Hello,

I'm getting a new video card/power supply tomorrow and God willing I'll be able to install them both and play Skyrim on Ultra. However, I'm curious about how to maximize my performance (FPS) regardless of hardware.

I've been told that saved games can "bloat" and cause system lag. This is from all of the arrows, bodies, junk left on the ground, etc. Essentially, any way that you change the environment. Over time this all causes lag, no?

Last night I "waited" for 11 days in game, and it seemed to help clear some things up and improve my performance.

I'm just confused how sometimes I can play on ultra settings and have decent performance, but other times I'll play on medium and the system will lag out. I've tested it in different settings--inside vs. outside, lots of NPC's vs. few--and I can't get a bead on why my performance varies so often.

Any help?

Thanks!

1.5 should clear up all the arrows and stuff properly so 'lag' and huge savegames are a thing of the past. In any case, it's far better than 1.3 I can tell you that much.
Also regarding your random performance issue, uninstall all the junk you don't need - I'll bet my right leg that you have some sort of crap running in the background that is svcking away your performance.

Also, post specs so this doesn't turn into a guessing thread yet again

Try using gameboost as well - really excellent piece of freeware.

I'd also ask a moderator to change your username from your gmail, everyone isn't always nice!

Good point! There's a ton of crawlers out there just waiting for en email to spam.

Yes indeed - that's a bad move putting that there.

Too late, already sold it to a Korean Viagra spammer

Marts Savegame Debloatifier is a great mod for cleaning up nasty left over bits and bobs in the game. Post your specs so we know what settings to advise

Wow.. I just realized that my email was my username.. Thanks! I'll change this.

The computer is a Dell Inspiron I570, that I had upgraded from the stock model

Specs:

AMD Athlon II
6 gigs DDR 3 Ram
Radeon 5470 GPU
300w Power supply

That's all I can remember at the moment.

I have these on the way:

OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W Modular High Performance Power Supply compatible with Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom

SAPPHIRE AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 PCIE Graphics Card

Thanks!

Your new GPU is ace, I have it and plays all games at high or max settings with great framerates.

Your CPU is still not high end, so you should be aiming for medium to high settings. Keep shadows on low or medium, and see how that goes.

To smooth things out of you feel lag, lower things like actor load distance, things that require CPU power.