Hello,

So, I've been playing Skyrim for quite a while and its always run smoothly on the highest settings. However, after not playing the game for a while, I went back to play it and it runs completely choppy, to the point of being unplayable. At first I thought it was due to the HR skin mod that steam automatically adds, so I disabled it. It didn't work, so I deleted the pack just to be sure, and it still didn't work. I even turned the graphics all the way to the lowest settings and the game is as choppy as ever. Literally no improvement. I'm kind of baffled as to what happened. I know my computer can run it easily as it used to, and it can run games like BF 3 on ultra. However, Skyrim, even on the lowest settings is unbearably choppy. I've verified the game cache on steam, reinstalled, the whole nine yards, but still nothing works. Anyone know whats going on?


System: Windows 7 Professional 64 bit.
Video Card: Nvidia Geforce GTX 560M.
Processor: Intel Core i7-2630QM 2.00 GHz
RAM: 8 GB

Please let me know if you need to know anything else.

Thanks.

The first thing I'd check is to see if any apps are using CPU cycles. An easy check is to download http://alcpu.com/CoreTemp/. It's a relatively small app that, in addition to displaying the temperature of each core, will show the load as a percentage. With your machine idle and at desktop, you should be getting no more than a few percent on each core. If you're getting numbers like 15 to 20 or higher, you should investigate.

Ok, the percentages seem to be fine. All within 5%.

I am having the same issue! It ran beautifully until recently. I've tried all the fixes I can find and nothing is changing the smoothness. It is so choppy!

These are the quick and easy checks I'm giving you, just so you know.

Start the game and do a 24 hour rest, three consecutive times. This should remove all the "clutter"...dead bodies, looted chests, etc...from your save. See if things improve.

If not, access the Data File menu in the launcher and deselect any mods you may have and start a new character. See if it's any better.

I understand that they're just quick checks. Anyway, neither worked. Still choppy though I did notice that being indoors makes the game slightly less choppy. When I'm indoors it seems almost more jittery if that makes any sense. Like the choppiness occurs quicker.

Well, you've reached the end of my rope. You'll have to wait until some more informed members come on board. Sorry I haven't been able to help.

That's ok, thanks for trying.

Yeah, I tried it too with the same results. I thought it worked at first because I got up to 44 fps, but it quickly dropped back to 20-25 and got choppy.
My specs are different as well...

windows 7 home premium 64 bit
ATI Radeon HD 5570
Intel Core i7 CPU 860 @ 2.8 GHz
8 GB of RAM

Did you get better framerates indoors too? I almost wonder if its a rendering issue, but I really have no idea.

Yeah, it seems it has gone up slightly, but really not much. It seems so random because it was working so well recently.

Not sure if anyone is still looking at this post but I figured it out. Turns out my computer was trying to run the game using integrated graphics instead of my 560M. Switched it over to the 560M and it runs beautifully on ultra. Just in case anyone else was having this problem.