Skyrim SE Stuttering for No Apparent Reason (No Mods)

[DrFog]

The problem in a nutshell: Skyrim SE stutters without dropping frames, and I have no idea what's causing it.

 

I've seen other people post similar issues, and I've tried troubleshooting this for about 3 days straight now to no avail. I have no mods installed, and I'm running standard ultra settings. My computer's specs should be overkill when it comes to this game, so I'm assuming it's either a problem with the game engine or some issue with Windows 10/DirectX12/Some other background application.

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K Coffee Lake (8-Core)

Mobo: Z390 AORUS ULTRA LGA 1151 (300 Series)

GPU: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2080 (8GB)

Memory: Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB

RAM: G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 16GB (2x8GB) 228-Pin DDR4 SDRAM

PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 (Platinum, 850W)

Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240R

Monitor: ASUS ROG Switft PG279Q 27" 165Hz 2560x1140 2K (w/ NVIDIA GSYNC)

OS: Windows 10 Home (64 Bit)

 

As you can probably guess, this thing can run whatever the hell I want it to at max settings with the exception of some broken-ass games developed by people who don't know what they're doing (i.e. Minecraft needing like 64GB of RAM <3).

 

A few other things to note:

 

- Skyrim SE and Steam are both installed outside of the programs folders, but they're on the same drive as Windows because I only have one drive as of right now.

 

- I've tried messing around in .ini files to some extent. I've disabled VSync in game and enabled it in NVIDIA Control Panel - The Skyrim SE launcher WILL NOT recognize my GPU, and as such, defaults to the "low" settings, but when I check in the Skyrim.ini, it shows that it CAN see what GPU I'm using. This means that I don't have access to certain parts of the launcher config, like disabling Anisotropic Filtering. I'm guessing this is because Skyrim SE came out before the 2080 series.

 

- I don't have any integrated graphics cards as far as I can tell, and have set both Skyrim SE and the launcher to default to NVIDIA through the graphics settings in the display settings under system settings.

 

- I've updated the drivers and set the Skyrim SE settings through optimizing the game in GeForce Experience. This for some reason bumps the graphics up higher than my native monitor settings, but I've tried lowering it, and it doesn't really change anything.

 

- I've disabled Windows 10's memory compression

 

- I make sure to close out everything that's not strictly necessary before running the game.

 

- I have BitDefender as my antivirus. I'm not sure that's relevant, but given how freaking overpowered it is, requiring me to unblock just about every damn application I install, I'm not going to discount it just yet.

 

Another thing: I could be totally wrong about this because I'm very new to the modding scene, but I believe the stuttering might be caused by cells loading. When I start a new game, I spaz the mouse around to test and see if the stuttering is still going on, and at first, everything seems fine. Once I reach a certain part on the cart ride though, I get a stutter, regardless of if I'm moving the mouse or not. These stutters don't drop any frames (somehow), and they're not microstutters (where you see a stutter but it doesn't slow the game down), they're macrostutters (where the game and input slows down for 1-2 seconds).

 

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? I'm at my wit's end with this, and I'm on the verge of just giving up on Bethesda games until they hopefully fix their engine issues with TESVI. This is a major letdown for me, because part of the reason I built a gaming computer was so I could specifically play a modded version of Skyrim. Any help and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. =(

 

[GSDFan]

First let me say nice setup.

 

I am not currently playing Skyrim SE but the following is used for Fallout 4 without to much stutter. I don’t think you will get rid of it altogether.

 

In Nvidia Control Panel I set up G-Sync for both windowed and full screen modes. I also have my monitor set to the max refresh rate possible.

 

In the Manage 3D settings I make sure the Global settings for Monitor technology is set to G-Sync.

In the same place I make sure that the DSR factors is set to off. That is where you are getting the higher resolution settings from.

In the program Settings for the game I have everything set to default except the Power Management mode, which I set to “Prefer maximum performance†and Vertical sync set to “Fastâ€.

 

I also install RivaTuner Statistics Server and make an application profile for the game executable. I set the frame rate limit for the game here and disable it everywhere else, ENB, control panel, etc. I currently have mine set to 75 without any noticeable in game physics problems. Make sure to set RivaTuner to start with windows.

 

I use Quick CPU to make some adjustment to the Windows performance use of CPU cores performance settings, Core parking, Frequency Scaling and Turbo Boost. If you don’t want to install this, you can do most of the same by changing the setting in Windows Control Panel under Power Options “Choose or Customize a power plan†and make sure it is set to the “High performance†setting.

 

I also install EVGA Precision X and set the priority to the temp setting and set the sliders for the Power Target and Temp Target to the max and apply the setting. After you do this go into the settings of the app under general tab and make sure “Apply previous settings on load†is checked. Press OK to save and then close out the program. You do not have to run this program with the game. I am on a GTX 1080, so I do not know is this is good for the 2080. This Video from JayzTwoCents explains how to do this.

 

[GSDFan]

Here is an updated video from JayzTwoCents on increasing GPU performance.