Hi, I recently purchased Skyrim and even after starting I'm seeing some performance problems.

My setup is:

Intel? Core?2 Duo CPU E7500 @ 2.93GHz
5.00 GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD 7750 1GB DDR5

All drivers are up to date. I'm running it 1680x1050, 2AA, 8AF. High quality settings. The settings in CCC use application settings. I've disabled vsync via the .ini file.

Typically it drops from around 35 down to 22fps in the beginning scenes, which is frustrating seeing as this rig posted below from a youtube video is running with a worse cpu and gpu on considerably higher fps on high settings. There are many drops but inside it sticks at about 50-60


intel E5400 Dual-Core @ 2.7ghz
4gb DDR2 ram 800mhz
Ati HD 5670 GDDR5 512mb
Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit
1680x1050 LCD Monitor; playing @ same resolution


Can anyone suggest where the problem may lie or what I should do?


Many thanks.

So you have the latest Catalyst driver version 12.4? I had a lot of fps issues with that driver and that's why I went back to 12.3. Seems that this is not happening to everyone though, but it's one possibility. Here's more discussion about this topic:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1368865-amd-driver-catalyst-discussion-merged-similar-topics/

Buy a Nvidia. Personally, I am saving for a 680 4gb and a new PSU. AMD drivers have been consistent garbage for this game and many others. And trying to find the right one to get decent at best performance is a painful task with loads of different opinions and trials and errors and reboots and gutting and cleaning and cursing and slamming keyboards and rebooting again and on and on and on...

As soon as I get a 680, I am setting my 2 6870's on fire. Not going to bother selling them or giving them away because I don't want to burden anyone with the AMD curse. Just spitting on them, dousing them with lighter fluid, and torching them.

But yeah, try the 12.3 drivers or something. 12.1 unofficial drivers get praise a lot too (or was it 12.2 unofficial?).

God luck and good speed.

Thanks for your responses. Yeah I have version 12.4, and it's certainly not the fault of my cpu, as I set everything to low with AA and AF off and it STILL persisted. I'll try doing that driver rollback. If possible I'd really not like to have to reinvest in a new card.

I'll let you know how I get on.

I think that performance isn't much different from what you can expect with that hardware.
People like to exaggerate the performance they get on their hardware. Or only look at the high numbers, not the low numbers. So don't let them talk you down.

I used to have a gtx260 until recently. That was a 4 year old card. But still it is slightly faster than your 5770.
See this general comparison.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/318?vs=296

And I have a E8500 cpu (3.1GHz). Slightly faster than yours. And yours has half the cache.
So both my cpu and videocard were slightly faster than yours. And I didn't get much higher framerates than you.

I was getting 25 fps on the stairs in Whiterun. Looking down on the city, and the tree in particular. This is a spot/view that is taxing on our framerates. Still it felt pretty fluent. Outside the cities, and in dungeon, my framerates were higher, say 30-60. Only in a few places, Markath and Riften, my framerates were even lower than in Whiterun. I remember other players with similar hardware reporting similar numbers. Note, this was after the patch with the cpu/compiler-optimizations. Before that patch, I had only 18 fps on the stairs in Whiterun.

End of March I bought a gtx680. I'm very happy with it. Framerates gone up quite a bit. But pure framerates are kept low by my CPU. However, I could enable a lot more eyecandy, without my framerates dropping much. So now I run 8xMSAA, 4xSSAA transparency, very high SSAO, high-res texture pack, and a whole bunch of addons.

The gtx680 was pretty expensive (500 euros). But my gtx260 was 3.5 years old, and had done its job. This week I ordered a new CPU (i5-3570k +mobo+ram). My CPU was more than 4 years old. Time to upgrade, if you want to play new and demanding games with lots of eyecandy. Last week nVidia has announced their new gtx670 videocard. Only 5-10% slower than a gtx680, but 20% cheaper (expected price 400 dollars/euros, I believe). That might be a good investment for any gamer that is not on a tight budget.

AA and AF are both done by the GPU. The CPU has no impact on performance with respect to AA and AF. BTW, AF is relatively cheap, almost everybody can do 16xAF without any penalty. AA is a different story (that can be very taxing, depending on which mode you enable).

Sorry, I was referring to another rig there, my one is above with an ATI 7750 1GB. As for the driver rollback the problem still persists on 12.3, what should I do now? Totally clueless. The frame rate drops when I turn, and conistently stutters.

What exactly is the problem? if you are refering to the opening cinematic cart sequence then a lot of people get stuttering & framerate drops there, I suffer from it in the opening scene but everything smooths out once i'm in control of my character.

I re-read your post & still cannot understand what other problems you have with performance that are not linked to your hardware specification, On an E7500 with 3Mb of cache you will find it very difficult to get a smooth experience even on low settings especially since the 1.5 update, Both cores will be hammered to death leaving nothing in reserve & even worse as it's at stock speed.

I don't think it's AMD driver related but i would like to know more about the issues you are having, If you are having drops in the opening scene but are seeing 50-60 fps indoors after that scene then there is nothing wrong.

Do you have the high-res texture pack installed ? 1GB vram is probably not enough. When the game needs to use more vram than your card has, you will get stuttering and framerate-drops.

There are utilities that allow you to look at your vram usage. I have a nvidia card, so I am not sure which utility would be best. I think GPU-Z will allow you to see your vram usage (when alt-tabbed). Other utilities might be able to show you in overlay. I'm sure someone else can advice you here.

If indeed your game uses more than 1 GB vram, then you need to disable the high-res texture pack. That can be easily done with the Launcher.

Unfortunately the 7750 is a pretty weak card for gaming, benchmarks with that card running skyrim on high settings suggest 30fps if your lucky.

MoggyW its about 60 fps inside, and turning reduces it dramatically. I've even ran it on the lowest settings full resolution and the problem still occurs when turning. No high-res pack is installed. The only thing I don't understand is that I've seen videos of people with worse CPUs and GPUs than me, running it much smoother. Should I invest in a better card? i.e. 550ti? I'm just concious of this problem happening again

Also, the E5400 rig I mentioned has even less cache than me at 2MB, and he's getting really smooth gameplay at high, which really confuses the heck out of me.

Have you tried running it with FXAA instead of 2xAA? alternatively try running Skyrim without any AA & see if that improves it, Drops & stuttering while turning can be an indication of low VRAM but an interior scene without the official HD pack should use no more than 600-700 of VRAM so i'm sceptical about that.

As for upgrading the 7750, The more pressing issue is the E7500 & the LGA775 socket design, Both of which are on the ragged edge of not being able to offer playable performance at 1680 x 1050 & really need upgrading before you even consider a new GPU.

Yes I've tried running it with FXAA, no difference at all. So does the E5400 have similar socket design or better?

I disagree.
I play Skyrim on a E8500 (which is an equally old CPU, but slightly faster, and with more cache). I agree it is far from optimal. But it is still fast enough to drive my new gtx680 at 1920x1200. True, if I set all eyecandy to low, my average framerate still isn't a constant 60. More like going between 40 and 60. But I can keep enabling more and more eyecandy. While my framerates stay in that same range.

I can go from 0xAA, 0xAF, no high-res texture pack, no SSAO, no transparency AA, high settings, at 40 fps, and then enable 8xMSAA, 4xSSAA transparency, very high SSAO, high-res texture pack, ultra settings, and my fps drops only from 40-60 to 35-60. All the work is done by the GPU. The CPU is holding back the videocard, indeed. But not enough to not make Skyrim very playable.

That being said, my new i5-3570K cpu will be arriving tomorrow !

Of course it is good to balance cpu and videocard. But if you have to pick one where you invest money, I suggest gamers to invest in their videocards first. You will get way more bang (framerates) for your buck.

The E5400 is a budget dual core CPU that uses the same socket type, It's a tad slower than the E7500 & used to be able to run the newer games, I've had an E5400 in a budget gaming rig & my daughter used an E7300 which is similar to yours, Both would be capable of running Skyrim using a lower res than 1680 x 1050 and both of mine had the plums overclocked off of them, The fact is that these CPU's will be monstered by a game of Skyrims ilk, Skyrim is a CPU intensive game & the only CPU's capable of stomping through it are the sandybridges, My 1090T 6 core when overclocked does a good job but still has it's moments in intensive CPU hotspots, Markarth being a good example.

I'm not sure what to say, It could well be a graphics issue but you cannot expect decent performance from an older dual core CPU, There will have to be sacrifices made & in certain areas the game will perform terribly, Have you tried using 1400 x 900 or 1280 x 1280?

Both the E7500 and the E5400 are from the same generation of CPUs. And they both require a socket 755 socket motherboard.

A quick google revealed this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu,2466-6.html

The E7500 is considered 3 ranks above the E5400. (Which is logical, if only you would look at the numbers themselves).
The E7500 is thrown in the same rank as the E8400, which people considered an excellent gaming CPU for a long time.

Not entirely true. His CPU is considered low end, especially for CPU intensive games like Skyrim, A new GFX card would likely just bottleneck the CPU and may not give any FPS boost at all.

The very fact that he can lower his settings without gaining FPS suggests that his CPU is already bottlenecked.

I think Lizarious is right, I tried full high settings with an fps of about 55 indoors, and every now and then it drops 10 fps. But still, how does that account for the smooth gameplay the E5400 is getting?

I'm having the exact same issue regarding the frame drops when moving in the exterior.

With no mods and the lowest possible settings I'm getting 60 FPS (of course) but it looks and feels like I'm getting less than 5 when I'm moving.

ATI Radeon 5770
AMD Phenom II Black Edition (6x 3.3GHz)
8GB DDR3 RAM
W7 Ultimate x64
1920x1080 resolution.

That's interesting, so maybe the drivers are to blame? Which version of CCC are you running?

Whatever the newest is.

Have you just got it or has it happened after a recent update?

I disagree here. I was running Skyrim on a older system using an E6600 stock, 4GB of DDR2 800 ram, and a GTX260. It ran rather well on near maxed settings.

Currently i am running with a i5 2300 @ 2.9GHz, 16GB DDR3 1600 ram, and the same GTX260, maxed out and getting about 30-40FPS average,

Ah, so what should I do? Get an equivalent Nvidia GPU?

The 5770 is 4 years old. If money isn't an issue, upgrading to a new videocard could be a good investment. As I said before, if you have limited budget, it's better to invest your money in a videocard. You can get a decent videocard for $200 (e.g. an nVidia gtx560ti). Or a great one for a lot more (e.g. the new gtx670 for ~$400 will be a very good choice). Those cards will give you higher framerates, and will allow you to use more eyecandy. I think the gtx560ti is a decent match for your system. The gtx670 might be held back a bit too much by your system. You can always buy a new CPU (+mobo+ram) next year or whenever you feel like it.

You could buy an ATI card in stead of an nVidia card. But from what I've read, they seem to have a bit more issues with certain games than nVidia card. For pure price/performance, I don't think there's much difference between the 2 brands. Except that in some games, one brand runs better than the other. E.g. I think nVidia cards have slightly better framerates in Skyrim that AMD card. On the other hand, AMD card tend to have a bit more vram. And thus if you run Skyrim with lots of addons, texture packs, high resolution, etc, then an AMD card (with more vram) might be better. It depends ....

Of course, if money isn't an issue, then buying a new CPU, motherboard, ram and videocard would give the best results. Easy. But it would set you back $220 for an i5-3570K, $100 for a z77 motherboard, $50 for 8GB of ram, and either $200 for a gtx560ti, or $400 for a gtx670. That's $600-$800, but you would have an awesome gaming system that would again last a couple of years.

But if I were you, I'd try to see if I could fix that problem first. That would save you some money.
Get GPU-Z.
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/
Start GPU-Z. Start the task manager (performance tab to watch cpu usage). Play Skyrim. Alt-tab. What is your CPU usage ? GPU usage ? Ram and vram ? (Check 2nd tab (sensors) in GPU-Z for vram and gpu usage).
I am sure there are better tools (I used nvidia inspector before, but I bet that doesn't work with AMD cards).