Experiencing slowdowns in caves and dungeons

[peppergomez]

Skyrim is running quite well (smooth, fast enough) after my STEP and ENB install. Except in caves and dungeons, where the framerate becomes quite choppy.

 

I did disable all Anti Aliasing and AnistropicFiltering (both within Skyrim Launcher, my NVIDIA cards, and in the enbseries.ini). I also made a handfull of other ENB adjustments in order to gain a few frames.

 

Since the rest of the game is running quite well, I am hoping I can address this without making wholesale changes across the whole game. 

 

I am thinking the culprit might have been my choosing full 4K textures for dungeons from Skyrim HD.

That does seem to be  the main STEP mod that touches dungeons and caves. (There is also Redefined Dungeons, but that's 2K and the author states that it shouldn't affect frame rates too much.)

 

I am running 2 680 GTX 4G NVIDIA cards (though I'm gaming on 3 30" in portrait mode for a res of 4800x2560, which is pretty demanding).

 

So, with all that said, what are my options to try to improve performance in caves and dungeons? Would a re-install of Skyrim HD dungeons, say LITE instead of FULL, be feasible and not mess my game up?

 

Any other suggestions? I have already completed the texture optimizattion process using DDSopt.

 

 

Also, why is Antialiasing always set at 4 Samples in the Skyrim Options launcher, even when I have set it to Off? Ditto Shadow Detail on Ultra after I have set it to Medium. It seems my changes aren't being saved, even when I click OK. When I immediately reopen the Skyrim Options launcher, they are back to 4 and Ultra.

 

Thanks!

[torminater]

Have you chosen 4k for shadows?

I remember an enormous slowdown indoors when using 8k shadows and 2k textures, so I guess 4k textures and 2k shadows might be too much as well...

[peppergomez]

I don't recall seeing Shadows as a file or resolution option in Skyrim HD. I will have another look at the RAR file for dungeons, assuming that is what you are referring to.

 

One thing that I mentioned in my post that might be relevant is how Anti Aliasing seems stuck at 4 and Antiostropic Filtering at 16, and Shadows on Ultra in the Skyrim Launcher. I want to disable the AA and the AF, and move Shadow Quality to Medium. Any idea what I need to do to make my adjustments stick?

That might go a long way toward fising the problem, without my having to mess around with Skyrim HD or any other mod.

 

Thanks.

[torminater]

I don't recall seeing Shadows as a file or resolution option in Skyrim HD. I will have another look at the RAR file for dungeons, assuming that is what you are referring to.

 

One thing that I mentioned in my post that might be relevant is how Anti Aliasing seems stuck at 4 and Antiostropic Filtering at 16, and Shadows on Ultra in the Skyrim Launcher. I want to disable the AA and the AF, and move Shadow Quality to Medium. Any idea what I need to do to make my adjustments stick?

That might go a long way toward fising the problem, without my having to mess around with Skyrim HD or any other mod.

 

Thanks.

shadow resolutions are set in your ini files.

Have you set your ini files to read-only? you'll have to change this back and forth when making edits to those files.

[peppergomez]

Ahh, thanks for the info. yes, will uncheck Read only.

[peppergomez]

Set iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024 and iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048 and turned off Anti Aliasing, and set Shadows to Medium in the launcher.

 

Still no real improvement in caves and dungeons though. It seems to be the rocks that are causing it, if I had to guess.

[torminater]

What interior lighting are you using?

Have you gone done to 2k textures?

[peppergomez]

By "interior lighting" are you referring to an INI or ENB setting, or to a particular mod? Sorry to ask such a basic question- just want to confirm.

 

 

Other than the iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024 and iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048 change, I haven't made any other changes and haven't gone from 4K to 2K textures. Though I guess that would be my next step after investigating the interior lighting, as per my first question in this post.

 

PS- Would overclocking my GPU somewhat help improve things?

[torminater]

By "interior lighting" are you referring to an INI or ENB setting, or to a particular mod? Sorry to ask such a basic question- just want to confirm.

For example Realistic Lighting Overhaul, ELFX, CoT Interiors/Dungeons, etc.

 

Other than the iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024 and iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048 change, I haven't made any other changes and haven't gone from 4K to 2K textures. Though I guess that would be my next step after investigating the interior lighting, as per my first question in this post.

Do you get slowdowns with vanilla ini files (completely without tweaks from STEP or elsewhere)? Try that out first, then go back to 2k only textures and see whether that helps with your issue.

 

PS- Would overclocking my GPU somewhat help improve things?

Only if you take your time and know what you're doing.

 

[peppergomez]

No, no mods that tweak lighting. I have the standard STEP install, a few minor mods (such as speeding up the time it takes the vendor's for sale list to appear, no "you are overencumbered" messages, etc), and Realistic Skyrim ENB (cinematic).

 

Interstingly, the advice you gave me in my post about diagnosing a game crash: "Get rid of z-fighting tweaks and the iLargeIntRefCount-tweak." seems so far to have sped up performance inside dungeons and caves. Wonder why?

[torminater]

iLargeIntRefCount has made my game crash more often, than it has not.