M18x Skyrim Performance/Problems/General Discussion Thread

Wow, can't believe it, they screwed up with the patch.... Lol, dragons flying backwards, mammoths floating in the sky, all resistances are negated... This is beyond me... Not enough that one can build a hero with 1000+ AC, Damage and other buffs, but now it's a total chaos...

On a side note, the game rocks, but the creators need a potion of +150% clarity to fix all the issues, hahaha...

 

......as soon as I click on "play." 6990 crossfires. I sent a help request to steam but no reply back yet. I am not getting past clicking on play. I have deleted all mods. I have installed amd 11.11. I am about to smash and kill things, I am freaking furious!

 

The fact that you were able to get 11.11 installed without BSOD is the first thing that makes me suspicious.

May want to try rolling back to 11.10 and see if that resolves the issue.

 

I had the same issue. Steam accidentaly deleted your TESV.exe file while trying to insall the latest patch. In Steam, under games library, right click on your Skyrim game (in column on the left) then choose "properties" -> "local files" and then click "Verify integrity of local files" This should re-downlaod the patch and fix your problem.

 

A friend of mine had the same problem. Change your sound properties in windows to 16 bit 96Khz studio quality. The game should fire right up.

 

It's pointless, dragons are flying backwards and resistances are negated....

 

Hey guys , well i have never had one prob with skyrim , there was a few ches but console workarounds , but as regards to how it runs , i have all the 2K HIGH RES MODS , run with 11.9 now uprgraded to the latest dell drivers and it runs at around 45-63 frames on ultra everywhere i go , when i had the update it did seem slower , there is a file called atiumdag.dll i downloaded around 4mb originally posted on these forums put that back in skyrim folder and all back to normal , i deleted the original file in there and change the new one to read only so it could not be removed by skyrim or steam as that seemed to happen , but no issues with backward dragons or anything else and pretty much finished the game ie main quest wise , but i do a complete driver clean which makes a big difference , 1. i remove all drivers the normal way from add and remove , ie then start up in safe mode and run driver cleaner and CCleaner , and then reboot once more in safe mode and re check for anyfiles with the above programs and then use windows install clean up and remove any amd /ati reference if any , and then install new drivers and it works like charm , everything i run is like butter , my system is 2760 , 6990 x2 , and 16gb 1866 hyper x , not sure if i am lucky but getting 8150 on 3dmark 2011 and thankfully no overheating issues , but i do use speedfan just because i like to run things cooler but if you have mods installed on skyrim maybe there your issue , i had a few issues with some mods but to check bethesda forums and never seen anything with backward dragons thats defo a weird one lol .

 

almost though that backflying dragons were a feature

Anyway, i kept my steam offline in this days and running the game unpatched, i believe i may as well leave it like this since, for some unknown reason, since i did a clean windows install about 3 days ago the game uses crossfire properly. I'm with 11.10 whql, no cap installed and i copyied the atiumdag.dll file on the skyrim folder

 

If anyone wants the pre-patch files they are here on the following steam thread. I grabbed a pre-1.21 executable so I can play offline and update via steam at my leisure when it's stable again.

Unpatched files for version 1.1. - Steam Users' Forums

 

^^ Partially worked. resistances are back but that backflying dragon south of Windhelm is still there. I "killed" the beast but instead of falling on the ground it started flying chaotically all over the place and the game started lagging like crazy till I fast-traveled from that area... weird...

 

LOOOL Aikimox i have the exact same dragon thats giving me issues. I haven't killed it yet. Hes just flappin about backwards way to high for me to hit him with anything. I dragonrended him once and instead of landing he flew over some mountain backwards.

 

Lol, yeah. That's the one. BTW, I returned to that area and the beast is back again Will have to ignore it till the next patch.

 

Ya it seems to be the only dragon that respawns at the same location. Is yours a frost dragon or just a normal one?

 

Ancient Dragon (spits frost). Playing on master difficulty. 60lvl right now.

 

Even though I just bought this game, I havent installed it yet for fear of an "Arkham City" type scenario....although it does seem that Bethesda are actually getting this sorted.....

Catch a glimpse of backwards flying dragons over here - made me almost pee myself laughing....

Say Goodbye to Skyrim's Majestic Backwards Flying Dragons

 

To me the game is probably one of the best title of the past few years, even with all the glitches and bugs.

 

Hello,

I have a question. Is SLI scaling properly for Skyrim using 580ms and the latest drivers or do you guys find it best to run it on one GPU?

Thank you

 

I dont have an ALienware, but I'm having problems with the SLI 580Ms with Skyrim. WHen I run each card without SLI with everything at max, performance is generally from 28FPS-50 or so. When I enable SLI, performance is from 40-60, but everything kind of stutters, like the ripples in the water, like a kind of shaking. Not sure what to do about it yet.

 

It's all drivers, sadly Plus, the game itself is full of glitches.

 

Skyrim Nvidia Optimization Guides:

http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide?sf2686171=1

http://uk.geforce.com/optimise/guid...guaranteed-to-make-your-game-look-even-better

 

Alright guys minor problem

I'm running Xfire 6970s OCd to 775/1050 and on High settings with the newest Dell driver and game version 1.3.7 I'm getting horrible stutter and FR dropping to 15 at random. Anyone have any ideas as to why? Doesn't help on lower display settings, and the stutter gets worse on Ultra.

 

what config you have? anyway, try to "alt-tab" out and back in. Looks like your are experiencing negative scaling. Also disable one card. I can pretty max out the game with 1 6970 @735/900.

Edit: forgot to mention that i'm running 11.10 WHQL with 11.9 cap 4, atiumdag.dll copied on the skyrim dir and the game run on ultra with both cards used.

 

Hey guys, I'm running the 11.12 beta drivers with 11.2 app profiles. In the CCC there are several crossfire options. Do you all keep it on default, or maybe 1x1? I can't figure out which runs smoother, if any.


EDIT: According to my monitoring software (hwinfo & gpu-z) my second card isn't being utilized at all in skyrim. I thought it was yesterday, but maybe I was wrong? Maybe I need to reboot, but the second card stays @ 39C and 0% utilization. I'm using 11.12 beta drivers with 11.11 cap 2 app profiles. Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

Thanks to everyone for all the great information in this thread.

I was reasonably happy with the way Skyrim was playing but now it runs even better!

Could do with slightly more GPU utilisation but I no longer have the alt tabbing issue which is a big plus!

 

I'm currently running on the 11.10 dell beta driver with 11. 11 Cap 3. I added the atiumdag.dll on to my Skyrim Folder, and changed Adaptive AA from Adaptive Multisampling AA to just Multisampling AA (to fix the texture pop ins) in CCC and now I run the game Ultra at 60 fps, well occasionally dropping to 55. I checked with Radeon Pro it seems like CrossfireX is working fine without having to even create a profile. If anyone else is having issues, try changing settings on CCC and definitely give atiumdag.dll a try and hopefully it works for u
atiumdag.dll

 

I installed 12.1 catalyst, the last Application porfile and I added the atiumdag.dll in the skyrim folder and I still have 30 and lower fps on ultra settings. I tried on low graphic and I only get and improvement of 10 fps....

Anyone have a clue?

Edit: Ok, I don't know why but even though I disable CFX, I still get the same FPS...

 

Hi Joce you need to remove the atiumdag.dll and make sure the original atimgpud.dll is in the skyrim folder this because the latest drivers are optimized for the original dll file installed by the game , and u do not need to disable cx i run my with the 12.1 latest caps with loads of HD mods and get between 58 -63 on ultra with a 2760 and 2x 6990 .

Cheers.

 

Wut are your settings in CCC? Make sure ur AA is set on "multi-sample AA."

 

My M18x used to be able to play Skyrim, then it took an arrow to the SSD...

 

Thanks for your quick responses.

I deleted the atiumdag.dll. So steam downloaded the original.

My CCC settings are to default and my AA is set to "multi-sample AA."

But I still down to 30 fps when I look around... I only get 60 fps when look on the ground.

I used RadeonPro to see my CFX activity. With or without CFX I get the same FPS, so look at these two screenshots.

This first one is without CFX:

Spoiler

And the second one is CFX enabled:

Spoiler

You can see that without CFX, the game is using about 80% GPU Usage. With CFX enabled, each card is about 40% GPU usage... So what's the point to use two cards if the game only use 40% of each.

Is that because 12.1 is not optimized for this game or my 6970m's are defective?

Should I call Dell for a GPU replacement?

 

Joce21 - I do not think there is anything wrong with your video cards. I think it is the games are not (at least at this time) properly optimized for your setup. That may improve in time with updated AMD drivers or CAPS.

Have you applied the latest CAP? You can get it here, if you have not: http://www.rage3d.com/cap/

Since this is happening on more than just Skyrim, let's keep the discussion over in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...erformance-problems-discussion-thread-13.html

 

I just purchased Skyrim during the holiday sale and wanted to double check if all the dll hacks and whatnot are still required.

So far I have:

1. Installed Skyrim from Steam (lots of red exclamation marks and a missing wagon in the intro.
2. Installed all the Skyrim updates via Steam (resolved the exclamation marks and the wagon is back.
3. Updated to 12.1 AMD drivers

I realise Crossfire is not yet compatible. Anything else worth messing around with?

 

For me when I updated to 12.1, Crossfire was enabled by default but there were some issues (especially with the menus and yellow flickering).

But, I installed a custom application profile (CAP) from guru3d and that fixed that issue and seems to give me reasonable crossfire performance. I still have issues in towns, but it seemed to at least fix the negative scaling and helps with heat by sharing the load on both GPUs. I even get more than 50% on both GPUs in certain situations where it is not CPU limited.

The CAP can be found here:
Custom Catalyst Application Profiles (CCAPs) - Guru3D.com Forums

 

thanks for the link, looks promising and Asder00 usually does a great job with drivers.

 

Does Skyrim even perform well with dual GPUs, whether it be Crossfire 6990m or SLI 580m? Or does it perform better with one GPU like 6990m or 580m?
Skyrim wasn't designed with dual GPU in mind. It was designed for console platforms. And xbox360 and ps3 (notice I didn't capitalize their names, muahaha) don't even compare to the power and architecture of the Alienware M18x.

EDIT: Seems like it works just fine with dual GPU, according to post #53.

 

I play Skyrim everyday on my m18x and have no issues at all since 12.1 came out. I run Skyrim, BF3, and Batman Arkham on max pretty much max setting just fine. I hate to say it but the little Beast dose a pretty good job of keeping up with my Area 51. When people come over no one minds having to use the m18x to play..

 

Wow, you're saying the M18x is just about on par with the Area 51 desktop?

 

I replaced my Aurora desktop with my M18x. My Aurora (had to get rid of it, computer room was being turned into a full-time baby room) had an i7 960 with 12GB RAM and 2x GTX 460s in SLI.

My M18x has an i7 2720QM with 2x 6990m. The CPU benches faster than the i7 960 and each 6990m is similar in performance to a GTX 460 (again, according to the benches on notebookcheck.com).

I was amazed that I was still upgrading! The 2x Hybrid HDDs in RAID0 feel to be about on par with the RAID0 in my old Aurora, too!

 

I am saying the m18x will give you every bit as much performance, max setting look pretty good with either system. Sure my Area can do more sound better and run Bionic in the back ground. But what I am saying is if you want the best gaming possible from a notebook. The m18x will do that.

 

If you go to the Clevo neighborhood and say that, they will declare otherwise, especially in the P270WM thread.

 

a) The p270wm is not yet available. Right now it's X7200 vs M18x. When the p270wm becomes available it will be close to the M18xR2 launch.

b) As far as gaming goes the 2960XM is better than the 990X.

 

Nothing against Clevo a powerful machine, 6 cores? only good in benches. name a game that will use 6 cores? how about 4. Why would you compare or pay for something you really can not use. I'v looked at Clevo, Saga and they are like desktop parts in a notebook, and how about sli or cf. I'll stay with the real all powerful system. After all it's the hole package not just a part or two. And then again this is a Alienware Forum..lol

 

I'm confused... you're saying the new Clevos to be released in Q2 2012 will have six cores or the new Alienwares will have six cores?

 

I'am only saying 4 core or 6 core is not going to make it faster, or a better over all system since most games can only use 2 core's anyway. Thats all don't read to much into my opinion I'am biased. The 3960 is a six core the 3920 a four core the thread you sent me to had them backwards.

 

I'm having the same problem as many of you on here so i followed the advice you guys have given, replacing the .dll file, changng CCC to multi AA and it did improve Skyrim slightly but its still struggling to play it smoothly on Ultra setting. I downloaded the bios 05a and latest AMD driver (12.1) put on Dell's site over christmas 12.1 hasn't improved anything.

So i tried the 11.12 CAP1 solution mentioned in this thread. When i installed it my laptop crashed, it would then re-start and as soon as it loaded into windows 7 desktop it would crash again. It was almost exactly the same problem as i got a few months ago with the old drivers (11.11/1.12) but then i got the blue screen of death.

Is there some sort of conflict problem between these CAP and certain amd drivers? everytime i touch them i get issues? Can i not install 11.12 Cap1 with 12.1 drivers and vice versa...

 

guys just do what i suggested earlier. download dxtory and set the frame rate to 35. once frames are capped the game will be smooth as butter and you wont even need sli or xfire for it. forget about waiting for drivers or messing with settings and such.

just cap your frame rate and you are golden. it doesn't even matter what drivers you use with a frame limiter!

 

Currently I'm running the 12.1 drivers with the 11.12 Cap1 no issues.

One thing I had to do before I installed the 12.1 drivers was uninstall all the old drivers and then do the following. Go into device manager, right click on display adapter unsinstall and check the remove driver check box. Reboot rinse and repeat until it goes back to the really low resolution (I had to do this 4-5 times as it would just keep rolling back to a previous leftover driver file). Driver Sweeper, catalyst install manager and the rest of the tools left files there that this removed. I was getting blue screens before doing this as well.

Hopefully this trick works for you as its relatively simple but the reboots are annoying.

 

I don't know if it has been posted already but look at this : SkyBoost (topic 2) - Bethesda Softworks Forums

It gave me a HUGE performence imporvement!

 

Does any one know if Bethesda will address the current crossfire issues?

 

They've had months to. I think we're on our own with this one