I get 30-60 FPS running on Ultra and STEP (Skyrim Total Enhancement Project) configuration. Often when I change zones, however (usually leaving a building/dungeon,) it drops to 8-10 FPS and becomes almost unplayable.

I have found that Alt+Tabbing or restarting the game will restore me to 30-60 FPS depending on location... but it's really ruining immersion, and the game occasionally crashes when Alt+Tabbing. I've searched and it seems a few other people had the same problems, but most of those had no resolution, or it didn't apply to me. My specs are:

AMD Phenom 9750 (x4) 2.4Ghz
Geforce 560ti (1gb) / 290.53 driver
8 Gb DDR2 RAM
Vista x64 Home Premium

I have tried: Skyboost, TESVAL, FPS Booster V1.1 - which seem to help my top-end FPS, but don't stop the major drops. Overclocking my video card a ton (no change,) Of course ENB9 Anti-Freeze (part of STEP recommendations.) And even Low settings without Mods don't significantly help the problem (maybe a little.) I also tried disabling a few cores, setting process priority to High. Probably tried other things too that I've forgotten... have been trying to fix this since mid-December and it's making me pull my hair out. It might be my imagination, but it seems to be getting worse... originally it was mostly when exiting places like Dragonsreach or Labyrianthian, and now it seems to slow when exiting about anything.

Since it will run any area at 30-60 FPS after Alt+Tabbing, I really don't think it's my hardware. I do have parts to build a PC with a slightly better processor, but that would mean disabling the current PC, installing and reconfiguring Windows and Skyrim... and I'm not at all sure it will fix the problem.

I would be soooo grateful if anyone could help me figure out what is wrong.

Tried running in borderless window mode?

Keep shadows on high and don't use Ultra. I've had this issue and it was directly related some shadow tweaks I used.

You are a GENIUS!!! It nearly fixed my problem... instead of dropping to 8-10 FPS it now drops to 15-20. Still puzzling but it's much more playable, and you put me on the right track. I never would've guessed shadows. I will experiment and see if lowering them further fixes it. Thank you so much!


Hmm, no... I'll try that too, thanks!

Until you find a solid fix, instead of alt-tabbing or restarting the game, just bring up the console and type pcb, then press enter.

Should give you the same effect