For some reason, despite a consistent 45-60 FPS at high+ settings, I observe a lot of stutter in Skyrim. Basically, it looks like the game is running below 30 FPS often despite what FRAPS says. System specs are in my sig. Could this be VRAM limitations, bad AMD graphics drivers, or something else? I'd swear it runs more smoothly at the same settings on my laptop despite it's weaker specs (i7-2820QM, 1.5GB GTX460M) and the lower displayed framerate.

Most common reason for this is that in SkyrimPrefs.ini, bMouseAcceleration (under [Controls]) is set to 1. If this is set to 0 the game runs more smoothly.

Also check you have the right sampling rate on your sound, it can cause stuttering if set wrong.

check out the 64hz stutter fix on the nexus.

Even the smallest amount of searching for your symptoms on this forum would find you a massive amount of info on your fixing this.

For me, I use D3DOverrider's Triple Buffering, MSI Afterburner to frame limit (60 fps limit works for me - others have better results limiting to 58 or 59 fps) and I leave the game's v-sync on.

Some find the simple borderless window mod helps too (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=4), but it didn't for me.

xTx