Vanilla Skyrim terrible frame rate in cities and in wilderness on a GTX 980

[XeNIKusGreekus]

(I originally created this topic on Nexus forums, and copied and pasted it here)

 

Hello everyone!

I have been playing Skyrim since day one, and I have been modding it for a long time. Recently, I have decided to get back into it, only this time I'm shocked by a very blatant problem....

 

In nearly all cities, and in some areas of the wilderness, I get a terrible frame rate that drops from about a solid 60 to 30-45. This is very abnormal, as I have an excellent system.

 

My system specs are as follows:

CPU: AMD FX 8350

GPU: MSI GTX 980

RAM: Vengeance 8GB

SSD: I have skyrim on an 850 EVO 500 GB

PSU: Corsair 750W

OS: Windows 10 pro 64-bit 

 

I have checked my temps, all is very cool. Uninstalled my graphics drivers (very clean uninstall) and reinstalled. No difference...

I'm pretty tech savvy, and have been tweaking and modding skyrim for a long time now. But now I am just at a complete loss for words as to why I could be getting this terrible frame rate whereas in the past, on the SAME hardware, I was getting a solid 50-60 FPS with 170+ mods. And this lag is in VANILLA SKYRIM.

 

I do have suspicions that this could be a hardware issue, but I'm hoping it's something less dire, as my processor, SSD, PSU, and video card have only been in my system for less than a year... I did a lot of upgrading last year.

 

If anyone has any suggestion on what I should do next, I would appreciate it immensely. Thank you in advance! 

 

~Nik

 

(and yes I have tried a fresh uninstall)

 

(I originally created this topic on Nexus forums, and copied and pasted it here)

Edited April 17, 2016 by XeNIKusGreekus

[hishutup]

I would start by assessing whether or not the GPU is being pushed, id do this by looking at the GPU usage. If it's pegged then check your clocks on the gpu. There was a driver release awhile back that made the 970 stay in a lower power state.

 

If that's not it I would look at the inis for ENB, enboost, skyrims, and GPU profiles.

[XeNIKusGreekus]

I would start by assessing whether or not the GPU is being pushed, id do this by looking at the GPU usage. If it's pegged then check your clocks on the gpu. There was a driver release awhile back that made the 970 stay in a lower power state.

 

If that's not it I would look at the inis for ENB, enboost, skyrims, and GPU profiles.

 

It seems my gpu usage is actually rather low when Skyrim is running... What could be the cause of this? My clocks seem to be high and in check...

Edited April 18, 2016 by XeNIKusGreekus

[hishutup]

Id suspect something else is bottlenecking it.

The first place id look is at the CPU usage and clocks to see if it operating correctly.

 

Then I'd look at RAM.

 

All of these are simple checks but for an sanity check I would run some stresses/benchmarks on each component to see if everything is operating normally

[XeNIKusGreekus]

Id suspect something else is bottlenecking it.

The first place id look is at the CPU usage and clocks to see if it operating correctly.

 

Then I'd look at RAM.

 

All of these are simple checks but for an sanity check I would run some stresses/benchmarks on each component to see if everything is operating normally

Alright. I will do this when I have time. Thank you, hishutup. :)

[GamerPoets]

If you have a 4k monitor (throwing it out there) it's also going to use more resources. I haven't tested it myself but your fps (from what I hear) will most likely drop. Your refresh rate will also have a lot to do with it if you use 4k I would imagine. You need to use the dp chord and not the hdmi on certain 4k monitors (mine lol seiki) to get 60hz instead of 30. 

[XeNIKusGreekus]

If you have a 4k monitor (throwing it out there) it's also going to use more resources. I haven't tested it myself but your fps (from what I hear) will most likely drop. Your refresh rate will also have a lot to do with it if you use 4k I would imagine. You need to use the dp chord and not the hdmi on certain 4k monitors (mine lol seiki) to get 60hz instead of 30. 

Michael! Hello! I am a huge fan of Gamerpoets! :)

 

I do not have a 4k monitor. My monitor is an asus that has a refresh rate of 144 hz, but I have used nvidia inspector to cap Skyrim at 55 fps.

Edited April 18, 2016 by XeNIKusGreekus