Abysmal FPS in Skyrim

I've got an M17x-R2 with an i7-720QM, 8GB RAM, and 2x 1GB Radeon 5870s in Crossfire. Skyrim plays absolutely horribly: 10-12fps with CrossfireX enabled. I know ATI hasn't released the CAP yet, but even with CrossfireX disabled and a bunch of fixes (the ATI dll floating around, renaming the executable, using RadeonPro, disabling V-Sync, etc...) it still won't go over 20fps.

By comparison, my old desktop (2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 1x 512MB 9800GT) averages 45+fps at the same resolution and the same (and higher) detail settings.

As much as I'd love to say I was right for wanting to get NVIDIA, I feel like there's something I can do to get playable framerates until the CAP is released. I've tried removing everything ATI/AMD (with DriveSweeper) and reinstalling the latest, etc... with no noticeable change. Can someone point me in the right direction with this?

 

you can try installing the 11.11a's...this is said to boost single gpu performance 2-7%. Its not a huge amount, but every little bit helps until they fix the crossfire issues

ATI Cat 11.11a

Also, what resolution are you playing at? What happens if you drop the AA and AF a bit?

 

What are your graphics settings in Skyrim?

The performance difference between even medium and high is about 20 fps, so depending on what settings you're running at, it could make a big difference.

 

Thanks, I'll try out 11.11a in a bit. I've been playing at 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 with no significant difference between the two. I've kept AA and AF low (no higher than 2 Samples), and turning them off (in addition to using the Low preset) helps some, but it still runes at a mediocre framerate (~28).

The framerates from my first post were with everything on the Medium presets, with the exception of AA and AF both at 2 Samples.

With the Low preset (and textures set to low), it manages to go up to an average of 28fps.

 

Yeah, you should be getting higher than that with those settings. I did a bit of research and it looks like a lot of people are having problems with Skyrim using the 5870. The general concensus is that it's related to the drivers.

Apparently 11.11 didn't do much to fix the problem either. I suppose you'll have to wait until either a new patch comes out that fixes the problem, or ATI releases new drivers.

 

With a 6970M and 2630QM i get anywhere between 30 and 60 fps with everything set to ultra, AF 16x, AA 2x. The game recommends 8x AA, but that is extremely unplayable. Since it is recommended by the game though i'm hoping future ATI drivers actually optimized for this game will make it playable. I'm using 11.11 drivers right now.

 

I own an m17x R2 with i7 940xm, 5870m XF, 8gb of ram, and SSD hard drive and im able to run Skyrim on medium to high settings with a stable 60 vsync capped fps. Im only dropping to 45 to 55 when in towns.Heres what i did to get smooth results on my pc and my friends with the same set up :

1. Unlock Parked Cores - this made a huge difference for me, my friend was having severe lag on his pc and after unlocking his parked cores from his processor fps jumped up by 15. Detailed guide, very important to read and follow carefully as you will be changing some values in your registry. Windows 7 & Core Parking .... a *better* way to Turn It OFF .... Use CTRL+F to bring up a search window in your registry window, enter the key and hit next, once found change value and hit ctrl+f and hit next to keep searching for every registry under that key name.

2. Radeon Pro - Ati graphics cards in crossfire suck for every new released game , with this app you can enable other crossfire profiles from other games to force on any game of your choosing. ( http://www.radeonpro.info/en-US/Downloads/ ) . Once installed you will have a small set up process for the app on your pc, when thats done look at the top tool bar, the second icon from left to right labeled "Add new profile wizard" will help guide you to set up a profile for Skyrim, just choose the file "TESV.exe" from your pc , head over to the tweaks section and under force crossfire profile select Elder Scrolls Oblivion , then hit finish. You must have Radeon Pro running to have this effect on your Skyrim. I gained another 15 fps with this.

3. If its any help, im on 11.10 Preview 3 drivers ( AMD Catalyst? 11.10 Version 3 Preview Driver ) and 11.9 Cap 4 profiles. ( Catalyst Application Profiles 11.9 Cap 4 - BenchmarK3D )
I have tried the recent drivers but they all gave me horrible lag.

4. I also have both my video cards over clocked at 850/1150. I used the flash bios method and seems to be the best way for me ATM. There's a guide in this forum somewhere on how to flash you bios, I'll link later if needed as I'm running out of time here at work.

There seems to be a common ATI known issue where playing in first person view generates microstutter with high fps. Its best to play in 3rd person view. And that is all, game is a drug , just too bad i have a month to play it before Star wars old republic comes out , then my life will be consumed lol . BUt yea have fun and good luck.

P.S. My game graphic settings- i used the skyrim launcher , hit medium setting , raised shadows to high, radial blur to medium, AA off and AF at 2, once in game i raised Actor fade half way and game looks and runs amazing at 1920x1200.

 

A note on trying to force Crossfire with Radeon Pro - I used some of the tweaked DLLs out there that use this method. While it does indeed enable crossfire, it also makes the game very unstable. I've bluescreened after 10 min using said Crossfire hack. Getting rid of the DLL made the game stable again.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I am having the same problem Can't get it to avg higher than 25 FPS.

 

ya, reports all over the web about 5870 running Skyrim poorly. The amd 6000's don't seem to have the same issues. I hope AMD is working overtime for you guys!

 

I too am having low FPS issues, when I first began the game I was on 1920x1200 and during the introduction cinematic portion with the dragon attacking the city etc I was getting pretty lousy FPS, like 25 with it dipping into the high teens occasionally.

I dialed back the resolution to 1650x1050 and I got a HUGE improvement, now I get a smooth 60 FPS indoors mid 50's outdoors and it only drops to high low 40's-high 30's at the lowest with 3 or more highly detailed NPC's on screen.

Upon playing with it further I tried "ultra" and although I maintained a high 50's framerate there was some pretty noticeable stutter.

It is stable enough with the lower resolution to get away with maxing out all of the detail settings as well, leaving everything on high, and AA at 4 and Antisotropic filtering at 8.

I am on the 10.10 CCC with CAP 10.9 ver. 4?

I also have tried the obvlivion tweak without any noticeable improvement whatsoever.

I tried to up the RAM from 2 gb to 4 gb but I get a "failure 51" or something or other when I try to load the game.

Patiently waiting a fix.

THIS GAME IS A DRUG. Lovin it.

Any more advice?

My GPU temps are hitting the low 70's (70 and 73 C) and one core is hitting the low 80's so I know that I am pushing my rig a little, I am using throttlestop, not sure if corepark is the same thing?

Specs in sig.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/623774-elder-scrolls-skyrim-low-fps.html