What's causing my stutter/lag?

[Dopamine]

I've already turned off a couple things (Skyrim Flora Overhaul and HD Trees) but i'm still getting stutters and stops frequently when walking outside. Cities aren't nearly as bad, and interiors are usually smooth the whole time. I've followed S.T.E.P. give or take a few mods, and then added in a few extra at the end. Performance was fine at some point before. Maybe one of my ini settings is messed up...here's my mod load order:

 

 

Skyrim.esm

Update.esm

Dawnguard.esm

Dragonborn.esm

SPIKE.esm

HighResTexturePack01.esp

HighResTexturePack02.esp

HighResTexturePack03.esp

Brawl Bugs CE.esp

Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp

Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp

Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.esp

Chesko_Frostfall.esp

BWS.esp

Clanking Armor.esp

IHSS.esp

Rooster At Dawn v1.0.esp

StaticMeshImprovementMod.esp

StaticMeshImprovementMod-DragonbornTernFix.esp

Ars Metallica.esp

Ars Metallica - Dawnguard.esp

Ars Metallica - Hearthfire.esp

Ars Metallica - Dragonborn.esp

Bring Out Your Dead.esp

Chesko_WearableLantern.esp

Dead Body Collision.esp

Death Cam Duration Options.esp

Disease Descriptions.esp

DD_Dawnguard Additions.esp

DD_Dragonborn Additions.esp

Dual Sheath Redux.esp

fFastTravelSpeedMult_4.esp

Immersive Battles.esp

Immersive Brigands.esp

Immersive Dawnguard.esp

Immersive Factions.esp

Immersive Mercenaries.esp

Immersive Patrols.esp

Immersive Travelers.esp

Immersive Werewolves.esp

Krisan's Children.esp

Moss Rocks.esp

Point The Way.esp

Convenient Horses.esp

Chesko_LoreBasedLoadingScreens.esp

Footprints.esp

Footprints - Ash.esp

RaceMenu.esp

RaceMenuPlugin.esp

WetandCold.esp

SkyUI.esp

iHUD.esp

Cloaks.esp

Cloaks - Dawnguard.esp

ExplosiveBoltsVisualized.esp

hothtrooper44_ArmorCompilation.esp

Lock Overhaul.esp

DeadlyDragons.esp

Immersive Events.esp

Radiance.esp

Run For Your Lives.esp

When Vampires Attack.esp

The Paarthurnax Dilemma.esp

Acquisitive Soul Gems.esp

Appropriately Attired Jarls Redux.esp

BetterQuestObjectives.esp

BetterQuestObjectives-Dawnguard.esp

BetterQuestObjectives-PaarDilemmaPatch.esp

Distant Detail.esp

dynamic fires.esp

Guard Dialogue Overhaul.esp

Immersive Weapons.esp

dD-No Twitching Dragon Death Animation.esp

dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp

dD-Dragonborn-Dawnguard-EBT Patch.esp

Thieves Guild Requirements.esp

Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Dungeons.esp

Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Major City Exteriors.esp

Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Major City Interiors.esp

Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Dawnguard Interiors.esp

Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Minor Cities and Town Interiors.esp

dD - Realistic Ragdoll Force - Realistic.esp

Apocalypse - The Spell Package.esp

BFSEffects.esp

DeadlySpellImpacts.esp

Realistic crime report radius.esp

Duel - Combat Realism.esp

Enhanced Soul Trap.esp

dD-No Spinning Death Animation.esp

Beards.esp

Brows.esp

SPTConsistentOlderPeople.esp

Follower Trap Safety.esp

Alternate Start - Live Another Life.esp

BetterQuestObjectives-AlternateStartPatch.esp

WATER.esp

WATER Plants.esp

WATER DB Waves.esp

Dual Sheath Redux Patch.esp

 

[rootsrat]

What is your system specification? Including VRAM please.

[Dopamine]

i5-3750K @ 4.2 GHz

8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM

GTX 465 SC (1GB VRAM)

ASRock Extreme3 Motherboard

Corsair 750-TX PSU

72000 RPM Seagate Barracuda

[rootsrat]

Ok, so 1GB VRAM would probably be the limitation here. Did you optimise your textures, vanilla and Hi Res DLC? Are you using HRDLC Optimized textures mod (see section 2F, 1st mod)? What texture resolution you went for in most cases?

 

With 1GB VRAM it's 99% that your stutters are due to VRAM limitations, meaning you need to downgrade texture packs.

 

Use Skyrim Performance Monitor to check you VRAM usage during gameplay.

[Dopamine]

Pretty sure I optimized, did something with TESEdit at least, and yeah i've got HRDLC Optimized, but its pretty overwritten with Skyrim HD Lite and the other baseline S.T.E.P. ones, I stuck to 1024x1024 (i think thats it) or low/med res versions of things whenever possible.

 

 

I used Skyrim Performance Monitor and my VRAM is close to capping out in some areas, causing the lag. What would be the best thing to deactivate? Could it be a couple smaller things or do I have to remove the entire Skyrim HD Lite and all that? Whatever is the best tradeoff and isn't gonna throw off my entire S.T.E.P. installation.

[Kelmych]

You showed only the list of esp files, but if you are using STEP most of the texture files have no esp files so it is hard to konw what to recommend eliminating. In your list Water is one which adds VRAM use.

[Aiyen]

Alternatively you can also reduce the rendering distances for objects... this provides huge amounts of memory.

Or you can start to remove the higher quality exterior textures until you have a smooth performance.

Most of the texture packs have a folder structure that is somewhat logical to figure out.

[DanielCoffey]

The UESP guide shows that the GTX465 1Gb can run at Very High settings ( https://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:System_Requirements ) but you could try lowering Shadows from Ultra to High and see if dropping to 2xAA or even 0xAA gives you enough headroom.

 

If you have already run the MO / Mods folder through DDSopt at 2048x248 then consider doing just the normals from Automatic Variants (which will probably be hiding in the Overrides folder by now) at 1024x1024. Make sure you only select the _n.dds files for the Automatic Variants folders and untick the Ignore setting in DDSOpt to do with Pass Through (unchanged files). Make a backup first of course.

[Khugan]

Hi Dopamine,

If you right-click your volume control icon, click play playback devices, and then double-click the green checked speaker entry, what is the default format found under the advanced tab?