For days I've been wrestling with my game with a couple of mods (some ENB related), and I was experiencing stuttering...odd 'pulling' and stutters that had no adverse affect on fps, but happened at predictable times (when moving sideways, or when moving at the floor...any activity that was looking at alot of hi-res textures with complex shadows and really taxing my CPU). This stuttering was not happening a week ago.

Then, I slapped my forehead....HARD.

I forgot I had updated my Nvidia drivers to the new beta. And as with ATI drivers, a whole new lot of High Definition Audio devices appear in my Windows Device Manager...devices that need to be disabled (NOT deleted), or else they simply piggy-back my main audio device (an external USB one) and bring my CPU to its knees. This one time, I forgot this step, and I feel stupid for wasting hours fiddling with every other setting to try and fix my stutter. Stuttering = gone.

I've heard many have micro-stuttering also, so hopefully this may help some.

Huh?...What?...leaves to go have a look....never knew this....

Edit:. After digging around I recall this..before, I always used a Modified driver(XtreamG) and used the custom install, always unticed the "HD audio driver" and the "3 d vision Driver" But right now (for Skyrim) I am using the Official 290 driver. During the install I had gone thru the Custom section, but let all programs install. SO yes I did have 4 extra HD Audio devices in the "device manager"under Audio.

Thank you for the reminder. Both programs are UN-Installed . You can un-install the HD audio and 3 d vision while leaving your Video driver installed. Just did that. Took 2 restarts but worked the charm!

Thanks again....

Runs off to Play----------->

Just choose not to install the High Def audio drivers whenever you run a new GPU driver package. I assume it's providing drivers for the HDMI output that many cards have nowadays, but since I never use HDMI output I've never had any reason to install them.

Ya, you would think that would work, but what often happens is that after you re-boot your computer, it may install those drivers anyways (happens often enough for me) when it searches for the "new" device. This shouldn't happen, but...so I have found that my workaround is to let the things install, DON'T delete them, simply disable them, and Bob's your uncle.

^ just occurs because the hardware itself is detected by Windows so it loads drivers for them. Any number of posts all over the web for a long time can be referenced on the issue. Not sure if it's worse, better or same for ATI but certainly a long standing issue with nVidia. Disable is the answer, leaving the drivers in place but operation disabled.

So does doing this improve performance for anyone else?

it helped me disabling the nvidia hd audio drivers, but that's after i had to tweak some .ini to have my game running at 60 fps

Specially if you have more than 1 video card.... and your not using it...

it's always best to go into the device manager and DISABLE the audio devices your not using and likely never going to use.

There is a glitch that occurs with both NVidia and ati.. in which sometimes even with just one video card.. that the audio portion of the card will cause windows to stop responding periodically, things seem to go wrong fast if you attempt to open the sound control panel or try to select a different audio device using a program that allows you to choose, like powerDVD for instance.

Also if you happen to use the HDMI out.. but have no need for the audio out portion, this can bring it forward fast. For example i use on my eyefinity setup, one of the HDMI outs, just because it's easier.... plugged into the monitor using the HDMI in on it, and the monitor has speakers..... but i don't use them obviously.

I've noticed less issues overall if you just disable the HDMI devices.

I highly recommend installing the HDMI audio driver when you install the video drivers.. .just disable them afterwards.

Oh and leaving the drivers out, still causes an issue... the audio driver actually tones down the issue a little bit imo.

Sheesh...kudos for this.

I will try this tonight. Fingers crossed with single ATI card. I know for a fact the HDMI drivers are installed.

I'm still skeptical that this isn't another placebo fix. But I want to believe!

I have latest Beta drivers but there aren't these audio devices in Device Manager. Only the normal Realtek.

I hope it helps you. This driver issue is as old as the hills...where you REALLY see this effect is in a CPU-intensive game, like Civ V or a Total War game. De-activating those extra devices is step #1 in the glitch tech-help sections of forums for those games. I doubt it has as much impact on Skyrim, but it did for me to a noticeable degree.

Unfortunately disabling the driver hasn't fixed the Stuttering Issue for myself. I've been unable to play the game for ~2 weeks now as, well, it's unplayable.

Patch 1.3 didn't offer any solution to fixing this issue either. Starting to give up with finding a solution.

My PC sound's stuttering is very predictable. If I play more than 2 hours non stop, it will happen regardless where I was, until I quit to desk top then reload. It's annoying nonetheless. So I load up process hacker and a bunch of developer's monitor tools to see what's going on. Everything looks cool, nothing abnormal as reported such as high CPU's activities, high temperatures on CPUs, videos, hard disk activities, memories etc and the stuttering problem just suddenly disappears. I figure out the reason it's not happening anymore because I have to run in Window mode to monitor the game so I play in Window mode in max resolution (1920x1200) to test my theory. Sound stuttering never happens again. My PC spec is Vista 64, Phenom II 6 cores, 8 GB memory, GTX 560 and all newest driver possible. If you used Realtek Audio device, you also need to update the driver. It noticeably minimizes the stuttering problem but not getting rid of it. In my case, playing in Window mode does. And I doesn't have to disable anything.

I found and disabled an AMD HD Audio driver in my device manager and then checked my game. it didn't completely solve the problem, but it's definitely improved. Thanks.

Now this is a productive thread. I came here specifically looking for a microstutter fix and I think it actually worked. The stutter isn't gone completely but it's much better. Especially outside. Also, I could be going crazy but I think this fixed the low volume issue for me as well. The game sounds alot louder. It never occured to me that this would cause an issue. Thank you! Well played.

Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump!!!

This works wonders!!!

I've been struggling with stuttering on my ATI HD4870, not when the frame rate dropped below 30, but during the times when I was getting max/60 fps. In other words, the times when the game should be running its smoothest were the times when I was getting the worst stuttering. Mostly noticeable in dungeons or while strafing/circle strafing. Also happened sometimes outdoors and in towns although I don't see 60 fps that often in those scenarios.

Anyway, disabling the AMD High Definition Audio Device completely fixed this issue! I don't know how, and I don't know why, and I don't really care! It just works! I've done countless searches and tried a variety of different things to no avail, but this right here did the trick.

So thank you OP for sharing this fix! That stuttering was driving me crazy...between this and Skyboost, I've got a much more smooth and enjoyable Skyrim experience!

glad it worked out mate! The reason this works for some people is that if you are pushing the game to the utmost limit of your cpu, the multiple audio devices all being active eating up valuable processing power is enough to push you into stutter-ville. Learned this from a guy named Irishron at twcenter.net a few years ago.

I tried this as well. And while it doesn't completely take away the stuttering, it does definitely improve it. The only time i would notice the stuttering is when i was in a high fps area and looking at the ground; i.e a cave or inside. Bugged me for the longest time and couldnt figure out why it was stuttering. Thank you for sharing this!

If you add certain hi-performance mods (hi res textures, ENB etc), crank your AA higher, increase your fov, or use crossfire/SLI, you may still have micro-stutters in some areas, or get new ones as you push your cpu and gpu even after fixing the audio devices issue. Micro-stutters is a multi-headed monster with often more than one cause at a time. Like playing whack-a-mole, you hit it in one place but can appear in another. I don't think you ever get rid of micro-stutters, I think you can only find ways to cover it up or give yourself so much headroom your system can deal with it. Bigbaddaddy has put up a good compilation of fixes for bugs and there you'll find more details.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1329260-b1gbaddaddys-big-post-of-fixes-and-tweaks/