Hello. So everybody has been saying how smooth DRAGONBORN runs with 1.8. But what about Skyrim itself? I mean, there are still game breaking lag?

I said this in another thread:

Running Patch 1.8 on a brand new save—in fact, I haven't played in several months ... waiting for the first real patch to get things right. I must say, I did notice one particular thing I wanted to point out that, while anecdotal, is nonetheless interesting:

So, if ya'll will remember, in the first tutorial dungeon at Helgen, there is that wooden draw bridge you have to lower. Since the very first play of the game on 11/11/11, that area always caused random stuttering for me... obviously on a brand new save. I'm assuming it probably did the same for other folks? Well, with Patch 1.8, I ran through that area as smooth as butter; no other patch has been able to get that done in that particular area.

While this is a very isolated event, it still leads me to believe broad sweeping changes have been made in how the game processes things at a broader level, as opposed to trying to clean up bloated save files or localized issues. You may only notice this with a brand new save file, which surprisingly registered at 3.45MB on the very first save in Helgen (I could've sworn my first save before Patch 1.8 was in the 2MB ranges), but upon entering Skyrim for the first time, upon dropping that draw bridge, etc. etc. I've never seen—personally speaking—such a fluid transition into areas that otherwise caused a bit of a hiccup, bloated save or not...

That is all. =)

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Verdict after 15 more hours: Yes, 1.8 seems to have gotten things right. I've also noticed a smoother Whiterun, better framerates in heavily misty areas w/ lots of enemies (think caves / dungeons), better framerates in The Reach, and better framerates near the lake at Riften.

Does it "lag" at render points in your case?

Not much. A few isolated hiccups when first arriving to particularly dense areas / dungeons (think nanoseconds), but smooth thereafter. This may be attributable to the fresh game data file and essentially playing off a brand new, clean startup character w/o any backlogged cache information on where I've been prior.