Help me to understand the cause of stutter

[Ggfd3FzZuyabrmSsmjun]

Hey so I've been installing the step mods and have come to realize that my game is stuttering about halfway through the mod list.  My fps is still decent around 50~ and my vram usage is around 700/1024 according to MSI afterburner.  

 

What exactly causes the stutter and how can I alleviate it?

 

Edit: a little more detail.

Stuttering is happening when panning camera in any direction but most noticable up/down. It appears to be horizontal lines across my screen as the camera spins. I've tried with/without v-sync and it still happens.

 

What is the next step for me to help you troubleshoot?

[stoppingby4now]

Excessive swapping of texture data from System RAM to VRAM is a primary cause. Are you running the Bethesda High Resolution Texture Pack? 700 MB of VRAM use is rather low if you are.

 

Beyond that, it could be a lot of things, typically either insufficient power being delivered to the card, or the card overheating causing it to throttle.

[Ggfd3FzZuyabrmSsmjun]

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Excessive swapping of texture data from System RAM to VRAM is a primary cause. Are you running the Bethesda High Resolution Texture Pack? 700 MB of VRAM use is rather low if you are.

 

Beyond that, it could be a lot of things, typically either insufficient power being delivered to the card, or the card overheating causing it to throttle.

Why would it be swapping texture data to and from system ram if it isn't yet fully utilizing the 1GB vram I have?

My card runs at good temps (about 55C). My entire PC is very well ventilated. I also have a power supply far greater than what my PC requires (not sure if you meant lacking in power supply or actually voltage tweaking my gpu when you said insufficient power.

 

My build:

i5 2500k @ 4.5Ghz

Asus p8p67

8GB 1600mhz cl9

radeon HD 6850 @ 870mhz core, 1150mhz mem

corsair hx750 power supply

That just about covers it.

My cpu overclock was done at the time of build, the gpu overclock was about a month ago and has been stable, but is there a chance the gpu overclock could be causing the issue? I left it on stock voltages when I overclocked it.

 

To answer your question in short I am using the HDDLC Optimized rather than the full HD texture pack.

 

I am trying to run baseline step 2.2.1 (I know it's still a work in progress but it was decided in another thread that I was better off trying to run that than the outdated 2.2.0a)

https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.1

I am running all baseline options up till the end of Clothing & Equipment. Animations & Effects section and on I haven't downloaded yet

 

I just don't understand why it is stuttering if everything is seemingly not hitting it's limits yet. I wanted to find out if there were a better explanation before I started disabling mods.

[TechAngel85]

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Excessive swapping of texture data from System RAM to VRAM is a primary cause. Are you running the Bethesda High Resolution Texture Pack? 700 MB of VRAM use is rather low if you are.

 

Beyond that, it could be a lot of things, typically either insufficient power being delivered to the card, or the card overheating causing it to throttle.

Why would it be swapping texture data to and from system ram if it isn't yet fully utilizing the 1GB vram I have?

My card runs at good temps (about 55C). My entire PC is very well ventilated. I also have a power supply far greater than what my PC requires (not sure if you meant lacking in power supply or actually voltage tweaking my gpu when you said insufficient power.

 

My build:

i5 2500k @ 4.5Ghz

Asus p8p67

8GB 1600mhz cl9

radeon HD 6850 @ 870mhz core, 1150mhz mem

corsair hx750 power supply

That just about covers it.

My cpu overclock was done at the time of build, the gpu overclock was about a month ago and has been stable, but is there a chance the gpu overclock could be causing the issue? I left it on stock voltages when I overclocked it.

 

To answer your question in short I am using the HDDLC Optimized rather than the full HD texture pack.

 

I am trying to run baseline step 2.2.1 (I know it's still a work in progress but it was decided in another thread that I was better off trying to run that than the outdated 2.2.0a)

https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.1

I am running all baseline options up till the end of Clothing & Equipment. Animations & Effects section and on I haven't downloaded yet

 

I just don't understand why it is stuttering if everything is seemingly not hitting it's limits yet. I wanted to find out if there were a better explanation before I started disabling mods.

You shouldn't be having swapping out until your VRAM is full. The overclock could be causing the issue, but I couldn't be sure. It could also be caused by your GPU being pushed too far (running to high resolution, too high of settings, etc) and your card is struggling to keep up. Basically at this point in the game it's going to be trial and error and troubleshooting for everyone (myself and admins included). We've been discussing the performance of STEP 2.2.1 in another thread and we're also experiencing stuttering. DDSopting all of the textures has helped but not entirely eliminated it.

 

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To answer your question in short I am using the HDDLC Optimized rather than the full HD texture pack.

 

Thanks for bringing this up. I was doing this in the last STEP version with no stuttering at all. I'll have to test doing this again to see if I get any improvement. Since I'm running on my ASUS G7 laptop I'm running the game at lower resolutions than everyone else so I can get away with running lower resolution textures as well without seeing too much of a visual impact.

[Ggfd3FzZuyabrmSsmjun]

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Excessive swapping of texture data from System RAM to VRAM is a primary cause. Are you running the Bethesda High Resolution Texture Pack? 700 MB of VRAM use is rather low if you are.

 

Beyond that, it could be a lot of things, typically either insufficient power being delivered to the card, or the card overheating causing it to throttle.

Why would it be swapping texture data to and from system ram if it isn't yet fully utilizing the 1GB vram I have?

My card runs at good temps (about 55C). My entire PC is very well ventilated. I also have a power supply far greater than what my PC requires (not sure if you meant lacking in power supply or actually voltage tweaking my gpu when you said insufficient power.

 

My build:

i5 2500k @ 4.5Ghz

Asus p8p67

8GB 1600mhz cl9

radeon HD 6850 @ 870mhz core, 1150mhz mem

corsair hx750 power supply

That just about covers it.

My cpu overclock was done at the time of build, the gpu overclock was about a month ago and has been stable, but is there a chance the gpu overclock could be causing the issue? I left it on stock voltages when I overclocked it.

 

To answer your question in short I am using the HDDLC Optimized rather than the full HD texture pack.

 

I am trying to run baseline step 2.2.1 (I know it's still a work in progress but it was decided in another thread that I was better off trying to run that than the outdated 2.2.0a)

https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.1

I am running all baseline options up till the end of Clothing & Equipment. Animations & Effects section and on I haven't downloaded yet

 

I just don't understand why it is stuttering if everything is seemingly not hitting it's limits yet. I wanted to find out if there were a better explanation before I started disabling mods.

You shouldn't be having swapping out until your VRAM is full. The overclock could be causing the issue, but I couldn't be sure. It could also be caused by your GPU being pushed too far (running to high resolution, too high of settings, etc) and your card is struggling to keep up. Basically at this point in the game it's going to be trial and error and troubleshooting for everyone (myself and admins included). We've been discussing the performance of STEP 2.2.1 in another thread and we're also experiencing stuttering. DDSopting all of the textures has helped but not entirely eliminated it.

 

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To answer your question in short I am using the HDDLC Optimized rather than the full HD texture pack.

Thanks for bringing this up. I was doing this in the last STEP version with no stuttering at all. I'll have to test doing this again to see if I get any improvement. Since I'm running on my ASUS G7 laptop I'm running the game at lower resolutions than everyone else so I can get away with running lower resolution textures as well without seeing too much of a visual impact.

Oki well I guess I will just finish installing the 2.2.1 mod list and then work from there with tweaking.

 

Just another concern of mine, maybe I am missing something, but is there a way to tell what is being editted on the 2.2.1 page? I'm trying to make sure I stay as up to date to that guide as I can, and the page tells me the last time it was updated, but not what was changed. Help?

[stoppingby4now]

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Excessive swapping of texture data from System RAM to VRAM is a primary cause. Are you running the Bethesda High Resolution Texture Pack? 700 MB of VRAM use is rather low if you are.

 

Beyond that, it could be a lot of things, typically either insufficient power being delivered to the card, or the card overheating causing it to throttle.

Why would it be swapping texture data to and from system ram if it isn't yet fully utilizing the 1GB vram I have?

My card runs at good temps (about 55C). My entire PC is very well ventilated. I also have a power supply far greater than what my PC requires (not sure if you meant lacking in power supply or actually voltage tweaking my gpu when you said insufficient power.

I was just making note of the primary cause, but that also assumes everything else is stable. Beyond that you have to start looking at other issues, and they tend to be hardware related.

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My build:

i5 2500k @ 4.5Ghz

Asus p8p67

8GB 1600mhz cl9

radeon HD 6850 @ 870mhz core, 1150mhz mem

corsair hx750 power supply

That just about covers it.

My cpu overclock was done at the time of build, the gpu overclock was about a month ago and has been stable, but is there a chance the gpu overclock could be causing the issue? I left it on stock voltages when I overclocked it.

 

To answer your question in short I am using the HDDLC Optimized rather than the full HD texture pack.

 

I am trying to run baseline step 2.2.1 (I know it's still a work in progress but it was decided in another thread that I was better off trying to run that than the outdated 2.2.0a)

https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.1

I am running all baseline options up till the end of Clothing & Equipment. Animations & Effects section and on I haven't downloaded yet

 

I just don't understand why it is stuttering if everything is seemingly not hitting it's limits yet. I wanted to find out if there were a better explanation before I started disabling mods.

I'm not sure how far you've pushed the overclock on your GPU, but this is directly related to it possibly not getting enough power for the overclock (seeing as you didn't adjust the voltage). The first step I would take would be to record your current GPU overclock settings, revert them back to factory settings, and see if you still get the stuttering. If you don't, then it's most likely you need to adjust the voltage draw on the card (or reduce the amount of OC).

[Ggfd3FzZuyabrmSsmjun]

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Excessive swapping of texture data from System RAM to VRAM is a primary cause. Are you running the Bethesda High Resolution Texture Pack? 700 MB of VRAM use is rather low if you are.

 

Beyond that, it could be a lot of things, typically either insufficient power being delivered to the card, or the card overheating causing it to throttle.

Why would it be swapping texture data to and from system ram if it isn't yet fully utilizing the 1GB vram I have?

My card runs at good temps (about 55C). My entire PC is very well ventilated. I also have a power supply far greater than what my PC requires (not sure if you meant lacking in power supply or actually voltage tweaking my gpu when you said insufficient power.

I was just making note of the primary cause, but that also assumes everything else is stable. Beyond that you have to start looking at other issues, and they tend to be hardware related.

  Quote

My build:

i5 2500k @ 4.5Ghz

Asus p8p67

8GB 1600mhz cl9

radeon HD 6850 @ 870mhz core, 1150mhz mem

corsair hx750 power supply

That just about covers it.

My cpu overclock was done at the time of build, the gpu overclock was about a month ago and has been stable, but is there a chance the gpu overclock could be causing the issue? I left it on stock voltages when I overclocked it.

 

To answer your question in short I am using the HDDLC Optimized rather than the full HD texture pack.

 

I am trying to run baseline step 2.2.1 (I know it's still a work in progress but it was decided in another thread that I was better off trying to run that than the outdated 2.2.0a)

https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.1

I am running all baseline options up till the end of Clothing & Equipment. Animations & Effects section and on I haven't downloaded yet

 

I just don't understand why it is stuttering if everything is seemingly not hitting it's limits yet. I wanted to find out if there were a better explanation before I started disabling mods.

I'm not sure how far you've pushed the overclock on your GPU, but this is directly related to it possibly not getting enough power for the overclock (seeing as you didn't adjust the voltage). The first step I would take would be to record your current GPU overclock settings, revert them back to factory settings, and see if you still get the stuttering. If you don't, then it's most likely you need to adjust the voltage draw on the card (or reduce the amount of OC).

Pushed back down to stock clock speeds and still the same issue.

[stoppingby4now]

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Just another concern of mine, maybe I am missing something, but is there a way to tell what is being editted on the 2.2.1 page? I'm trying to make sure I stay as up to date to that guide as I can, and the page tells me the last time it was updated, but not what was changed. Help?

 

The only way to see changes to page directly is to look a the history of changes. But that will just show you diff's of the wiki source.

 

Beyond that, most changes are recorded in the Working Changelog thread.

[stoppingby4now]

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Excessive swapping of texture data from System RAM to VRAM is a primary cause. Are you running the Bethesda High Resolution Texture Pack? 700 MB of VRAM use is rather low if you are.

 

Beyond that, it could be a lot of things, typically either insufficient power being delivered to the card, or the card overheating causing it to throttle.

Why would it be swapping texture data to and from system ram if it isn't yet fully utilizing the 1GB vram I have?

My card runs at good temps (about 55C). My entire PC is very well ventilated. I also have a power supply far greater than what my PC requires (not sure if you meant lacking in power supply or actually voltage tweaking my gpu when you said insufficient power.

I was just making note of the primary cause, but that also assumes everything else is stable. Beyond that you have to start looking at other issues, and they tend to be hardware related.

  Quote

My build:

i5 2500k @ 4.5Ghz

Asus p8p67

8GB 1600mhz cl9

radeon HD 6850 @ 870mhz core, 1150mhz mem

corsair hx750 power supply

That just about covers it.

My cpu overclock was done at the time of build, the gpu overclock was about a month ago and has been stable, but is there a chance the gpu overclock could be causing the issue? I left it on stock voltages when I overclocked it.

 

To answer your question in short I am using the HDDLC Optimized rather than the full HD texture pack.

 

I am trying to run baseline step 2.2.1 (I know it's still a work in progress but it was decided in another thread that I was better off trying to run that than the outdated 2.2.0a)

https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.1

I am running all baseline options up till the end of Clothing & Equipment. Animations & Effects section and on I haven't downloaded yet

 

I just don't understand why it is stuttering if everything is seemingly not hitting it's limits yet. I wanted to find out if there were a better explanation before I started disabling mods.

I'm not sure how far you've pushed the overclock on your GPU, but this is directly related to it possibly not getting enough power for the overclock (seeing as you didn't adjust the voltage). The first step I would take would be to record your current GPU overclock settings, revert them back to factory settings, and see if you still get the stuttering. If you don't, then it's most likely you need to adjust the voltage draw on the card (or reduce the amount of OC).

 

Pushed back down to stock clock speeds and still the same issue.

You've got a great system, so I don't see it as anything being slow, but I also don't have any experience with higher end Radeon cards. Have you opened up the case and double checked to make sure all connections are solid? Also, are you using anything for AA (such as supersampling)?

 

Seeing as you only experienced the issue at a certain point during the install, all indications (for me) point to something being over-taxed, namely the GPU. When all other factors don't point to any of the more common factors, finding the cause can be harder. The best advice I can give at this point is to shut-down the machine and double check all connections, make sure all cards are seated properly, etc. Beyond that, you will likely have to start uninstalling a mod at a time to try and find the culprit (if it is mod related).

[Ggfd3FzZuyabrmSsmjun]

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Excessive swapping of texture data from System RAM to VRAM is a primary cause. Are you running the Bethesda High Resolution Texture Pack? 700 MB of VRAM use is rather low if you are.

 

Beyond that, it could be a lot of things, typically either insufficient power being delivered to the card, or the card overheating causing it to throttle.

Why would it be swapping texture data to and from system ram if it isn't yet fully utilizing the 1GB vram I have?

My card runs at good temps (about 55C). My entire PC is very well ventilated. I also have a power supply far greater than what my PC requires (not sure if you meant lacking in power supply or actually voltage tweaking my gpu when you said insufficient power.

I was just making note of the primary cause, but that also assumes everything else is stable. Beyond that you have to start looking at other issues, and they tend to be hardware related.

  Quote

My build:

i5 2500k @ 4.5Ghz

Asus p8p67

8GB 1600mhz cl9

radeon HD 6850 @ 870mhz core, 1150mhz mem

corsair hx750 power supply

That just about covers it.

My cpu overclock was done at the time of build, the gpu overclock was about a month ago and has been stable, but is there a chance the gpu overclock could be causing the issue? I left it on stock voltages when I overclocked it.

 

To answer your question in short I am using the HDDLC Optimized rather than the full HD texture pack.

 

I am trying to run baseline step 2.2.1 (I know it's still a work in progress but it was decided in another thread that I was better off trying to run that than the outdated 2.2.0a)

https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.1

I am running all baseline options up till the end of Clothing & Equipment. Animations & Effects section and on I haven't downloaded yet

 

I just don't understand why it is stuttering if everything is seemingly not hitting it's limits yet. I wanted to find out if there were a better explanation before I started disabling mods.

I'm not sure how far you've pushed the overclock on your GPU, but this is directly related to it possibly not getting enough power for the overclock (seeing as you didn't adjust the voltage). The first step I would take would be to record your current GPU overclock settings, revert them back to factory settings, and see if you still get the stuttering. If you don't, then it's most likely you need to adjust the voltage draw on the card (or reduce the amount of OC).

Pushed back down to stock clock speeds and still the same issue.

You've got a great system, so I don't see it as anything being slow, but I also don't have any experience with higher end Radeon cards. Have you opened up the case and double checked to make sure all connections are solid? Also, are you using anything for AA (such as supersampling)?

 

Seeing as you only experienced the issue at a certain point during the install, all indications (for me) point to something being over-taxed, namely the GPU. When all other factors don't point to any of the more common factors, finding the cause can be harder. The best advice I can give at this point is to shut-down the machine and double check all connections, make sure all cards are seated properly, etc. Beyond that, you will likely have to start uninstalling a mod at a time to try and find the culprit (if it is mod related).

Last night I was trying different things to troubleshoot and I realized that it happens even with basic vanilla skyrim I was seeing stutter.  I remember when I played skyrim before that it had a similar issue that I solved by changing the "Pixel Format" in my AMD control panel.  I tried that and had no luck there either. I also thought it might be because I'm playing on a 50" plasma HDTV as well so I switched over to my 21" monitor and still having the same issue. 

 

So even basic vanilla skyrim that runs at 60+ fps and not coming nearly close to taxing any components in my PC is stuttering.. I'm not sure where to go from here

 

Edit: Forgot to answer about AA. Not using supersampling, just regular old MultiSampling

[justjr]

Try addind these under [General] in your Skyrim.ini file:

 

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bMultiThreadMovement=1

bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1

bUseThreadedBlood=1

bUseThreadedTextures=1

bUseThreadedMeshes=1

bUseThreadedMorpher=1

bUseThreadedLOD=1

bUseThreadedTempEffects=1

Assuming you have multicore CPU. Try and give your feedback.

[z929669]

You need to defragment your HDD any time after installing a batch of mods (if you use a HDD). I have seen major stuttering as a result of inefficient disk behavior.

 

I use a pair of HD-6850s too, but I don't see that you have mentioned what your max on-card VRAM is (that card comes in either 1 or 2 GB). My max is 1 GB VRAM, and I begin to see stuttering after installing Section G of the guide. (DDSopt and constraint of large normal maps fixes).

 

Run a performance benchmark using the guide's instructions and provide your results back here if you want. My numbers are here.

[z929669]

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Try addind these under [General] in your Skyrim.ini file:

 

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bMultiThreadMovement=1

bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1

bUseThreadedBlood=1

bUseThreadedTextures=1

bUseThreadedMeshes=1

bUseThreadedMorpher=1

bUseThreadedLOD=1

bUseThreadedTempEffects=1

Assuming you have multicore CPU. Try and give your feedback.

Do you have a reference for these tweaks and their effect?

 

These have no positive effect in my XP, and can even destabilize the game AFAIK.

[MontyMM]

Definitely not proven and recommended tweaks, to my knowledge.

[justjr]

I just said: try it.

I use them, definitely feel positive effects, and definitely does not any harm to try. They are 100% stable on my side.

I know is not proven. It's clear STEP don't recommended it anywhere.

But if that's the case please guide me on the "why it's not recommended" cause I want to know, since it does no harm. Please concrete information.

Don't create terror about it without reason.

[Ggfd3FzZuyabrmSsmjun]

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Try addind these under [General] in your Skyrim.ini file:

 

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bMultiThreadMovement=1

bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1

bUseThreadedBlood=1

bUseThreadedTextures=1

bUseThreadedMeshes=1

bUseThreadedMorpher=1

bUseThreadedLOD=1

bUseThreadedTempEffects=1

Assuming you have multicore CPU. Try and give your feedback.

Tried it with no distinguishable difference. Thanks for the suggestion.