SPECS:

MSI GTX 660 Twin Frozr III 2gb
AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE
Seagate Barracuda 500gb hardive 7000rpm
Coolmaster Elite 500w PSU
ASUS M4A88T-M Motherboard
Windows 7 Pro 64Bit
8gb ripjaws ram
Have the latest Nvidia Drivers
Skyrim automatically detects ultra high quality

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Skyrim gets around 50 - 70 i have tried it with and without v-sync. The problem is that say im getting a near constant 60 fps with v-sync more without. Basically my problem is if the fps drops at all even by just 1 fps its lags this happens on every bethesda game from Oblivion to Fallout To Skyrim. Please Help

Thanks

hard drive problem due to the cell loading. 7200rpm simply isn't fast enough to keep up with the way the game handles cell loads. Has nothing to do with graphics card power. Even the newest most expensive card on the market would do the same thing in skyrim with a 7200 hard drive, even if you had 3 of them in raid.

Get a solid state drive if you want to eliminate it. That's what I did.

Dont see how? Most people still use hdd.

Don't see how what? everyone who has a 7200rpm hdd has this problem in skyrim. It's not a graphics card related problem whatsoever. I had the exact same issue, especially near the farms next to Whiterun right where the carriage driver is, that's where I used to go to test the issue. Turning sharply there the game would almost freeze for 1 second before frames bumped back up from low 10's back to high 50's when doing a complete 180 degree turn causing a brief freeze spike. You can go test the same spot for yourself.

After replacing my own 7200rpm drive with a solid state drive the issue I was having is long gone. Like I said, it's a cell loading issue in the game and it relies heavily on hdd speed while playing. SSD's are so much faster than hdd's it ain't even funny.

Seems strange that this only happens with Bethesda games. Far Cry 3, GTA IV, Sleeping Dogs dont have this problem other open world games.

Most games don't rely on HDD speed WHILE playing at the same time as graphics rendering, such as battlefield 3, maps are a one-time load so you wouldn't experience the same thing in BF3 as skyrim even though the BF3 maps are gigantic. Honestly skyrim is also very much a console port as well.

Seems strange that Bethesda Games seem to be the only games that choose to do this. Anyway thanks for the help i guess i could use like a 32gb ssd just for bethesda games and use my hdd for my other games. Is there any temporary alternatives until i get a new ssd?

The only user-fix for this problem is limiting how much data needs to be calculated by the HDD, so sadly possibly removing the HD textures pack or graphical mods that enhance graphics, or lowering the default ultra textures may help if you're still having problems after that. Removing shadows from trees and land/rock shadows in the .ini may also help. Just gotta knock off each one until the problem becomes tolerable or goes away entirely.

SSD's are actually coming down a lot in price. I got a 256gb one for around 200 dollars. This is the one I got if you want specs for reference. I did a ton of researching this before I bought it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147135 Now of course samsung as the newer 840 model.

I dont think i would ever use 256gb i think 100gb is enough for me which are pretty cheap on ebay at the moment.