to not run on core 0 intentionally. I/O requests only ever run on the first core. Telling the game to not run on that core frees it up to process these requests as fast as possible.

 

You can add Skyrim to Process Lasso's exceptions to prevent Process Lasso from throttling it.

 

Options > ProBalance > Configure excluded processes.

 

You could also just turn ProBalance off.

[surg23]

Oh, okay, I didn't know that.

 

So if i wanted to run Skyrim on as few cores as possible, i would set cores 2-4 ?

[surg23]

For what it's worth, I think ENB and/or something else is corrupting my saves, in that it does not matter which cores or priority i use, if i load a save that was exhibiting strange behavior before a freeze, it will always Freeze soon thereafter.

 

I looked at my save files and there is no bloat at all. I'm going to have to try a 3-4 hour play session with ENB deactivated and/or with selective mods enabled. Though if one thing is for certain, it's that ENB causes the hard-crash, but the freezing seems inherent to Skyrim and my system configuration.

 

Not sure if this helps or not, but here are my system/driver specs:

 

 

Gigabyte Sniper 3 Motherboard Z77 chipset

I7-3770K CPU (stock frequency)

Asus GTX-670 2GB (Driver 306.97)

Gskill Ripjaws DDR3-2400 4096mb x 2 (stock timings)

Corsair AX1200 PSU

Samsung 830 series SSD 120gb

WD Caviar green - 2tb (games directory)

WD caviar Black 2tb

WD 1tb

Seagate - 320

Seagate - 320

Edited December 17, 2012 by surg23