Hi,

So while playing skyrim I will notice game slowdowns every so often. It happens when I go from an interior cell to an exterior cell, it seems to happen every hour or so. Does not always happen and seems to be completely random expect it only occurs when I go from inside to outside, randomly. I get an average of 60fps but when this occurs my average goes down to 30.

I can fix this by alt tabbing and then alt tabbing back into the game, when I alt tab back into the game my frames go back to 60 fps. (all data w/ Afterburner) Temps never go above 65 degrees in this game.

Ill tell you what I have tried. I tried to wait it out, just kept playing to see if it would go away, it does not. I have also tried the PCB command to clear the cell buffer. Has no affect.

My specs are as follows:
i7 2600k @stock
8 gb DDR3 1866
EVGA GTX 570 850/1700/1902 OC
Running the 290.53 Beta Drivers
HX1050 psu

Game is maxed out with 4xAA (in game) 16xAF(control panel), vsync, and AO with control panel @1920x1080
Im running the HD DLC, skyrim HD, Sky UI (SKSE), and a few misc texture and armor mods.

Anyone have this issue or know any solutions?

Well, if i'm not mistaken, most players with anything less that 2.0GB* of VRAM on their GPU and use the HD DLC, do have this issue. It has been discussed eversince it came out. However:

The DLC is known to have various misnamed folders and files. The http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=8236 fixes most of them and hopefully, it should improve your situation.

Another thing to try (although I'm not sure how much it helps and the exact manner it does it), would be to backup your skyrim.ini and add the DLC .bsa filenames, along with the fix's filename, under the [Archive] section. Like this:

[Archive]sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, HighResTexturePack01.bsa, HighResTexturePack02.bsa, HighResTexturePackFix.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsasResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - Voicesixtra.bsa

You'll have to disable the corresponding .esps from the data section of the Skyrim launcher, or NMM (if you use it)

I also assume you're playing on Ultra settings. Set Decal Quantity to "High", Radial Blur to "Low" (it's still pretty) and Distant Object Detail to "High".

As you saw above, the DLC comes in 2 pairs of bsa/esp: Pack 01, which contains armor/weapons/effects and Pack02, containing all the rest. So, if everything of the above fails, you might want to disable the one you could live without.


*I'm saying this because Skyrim, with the DLC enabled, can and will jump to 1.7-1.8GB of required VRAM. If it doesn't find it on your card, it'll start asking for swap space and this is where hard drive thrashing starts, which is most propably, the main cause of your slowdowns. You have 1.28 on yours, others have 1.53 and I don't even know if there's a card with 1.8.

Same issue, no solution other then Alt/Tab. It's a Skyrim bug which is still there. It has been from the start, so it has nothing to do with the HD Texture pack.
But it's indeed a videocard memory issue. There was some testing in other threats about this issue and they did see a full memory when the slowdown started and after Alt/Tab it was flushed and the game did run smooth again.

Thanks, Ill try the BSA thing for the heck of it. Although I installed the pack by extracting all the textures from the bsas because of archive issues with skyrim HD. Other than that it sounds like skyrim is keeping textures in memory too long. But we'll see. Maybe a patch will fix this, maybe a driver, maybe Ill lower a few settings and see if it helps.

I have the issue as well and it pre-dates the hd texture pack. Games runs fine indoors, drops to 30 and choppy outdoors. I haven't tried the alt-tab trick yet.