Wierd FPS issues,

[Beccy]

My machine is by no means an "Ultimate Gaming Machine", but it has the power to run Skyrim on full, the Auto-detect for what its worth, sets all my settings to max, (Which i don't play with!) Normally i've got all the distance sliders about 1/3-2/3 the way up, depending on which one, and shadows and radial blur set to medium. (I'm also running all three of the HD texture packs).

 

Now normally these settings give me a steady, uninterupted (sometimes drops to 59 when i'm in combat, or just swishing the view around quickly, i can deal with that.) but recently, after installing no new mods apart from Dragonborn, and after making no changes to the game, or any ini files, or any of the graphics settings, i'm starting to get wierd drops in FPS, like sometimes it'll drop to about 30FPS for 3-4 seconds then spring back up. Now i know it sounds ungreatful to be moaning about these drops but they're new, and nothing i've done should have started them, and i kinda liked having my lossless gameplay,

 

Anyone have any suggestions as to what it could be? or how i can fix it?, I'd rather not just do a full re-install because i've got quite a few mods, (Nearly 60, again none of them installed recently) and among other reasons i can't see why it would help, the installs not all that old. (about a month).

 

Anyway, heres a brief of my system incase it helps :

 

i7-3770 CPU, 3.40GHz

8.00GB Ram

64bit Windows 7

Nvidia GTX550Ti

 

Anyway, hope someone can help. Don't like these random changes!,

Beccy

[bben46]

My blog on FPS

http://s1.zetaboards.com/bbenlibrary/topic/4942696/1/?x=0#post694365

[Beccy]

My blog on FPS

http://s1.zetaboards.com/bbenlibrary/topic/4942696/1/?x=0#post694365

Thanks Bben, its always nice to get a reply from you!, So having read your blog, you'd recommend i limit my FPS to 30 or there abouts?, I'll try and give the Nvidia limiter in your Blog a shot and repost my sucsess or failure here.

 

Although, it doesn't explain 'why' i've gotten these sudden changes, i mean if the cause remains the same, surely limiting my FPS to 30 will only have the same effect, only in a lower frame rate segment right?, or is that wrong? i'm not really very good at hypothetical computing!

 

Beccy

[Belial666]

Check the size of your game saves,some ppl are having issues with large ones causing game slowdowns.Make sure you got the latest drivers,and disable the threading optimization in the drivers.Also,the nvidia drivers have a adaptive,and adaptive 1/2 rate,which should limit ok,seems to limit mine to about 30.Also,alot of ppl are complaining about issues with dragonborn,so it may jsut add more taxing scripts to the game.If your drops are in a city doing nothing that would cause it,then I'd worry,if it's in combat,or in exterior cells with lots going on,I's not worry about it.

[raventrigun]

Have you cleaned your dirty DLC's yet? I have hear that it can fix a lot of issues with slowdowns your game is trying to process a poorly made DLC and can possibly slow you game down. Also Belial666 is spot on about the save game files check you size of your file.

 

 

Also if possible please post a BOSS log file for us to see if some modification could be conflicting with the introduction of the dragonborn dlc.

 

I also suggest you attempt a clean save to see if the slow downs can be isolated to just the Dragonborn DLC.

[Beccy]

Ok, answers Chronologically! :

 

Bben : I tried your suggestion of limiting the frame rate as per your blog, but sadly what i feared happened, even though the frame rate limit worked in itself, it didn't correct the issue, where my FPS would drop from 60-40/50 it dropped from 30-20/25, so it didn't correct whatever the issue was, just made it happened at a different part of the FPS scale :S.

 

Belial666 : My save files seem normal, they are 4kb at the start of the character, and 10kb now, (Level 30 with Dragonborn + Companions complete, and most of both maps explored if not cleared), they don't seem bloated. As for the "Threading", i've got no idea what that means, the issue happens mostly out doors, and its like as if the computer is trying to render distant terrain, even though changing the LOD settings and quality makes no difference. (I know this might sound silly, but it happens most when i ride a Horse downhill,)

 

Raventrigun : I've not cleaned the DLC's i've not done it with any of them, i'll see about posting a Boss loadout later, as long as you don't yell at me for not cleaning! its over my head and i havn't ever done it,

 

Beccy

[bben46]

Well, now we know one thing that its not. :thumbsup:

Troubleshooting is a process of eliminating things until you find the problem - It's always the last thing you try. :wink:

 

Try the general section of the blog. There are some links there that may help.

http://s1.zetaboards.com/bbenlibrary/topic/4751769/1/#new

[Beccy]

Well, now we know one thing that its not. :thumbsup:

Troubleshooting is a process of eliminating things until you find the problem - It's always the last thing you try. :wink:

 

Try the general section of the blog. There are some links there that may help.

http://s1.zetaboards.com/bbenlibrary/topic/4751769/1/#new

I'm on it Bben, but seriously! can't skyrim troubleshooting just come with a TL:DR? hope my speechcraft goes up with all this reading! ;) (Ignore my sarcastic humor if it comes across ungreatful, i'm the opposite, just in a good mood despite random 5-15fps drop spikes)

[Georgiegril]

Well here are some of my ideas....

1. You say you changed nothing other than adding dragonborn. Have you double-checked your prefs.ini to make sure that adding dragonborn didn't set something back to the default?

2. Have you looked at what background services/processes are running while you are in game? Might be something like a "idle" scan, or some other process temporarily sucking up your computer's resources.

3. Are you also using the new High res textures? Have you tried disabling that to see if somehow that is involved?

 

That's all I can think of atm. Hope you find your solution!

[Beccy]

Good thinking Georgiegril!, As for checking the prefs.ini i wouldn't even begin to know what was changed when or where with DLC's all i know is that I've not changed it (Beyond changing it through the options settings in the launcher that is!, and i've not done that recently)

I've checked the background programs, i had the performance part of the taskmanager running on my second monitor to test it, and there didn't seem to be any increased activity in anything else while skyrim was stuttering, so i think the issue is definatley with Skyrim alone.

 

I hadn't though of disabling Texture 03 from the HD pack, but i'll give it a shot shortly! and let you know,

 

also, @ Bben, i quickly ran though most of the advice on the blog, some of it seemed relevant others not, but then its not a page dedicated only to my problem so what should i expect right? i went through most of the stuff that i could use without much sucsess, the only thing i didn't do was buy the Windows optimizer thing, being thrifty this month! ;).

 

 

Not sure if its a direct result of something i've done or not done though but the effect has lessened visibly tonight, it now only happens once every 10minutes or so while outdoors and never indoors, so fingers crossed it will have sorted itself out, but i will try the Texture 3 thing,