Hello,

Was hoping for some advice - skyrim looks fantastic - just want get rid of some framerate dips around cities/crowded areas.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated (ideal settings etc) - couldn't find a thread with my exact specs:


INTEL Core i7-2600 3.40GHz Quad-Core,8MB Cache w/HT
2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB@823MHz w/PhysX (should I be running SLI for skyrim?)
8GB DDR3 1600MHz

Running nvidia 301.24 beta drivers (frame dips occurred before that upgrade tho)
HD Texture packs (from bethesda - no other mods)


Thanks in advance

Sounds like your rig is almost exactly the same as mine (though I don't run SLI) and the game puts my settings at Ultra. Also plays very smoothly, with consistently high fps - so long as you don't alter Ugrids! Bumping that baby up is a rig-killer... Have you altered any ini settings?

Not sure whether SLI really benefits you in this game - I've read maybe not on the forum. Perhaps someone who has multiple GPU's can advise...? I haven't tried the beta drivers either - I've heard very mixed reviews so far so undecided on that one.

You should be hitting ultra @ 50FPS. It sounds like you may be tweaking your ini too far.

Cool Cool, thanks for fast replies -- I'll try running it without SLI - to see if that eases the drops.

Haven't messed with .ini at all yet (I did briefly for fov but then realized I liked default so rolled back).

If I had to roll back graphics a bit - what would you guys cut first? AA (currently at 4x) - I love the big draw distances so I want to preserve those.
Also running at 1920

I'd go for X2 AA, it's still enough (in my eyes)

I have almost the exact same setup and I run pretty damn smoothly for the most part. I'll list my settings:

Launcher Settings:
Everything is set to Ultra
AA off
AF off
FXAA on
HD Texture Pack Enabled

Nvidia Control Panel Settings:
Force 16x AF (looks better than Skyrims AF)
Everything else is Nvidia Recommended

Ini Settings:
iPresentInterval=0
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
fGrassStartFadeDistance=14000.0000

I also use EVGA Precision X and have my FPS limited to 60, so I don't get screen tearing or stuttering. With all these settings, I average 60 FPS 90% of the time, only dropping when near big cities, but it still remains playable with the FPS drop areas. One thing I refrained from doing for the longest time, but finally made the leap, is overclock my CPU. And I gotta say, it actually took away quite a bit of my FPS drops. If you want to go that route for smoother gameplay and have an aftermarket heatsink, here's a great guide that I used - http://www.overclock.net/t/910467/the-ultimate-sandy-bridge-oc-guide-p67a-ud7-performance-review

Make sure to read everything in that guide carefully, and triple check all settings. Also make sure to get Core Temp and Intel Burn Test to test your OC and make sure it's staying under 80 degrees C, even when stress testing. If once you can run 20 passes with Intel Burn Test while staying under 80 degrees C, then I'd call it stable and then just make sure to check on temps once in awhile. If you have any BSOD issues while testing your OC, look at the bottom of the guide, there's some handy BSOD errors and what they mean. Reference those to find what caused the BSOD and how to reverse it. (for me it was usually voltage settings)

GPU - SLI GTX 560 (301.24 Driver)
CPU - Intel i7 2600k @ 4.5GHz
RAM - 4 GB
Resolution - 1920 x 1080

SLI still disables HDR in skyrim sigh.

I wonder when it's getting some attention.

Don't worry too much about drops in certain areas, like crowded cities. Everybody has that.

Framerates depend on what you see on the screen, and what is in your proximity. The more there is to see, the lower your fps will be. Simple. In some games, the developers put a lot of effort into creating a game where there is always about the same amount of stuff on your screen. The mapmakers get a "budget" for polygons, a budget for graphical effects, a budget for amount and size of textures. This is often done in games called "shooters on rails". You advance through the game over a fixed path. That way, the developers will know exactly what will be in front of you, how many NPCs/enemies there are, and how much power it takes to render it all on your screen. Those "shooter on rails" games can have pretty fixed framerates.

Skryim is different. It is a huge game. An open world game. The developers can not predict where you stand, from which side you approach something. In other words, it is much harder for them to predict what their "budget" is. On top of that, you might install texture packs and mods that alter those numbers significantly.
As a result, the effort to render everything in front of you on your screen is much more variable. And therefor your framerates will be more variable. If you don't want 40-60 fps, but always over 60 fps, then the only way to do it is to disable eyecandy, uninstall texture packs, etc, until your framerate is now 60-90fps. Then it will look like you never drop under 60 fps. But it comes at an expensive. You will trade in eyecandy for extra fps that you often don't even experience (when fps > 60).

E.g. I have a gtx680. (Although with a slower CPU). I kept enabling more and more eyecandy. My fps is usually 60, but in cities it drops to 40-50. And in some places (like when standing at the top of the stairs in Whiterun, looking drop on the tree) it drops to 32 fps. I don't care. I can live with the fps drops, because I know they allow me to enable 8xMSAA, 4xSSA Transparency, very high SSAO, high-res textures, etc. If I wanted constant 60 dps, I'd had to sacrifice some of those. I think it's a reasonable tradeoff.

Hope this helps.

I have a single GTX 560 Ti, but weirdly the launcher recommends "High" settings for me. Despite the fact that ultra is absolutely fine.