Samsung SSD and Skyrim

[Rebel47]

Ok so I have an issue that I am having trouble resolving and would love to know what other peoples experiences are with this, I have a Samsung 840 Evo Pro 500GB and I turned on Rapid mode and since doing that I've noticed that my skyrim will stutter uncontrollably when turning even with the enb turned off, I'm not sure if it's related to Rapid mode or not but would love to see what other people's mileage with this is.

[DoubleYou]

Do you used Intel Rapid Storage Technology? I don't think the two are compatible.

[Rebel47]

It's not on my list of installed programs no, to find out anything more I'd need to enter the bios and find out what is set there.

[hishutup]

When I get my shipment of PC parts I'll see if I have an issue with a samsung 950 ssd

[Kelmych]

I don't use Rapid mode. I've never had any problems with my Samsung 840 EVO.

[Rebel47]

From my testing it seems that rapid mode is not all it's made out to be, I will be performing more tests though, but simply put when rapid mode is enabled it seems to apply a caching effect on the SSD which actually slows it down slightly, despite it appearing to run faster than initially thought.

I am seriously struggling to find anything on Rapid mode other than the arguements of it's good/it's bad, nothing concrete, If I find anything more out about it I'll post it here, since this could be useful information for gaming and/or general pc use.

[TechAngel85]

Rapid mode caches data in RAM.

[Greg]

It sounds as if Rapid mod is just a duplication of the Windows disk cache to me.

[GrantSP]

Doing a Google search of "RAPID mode" and reading the first response provides me with the same feeling. Just a different implementation of Windows' disk cache.

[Rebel47]

Since caching on an SSD is not usually a good idea I think it's probably safer to disable it, since when I had it disabled I never had issues running Skyrim at all, I can't verify if turning on Rapid mode caused my issues but it certainly didn't help them.

 

I'll do this and test and report back with the results.

 

-Update-

 

Turned off rapid mode and restarted the pc, loaded up Skyrim and the stutter is still there, I get it while turning the camera, trying to move in any direction, I didn't have this issue yesterday I was playing fine (albeit with basic enb w/o preset and SweetFX) and I was dropping to low 30fps and running smooth, removed sweetfx, reinstalled enb and turned on rapid mode and 1 day later it all hits the fan, one note to make though, I did get a windows 10 update when I turned my pc off last night, (configuration anyway) I wonder if that could have done this.

 

It's not SKSE because throughout all that I hit my highest block 1 | block 2 was 328 | 252 respectively my ini files have remained the same (No changes were made from when the game worked perfectly) I'm actually dumbfounded by this at the moment.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Rebel47

[darkside]

RAPID mode uses 1GB+ of RAM for caching. If you have limited RAM, you may have a problem. 

 

I don't find it improved Skyrim performance after my testings.

Edited February 11, 2016 by darkside

[Rebel47]

Well after disabling rapid mode and trying every fix under the sun but 2,I still had no luck, so I tried the 1st of the 2 fixes I had purposely left till last, kind of like a last resort, and the first one I tried was "EnableUnsafeMemoryHacks" in enblocal and would you believe it my fps was back to normal values, this got me to thinking, was there a mod that I updated or installed recently that would change it's file format and that's when it hit me, since I was 60fps plus I thought to try using Noble Skyrim Full pack instead of performance, I didn't notice any lag spikes until a day or so ago (strangely enough around the same time that Microsoft decided they wanted to update windows 10 yet again) and then turning my pc on the next day I was hit the huge fps drops and stuttering, I have yet to try if disabling vsync will solve it but if it does I can disable unsafe memory hacks and use a limiter with my card to keep it around 60fps.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Rebel47

[Nebulous112]

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but try disabling the Steam beta, if you are signed up for it. See here: https://forum.step-project.com/topic/9962-performance-issues-after-sleep-mode-windows-updates-overnight/

[Rebel47]

I'll give that a try, I have been in the Steam beta for quite some time now and never had any issues until now obviously, I would love it if that solved my issue as I hate running around with "EnableUnsafeMemoryHacks" on, makes me feel uneasy, I also enabled a osd to see my temps and usage and my cpu & gpu wasn't even hitting 50% usage even on the most strenuous parts of the game which was inside the Whiterun inn with iNPC's and Wenches of Skyrim so the inn was packed to the gills and still 50% usage was not hit and the highest temp was 70c that was my gpu

 

Just tested this out before posting and here's what I did in step by step order

 

1. Re-enabled V-sync
2. Disabled "EnableUnsafeMemoryHacks"
3. Opted out of the Steam Beta
4. Started the game and loaded a save in whiterun where I had massive slow down and lag to the nth degree

 

After doing all of that and upon loading my save I experienced my usual 0.5 seconds of initial lag as everything loads in but then rotating the view around with very quick mouse movements left me with no fps drop and no lag, so this leaves me to my final question, What in the world did steam do to so badly break skyrim like they have in the Beta ?

Edited February 11, 2016 by Rebel47

[DoubleYou]

Perhaps disabling the Steam Overlay might fix it.

 

Note to self: Don't participate in the Steam beta.

[Rebel47]

I had no issues with the Beta and one of these 2 updates is what caused it but looking through them I cannot see anything that would directly correlate to Skyrim and it's performance issues.

 

Steam Client Beta: February 9th

 

We have started a new client Beta with the following changes:

Steam Overlay

• Added preliminary support for DirectX 12 games (requires the Windows 10 November update)
• Fixed an overlay compatibility problem with DOOM

General

• Improved performance when you are a member of a large number of groups

Big Picture

• Enabled drag scrolling. Hold the mouse down on a scrollable panel and drag it up and down to scroll. Mouse up with some velocity to trigger a long scroll.

SteamVR

• Enabled scrolling in the dashboard view of Steam via both the touchpad on the vive controller and by using a grab and flick with the trigger
• Updated the friends UI to show you in VR when you are in VR

In-Home Streaming

• Improved frame rate for AMD hardware-accelerated video capture of GPU-intensive games
• Added support for hardware accelerated encoding using NVIDIA cards (NVENC) on SteamOS/Linux

Steam Controller

• Improved Steam Controller support from the desktop interface:
  • The controller configuration for a game can now be edited from its desktop library context menu
  • Games launched via the desktop client with an active Steam Controller can optionally use the Big Picture overlay.
• Improved speed of downloading and publishing configurations
• Fixed loading public configurations that were creating with the old system
• Improved reliability of changing settings while in-game
• Added the ability to save bindings to a local file on disk
• Improved responsiveness of deleting configurations
• Legacy auto-saves from the previous system are now shown and accessible amongst personal bindings.
• Added 5 and 10 minute auto power-off options.
• Improved XInput compatibility for some games (Final Fantasy 14)
• Added option to use Desktop Configuration for shortcuts to improve compatibility with Launchers. If not used, any launchers or sub-applications will always use the specified configuration rather than the desktop one. Defaults to use Desktop Configuration.
• Fixed Joystick Camera not sending Pad Click if you started pressing at the edge of the pad.
• Fixed mouse horizontal inversion not respecting rotation properly.
• Improved controller behavior when entering and exiting Standby or Suspend. Zombie controllers should no longer be shown in the controller list and controllers should be properly recognized upon return.
• Improved support for pure Mouse/Keyboard and Mixed X-Input. Configurations with no x-input controls whatsoever will no long appear as a controller to the application.
• Fixed action set selection UI with native games with large number of action sets

 

Steam Client Beta: February 10th

 

The Beta has been updated with the following changes:

General

• Fixed invites to clans not showing in the friends UI

Steam Controller

• Fixed an issue where configuration changes would not stick with non-Steam shortcuts

SteamVR

• When using the steam or xbox controller while in VR show the correct footer in the Steam dashboard
• If you have a HTC Vive present on your machine but do not have SteamVR installed pop up a help dialog
• Improved touchpad feedback on the VR controller when using large swipes in the Steam dashboard

 

I have also posted on the beta pages letting them know this is an issue, hopefully it will get adressed, seems to be affecting everyone and not just Windows 10 users.

 

Yeah Steam beta is not a good thing to participate in if you don't want to troubleshoot everything every 5 minutes still it was relatively smooth sailing for the most part.

 

Thanks for all the help and advice guys, I would still be struggling with this were it not for you