Incredible work! Performance on the stairs in front of Dragonsreach (Whiterun):

Default: 36fps
SkyBoost r3: 52fps!!

This is with Ultra settings on a i5 2500k @ 4.5GHz.

About SSE2/4, I would very much like to see a few test versions, so we can figure out if there is any performance to gain by using SSE 4 over SSE 2. I'd be happy to do a few tests, same as many others here I presume.

According to the http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey?platform=pc, 98.9% of all systems support at least SSE3, with 47.4% supporting SSE 4.1 and 24% supporting SSE 4.2. You can check for yourself by clicking on the link and then clicking on the section "Other settings".

Definite performance increase over TESVAL on my i7@3.8ghz, pretty much removed all frame rate dips from Windhelm and Falkreath, keep up the excellent work, if I encounter any bugs I'll report back.

My bet is the game would not hanlde it well.

As in radiant quests items breaking ... or info from certain visisted cells needs to be kept recorded ... perhaps quest stages that can't trigger if a cell last visited is not recorded.

I do notice increased stuttering outside when using the latest R3. Framerate is either the same or higher, just a lot of stuttering.

by stuttering do you mean the fps decrease when turning rapidly or do you mean fps drops when walking normally or while completely still?

FPS is normal or better than normal. I'm capped at 35fps anyway because I much prefer a constant, lower FPS than a higher but fluctuating FPS.

I mean by turning the camera around. Sometimes I'll get really stuttery camera movement for a minute or two that doesn't happen when this mod is disabled. Doesn't stop me from using it, but just a little issue I'm having.

At Dragonsreach looking down at the tree:

Vanilla: 22 fps
Tesval: 28 fps
SB r3: 32 fps

That's with a Quad Core Q6600 2.4 GHz, 3 GB RAM and GTX 460 1 GB.

do you notfice that capped at 35 you get little microstutters, like not totaly smooth when moving forward, it usualy depends what area for me, but say if im capped at 35 i notice constant hiccups or hitches or frameskipping, frameskipping sounds like the rite word, but its minor not big time, i cant cap at anything lower than 50, otherwise constant stutter, riften is by far the worst area for stutter so far, allthough i havnt been to any other area, as far as ive read this mod doesnt do anythin for outdoors. does anyone think it will be possible for modders to do what theyre doing with this but in the open world. im pretty sure these mods dont help outdoors, but please forgive me i they do. id love to be able to do it myself but am nnot clever enough lol, but big thanks for the massive improvments alexander and tesval, its nice to see you guys trying to get this great game to run how it should

Excellent, I volunteer to test. If you prefer a PM just let me know, otherwise just post the link here.

I have been using Chess software for quite some time and chess program binaries compiled with 4.2 can yield a further ~3-5% speed increase over the non-4.2 versions.

Thanks.

To aid performance, objects not in line of sight are not rendered, one of the problems with this optimized setup is you can now change your view faster than the objects get redrawn, hence the stutter, as your view changes look carefully, you should see objects popping/fading into view, what's needed now is someone to optimize the renderer, because despite Beths claims, it might be better than Oblivion but far from optimized, shadow rendering definitely shows that up.

Great job on this mod.. keep it up!

i7 920@3.5 + 4870X2 w/ 12.1 preview, High, Grids 11, FXAA, 1700MB vram usage (mods)

Top of Dragonsreach stairs, looking at the tree
Vanilla = 38 FPS
TESVAL = 50 FPS
Skyboost R3 = 57 FPS

Whiterun spawn location from fast travel
Vanilla = 44 FPS
TESVAL = 58 FPS
Skyboost R3 = 68 FPS ---- 80% usage both GPU's

This mod should be on the nexus imo, thanks!

Another try, in Whiterun (Dragonsreach):

vanilla: 17.233 fps
TESVAL v.03: 21.800
SkyBoost r2: 21.867
SkyBoost r3: 24.000
gpu load with r3: 53%
Great boost with r3!

Would love to see SSE3/4 (depends on which is faster) support as well. But afaik Intel have different SSE instructions for latest versions - SSSE3 and SSE 4.2, while AMD - SSE3 (incompatible with SSSE3) and SSE4a (much more basic version than SSE 4.2) only. So then there should be builds for these specific AMD/Intel SSE versions.

yeah just went to whiterun, and i get absolutly no drop in frame rate, even at the spot, it drops 1 fps thats it, i should also note ive capped to 50, but it seems to cap at 47 instead wich is weird using radeonpro, end with awesome shader mod, whiterun hd texture, and a dna ultra do not argue ini. ugrid 7, it stays at 47 the whole time in whiterun, 46 at the spot, actualy 46 then back to 47, so i now have a consyant nice fps thanks to skyboost r3

as in ugrids 11? doesnt the game explode with anything more than 10? also, im very envious of your perfect 60+ fps while looking at that ugly pink tree.

What additional optimization was added in Release 3?

So far runs great for me.

i've done many hours of testing with all available SkyBoost and TESVAL versions. despite Skyboost r3 giving best performance so far i also sense some stuttering or "less fluid rendering" when moving the mouse, walking around or just playing the game. maybe it's only valid for my system and game setup with various mods and ini changes. nevertheless i prepared a savegame on whiterun stairs looking down to the tree and captured some process explorer screens from ~30sec. sessions with that savegame (start game, load save, wait 30sec. quit and screenshot process explorer). additionally fraps run to get some fps data. after doing this i can only recommend anyone to invest some time testing both latest TESVAL and Skyboost to see what fits best on your machine and game setup.

cpu usage goes up from vanilla (21fps) to TESVAL (29fps) to Skyboost (34fps) to - strange but true - TESVAL + Skyboost (35fps):

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/856/cputr.png/

gpu usage goes up even more in the same order.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20/gpup.png/

benching a single point is surely not enough to evaluate performance benefits or long-time effects on savegames or overalll game stability. but since no real showstopper bugs have been reported so far it can't hurt playing around with it. after following the TESVAL and Skyboost threads here i thought it would not make any sense to use both in parallel. but for me and some others it seems like they can team up to produce a measurable benefit. can't remember posts from alex, arisu or ianpatt about this, have one of you guys already made some experiments with this tag team?

Skyboost is superfast but as long as i feel more stuttering i stay with latest TESVAL for now and enjoy its enormous performance boost. but i will definitely keep an eye on both projects. thx alot for your time here alex.

Phenom II 955 @ 3.6
8GB DDR3
MSI GTX570 TwinFrozr III OC
WIn7x64 on Crucial m4 120GB
Games on Corsair Force 3 120GB
SKyrim 1.3.10.0 @ 1920x1200 - all maxed - 4xAA (ingame) - 2xTrSSAA (nvidia inspector) - several mods

I'll tell you an area I'd like to see you guys benchmark. When starting a brand new game, just before you reach the gates and maybe as you pass them, I get a huuuuge framerate drop. Kind of a pain to test this because you can't save at that point, but from my recollection neither TESVAL nor SB r2 helped much and I don't know why. Dragonsreach and Markarth benchmarks produced startling results for me, but that damn gate kills me.

if i remember correctly c++ optimization classes in uni ... few years back amd was slower with sse2 on 32bit float values than sse1 , so phenom1 and athlon1 can be affected too , so gonna write a test application to know for sure

Man, that is information I have been looking for and wondering about in this game! I wondered why it seemed so hit and miss on the resting trick.

Is the Purge Cell Buffers command also limited to the most recent cell?

Thanks,
Bats

Cell Buffers are only the cells immediately around you. They are buffered so the world appears seemless when it's actually made up of thousands upon thousands of interconnecting cells.

Looking down from Dragonsreach:

Vanilla: 21
TESVAL: 25
r2: 27
r3: 32*

BUT.... I ran a lap around Whiterun and came back to the top of the steps and couldn't get more than 27 fps with r3. I tried looking at all different angles but nothing I did could get back the gain. So for me r3 has ended up doing nothing at all...

Is anyone else experiencing this?

cebalrai
Everyone does , too many loaded stuff

Strange, I quit the game and re-loaded and I still can't get past 27. I even tried two different saves... But I swear it was 32 fps for a while there....

Holy cow......

Vanilla Skyrim top of Dransreach steps: 35 fps
With SkyBoost (r3): 51 fps

Running 1920x1080, 8xAA, FXAA=Off, AFx16, custom ini with settings mixed between Medium, High and Ultra, uGrids=7

My system:
i5 2500k (not OC because I had to unOC it because of BF3 crashes)
Radeon 5870 1GB
8GB RAM
Xonar Sound Card

Not me. I just started with my benchmarking save at the top of Dragonsreach, got 42, ran down past the tree, down to the blacksmith, up through the houses, back up the stairs and to my original location. It was 42 again. Through the whole trip I got as high as 44 (I'm capped at 45) and never lower than 41. Mind you I have all shadows turned off and my settings to mediumish, so much of the trouble-making stuff is turned off in my game, but still the frames remained the same at the beginning and end of my lap using r3.