Microstuttering in 3rd person running/horseback riding on good rig

[scorpgul]

I am using STEP:EXTENDED 2.2.9, (EDIT: Now using a fresh install of STEP:EXTENDED 2.2.9.1 and stuttering still persists unless "Distant Object Detail" is set at High down from Ultra) have followed all instructions to the letter and used GamerPoet's Bash Patch, FNIS, DSR guide but I am having stuttering despite having a good rig. I am playing on a GTX 780 Ti which has 3GB VRAM, an i7 3770k at 4.5GHz, 8GB RAM, Windows 8.1 64 Bit(EDIT: Now on a GTX 980 Ti 6GB, 16GB RAM and Windows 10 pro 64 Bit) and when I tried using the 2k resolution textures for all the texture mods, I had massive stuttering/brief freezing when roaming outside on horseback. I had to reinstall everything a second time using the "Baseline" 1K or lower textures to reduce the stuttering which I STILL get every few seconds when on horseback outside.

Most of the "Baseline" Textures are aimed at people with 1GB to 2GB VRAM so why do the 2k Textures give me this problem with 3GB VRAM (EDIT: Now 6GB)? And as I said I still get stuttering every few seconds when outside on horseback especially, its just not as severe as when I used the 2k textures.
 
Meanwhile, I saw Gamespot's video where they used full 2K and up to 4k textures on almost EVERYTHING plus ENB preset with a GTX 780 and they get butter smooth gameplay without any stuttering. What could be going wrong? I followed all the instructions.
 

I make sure everytime I play a game that the ONLY programs running are Steam and the game itself. I always close all explorer windows and unnecessary processes beforehand. I am well aware of the craziness in Skyrim when going above 60 fps as I have a 120Hz monitor and it was not pretty when I played the game at over 100 fps average. I change my monitor's refresh rate to 60Hz everytime before playing Skyrim. I have the game installed on a Samsung EVO 840 250GB SSD. I had it on a fully defragmented Western Digital 7200 RPM hard drive before and frankly the only difference it has made is speed up loading screen time. The stutters I had before are still present so I doubt this is an I/O issue.

 

My CPU is watercooled and My GPU never exceeds 77 degrees when under full load. In Skyrim it does not even reach 74 degrees. My GPU usage is actually really low in the game, never exceeding 40%, however RAM usage seems right, I have seen it close to 2.8GB. I have Hyperthreading disabled when playing Skyrim and the load is spread across all 4 cores with core 1 having noticeably more load. I am using ENBoost and all the recommended settings found on the EnbLocal.ini guide on STEP guide. I am using Sheson's memory patch as recommended on STEP guide.

Now to the stutter itself. Inside cities and dungeons the game is SMOOTH and VRAM usage is the most. I have actually seen VRAM usage exceed 3.5GB inside dungeons with absolutely no stutter at all which surprises me. Once I go outside in 3rd person view/horseback and I start running, I am hit by microstuttering as soon as I cross borders. I closely monitored my GPU usage and VRAM usage and found that GPU usage is never more than 50% and VRAM usage is MUCH lower than inside dungeons. In First person the stuttering is almost nonexistant, even when I cross borders. As soon as I mount my horse/switch to third person view and start running, micro-stuttering starts. It's as if the game can't keep with the loading. My UGrids values are at the default, never messed with them. (EDIT: After enabling "tb" command, I can confirm that the stutters happen EXACTLY at cell border lines.)

Sometimes the microstuttering turns into actual mini freezes where the game just freezes for like 5 seconds then resumes as usual, though they were much more severe when I was using the 2K textures. Since downgrading to 1K textures the minifreezes are mostly gone, but they will still happen. I also noticed that as the stutters happen, I can clearly see things pop in the distance at the same time. Some areas where the stutter is very noticeable are the tundra outside Whiterun, the road from Helgen to Riverwood, the road from Whiterun to Falkreath and the intro carriage ride which gets really choppy just as Helgen becomes visible, almost like a mini-slideshow until the gate opens and the carriage enters Helgen.

 

I do not understand however why it happens when I have the game on an SSD, have a powerful GPU with 3GB VRAM (EDIT: Now 6GB VRAM) and have 8GB system RAM (EDIT: Now 16GB system RAM). I have done some digging and it seems as if it has something to do with cell loading stutter and increased I/O activity.
 

 

EDIT:

I have now done a fresh install of Skyrim and the full STEP:EXTENDED 2.2.9.1 modlist exclusively, with install instructions followed to the letter using Mod Organiser. The original Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini files located in MyDocuments are vanilla intact and the ini files I use are the Mod Organiser ones. In fact, my whole Skyrim install is pure Vanilla. Everything is done from Mod Organiser. I can play Vanilla Skyrim if i don't launch the game through Mod Organiser. It contains the original intact .esm files.

 

All the texture mods are the 2K variants. (EDIT: I have now downgraded every single 2K Texture Mod to 1K version after experiencing severe stuttering/mini freezes and stutter is STILL present, but less severe) STEP:EXTENDED Patch, Bashed Patch, Dual Sheath Redux Patch, FNIS Patch and Dyndolod steps have all been successfully completed and are working.

 

Nothing has changed. The stutters are still there even though I have made substantial hardware upgrades. Lowering "Distant Object Details" to High, ESPECIALLY fTreeLoadDistance is still the only "fix" that works, but one that I think I should not have to do. Some people are increasing those values to crazy high amounts to combat z-fighting  and getting smooth gameplay with lower end hardware. In this current state, I couldn't even think of doing that. I tried it and it DID get rid of z-fighting but the stutter was severe and the minifreeezes more frequent.

 

 

My Mod Load Order straight from Mod Organiser:

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Plugins Load Order straight from Mod organiser:

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT:

Skyrim performance Monitor logs:

Log1:

 

Log2:

 

Log Download Links:

https://www.mediafire...Stutter Log.log

https://www.mediafire...utter Log 2.log

 

 

My Full Specs:

i7 3770k @ 4.5Ghz - Watercooled

EVGA GTX 780 Ti Classified Kingpin Edition - Watercooled(EDIT: Upgraded to a MSI GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6GB with latest Geforce Driver, problem persists)

8GB G-Skill Ripjaws X DDR3 RAM 1600Mhz(EDIT: Upgraded to 16GB RAM, problem persists)

Asus Sabertooth Z77 Motherboard
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD(EDIT: Disabling pagefile/Moving Pagefile to another drive has not made any difference)
Corsair RM1000 1000Watt Power Supply
Windows 8.1 PRO 64 Bit(EDIT: Upgraded to Windows 10 PRO 64 Bit, problem persists)

 

 

Similar 2015 Thread on Nexus forums. His system is almost identical to mine and he has the exact same issues:

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2448284-object-fade-setting-random-stuttering-on-powerful-pc/

 

 

Thanks!

Edited August 21, 2015 by scorpgul

[Thick8]

I've been following this thread because I have the same issue. I wanted to get my STEP:extended process finished prior to chasing this issue down. I just did the "TB" in console. You're right, it happens nearly every time I cross a border and only when I cross a border. That slight pause. It's more of a single full stop and go than what I've come to associate with a micro-stutter.

My system couldn't be more different than yours. FX-8350@5GZ, dual R9 290s. Like you, I am using an SSD (samsung 840 evo). I'm only running 8Gb of ram right now but have 16Gb on the way. This was going to be my first swing at the issue.

As school has started back this week and I have to "be the teacher"; I won't be able to devote any time to this issue. Needless to say, I'm rooting for you wholeheartedly in this endeavour!

John

 

EDIT: My motherboard is an ASUS sabertooth 990FX R2.0

Edited August 17, 2015 by Thick8

[Thick8]

One of the values that I don't undertand is the "uExterior Cell Buffer=36". I did a search and found several references to it. This was one of them.

General layout of your values will look like this, just plug in the number for where "X" is located and then do the math
 

[General]
uExterior Cell Buffer=(X+1)^2
uGridsToLoad=X
iPreloadSizeLimit=(X*1024)^2

so with ugrids 7
 

[General]
uExterior Cell Buffer=64
uGridsToLoad=7
iPreloadSizeLimit=51380224

 

And this:

Using UGrids at 7 really does improve the distance drawing, it's much better than 5 but a good GPU is required. Nothing worse than chunks of terrain loading up near by like in the console version.

 

Could this be the issue with things poping in out of nowhere? Based on this formula our uGridTo Load is WAY low. Or is there some other factor at work here?

 

 

[TechAngel85]

Ugrids shouldn't be changed until after you have a solid STEP install. DynDOLOD is also set up to use uGrids of 5 which is the game's default value.

 

Pauses at cell borders is usually an issue with textures loading and switching in and out of RAM/VRAM.

[Thick8]

I can cross back and forth over a border at a full run and the only time it pauses is with the first crossing. Once I cross an intersecting border it pauses again. As I have 8Gb of Vram is there a way I can use that excluively to verify if texture loading is the culprit?

Edited August 18, 2015 by Thick8

[scorpgul]

I've been following this thread because I have the same issue. I wanted to get my STEP:extended process finished prior to chasing this issue down. I just did the "TB" in console. You're right, it happens nearly every time I cross a border and only when I cross a border. That slight pause. It's more of a single full stop and go than what I've come to associate with a micro-stutter.

My system couldn't be more different than yours. FX-8350@5GZ, dual R9 290s. Like you, I am using an SSD (samsung 840 evo). I'm only running 8Gb of ram right now but have 16Gb on the way. This was going to be my first swing at the issue.

As school has started back this week and I have to "be the teacher"; I won't be able to devote any time to this issue. Needless to say, I'm rooting for you wholeheartedly in this endeavour!

John

 

EDIT: My motherboard is an ASUS sabertooth 990FX R2.0

 

I am glad to see that I am not the only one on STEP forums with this issue in 2015. It really felt like I was.

 

Here is another thread from this year on nexus forums with the exact same issue running almost identical hardware. I suggest you read through it. I am posting in that thread as well. It has a bevy of "fixes" recommended by different users, worth a try:

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2448284-object-fade-setting-random-stuttering-on-powerful-pc/

 

Now I had the full STEP 2.2.9 installed before and I was using a GTX 780 Ti 3GB, 8GB RAM, Win 8.1 and a 7200RPM Western Digital HDD, then later an OCZ Agility 120GB SSD (Switching from HDD to SSD made no difference in stutters, it only reduced the loading screen times)

 

Let me tell you, although i have upgraded to a 980 Ti 6GB, 16GB RAM, Win 10 and a Samsung Evo 840 250GB SSD, the stutter is so IDENTICAL that it is just shocking. It feels as if the beefier hardware has not improved the game in any way. With my hardware, I should be able to run at 2k-4k textures on EVERYTHING. Instead i can barely run 1k textures. 2k is out of question, it worsens the stutters. I am sorry but I don't think that the extra 8GB of RAM you are getting to attempt to fix this will change anything. That is what i initially thought as well.

 

The issue is so bad that I have had to downgrade all the 2k recommended STEP mods to their 1K variants and the stutters and minifreezes when crossing borders STILL happen although they are not as severe. So texture loading into memory is definitely the culprit and the bigger the textures the worse the stutters are regardless of VRAM and RAM pool and SSD superior read speed. But WHY does it happen with such powerful overkill hardware? That is the real question and that is what i am desperately trying to investigate

 

 

 

Ugrids shouldn't be changed until after you have a solid STEP install. DynDOLOD is also set up to use uGrids of 5 which is the game's default value.

 

Pauses at cell borders is usually an issue with textures loading and switching in and out of RAM/VRAM.

So what could be causing this? You have here 3 people with the exact same problem(including the guy from the other thread i linked), all running on SSDs and with more than 8GB RAM and GPUs with 3GB+VRAM and stuttering even on vanilla Skyrim. It cannot be hardware issues.

 

I can cross back and forth over a border at a full run and the only time it pauses is with the first crossing. Once I cross an intersecting border it pauses again. As I have 8Gb of Vram is there a way I can use that excluively to verify if texture loading is the culprit?

 

I can hear my SSD working really hard when I am crossing a border and whenever a stutter happens, the SSD's noise will actually stutter as well for half a second.

 

I read about people fixing stutters by disabling pagefile which some applications access heavily such as Battlefield 4. I tried it thinking that finally I might crack the puzzle and was greeted with a massive stutter when crossing a border... -.-

 

I have now re-enabled it and put in on a different drive (I heard its better to have the pagefile on another drive) and again it has not made any difference, I still hear heavy reading noise from my SSD and the chugging when a stutter happens.

 

 

You can see that the pagefile is now on drive :F(OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD). Before the pagefile was on my :C drive(Samsung 840 Evo 250GB SSD) which is where Windows and Skyrim are installed. :E and :G are 7200RPM HDD drives.

Edited August 18, 2015 by scorpgul

[TechAngel85]

For both of you this definitely sounds like texture loading issues. If you're both running vanilla INIs that is good. Make the STEP recommended tweaks and nothing else.

 

Enblocal.ini...

 

Thick8, please post yours.

 

@Both

 

Please run the Vram Tool by Boris for the Dx9.exe and post your values.

[scorpgul]

For both of you this definitely sounds like texture loading issues. If you're both running vanilla INIs that is good. Make the STEP recommended tweaks and nothing else.

 

Enblocal.ini...

 

Thick8, please post yours.

 

@Both

 

Please run the Vram Tool by Boris for the Dx9.exe and post your values.

I just ran the VRamSizeDX9.exe and it says:

 

Video memory Available (Mb): 4064

 

Hmm, my card is 6GB. Is this normal?

 

EDIT: Just found this thread:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/863242/geforce-drivers/-request-remove-4gb-limit-of-vram-for-dx9-games/1/

Edited August 18, 2015 by scorpgul

[TechAngel85]

I figured it would be higher with your VRAM and RAM and it might be Win 10, but try making these adjustments

[MEMORY]
ExpandSystemMemoryX64=false
ReduceSystemMemoryUsage=true
DisableDriverMemoryManager=false
DisablePreloadToVRAM=false
EnableUnsafeMemoryHacks=false
ReservedMemorySizeMb=256
VideoMemorySizeMb=3714
EnableCompression=true
AutodetectVideoMemorySize=false

[Thick8]

Vram test

DX9=4064

DX11=15008

[TechAngel85]

@Thick8

In Windows 10 as well?

 

Try the above settings.

[Thick8]

No I'm still on 8.1. I'm waiting for the kinks to go out of 10 before I make the switch.

 

I'm playing on a Eyefinity setup. When I checked Vram usage with MSI afterburner it hung out around 6.5Gb - 8Gb. I don't think 3Gb is going to cut it. But I'll try.

BRB

Edited August 18, 2015 by Thick8

[scorpgul]

 

I figured it would be higher with your VRAM and RAM and it might be Win 10, but try making these adjustments

[MEMORY]
ExpandSystemMemoryX64=false
ReduceSystemMemoryUsage=true
DisableDriverMemoryManager=false
DisablePreloadToVRAM=false
EnableUnsafeMemoryHacks=false
ReservedMemorySizeMb=256
VideoMemorySizeMb=3714
EnableCompression=true
AutodetectVideoMemorySize=false

Has not changed much I am afraid. It felt a tiny bit smoother i have to admit, but then as soon as I set ftreeloaddistance back to its ultra value at 75000, the stutters are back in full force

[Thick8]

IT seems to have made a chnge but i have to go to bed like a half an hour ago. Tomorrow then.

[Thick8]

I was just playing around and set my pagefile to 1024 and received a low meemory warning about 30 seconds into the game. Does the game use RAM or disk space to store textures? just wondering.

[TechAngel85]

It shouldn't unless it's running out of VRAM and RAM. That's the only time a pagefile would be used by any game.