Hello Everyone,

I've recently suffered a huge a loss in performance while playing Skyrim. I've tried everything I know to do and it's still not working so I've turned here. Please let me know anything I can do.

First, some details. My computer has been running Skyrim on Ultra with 50-60 frames per second since I purchased it. This also included having graphical enhancement mods downloaded. Recently that performance has been cut to anywhere from 8-20 on a regular basis. I may be spoiled but I just can't play the game with that kind of performance.

So I did the first thing any modder does and try removing various combinations of mods to see what's conflicting. I ran boss to optimize the load. Nothing worked. Eventually I broke down and removed every single mod from the game. At that point I was very surprised to see that I was still getting 20 or less frames per second. I continued to investigate and have discovered that the game works perfectly with 60+ fps on high graphical settings or less, but once I push it back to Ultra the frames go down to less than 20.

What I am confused about is why it has done it randomly. The game was doing great fps until just recently on Ultra, and my hardware should be more than capable of playing it. I will post my computer hardware below. Please let me know if you are aware of anything to improve my situation.



Computer Specs:


Operating System: MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1

CPU: Intel Core i7 @ 3.50GHz
Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology

RAM: 7.95 GB

Motherboard: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P8Z77-V LK (LGA1155) 28 °C

Graphics: E246W-1080p (1920x1080@60Hz)
AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB

Hard Drives: 1954GB Seagate ST2000DM001-9YN164 (SATA)

Optical Drives: HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW UH12LS29

I was having the exact same issue... my average framerate is from 45-55 and the lowest was 28 in some places like Markarth and Riften, suddenly... all my FPS dropped to half... i was blowned away, tried several Catalyst drivers to no avail, uninstalled and reinstalled skyrim like 3 times in a row with less luck... turns out it was my CPU since i been OCing it for couple years... it seems it was something related to either the voltage or the PSU, as soon as i reverted to default bios setting and re applied the OC the game started working fine.

I think my CPU may just die soon, or my PSU is failing... i rather have the later blow than my CPU.

I'm happy to say that I just now found a work around, though I'm not happy about it. I custom set the graphics settings to ultra on everything EXCEPT shadows. which I left at high. now i'm getting 60+ fps again. I have no idea what changed or why that one setting was effecting it so much, but at least i can keep playing now and put back on all mods. I don't get it, but it's working