Elder Scrolls Skyrim - low fps

Yeah I must agree, Skyrim is a strange game. I have (laptop):

i7 920XM OCed to 3.0Ghz on all 4 cores (throttlestop)
2GB 6990M Slightly OCed
6GB RAM

Settings are Ultra with 0 AA, 16 AF, FXAA on, Shadows Medium, Distant Objects High and I get 65+FPS in the game world, 75+ in caves/dungeons

But like if I fast travel to Dragonsreach and look down from the top it drops to 30FPS =/ (feels laggy) and then 40-50 after I go down the steps... Weird

And if it only uses 2 cores at best shall I pump 2 of mine to 3.33Ghz or 1 core to 3.6Ghz and lower the rest?

 

Also I have Nvidia GeForce GTX 460m, if that's important. Also, my device manager display intel hd graphics; should I turn those off? I've heard they mess up and conflict with it.

 

Default "High" Setting with no tweaks at 1920x1200.

Um...I didnt...it always looks like that...sorry, I dont know that you mean I guess.

Edit: Are your cards getting hot?? Look in GPU-z to see if they are getting hot. (google "GPU-z" to download). Otherwise, prop the back of your laptop up with a 1 inch thick book and see if this helps.

Step 1) Go to this link:

AMD Graphics Drivers & Software ? Download the latest drivers for your graphics products

Step 2) Download the appropriate AMD software by answering the 4 questions about your computer (dont use the stupid auto-detect thing).

Step 3) After downloading a very tiny file (a AMD download manager) run that small file. This will download the Larger Driver file (11.10) with CCC.

Step 4) Once you have run and installed (do an "express intall") the current driver software which includes CCC--Catalyst Control Center--and have restarted the computer; right click on your desktop and the first option now there should be "Catalyst Control Center", click it.

Step 5) On the left side of the window that opens up are several drop down menu's. Click on "performance", then click "AMD CrossfireX". In the window on the right are two options, one is "Enable crossfire" and should checked off. Select "Diable crossfire" and then click on "Apply" on the bottom right. Screen will go black and flash and then crossfire will be disabled.

Once we have a new driver in a week or so, go back to that website and download it again. Then download the most current CAP--"Catayst Application profiles" (google "catalyst application profiles"). Once you have down that, go back into CCC and enable Crossfire. You should do this every 30 to 45 days really (download CCC and CAP that is).

Best of luck...if doesnt work, I probably cant do much more to help you.

I dont know about your last question, overclocking is not my thing. However, if you stand atop a high point with setting on "Ultra" and look over the whole landscape, it makes sense for you FPS to drop. All the draw distances are either maxed out or very high...therefore your card is drawing as much of the landscape as it possible can--versus just what you are look at a you walk down steps.

 

if you have a nvidia card CC won't work because its designed for AMD cards not Nvidia. Are you having frame rate issues or somthing?

 

LOL...good catch, I should pay attention when I read it would save me alot of time...

 

Hey guys,

whos having low FPS on CF setups, you can try this:
alt+tab in/out couple of times, or restart from the last saved point. It works for me and some others.
RadeonPro works but both the cards are being utilized 30-60%.
The buggy method described above makes the game to utilize both cards 80-99% and you will get pleasant and smooth FPS rate

 

Whenever I try and alt-tab out nothing happens....hmmm. Either way, this is a lame fix and ATI needs to get those official drivers out sooner than soon so I can see how this bad boy runs in CF...maybe I can bump it up to Ultra? Probably not, but improved performance at this level would be just as welcome.

Oh, and to be clear, I dont mean to be rude about what you posted. Thanks for letting us know. I just mean I want an official driver from ATI so I dont have to do silly things like that.

 

sorry that this lame fix didn't work for you mate. I'm on 11.9 + CAP4 by the way. Same kind of fix worked for BF3 when it was utilizing just one card.

with the setting on the screenshot (I didn't change view distance) after loading the game I got completely unplayable and not enjoyable framerate. After alt+tabbing situation changes completely. Don't know why..



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

Thanks for the tip about crossfire alt-tabbing, unfortunately this does not work for me, framerate stays the same. I have managed to fiddle around a bit and am now playing at 1920X1200 with mostly high settings (Shadows on low, water reflections disabled). I am getting a few fps (3 or so) higher than i was at my previous settings although i'm not quite sure how.


At the most graphically intensive place i have found, which is staring at the waterfall at Understone keep my fps sits at a constant 22 (17 with crossfire enabled).

I should also mention that i completely disabled AA and turned AF down to 4x.

 

I also have a 460m nVdia card with the 285.26 driver. With "low" settings the game runs with 10-20 fps, and in the loading screen its 60.

 

have you tried RadeonPro with API friendly d3d or Oblivion profiles? that could help also

 

I have tried the Oblivion profile, didn't seem to help. I'm not sure what API friendly d3d is but ill be sure to check it out when i'm on.

 

Alt tabbing seems to work for me. At least i've got both card used @ 96%, but imho i don't think is the gpu utilization the problem right now. It's crossfire scaling that doesn't work as intended and without a cap or a driver it won't be fixed. Sure i can get both card at almost 100% use, but this doesn't change the fact that fps are better with a single card

 

If you have a RealTek sound device, you can change some settings to fix the low volume, it worked for me.

Firstly try enabling "loudness equalization" in the enhancements tab, I found that setting in Control Panel, Audio properties. Some have fixed the low volume by enabling 5.1, basically try any of the fixes mentioned here.

 

Thank you!! it has actually fixed the low volume sound i was experiencing too!

Now it is so much better!

 

made a typo., I meant AFR-friendly d3d profile. Sorry for misleading..

 

Indeed, this worked for me as well...the "loudness equilization". Actually, everything is louder now! LOL

 

Maybe the other fixes might be better than the loudness equalization because they didn't design everything to have the same volume and the music is supposed to be quieter.

By the way, to anyone who wants to use alt-tab without causing a crash, just hit ctrl-alt-del, then press cancel and the game will work as normal.

 

For anyone having issues with Crossfire in Skyrim, try placing this file in your Skyrim directory:

ATIUMDAG.DLL

I'm running on Ultra with 16xAF and 2xAA @1920x1200 on my Dual 5870Ms at 50-60fps no problem.

Fix is courtesy of Ghost23 at overclock.net.

 

Excellent find! +

 

So I put the ATIMDAG.DLL file in my C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\skyrim directory but i didn't notice any improvement in FPS. Am I doing something wrong here?

I'm still getting about 30 FPS on ultra outdoors which is about what I was getting before (seems way to low to me).

 

I also did this and got no real return on my effort. Still seems better with crossfire off. I will just wait until the Official ATI release of the drivers next week or whenever.

In what could be an unrelated event, one time I also got a BSOD from some other random ATI dll file after placing this file in my skyrim directory...so I deleted it. Hope everyone else has better luck...now back to playing skyrim!!

 

im getting 45-60fps on ultra with 2xAA

just want to share some tweak with shadow i collected for better gameplay experiment

some1 on m18x asked about pixellated shadow
http://forum.notebookreview.com/8074293-post50.html
and some screen shot how it was fixed, and some info about FPS improvement on skyrim using same method in Fallout NewVegas directx9 dll (both Nvidia & ATI)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/8074502-post51.html

 

Thank you guys! Not sure if I need this dll, the game seem to run smooth with custom settings and alt+tab tweak might try to tweak the shadows, as I have them on medium and they are quite pixellated.

+rep for both

 

God man i already played with an m17 r2 940 xm and 2x 5870 on ultra with 26 -36 fps but after i add your dll i play at 47-60 fps costant in ultra setting with all the visual mod on !
Thanks again !

 

These fixes will let you disable mouse smoothing, customise your field of view, disable Vsync and correct a problem that causes crashes to desktop from the main menu screen just after you start the game. There are also a few .ini tweaks that make Skyrim look better.

Disable mouse smoothing
Go to your Steam Directory, then steamapps, common, skyrim and select Skyrim again. Create a backup of the SkyrimPrefs.ini file. Open the file, then scroll down to where it says and find bMouseAcceleration=1. Change to bMouseAcceleration=0. Save, exit, and play This fix and the two below are from Skyrim Reddit, and are credited to "Dead man posting" on the Something Awful Forums.

Change field of view
Head to My Documents, select My Games, select Skyrim and then Skyrim again, then create a backup of the skyrim.ini file. Scroll down to in the file and add fdefaultfov=XX (where XX is the field of view you want). Then save and exit.

Fix common crash to desktop problem
Access the Sound menu from the Control panel. In the playback tab, right click on speakers and select properties. Select the advanced tab on the new screen and select 24 bit, 44100Hz (Studio Quality) from the drop down menu. This fixed crashes for Owen last night.

Disable Vsync
Access the SkyrimPrefs.ini again and add iPresentInterval=0 to the bottom of the section. This can improve a sluggish framerate and eliminate instances of mouse lag. Thanks to Tweak Guides for this one.

Graphical tweaks
Curate on the Bethesda forums has highlighted a number of interesting variables in the SkyrimPrefs.ini file. Change the digit at the end of each line to 1 to turn the feature on, 0 to turn it off. Don't forget to create a backup of the SkyrimPrefs.ini file just in case.

Interesting variables are as follows, in order of appearance in the .ini and showing their default settings.
bDoDepthOfField=1
bTreesReceiveShadows=0
bDrawLandShadows=0
bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1
bShowQuestMarkers=1
bShowCompass=1
bMouseAcceleration=1
fAutosaveEveryXMins=15.0000

Redditor Ryz also suggests changing iWaterReflectHeight=512 and iWaterReflectWidth=512 to 1024 and adding the following text to the SkyrimPrefs.ini to improve the quality of water reflections.

bUseWaterReflectionBlur=1
bReflectExplosions=1
iWaterBlurAmount=4
bAutoWaterSilhouetteReflections=0
bForceHighDetailReflections=1


That was posted in steam news. It made the game playable on my system

 

If you guys want some free performance, you can do the 4gig skyrim mod. By default, the game only uses up to 2gigs of ram. you can update it to use up to 4gigs. Some are reporting a free 3-5fps by doing this

You can follow the instructions here:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=134

EDIT:
If you aren't the modify by hand type, you can also download this cool free app to update skyrim to 4 gig ram addressing. Select TESV.exe when prompted

http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

(Thanks to Vicious Master Viking for posting this app in another thread)

 

will give it a try later. Thanks for posting this in this thread

 

Found another interesting thing.

Those suffering from Xfire issues...rename your TESV.exe in skyrim dir to Fallout3.exe (case sensitive). It solves it for many people. You'll then probably have to start your game directly from this exe

Also people with single GPU's are reporting increases!

 

Don't know why the heck this happens but discovered in the morning, if I start the game from TESV.exe with "run using nvidia", the game runs MUCH better... any ideas??

 

ya, because you are bypassing optimus. So you aren't using the integrated Intel graphics

 

With my config I can run SC2 on Ultra with a smooth 60 FPS but skyrim is giving me nothing but issues. I don't have fraps running to check it, but I'm getting fps on high with 2x af and aa, and its not even great with 0 aa / af. Only time I get decent FPS is on low and then its fine. Catalyst ai advanced makes it better, but it makes my other games perform worse. I had 11.5 last night when I bought the game, but because of performance I upgraded to 11.10, even though I had a few problems getting it to install I finally did and 11.10 seems to work fine. I'm using the 11.11 cap1 app profiles. Is that okay even though I'm not using 11.11 drivers? All these little fixes on this forum haven't worked for me. I tried putting that .dll in my skyrim directory but I had no luck. Any ideas?

Reinstalled video drivers and alt tabbing works fine. Are they going to fix it so that isn't nescessary?

 

good that you got it working mate. fix would be either game update or new driver or CAP

 

And this is why I bought this particular game for the PS3. Bethesda games are always bugged up and I figured that getting it on the PS3 was going 2 be way easier

 

Darn running on R3 with 2720 and 6970m.
Runs like crap(around 20-30) 1920x1080 medium setting.
with latest 11.11 driver.

 

Mine is running really well now, as long as I alt tab every time I go into a new zone. Is ATI going to release a fix for this? So we don't have to alt tab?

 

i7 940xm (Unlocked core parking)
5870m XF (Overclocked to 850/1150)
250g SSD
8g of Ram

Im running this game on high settings with 11.10 preview 3 drivers and profile caps 11.9 Cap4. I stay on 60 fps except when i enter towns and i drop to about 45-55 fps. I havent had XF disable once during my 8 hour game until i installed 11.11 profile cap. Once i reverted back to 11.9cap4 its smooth again. I also added the tweak that Reaver here posted on page 8.

Also, a friend of mine with same specs as me was having massive lag, i checked if he had Core parking enabled on his cpu and then went and disabled it. After restarting comp the game ran smooth. http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/486478-fix-win7-i7-sluggish-performance.html - mini guide to disabling core parking.

 

I can run on ultra but i turned down AA to 2x and AF to 4x. 1920x1080. I average anywhere from 40-90fps. It goes to about 31fps in the middle of Winterrun (looking down from a high point) I've also seen it go to like 28fps in certain caves where's there's a lot of lighting and shadows. One good thing is I don't seem to have that throttling problem as my GPU doesn't seem to go above 62c. My CPU however has hit 84c. But, no BSOD, crashes or anything, it's been very stable. I'm also using 285.79 (beta)

 

It took me a bit of tweaking with the graphics settings, but i found the SWEET spot!

Getting 60+ fps now on my GTX460M with great quality.

-resolution: 1920x1080
-graphics: medium
-AF: 16x
-AA: off
-FXAA: off

Honestly, the difference between "high" and "medium" is trivial, and the sharpness running at 1080 resolution with 16x AF is HUGELY preferred over the settings I had before which was 1367x768, high detail, 4x AF, AA off.

I went from 29-50 fps using my old settings to 60+ using my new ones.

 

Ryan, is FXAA an absolute no-go then? I read somewhere that it was superior to 8xAA, and also that it was made specifically for Nvidia GPUs. It looked just as good as having 8xAA enabled, and the system takes less of a performance hit.

 

You really don't need any sort of anti-aliasing, whether it be AA or FXAA, as long as you set the resolution high enough and have AF set to 16x.

I am running the game at 1920x1080 with AA off, AF at 16x, and FXAA off. The clarity and sharpness are fantastic as a result, and I am seeing 60+ fps. With FXAA on, I noticed about a 5-10fps drop, and things looked much fuzzier, so I turned it off.

Overall, very happy with my new settings.

(p.s. to answer your question though, FXAA is indeed better for performance than 8x AA, but turn off both and I think you'll be just as happy, if not happier)

 

I'm playing it now, actually. I will shut them both off and see if I can't jack some other important setting up. I've got everything at Ultra, but shadows are set down a notch. I get 60fps everywhere but in towns, so I'll give it a shot.

A bit off topic, but I have also been playing Shift 2 Unleashed lately. Without some form of AA running, the 'jaggies' are pretty terrible. I have to take the performance hit in that game to run the lowest setting of AA, or else it is horrible. At least to me.

 

Hey guys, I recently upgraded my old M15x with an i3 370m dual core processor at 2.4ghz, and a ATI mobility 5730m to an i7 940xm, and an ATI 6970M GPU. I defaulted at high graphics at 1080p with my old card, and ran the game at medium. With my new card, which is better than my old card, I default at MEDIUM and I get 15-25FPS at ultra maxed out at 1080p. The weird part is other days I default at high, and get 30-45FPS in the same locations, and performance is great. I've done the gamepad mod, using 4gb, and I use pcb, but what the heck is wrong? Is something up with my drivers? I used the ones straight off AMD.com. Thanks.

 

what driver version are you on? The best drivers for me for skyrim were 11.11C's

 

The recent ones, released on 11/9/11, they come up after you answer the questions on the AMD site, 8.290. it tells me on device manager. Should I DL 11.11c? Should I get rid of my old ones? Skyrim UESP says I can max the game out no problem at 1080p with my card, and I am really frustrated. I shouldn't be getting 25-40FPS at 1080p with high to ultra settings.

 

I made a thread a little while back ( Here) about all of the fun I wasn't having not playing Skyrim. Exams are over, and I have a few questions/rants I want to share:

After two hours of DriveSweeper-ing, CCleaning, Safe Mode-ing, and reinstalling CCC, somehow I finally got 11.11c installed. Anti-aliasing seems to be one of the biggest factors in FPS - I can get ~30fps at 1920x1200 on High without AA on a single 5870 (≤17fps with AA). With Crossfire enabled, I can get ~35-40fps outdoors on High with AA on at 2-4 Samples, but it causes flickering with almost every in-game object (like epileptic levels) and strange light refractions from candles and such. I've read of a few other people having this issue, but I wasn't sure if it was widespread, and whether or not ATI/AMD was aware of the issue. Can anyone fill me in on this?

Meanwhile, I saw that 11.12 had been released. The release notes didn't mention Skyrim, but based on the other artifact fixes they'd done for other games, I was [mistakenly] hoping something might be better. I got a bluescreen when I tried installing the 11.12 driver over the 11.11c one, so I used DriveSweeper in Safe Mode, tried again, got a bluescreen after restart, tried again using DriveSweeper, CCleaner for remnant registry entries, and the CCC installation tool to uninstall the other AMD/ATI stuff. Another bluescreen after restart. As a self-proclaimed semi-tech-savvy teenager, the number of times I've been forced to resort to System Restore in an attempt to fix something is almost exclusively limited to ATI/AMD's crap drivers on this laptop. It's done this before, and I ended up reformatting, but it seems to be a recurring issue. Is there a secret trick to installing ATI/AMD drivers and retaining the usability of the laptop? Does 11.12 help at all with respect to Skyrim? When I inevitably reformat, should I try [attempt] installing 11.9, 11.10, or 11.12, or some other version?

On a semi-related side note, I remember not wanting to get Radeons in this laptop, but deciding to because they were the only dual-GPU option at the time. Nothing remotely as annoying ever cropped up when I used NVIDIA cards, and I'm beginning to think that the lower cost of ATI products is karma in the form of wasted time dealing with drivers that don't work.

Slightly more on-subject, what sort of framerates should I be realistically expecting out of this laptop [i7 720QM, 8GB, 2x 1GB Radeon 5870s] in Skyrim at ~1080p? I'm inclined to think it would be more than what I'm getting, considering that my Core2Duo/9800GT desktop is still outperforming it.

Also, I installed the A10 BIOS mod and set the CPU overclock to 5% (1.60GHz » 1.68GHz), which it shows as 1.70GHz on the info page in the BIOS, but everything is still reported as 1.60GHz within Windows. n00b Question: Is there something obvious (or not) I'm missing? Also, I was thinking about upgrading to a 920XM: Would the benefit be generally worth the cost, and is there a significant disadvantage to the ES versions I haven't stumbled across?

Sorry for the non-ending tangent, although there aren't too many people who can relate. Replies to any part(s) much appreciated!

 

This thread makes me worry. I'm planning on buying a brand new laptop specifically to run Skyrim maxed out. Is it just not possible on an m17x? will I have to go for the m18x?

 

edit: Disregard

 

I have dual 6990's in my m17xR2, and though the R3 has only 1 6990, (or GTX 580) it should be able to run it on Ultra with one card. I run it with crossfire disabled because AMD drivers and skyrim don't get along and crossfire gets messed up. I'm not sure if my second card contributes at all to the performance even though xfire is disabled for skyrim (xfire is enabled in CCC but disabled through a custom profile for the TESV.exe). If the second card doesn't increase performance at all, you can run it just fine maxed out with 1 6990.

 

I run skyrim on Ultra, 1920x1080, 4xAA 16xAF and it runs smooth. This is running stock 6990m speeds. i don't think you have anything to worry about