Mods to optimize performance?

[ambria]

For me 30 is fine, but 25 is choppy.

I can't tell a difference between say 35 and 40 though

 

But on topic.

I'd suggest maybe clearing up your PC a bit before looking for more mods to fix it.

Get rid of all unwanted programs, and move all stuff like pics and music on to an external hard drive or something.

Edited July 29, 2014 by ambria

[Valkasha]

I always laugh when people say you can't tell the difference between 60 and 40 fps. Those people have obviously never used a FPS monitor to see the difference or never ran any games at 60 frames.

[Martins91]

Your pc should handle WAY more than 15 fps.

I have 1Gb VRAM, 6gbs Ram, CPU at 2.8 and i can play at least at 42 FPS droping to min 30 fps, with Real Vision ENB, realistic lighting and 2k textures, + 47 mods.

Get Enb boost, and configure the Enblocal.ini.
Disable the mods you don't necessarly need, even my last laptop could run Skyrim with + 30 (2.2cpu, 4gbs Ram, 1gb Vram)

[Katy420]

For the record, the human eye operates at around 30, you TECHNICALLY shouldn't be able to tell the difference visually between 30 and 60, but you can. That's why in cinematography tons of war movies/scenes are shot at super high fps with high speed cameras (think "saving private ryan"), we CAN tell the difference, it makes everything look "crisper"....

 

That being said, you need 30+ fps for your scripts to execute smoothly. That doesn't have anything to do with your visual enjoyment.

 

Some mods/stuff I use....

 

Skyrim Project Optimization http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32505/?

I compress EVERYTHING I download with Optimizer textures http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/12801/? on medium/maximum (higher than people recommend). If I notice a problem it's easy to reinstall the mod and try it again on minimum or leave it. It only every causes a noticeable difference for me on normal maps so if you're really worried about it just copy those before you optimize and replace them afterwards.

Optimized base game textures http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57353/? No this is not the same thing as above unless you've extracted your base game .bsas

Timer resolution http://www.lucashale.com/timer-resolution/ it's a CPU timer tweak you run in the background every time you launch Skyrim

Skyrim Performance PLUS series http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/6387/? (low res floating crap-- pine needles, rift leaves, snow, dandelion seeds, etc.)

Low res Particles http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/53692/? (If you're in love with HD fire just don't use that file but I can NOT tell the difference with things like smoke and sparks)

Insignificant Object Remover http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/64611/? I actually can't play without this anymore not because of performance but because I HATE rockgrass-- looks like goat turds. Incompatible with unique grasses and groundcovers (it renames some of this stuff). This is LIKE remove underwater grass but it saves slightly more performance. Underwater grass just fills the meshes in with a blank mesh, you aren't loading the graphics but you're still rendering them. IOR uses an .esp to reduce their density to 0, you're actually not rendering them.

Remove interior fog http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/29253/? another mod I tried for performance but now I like for aesthetics. It needs a patch with almost everything and doesn't come with any so you have to make one in Tes5edit, though.

Skyrim performance booster http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/59305/? is a tweak guide that's super old, I don't really recommend using its batch file or doing it OUTRIGHT but it is a decent idea, I've used it as a base to tweak my own setup, it's clever. I delete about half the files it recommends based on my least favorite grasses (download gimp or paint.net for free to view .dds files so you know which are your least favorite, delete their corresponding meshes) and it'll work with any grass mods.

One mountain to rule them all http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/58666/?

Mountain performance boost http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/7041/? Low res mountain textures for a noticeable outdoor boost. Lots of people would call these ugly and even I can notice the difference but I'm used to it and not a screenarcher so it stays.

 

And BTW all of these are things that cause no visual loss for me (except the last one), things I still use. I used to run a much crappier machine than I do now, and sacrificed a lot more for FPS, but these are things I keep around because any boost without a noticeable dip in quality is a good thing in my book, no matter what system you're working with. Skyrim Performance Monitor http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/6491/? is a useful tool for figuring out whether your problem is VRAM or RAM usage, which is sometimes otherwise hard to tell. It seems to have issues with MO but still works better than nothing. If it's RAM/CPU you have too much content, if it's VRAM/GFX card you have too many graphics mods. Definitely get a script latency monitor-- I use http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/62671/? script latency doesn't CAUSE FPS drop, but if you have ridiculous latency it's a decent sign that your scripted mods are hogging your performance so you should focus on them.

 

Make sure you're not processing grass shadows in your .ini. Tweak imingrassize=20, raise it by 5 or 10 at a time until you find a nice compromise of performance/visuals according to your taste. You can disable dynamic shadows by setting it to 1, you'll still have static shadows. Set your ugrids to 3, if you're desparate for distant terrain use DynDOLOD.

 

Sometimes I run a short little playthrough with a specific focus, like a specific quest mod or a theme or something, so I have fewer content mods for that profile and switch to an ENB I tweaked from Wintertide. If I'm running a lot of demanding mods though (like my normal dedicated playthrough) I sacrifice the ENB for ULO (ultimate lighting overhaul) which uses sweetfx (a competitor of ENB, can't be run alongside anything that uses ENB binaries) with dynavision and imaginator. You lose the memory tweak of ENB/Boost but don't have to use a lighting mod that edits cells, and it has a MUCH lower FPS hit than any (graphical) ENB+Lighting mod combo. On any setup, using dynavision on static DOF with a pretty high setting blurs distant terrain and gives a teeny tiny boost (also disguises your crappy LOD if you've tried to save VRAM that way). If you'd like to keep ENBoost, a decent substitute for lighting with less FPS drop is RLO (realistic lighting overhaul) and/or URWL (ultra realistic world lighting).

 

For general maintainence try CCleaner https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download , it's an awesome registry cleaner/program manager/startup manager/lots of stuff. It mostly does things you can TECHNICALLY do through windows but does a better job in my opinion and puts it all in one easy interface, saves time. It WILL let you delete/modify stuff that could break stuff (unlike windows which will throw up a ton of "are you sure" warnings) so be careful. I also use CleanMem http://www.pcwintech.com/cleanmem to purge memory before starting the game. Go into your control panel, system, advanced settings, performance, and set it to "best performance". Your desktop will be ugly but everything will run better. And your system is not a beast but it should DEFINITELY be running better than it is, sounds like you might have a dirty machine (make sure your overall PC health is good with utilities, defrag regularly, antivirus/spyware/malware, etc.)

 

If you want overclocking help PM me, I'm not sure if you're allowed to talk about that on the nexus?

 

Hope this helps, I remember those days :smile:

[Katy420]

Your pc should handle WAY more than 15 fps.

 

I have 1Gb VRAM, 6gbs Ram, CPU at 2.8 and i can play at least at 42 FPS droping to min 30 fps, with Real Vision ENB, realistic lighting and 2k textures, + 47 mods.

 

Get Enb boost, and configure the Enblocal.ini.

Disable the mods you don't necessarly need, even my last laptop could run Skyrim with + 30 (2.2cpu, 4gbs Ram, 1gb Vram)

 

 

..... I'm afraid that's uh, BULLSH*T.

 

Not looking to get into a forum war but NO WAY can anyone run 2k textures and any ENB besides ENBoost with 1g VRAM and 6g RAM. That's like (roughly) the reccomended specs for vanilla.

[CthulhuCthulhu]

Some semi-necromancy here, but don't spread misinformation, bro. No offense, it could actually send people to compulsively install visual related mods, only to be disappointed. I have a crappy notebook (GT 640m) which has double the VRAM and specs, and it can't even maintain a stable 40fps, constantly dropping to 30, which produces lag from the fluctuation of FPS. But that's only the 2k textures, the RealVision ENB, gives me about 40-35 but overall looks better. Edited April 6, 2016 by CthulhuCthulhu