Skyrim Revisited GPU

[Aiyen]

Not really... I can go to 7.. but my FPS drops by about 50%.

But there is a difference between being able to run at 7 and walk around a bit and then playing at 7. What many people forget is the spawn issues that it brings... especially if you are running with script intensive mods. You do also load in many more actors in some cases, which can cause the AI engine to just shut down.

 

The game was not designed for higher values, and it will get progressively more unstable the higher you go.

[phazer11]

  Quote

Thank you phazer11 and Aiyen for responses. I understand a bit better now.

 

I play at 1680x1050, 0x AA 16x AF, no ENB. Most of the time my vram is between 1700 and 1950. Occasionally, for instance at the riverwood waterfalls or overlooking the Solitude docks, my vram jumps to 2016mb. I assume the remaining 32mb of the 2048mb is reserved for windows.

 

Playing at 80-90% of vram usage in most exterior environments with occasional spiking to 2gb. Would the spiking be able to cause CTD's? Or are they mostly caused by long-term use of max vram capacity?

I'd say you should be mostly ok I would however have to suggest cutting back on your texture mods to all 1k (downloading Skyrim HD Lite -- which are 2k textures -- and DDSOpt it to 1k)

  Quote

Not really... I can go to 7.. but my FPS drops by about 50%.

But there is a difference between being able to run at 7 and walk around a bit and then playing at 7. What many people forget is the spawn issues that it brings... especially if you are running with script intensive mods. You do also load in many more actors in some cases, which can cause the AI engine to just shut down.

 

The game was not designed for higher values, and it will get progressively more unstable the higher you go.

Not to mention the extra number of things it animates. Doesn't it increase the range at which things like falling leaves are rendered in the Rift and other similar places.

[Nearox]

  Quote

I'm running 1440p. And I'm using RealVision ENB performance version, but with reflection+particles+bloom+adaption enabled.

 

Outdoors/cities I just stay above 30fps with FOV 75

Interiors are above 50 with FOV 85

Big interiors like dragonsreach are slightly lower - 40fps - at fov 85

 

GPU - 7870XT not overclocked, 2GB VRAM. I have yet to hit the 2GB ceiling, and I'm using all highest resolution textures (e.g. 4k rocks) for the SR texture packs. All optimised as per SL:LE instructions, but I didn't even hit the ceiling with unoptimized textures (though I got very close).

CPU is a stock 1055T, I'll be OCing soon when the 212 evo arrives which could improve outdoor performance drastically - I believe Skyrim uses CPU for shadows.

 

All that said and done, I'd still recommend 3GB minimum - so you can have higher uGridstoLoad values. I tried 7 but it caused CTDs every few minutes, so I'm currently running 5. Also plan on upgrading to HD9970 - which is about GTX780 supposedly - which I'd say is minimum for the full SR experience at 1440p.

What's your secret? :P Either my card is very inefficient with vram usage or I did something wrong with the graphics packs, but I followed SR to the letter and I'm already using 1k texture packs.

[Moragg]

Dunno - I've edited my .ini's a bit (not a huge amount, just added multi-threading, grass, and memory tweaks) - no z fighting tweaks, I'll post them when I get back home. See if they help.

 

Memory tweaks are for the pagefile though, not VRAM. Give them a try, it can't hurt (ugrid=5, so if you have that my ini won't hurt your save).

[Nearox]

Well I thought that DDSOpt'd Skyrim HD Lite had mostly 1K textures so I DDSop'ed to 2k as wel...

 

 

I just changed it to 1k and I also did a DDSOpt to SRO to 1k exteriors 2k interiors.

 

Result: My total average VRAM usage by DDSOpting Skyrim HD Lite - Misc & Towns - went down by 80-120 mb

My total average VRAM usage by DDSOpting Skyim Realistic Overhaul went down by 180-220mb!

 

Shaved a total of approximately 300mb off vram usage with very little, if none, noticeable quality loss.

[Moragg]

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxHMnw1FCnAIcjczTmxISVBWNkU/edit?usp=sharing

 

My skyrim inis

 

I suspect my increasing iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes from 75kB to 750MB (skyrim.ini under [papyrus] )gives lots of room for the GPU to offload to, but that is guessing at best.

 

Again before trying be aware ugridstoload=5

 

Also, I have a hex-core so under skyrim.ini I have:

[HAVOK]

iNumThreads=5

 

Change "5" to the number of physical cores you have, or leave it at 5 if you have 6 or more.

[Nearox]

  Quote

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxHMnw1FCnAIcjczTmxISVBWNkU/edit?usp=sharing

 

My skyrim inis

 

I suspect my increasing iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes from 75kB to 750MB (skyrim.ini under [papyrus] )gives lots of room for the GPU to offload to, but that is guessing at best.

 

Again before trying be aware ugridstoload=5

 

Also, I have a hex-core so under skyrim.ini I have:

[HAVOK]

iNumThreads=5

 

Change "5" to the number of physical cores you have, or leave it at 5 if you have 6 or more.

Thx a lot for your INI's. Even though I thought I tweaked mine already quite a bit, they are nothing compared to yours :)

 

One question: I thought I read somewhere (in between the massive amount of skyrim/mod info I read during last 2 weeks) here on STEP forums that using threaded arguments in *.ini's has no positive effect and that it can result in more CTD's. I see you have a lot of threaded arguments in it. How has your experience been with these threaded settings? Have they made your game run smoother? More/less CTD's?

 

I run an i5 2500k @ 4.3 ghz (with 16gb ram, ssd, hd6950 2gb vram)

 

edit: sorry for all the nub questions. Community has is great here @ step!

[Aiyen]

Also on the ENB forums there are reports about those threaded ini tweaks causing issues when used with ENBoost. It is not clear why or how.. and if it is only one type of CPU etc. But considering that there is no positive effect by having them on then the recommendation is to just remove them!

[Moragg]

  Quote

Also on the ENB forums there are reports about those threaded ini tweaks causing issues when used with ENBoost. It is not clear why or how.. and if it is only one type of CPU etc. But considering that there is no positive effect by having them on then the recommendation is to just remove them!

I noticed no issues myself so decided to leave them in for the placebo effect - but iirc they were pretty much all "added" (ie not originally in the .ini) so can be removed without worry.

 

Nearox - did the .ini's help?

[Nearox]

Moragg I just tested and fiddled with your INI's for half an hour but whatever I do, the game CTD's between 2 and 5 minutes after login.

 

I changed iNumThreads=5 to 4 (for my 2500k) and went through all the settings. Changed a couple of them to make it compatible with my system (aspect ration, resolution, windowed mode, etc.)

 

The game did feel slightly smoother to play and I seem to have gained 1-2fps (I usually get 50fps in the most taxing areas, 60fps in the rest). VRAM used (according to skyrim performance monitor) was about 1.8gb which means it stayed basically the same as with my own INI's. However, shadows in the distance were seen flickering and the foilage shimmering effect seemed to have gone worse. I guess no same PC setup can have the same INI :)

 

I ended up reverting back to my own INI's, however I am now aware of many settings that I wasn't aware of before. Some of the stuff in your INI isn't even in Skyrim Configurator app I believe :P

 

For now, I'll continue with the last element of my SR setup: Gameplay. Hoping to install SkyRe and make it stable with the guide posted here on the forums. So far my SR install seems perfectly stable, although I did not activate AV packagaes yet as I'm afraid they'll eat away my VRAM and GPU power in general.

 

By the way, any of you experience extensive shimmering? This is a major annoyance I've been having with Skyrim ever since I played vanilla. Recently I tried using AMD's Adaptive Multisampling (for NVDIA this is called transparency AA). It did take most of the shimmering away but my fps dropped to about 40-45fps in the most taxing areas. It did take away most of the annoying shimering from grass/trees/bushes etc. though. Is there any decent alternative to this? I tried FXAA, MLAA and SMAA. The first 2 are too blurry and still dont take away the shimmering effect, while the latter only takes care od edges (and then still misses some).

 

EDIT: I haven;t used an ENB yet. Can an ENB take away the shimmering effect and also remove the 'shadow quality switching effect' that results from FOV/shadowdistance inbalance?

[Aiyen]

Shadow flickering is a part of the vanilla game. ENB can fix that issue if that is what you are referring too.

 

Really need a screenshot of the flicker to say what it is... AA and driver settings can also produce said effect. It should not be there in the default ini´s. Well other then the shadow flickering.

[Nearox]

LOD Shadow Quality Switch Issue:

 

 

While the solutions provided by

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/283//?

do help, they also result in the 'dynamic shadow range' going closer to my character (as a result of tweaking fshadowdistance to a lower value).

 

Dynamy shadow range issue:

 

My guess is that the latter is a limitation by the engine, as most people I see in videos seem to have this 'aura' around them.

[Aiyen]

Most of those are fixed by ENB. But there are game engine limitations.

 

At least I run with fov 85 with out noticing that issue.

[Nearox]

Ah I see, thx Aiyen :)

[Moragg]

Shame about the crashes... and I believe some of the tweaks were for Oblivion. I don't know if they carried over into Skyrim or not, but I put them in anyway.