Hello Skyrim forum.

I've been experiencing a weird bug that just started happening after I installed the NVIDIA WHQL drivers today. I also changed Shadows from medium to ultra and turned Ambient Occlusion off (don't like the visual look of AO).

This seems to happen at random for no real reason. I have constant 60 fps outdoors, go into a building and come back out, and suddenly the fps dips to around 30-40. It's really irritating as there was nothing that has changed outdoors to cause the FPS drop. I suspect it is the shadows that are doing this, but why? Why is it that the scene that can be rendered at 60 fps suddenly rendering at 30-40?

If anyone else has this problem, I'd like to know if you have found a fix for it.

Also forgot to note that I am using the beta patch 1.4.26.

Are these the new 295.73 drivers? Have you tried rolling back yet? I'm curious myself because I've been considering these new drivers.

These are the new 295.73 drivers, haven't tried rolling back yet. I'll try it and give an update tomorrow.

EDIT: I figured I might as well list the mods I am using as well.

00 HighResTexturePack01.esp
01 HighResTexturePack02.esp
02 HighResTexturePackFix.esp
03 breezehomelightfix.esp
04 Realistic Lighting.esp
05 Smithing Perks Overhaul - Balanced.esp
06 Weapons and Armor Fixes.esp
07 Weapons and Armor Fixes - Hacks.esp
08 Complete Crafting Overhaul.esp
09 it_better_horses.esp

it maybe the game loading stuff up or processing AI in the background

the engine (The issue) (cpu/mem restricted) needs to feed the graphics cards smoothly with low error timing at near 60FPS, if your CPU's already running into a performance ceiling it's going to cause your CPU to limit your GPU's frame rate, you'll see another performance drop while it calculates AI ect.

best thing to do is lower your shadows/object distance untill you can run a solid 60FPS with LOWEST graphics settings (keep object distance at where it would be at the preset you use). Just after you step though the gate in markarth is a good place to configure it

once you find a balance of shadow quality (drop down box) and object distance (slider) to let you run 60fps

start adding eyecandy settings and up the resolution to your graphics cards ability giving +15% headroom over 60fps for smoothness

Ok, at first try to limit the number of variables a bit.
Revert your graphic settings to what you had before, so it's easier to see if it's the driver, the changes you did to the settings, or a mod.

Decreasing fps might also be caused by the engine loading more stuff in the background, or your vram being filled up (which can be due to shadows on very high).
Increase the settings seperately and check your fps. Or at least set shadows to high instead of very high.

Funny enough. I had this exact same issue prior to 295.73. But now it seems to be fine. Had a 4 hour gaming session and no FPS drop going back into the main world from interior.

Only running High Res Texture pack though.

i had this same problem , and for me i narrowed it down to the Particles setting in the skyrimprefs file it was on 700 for me but i halfed it to 350 so it looks like this


[Particles]
iMaxDesired=350

i haven't had any slow downs when coming in and out of towns or houses into the skyrim world i think its something to do with the fires or misty patches in the game it hits my gcard hard (gtx460 )

Maybe that's your problem right there??

Wouldn't the game be running at 30-40 fps from loading though? My problem is that I have 60 fps one second and 40 fps the next rendering the same scene.

@Compatible1: Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try it out. I'm going to try changing Shadows from ultra to high and see if that alleviates the problem.

Shadows in this game hit harder than most people think. Why the sudden drop? I could come up with a few half baked theories but the easiest thing to do is try lowering them again. Incidentally, I installed those drivers and I'll be darned if I didn't get a small frame drop. I don't know if it's the drivers or if they overwrote a few settings I had tweaked or what.

To the OP:
I have the same problem, with old drivers and still with new drivers. A simple alt-tab out and back in fixes it. No idea what the issue is, but it's annoying.

Turn you shadows back down they will tax you more indoors than out.

Just want to bump up this topic to know if any solution was found. Except constant alt-tab.

Hi guys, it's been a while since I posted in this thread. Lowering the particles worked for me. Might work for others too!

Had the same issue with AMD/ATI rig with (see related post) with even worse frame rates...10-60fps (everything on highest settings)! Frame rate would change on its own with even 50-60fps indoors AND outdoors. Have spent hours trying to remedy the problem. Possible Steam issue? Mods??

Best CCC configuration (so far) has been to turn morph filtering off, use app settings for Tessellation, disable Surface Format Optimazation , enabling Adaptive MSAA and Default mode for CrossfireX 3D applications