I know there's a .dll file you can use ( http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34 ) to force a specific max framerate, but unfortunately it disables vsync which means lots of screen tearing, I can't even force vsync back on externally with D3DOverrider which is what I usually use for triple buffering in D3D games. Does this engine still not have a proper fps cap built in? I know the console versions are capped to 30 FPS, why can't we do the same? I'd much prefer a consistent experience to a wildly variable framerate on this machine.

Anyone have a solution?

I second this. I'd really like to cap at 30 FPS. My performance around towns/settlements is really erratic.

Watching closely, also interested in capping FPS.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=26359376&postcount=24 mentioned a FRAPS-like capture program called http://www.dxtory.com/v2-home-en.html for a frame limit alternative that's VSYNC (and in my case D3DOverrider) friendly.
It's pay software, but you don't have to pay to use the limiter. To enable the cap go into the advanced options tab and set Limit Video FPS to whatever you want. You'll probably want to disable the overlay / framerate counter once you have it set up properly

The same guy also mentions Nvidia adding a frame limiter to their drivers in the next big release, which I'm surprised hasn't happened sooner. I'll still believes it when I sees it!

Anyway, good luck. I'm finding a cap of 42 to work best on my system, may drop it down to 30 depending on how severe the drops are. I'm just glad it's more consistent. No more going from silky smooth to oh my god this is terrible.

You need to have Dxtory minimized.

Also, it may not allow your graphics card to enter a low power state while it's running in the background. I realized this when I saw my GPU at full clocks in EVGA Precision. On that same note, EVGA Precision's overlay monitor conflicts with Dxtory; disable Precision's overlay monitor.