Just got a new PC and Skyrim is running poorly - FPS drops if I run 'round outside or turn quickly. I don't understand why. I am playing at 1080 resolution, ultra settings with full skyrim hd pack from the nexus. ugrids at 7. I tried disabling the HD pack but that didn't make the stutter any better.

I have 8GB of RAM, 4GHz 8 core cpu, and an Nvidia gtx680 with 2GB of VRAM...honestly, why the hell am I lagging with this set up?

I would change back the uGrids to the default 5 if I were you. uGrids is notorious for making the game wacky and unstable (Even Bethesda acknowledges this, as well as advises to not change it).

Hopefully you were not too far in as changing uGrids and loading a save with a different value will not load the game.

Hope this helps

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1410597-skyrim-microstutter/

I get the same issues of a little stutter for no apparent reason.

Have you tried to lower the settings a bit to see if that changes anything?

I don't want to lower any settings that are going to affect the appearance of the game though because I shouldn't have to. You know?


Thanks - but don't a lot of people set ugrids to 7 without any problems? I think most people who mod their game, and have a system that can handle loading details farther away, set it to 7...at least from what I can tell. This is the first time I've heard of it causing problems and the first time I've seen someone recommending it not be done.

I'll try putting it back to 5 though and see...

As tgl mentioned above, increasing the uGrids from 5 to 7 has a big impact on performance and stability. The game engine must run scripts on many more actors in the new cells that are loading (64 cells instead of the default 32 cells with uGrids set to 5). This can be especially problematic if you are using mods that contain additional scripts.

I′d like to add my complaint to yours. I have just installed a new GPU (GTX 650 ti) in order to play Skyrim properly, as it seemed my old GPU (G120) was too weak to move it. To my utter dissapointment the lag and stuttering remain. I have checked with fraps and my fps are way higher than before though. Where I got 20 average now I get past 40. Another additional new problem is that now the stuttering comes accompanied by a nasty crackling noise, which happens in sync with the stuttering.
I see that we are too many experiencing similar issues seemingly related to the last official patch. I say this because I have been able to play with no special problems for almost a year, even with my outdated GPU, untill the release of patch 8.1
Add to my dissapointment the fact that when I let the launcher options to choose config it recommends medium settings, just the same as I got before expending €150 in a new GPU plus €45 in a corresponding new PSU. Is this a joke? (Before you ask I must say that yes, I have tried playing with the recommended settings, with the same crappy effect that I get when upping them manually to high.)
Right now I′m in the process of uninstalling and reinstalling again, for the 4th time in the past three weeks. I suspect it′s not going to work though. It′s time that someone do something about this, isn′t it?
At least I hope I′ll be ready with my new GPU for Rome 2 when it comes at the end of this year

Don't mess with uGrids. I don't know why people still do this.
1080 is your video mode, not your resolution. What is your actual resolution? Try lowering it one step.

You mean you don't want to, right?
Just try reducing one thing at a time and find the best combination of appearances/performance.

What is my actual resolution when I have resolution in game set to 1080? No idea what you're asking me in that case. You mean of my monitor's resolution? It's the same.

And no, it's not that I don't WANT to, it's because I shouldn't HAVE to when I dropped over $1,000 on a PC and am the owner of a GTX680. I'm well over requirements for the game. The game set itself to Ultra when I loaded it up. I wanted to be able to max everything out, stick whatever mods in I want, and forget about it. I wanted to get immersed in Skyrim like never before - not dike around with settings trying to make stutters go away. It's just really disappointing.

Anyway, I did try reducing the game down to medium and then high settings then slowly turned things up and tested as I went. The game appears to be stable on all ultra settings except for "distant object detail" which I need to change from "Ultra" to "High" to make the stuttering stop. The weird thing is I had everything on Ultra (though I couldn't run HD mods without a big performance hit) including distant object detail on a GTX460 with half the CPU power and that stutter did not exist. So, any idea why it does now?

Also I switched ugrids to 5 and then back to 7 and the stutter remains unseen, and with ugrids at 7 I can see farther away into the distance, which I guess is a suitable tradeoff for the distant object detail being on the "high" setting... it is still a mystery to me why I needed to tweak the game to perform better with this system though.

If you haven't already, check out the http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1308114-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide-from-nvidia/ for Skyrim. A lot of useful info so hopefully some of that sheds some light on your game's settings as well as the system itself

Just because you spent x number of dollars on something don't mean a hill of beans, sorry to say. If distant object detail is killing you, try turning down distant object detail and enabling object detail fade. The other big killer on this game is shadows. Turn everything up as high as you want but bump shadows down. See what happens then.
Honestly though, it could just be bad drivers. Try the beta's or roll back to the older version.And once again, 1080 is not your resolution unless your monitor is a perfect square. I believe most 1080p monitors default to 1920x1080 but I'm no expert.

Sorry, yes, that's what I meant. I should have been more specific.

There's a difference between playing on Ultra and pushing the game to its limits with experimental settings. Adding mods is an art at the best of times, you need to carefully balance what makes the game unstable or not. Also, as mentioned uGrids is very experimental and is not an "official" setting, it's basically a given that changing it can and probably will cause performance and stability issues. Anything that's not in the official graphic settings panel should be considered experimental and unsupported, mods included.

The stuttering is a separate problem from low frame rate. You can have a great system, with very high framerate and still have stuttering issue.

Some have reported success in getting rid of stuttering using a utility like MSI Afterburner to cap the frame rate at 59 fps. There are a few other threads about the stuttering issue.

I just recently installed a 2nd GTX 570 and my performance actually decreased. It's visible that the FPS have decreased.

I think this game is CPU limited. For some reason I feel like I can't use all my cores to play this game.

That's true. I've just recently buyed a new Nvidia 670. I was able to install tons of texture improvements, but the small stutters when turning my character stayed. It's obviously related to my i5 core, and I don't even know if a i7 would improve things.

Enable mouse smoothing.
Configure v-sync in the game (is that an option, or is it on by default) ?
Then use the nVidia control panel to force "Adaptive Vsync" for Skyrim.
Install the nVidia 310.70 beta drivers.
Make sure you also have the latest drivers for your motherboard (they control PCIE-bus, audio, etc).

I have a similar setup. gtx680, i5-3570K@4.0Ghz and 8GB of ram.
My game is pretty smooth. But maybe it's subjective ? Anyway, I believe it must be a configuration issue, as your hardware is as fast as you can buy.

I use:
8xMSAA, transparency MSAA, plus I run SMAA (to minimize temporal aliasing).
SSAO (High setting).
Ultra settings.
HR-texture pack.
A bunch of addons, Water, Vurt's flora, but not many other texture packs.
1920x1080.
60 fps in most places. 55 fps on the stairs in Whiterun.

The game is a bit CPU hungry yes, but your i5 should be more than enough. Look here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-benchmark-core-i7-3770k,3181-21.html.

I would follow BootySweat's and Gryz' advice.

There is no Vsync option in Skyrim. There are guides to bypass the default but doing so can lead to wonky behavior beyond graphical appearances.

So you recommend I try an FPS limiter of some sort?