Hello. I'm new and I really do need some guidance

[Kontankarite]

So I've been tinkering around with STEP for a couple of months now and I've been trying to get the best looking Skyrim for what I can possibly accomplish at roughly ~30ish FPS.  I prefer 30ish fps because I actually put a limiter on. Obviously it's because the FPS is so erratic from 60 to 28 to 40 to 53 to all these different numbers that the game feels incredibly unstable and erratic.

 

But I'm on the market to buy a new GPU or perhaps not...

 

Basically, I want to run Skyrim with an HD texture overhaul and AT LEAST Sharpshooter's ENB.

 

Unfortunately, I have no idea what kind of GPU I'd need for such a task.

 

Currently, I have a Radeon 7870 GHz edition at 2 gig of VRAM.

 

STEP says that this is exactly what I'd need in order to run Extreme STEP.  But I just don't think that's true.

 

ENB KILLS THE HELL out of my GPU and there's a lot of features I have to outright turn off just to get it to run decently.

 

Perhaps I'm tweaking like ****.  Perhaps I'm getting the wrong texture mods suitable for my GPU.  I really have no idea and I could use some advice on what I would need to do in order to accomplish maximum quality from my current GPU without first considering that maybe I do need to get a new GPU.

 

Help?  And thank you.  I've tried all kinds of stuff and it's just not as pretty as I think it could be nor is it ever really stable enough.

 

Again, thanks for any advice you can give me. 

[zone22]

I understand even running a 670 ENB's take a hit. Give a try with "Phinix Natural ENB" It's gorgeous, but it all depends on your tastes.

Second may I suggest an alternative "Realistic Lighting Overhaul"

[Kontankarite]

I actually tried RLO. Something about it just wasn't working right or I couldn't tell much difference between it and regular Skyrim lighting. How can I best describe it? ENB lighting just looks... wetter than what the Skyrim engine can offer... which looks dry.

 

Does that make sense? Anyway. What kind of textures should I be running? And if I do upgrade, what should I upgrade to as far as GPUs are concerned? Radeons seem to only go up to 3 gig of VRAM and I dunno if that would even be enough. Admittedly, I don't understand GPUs too well. So that's a bit of a problem.

[TechAngel85]

You already have a pretty good card. Unfortunately, ENB is a FPS killer. Ambient Occlusion (AO) is the biggest culprit, then it's DoF. I run SkyRealism ENB and only use Bloom, Detailed Shadows, and SunRays. Everything else is turned off or I wouldn't be able to play the game due to low frame rates.

[zone22]

I actually tried RLO. Something about it just wasn't working right or I couldn't tell much difference between it and regular Skyrim lighting. How can I best describe it? ENB lighting just looks... wetter than what the Skyrim engine can offer... which looks dry.

 

Does that make sense? Anyway. What kind of textures should I be running? And if I do upgrade, what should I upgrade to as far as GPUs are concerned? Radeons seem to only go up to 3 gig of VRAM and I dunno if that would even be enough. Admittedly, I don't understand GPUs too well. So that's a bit of a problem.

 

Let's try to identify your bottleneck. ENB/gpu or something else . I recommend using "Skyrim performance monitor" It gives a wonderful break down of performance. Run it with without and with ENB. Then post screenshots of its readout after you played a while.

[Kontankarite]

It's def the GPU I think.  Mostly because Vanilla Ultra Skyrim runs at a constant 50-60 FPS.  The ONLY place in Vanilla where I get a severe bottle neck is at the entrance of understone keep in Markarth and the top of Dragons Reach as you get ready to descend down into whiterun.  But I've heard those places are notoriously bad for just about any rig.

 

What was surprising was that I ran a lower res version of a certain texture mod and I didn't see any difference in FPS stability.  So I may as well run that mod at its 4k version.

 

I got that Phinix ENB and it looks good.  Oddly enough, I can run it with AO on or off and see very little FPS loss. 

 

What I am also noticing is that stutter is at its worst when I turn around and such.  In fact; that's quite honestly the whole problem.  Other than that, there's occasional weird graphic artifacts such as texture detail popping here and there or maybe an odd flash in lighting every now and then.

 

My CPU is a AMD FX 6 core 3.5 ghz so I doubt it's that.   8 gig RAM seems a tad low though.  o_0  And I also have a hybrid HDD/SSD.  It's basically a sexed up HDD really. I got the SPM utility anyway... just to see.

 

*edit* I'll be damned. I tried the SPM utility and it confirmed that I'm running a VRAM demand of I would imagine a couple hundred megs over my limit and my GPU isn't fast enough to actually accomplish what I'm trying to get it to do. SO. What this means is that I really do need to upgrade my GPU. Now I'm not sure as to which one I should get. 7980 or an nVidia that comes with 4 gig of VRAM. The 7980 only has 3 gig and now I am certain that I may run into yet another VRAM bottleneck with just 3.

[rootsrat]

Freezing when turning around and your reading from SPM (what's spm anyway?) Suggest that you're running out of VRAM. Download lower resolution texture packs (1k mostly, try 2moro also) and use those. For interiors you are ok to use higher res, but exterior textures are a killer, at least for me. I have Asus nvidia 660gtx with 2GB vram. Turn off DoF in your enb and use gopher's mod that offers very good dof with basically no performance loss.

 

It works for me, hopefully will work for you also

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[MontyMM]

You have perfectly good hardware, and I would be very reluctant to suggest spending money on upgrades.

 

Your 8gb of system ram is ample - that won't be the issue. It is possible to breach the 2GB VRAM barrier with a really heavy mod load, but not usually by very much. I think it highly unlikely that you'll hit 3GB in the near future. If you were in the market for a new card anyway, a card with more than 2GB might be justified. But with the perfectly good card that you have, even if VRAM is the issue, try what Rootsrat has suggested and use some 1K textures. You can certainly achieve a great looking STEP setup on 2GB.

[TechAngel85]

A simple fix for this is to just use some smaller textures. Most of the textures have no visible difference from 1K to 2K to 4K unless your right up on them and staring at them. You should downgrade to a mix of 1K and 2K textures; 1K for the smaller items and stuff around the game and 2K for the landscapes.

[Kontankarite]

Something I noticed that was a little weird was that when I brought my resolution up, I didn't see much performance loss or it was at the very least on par with lower resolutions. Also, the HD 2k Texture packs have been a life saver. I don't really understand why those textures out-perform the official HD textures packages. But I'm still getting performance spikes anyway. Nothing that suggests that I'm going over my limit per se'... I max out my VRAM and GPU at about 99% usage. But I'm willing to bet that's just my card placing a limit as to what it's going to process at that time and will never reach 100%.

 

Thing is, I run too close to the upper 90s on my GPU. It's cool though. I went ahead and got a pretty nice deal on Newegg for a 7970 3 gig OC with boost from Sapphire.

 

Not too sure what I'm going to do with this 7870 now though. I don't think I can Xfire these two cards and I doubt that'd be wise... being that my PSU can't provide that kind of wattage I don't think.