Skyrim on M17XR2, bad performance - !!!

Out of the box the game sugests me high graphics with 4x AA, if I load the game with this settings i get 10-15fps on the start of the game

Surely the computer in my sig can do better, so after some reading I found that skyrim has problems with crossfire. after renaming TESV.exe to Fallout3.exe, disabling V-sync and turning off AA and AF and putting gfx to medium I can play the game fluidly (30-40 fps), but it looks as if i'm running a bad case of oblivion now with washed out low/res out textures .... This can't be right for an I7 with CF 5870's.

Anyone got some more tips on how to get better performance from the game? because i really love TES games and i'm so depressed that my 6 month old "All powerfull" struggles with it.

Actually, i should be able to put the game on ultra and have 60fps all the way with this setup ...

 

Are you on updated drivers? Recommended GPU to play Skyrim is a 4890/GTX 260 (desktop cards). A 5870 Mobility is a desktokp 5770 which performs worse than a desktop 4890..

 

I can play the game at around 30-40 fps on max detail with oblivion's profile using radeonpro, of course there are some exceptions where the fps dips to about 20-25 such as dragonreach or solitude.
The difference is that I'm running a 920xm@3,4Ghz, which makes about 5-10 fps of difference, using the 4Gb patch for the main exe and using modified settings on the ini files to improve quality.
Forget about a costant 60fps with our machine though.

 

any link for that patch, and what should i tweak in the ini files?

 

here is the link for 4Gb tweak NTCore's Homepage

and the link to the thread where you can find all Skyrim tweaks, inf. tweak instructions are on page 9:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/623774-elder-scrolls-skyrim-low-fps-9.html

 

The patch is here.
As for the ini tweaks there are a number of them, try reading this post.

 

Thanks for both of you
rep+1

 

I heard about bad performance on CF systems with skyrim, i play it on a single 5870 and it all runs fluently on default high although i set AA to 2x

 

^this

once in the game, try to alt-tab out/in of it. This should make crossfire working and has to be done every time a new area is loaded.

give it a try

 

The problem is...dual card support (both SLI and xfire) is terrible on Skyrim. xFire is worse of the two because AMD never had it working out of the box. I believe SLI is better now as of the latest beta driver. until this gets solved, xfire 5870's won't perform properly

PS...i saw no increases using the 4 gig patch because it really is only useful if you're running very large textures. No need the stock textures, even on the highest settings

What driver are you using psyloid? 11.11a is suppose to increase performance in Skyrim but the full xfire support isn't there yet. There's also 11.11b and 12.1

 

I am using a few mods that require the 4GB patch but I cant get it to work very well, like although my FPS is registering 30 there is a LOT of stutter going on.

I had success earlier with reducing the resolution to 1680x1050 but something has changed since then and I am getting serious stutter.

Very curious, I dont know what to make of it.

So with RadeonPro the oblivion profile in the "tweaks" section is the crossfire profile and not the AA profile correct?

Has anyone tried the 11.11b driver?

What are your modified .ini files?

 

Read below.........

 

Skyrim is a horribly optimized game in general. You have to remember, this game is a port of the console version. The game was literally built for console application, with a few bandaid fixes added to allow for PC play.

Multi-core ability is gimped right now, especially with how the game handles threading. Also the game is more CPU dependent than GPU, so video cards have less effect on performance. For example, my GTX 460M only shows 65% usage during gameplay in areas where I see a drop in FPS. Video cards are just not being used efficiently in the game's current state.

 

I'm sure they'll come out with some optimization fixes sooner or later. Unfortunately Ryan, this is the sad state of the pc gaming industry now

 

I just uninstalled the game after an hour of play. Game is not worth the hyped it got imo. Assassin's Creed has better integrated graphics and animation. The character animation is also much better in Assassin's Creed.

Anyhow, I ran the game on high with my 4870x2 and had no issues.

 

ohhhh, you max the game in another computer then talk about graphics... maxed out I think it is much much better than assassin's creed (maybe the graphics are more to my tasting...)

 

The only issue I have with dual 6970m's is I have to alt tab in and out of the game everytime an environment loads otherwise I get like 10fps max. Probably due to bad CF. Other than that it's 90% of the time at 60fps with the only drops happening outdoors in some locations.

And a 5770 is about equal if not a tad better than a 4890.

 

I am happy to report today that I played around with "alt+tab" and am now an alt+tabbing fiend.

I can manage 60 fps in all indoor locations, and no lower than 40 (for some reason in Whiterun, which may be Chris2012 Whiterun HQ Texture Pack

Outdoors I get between 50 and 60 everywhere else so far.

I am on 1920x1200 2xAA, 8xAntisotropic, all setting high with decals on ultra and detailed distant background also on ultra, and the display setting all the way to the right/maxed out. I am also using the 4gbexe. tool found here as I am using a host of mods that need it.

4GB Skyrim at Skyrim Nexus - Skyrim Mods and community

I am so glad we have at least something to make this game playable.

I get the most success by hitting alt+tab 4 times in a row, at first I would alt+tab out and then try to double click on the skyrim icon in my taskbar and would have to wait like 30 seconds. The alternate method mentioned above gets you right back in the game.

Monitoring Crossfire utilization with Radeon Pro, I also noticed that both cards are being utilized much more after alt+tabbing, so this is indeed a case of poor Crossfire driver support for the 5xxx series cards.

Still waiting for an update but at least the game is playable now! The stutter was just unbearable before.

 

i don't get this one...how does alt tab work? Why does it increase xfire performance? Don't you need support in the driver for the game (which doesn't currently exist)?

 

Yeah thats what I said at first, basically all I am doing is first pausing the game, then just press the alt and tab buttons together which minimizes the game to the system tray and youre now on the desktop, pressing it again on Windows 7 brings up a rotating menu I believe, but if you just press it 4 times in a row it brings you in and out of the game and viola you have a functional Skyrim adventure awaiting.

Just try it.

 

And like others have said, you have to do it every time a new environment loads, but I have also had to do it after returning from the menu and sometimes while wondering the tundra between locations out of the blue the FPS would take a dive and the stutter would return and I would have to do it again. But the game is playable at least!

 

if i alt tab out of the game, the game crashes :/

 

I find that sometimes when alt-tab causes the game to crash, pressing ctrl+shift+esc will get me out of the game, activate crossfire and let me get back in without a crash. It depends on the game though.

 

That's very odd. I got the same suggestion for my current setup. But, I did turn AA off altogether. And the game runs very well on my M17x R2.

Make sure your graphics cards have the latest patches. Not sure what else it could be.

 

Forcing crossfire thru radeonpro now, with bioshock CF profile, forcing vsync off and getting 20-40 fps now on toned down high settings, no AA

Still feels sluggish but its playable at least. Gonna wait a few months and see when AMD & bethesda roll out patches/drivers.... what a waste of money, should have known this actually last year when i bought fallout NV it had the same kinds of trouble, took 6 months to get it right (same engine: gamebrio) . I said it last year, but i'll stick to it now, don't buy games for pc upon release, they will be buggy .... Do they really want to force me in buying a PS3, I think so ...

edit: i was toying with the idea of building a PS3 and a monitor, keyboard and mouse into a suitcase, to have a mobile PS3 rig, sounds damn attractive at the moment i must say

 

Well you can always get a pair of 6970m or 6990m.

I just double checked my setting and I run the game how you do now. It's odd my performance is similar to yours. Though I'm sure there will be a patch in the near future for skyrim. There always is. But, I'm sure its more to do with the game then your laptop. Atleast that's what it sounds like.

Btw I'm a lvl 22 orc. You?

 

i am a Lvl 0 slacker atm. thats because i'm not playing skyrim, i'm waiting
and in the meanwhile i dusted off my copy of oblivion and i heavily modded it with texture packs, overhaul, natural enviroments and enb series patch, it looks almost as awesome as skyrim now, but runs a hell of a lot better XD

 

lvl 25 mage/thief this game rocks, but I stopped playing a week ago, must spend more time for closing up the semester..

 

I play Skyrim and get 45-60 fps using my m17x with a single 5870. The game is on High Quality.

 

I have the same specs and get the same performance

 

I'm running the game with a slightly overclocked 6990m (800/1100)...getting fluid framerates with zero slowdowns on ULtra preset, 4xAA 16xAF on Cats 11.11a

 

Correction: I have my decal settings on Ultra and not the shading, I tried vise versa and got pronounced stutter.

Psyloid: Have you tried Alt+tab to get back into the game? Thats bizarre, I dont know of any others who have had the game freeze on them with this method.

This is indeed a CF issue, the game is CPU heavy but Xfire is bein under-utilized, you can monitor the difference with Radeon Pro before and after alt+tabbing.

 

I don't know what happend here.

I had to clean install windows becouse of some problem i was having. Did it, installed 11.10, no cap and copied the dll (atiumdag i believe) on the skyrim directory. The game now run with CF enabled and without the need of alt-tab anymore....and it runs darn good i must say...

EDIT: i have not patched the game yet, if this can be of any use.. ( and i don't plan to update it any time soon)

 

I'm running 920xm overclocked to 3.2ghz and xfire 5870 and the game runs at 60fps on high for me at 1200p. The xfire in this game is horrible so I disable the 2nd card and just run single but overclocked to 800/1100. I'm running driver 11.10 but I placed a tweak into the skyrim game folder which helped a lot, go google ti and give it a try