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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition PC performance thread

cube001

Member
Well god damn. Standard Australian internet means I will not be playing this tonight. *shakes fist at all that are responsible*

Cheers for the advice guys.

Try checking the integrity of the files first before reinstalling the whole thing, it works most of the time.
 

belmonkey

Member
On 1080p Ultra (Godrays on Low, AA = TAA), my 750 ti seems to push out fps hovering in the 30s and lower 40s in the open world. I could maybe see it dipping below 30 with a lot going on. I really appreciate the shadow and lighting improvements, and I really really look forward to mods pushing well beyond this new baseline, because there's plenty of ugly textures and whatnot to fix. Looks like I'll be needing a new gpu to make use of those mods too.
 

Illucio

Banned
I can mod the f**k out of regular Skyrim with 2k textures, high resolution mods, lighting, and so on on my laptop.

But I can't even run special edition on medium. What even?
 

Sky87

Member
I'm getting some insane tearing even when using a 144hz monitor with Vsync off and FPS capped to 60fps with RTSS. This thing can't run at native refresh rate by default. Will try forcing highest possible with Nvidia Control Panel.

EDIT: Forced refresh rate to highest possible and tearing seems gone.
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
Well great...Game crashes back to desktop and automatically closes for me after starting a new game and the loading screen with the dragon model ends. No error code or anything, just shuts down and closes in steam. Its like the moment it actually transitions from loading to game something goes wrong and the game just quits itself.

I have a top of the line PC and it auto-detected Ultra. Too tired of dealing with shit like this, may just opt for the PS4 version.
 

Atolm

Member
Running Ultra 60fps at 1440p with a 6700k/1080/16GB RAM combo. I'm using somewhat old drivers.

Never played Skyrim so I'm for a treat.
 

SnowTeeth

Banned
Try checking the integrity of the files first before reinstalling the whole thing, it works most of the time.

Yeah did that. No files needed to be re-installed so I've decided to redownload the entire thing again. Not happy, but I've got no choice dammit.

Actually kinda worried that the same thing will happen after the new installation. It's doubtful, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised after my initial experience.
 
Im running this game fine at 1920x1200 Ultra TAA etc.
My pc :
socket 1366 x5670@ 4.42ghz(good old 6 core 12 threads)
sabertooth x58 mobo
12gb 1771mhz corsair ram
sapphire nitro rx480 4gb @ 1400core/1870memory.
samsung 850evo 256b 1tb wd hdd.

Im running an locked 60fps all the time(played around an hour or so).
Only in the opening sequence i had a drop to 40fps.
Looks good, plays good, also not running latest driver but 16.10.2
didnt feel the need to upgrade driver.
 

Elven_Star

Member
How does the performance compare to the modded regular edition? I'm thinking 2K texture pack + ENB. Which one looks better? How do you compare the two looks/performance-wise? Which one is better "optimized"?
 

Maxwood

Oh rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still. Oh lady moon shine down, a little people magic if you will.
Huh.

Whenever I use Rivatuner the Steam Overlay won't show. Which is a bit unfortunate, but it also means i'm unable to configure my Steam Controller during a session. Very annoying.
Dunno if it affects achievements.

I've never encountered this issue before and I alway's use Rivatuner.
Weird.
 

Fret

Member
Are there any comparison images between this and original Skyrim? I'm gonna be honest here, this game has not aged well. It looks about 15 years old, and it runs and plays like absolute garbage. Couldn't bring myself to even finish that terrible intro again

I'm also getting constant stutter, i7 4790k & 1070. Unacceptable. Atleast I got it for free I guess
 

leng jai

Member
Are there any comparison images between this and original Skyrim? I'm gonna be honest here, this game has not aged well. It looks about 15 years old, and it runs and plays like absolute garbage. Couldn't bring myself to even finish that terrible intro again

I'm also getting constant stutter, i7 4790k & 1070. Unacceptable. Atleast I got it for free I guess

The introduction is terrible and looks bad as well since it is essentially interiors and NPCs. Once you get into the open world it looks much much better. It should pretty crazy once all the mods are compatible.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
When are developers going to realise double buffered vsync is okay as an option, but not as the god damn default, with no means of changing it :lol? It's just so dumb.
 

Bod

Neo Member
Are old ENBs and/or Texture packs working?

Some mods like cbbe, apachi hair are working, but most landscape texture mods are working in that they load but because of the new lighting the ground textures have a really bright reflection/ glare
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
How come some games vsync options are just so extremely bad? I get that Double Buffer usually caps at intervals of 15, 30, 45 and 60. But it was locking me to a near locked 30 FPS, but with it off, it never goes under 50, so it should've locked to at least 45, no?

Also lol, in the intro, once you get to the village, the FPS dropped to 30. Disable the depth of field effect and it shoots back up to 50 and I don't even see the DoF missing. Some truly outstanding work there, Bethesda. Also the character textures look terrible, am I just misremembering or did they look better in the original PC release with the texture pack installed? World textures look just as I remember them but gosh those model textures are just awful.
 

lazygecko

Member
Some mods like cbbe are working, but most landscape texture mods are working in that they load but because of the new lighting the ground textures have a really bright reflection/ glare

Wish I had some more details on how the texture handling has changed. In the original Skyrim, you had a diffuse and a normal with the specular being baked into the alpha layer of the normal. The way you describe it with the excessive glare leads me to believe they changed the way the specular map is handled/stored.
 

Caayn

Member
I can't select the monitor this game will run on, where as with Skyrim (and other Bethesda games) you could :( Still no out-of-the-box support for 21:9 resolutions and I can't select 4K either, it max out at 1920x1080.

What is wrong with this version?
 

Olli128

Member
Running this on an i5 4460 and R9 480 8GB, runs at a 60fps with rare dips on ultra. Surprised to see people having issues.

Game looks significantly better to me :) very happy with this release
 

Jellie

Member
Ultra quality at 60fps using a GTX 1060 and i5 6500.
Anyone know how to get mod organisor to recognise special edition files?
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
How come some games vsync options are just so extremely bad? I get that Double Buffer usually caps at intervals of 15, 30, 45 and 60. But it was locking me to a near locked 30 FPS, but with it off, it never goes under 50, so it should've locked to at least 45, no?

Double-buffer vsync divides your refresh rate. Assuming 60Hz, 60fps (60/1) is followed by 30fps (60/2), then 20fps (60/3) and so on.
 
Huh.

Whenever I use Rivatuner the Steam Overlay won't show. Which is a bit unfortunate, but it also means i'm unable to configure my Steam Controller during a session. Very annoying.
Dunno if it affects achievements.

I've never encountered this issue before and I alway's use Rivatuner.
Weird.

Did you update Rivatuner recently? 6.4 is the last version to use Unwinder's "band-aid fix", it's been removed from 6.5 and apparently beyond in an attempt to get Valve to finally fix issues on their end.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=5331062&postcount=42

I ended up going back to 6.4.
 
I have this installed on my laptop ready to play... even though I know my laptop won't be able to make use of any of the new graphic features... I'm not a smart man.
 

dadjumper

Member
Okay, home and tried the game! Solid 60 at 1080p on max, gtx 1070 and i7 6700k @ 4.4. As if good performance was a surprise.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Double-buffer vsync divides your refresh rate. Assuming 60Hz, 60fps (60/1) is followed by 30fps (60/2), then 20fps (60/3) and so on.

Oh, I always thought it it dropped in intervals of 15, the more you know, I guess :p. Makes even less sense to have it as the default option that you can't even turn off without ini tweaks then.

On a separate note, this just just as shit as the original release while making absolutely no sense why it would run like shit. That is, look in a direction, FPS drops to 40, look in another direction with just as much shit going on, FPS jumps to 80.

Also, god damn, TAA does a good job at cleaning out jaggies, but fuck it's almost needed just to tone down the textures, the added blur helps a lot because the textures look over sharpened with it turned off :lol
 

Vex_

Banned
For you guys getting lock 60fps, have you gone to a heavily forested area yet? Try to circle around riverwood.

I wanna see the receipts.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
For you guys getting lock 60fps, have you gone to a heavily forested area yet? Try to circle around riverwood.

I wanna see the receipts.

I managed to get a locked 60... at the lowest settings :lol. The best part is how the game is barely stressing my hardware, GPU utilization is at 40% and CPU sits around an average of 50, with one core reaching 60%. And even then, there are tons of frame pacing issues and to top it off, that's with RTSS running in the background, granted, dropping the cap to 59 solves it almost completely, but still. Game has some issues, I hope they're sorted out.

Edit: Fine, circling around riverwood on low preset (with the in-game fade options pumped up) does dip to 58 FPS at points! It's funny how little a difference I can spot between the high and low presets. Gonna start bumping shit up from here to see what the biggest culprit is when it comes to the FPS just tanking down to the high 30s. They did one thing right though, the game loads *extremely* fast now, so at least tweaking isn't as big a chore as it could have been.

Edit #2: Seems the only setting that has any sort of meaningful impact on framerate is Distant Object Detail and Object Detail Fade. Anything above low drops the framerate to the 40s. Except it doesn't because now I set it back to the low preset and it's dipping to 45 again. I guess the game just rolls a dice everytime you boot it to see what kind of performance you're getting. Also ruled out CPU bottleneck, because my GPU utilization goes all the way up to 98. Good old Bethesda and their good old Gamebryo, I suppose :lol
 

c0Zm1c

Member
For you guys getting lock 60fps, have you gone to a heavily forested area yet? Try to circle around riverwood.

I wanna see the receipts.

I get a little stuttering when I first start the game (I guess from the initial load in?) but after that it seems to stay at 60fps even when running through the forest areas (at least so far!)

I have God rays on low though and shadows on medium. Everything else is maxed.

My test in the old Skyrim was to stand at the top of the steps leading up to Dragonsreach and look out over Whiterun, which tanked the performance on the system I had at the time. This special edition stays at 60fps at the same spot on my current system (i7 3930k, 16GB RAM, GTX 690).
 

ISee

Member
For you guys getting lock 60fps, have you gone to a heavily forested area yet? Try to circle around riverwood.

I wanna see the receipts.

Not quiet sure where you want us to go, but I circled around riverwood now for about 15 minutes and it seems to be fine. GPU doesn't even bother to boost to max clock speed (2050mhz) and CPU load isn't worth mentioning (40% on two cores). But maybe I'm not where you're having problems. If you post a map location, I can try to find it and check it out for you.

skyrimse_2016_10_28_1h4zc8.png
 

Elven_Star

Member
How does the performance compare to the modded regular edition? I'm thinking 2K texture pack + ENB. Which one looks better? How do you compare the two looks/performance-wise? Which one is better "optimized"?
Nobody has done some kind of comparison yet? I find that hard to believe, to be honest.
 
Hey guys, I have the game and all the DLC (Legendary edition) on Steam but don't have the Special Edition yet. Do I need to do anything to get it?
 
I was expecting the worst with my desktop which is not running it's usual RAM

i5-4590
4GB DDR3L-1600 CL11
Asus Strix GTX 970 (stock factory OC)

Might be influenced by system, game, and page file on SSD, but it ran perfectly, seemingly maintaining total smoothness at the autodetected "everything as high as it could get/Ultra" settings. Afterburner GPU usage tends to hover around the 70% mark.

1920x1080 ye olde bog standard 60 Hz display, no external changes, no additional mods. Hmm...

I might go try the game on an Intel HD 4600 and a GTX 760M and see how well/badly they handle. Their AutoDetect settings were Low and High respectively.

Using the last 368 branch drivers
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Hey guys, I have the game and all the DLC (Legendary edition) on Steam but don't have the Special Edition yet. Do I need to do anything to get it?

It'll be added to your account when Valve processes another batch.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Nope, I've no desire to play this game again after I finish my first playthrough cuz it's not Morrowind and Morrowind is a much better TES game and will always be my favorite. I've played this game for years after it came out and I couldn't even finish Slyrim with all of it's story DLCs at least onces after 5 years since launch. That should tell you something. It's better that Oblivion, but nothing more, unfortunately.
So you came to the PC performance thread of the release you have no intention of buying just to tell us you have no intention of buying it???
 

Vex_

Banned
Not quiet sure where you want us to go, but I circled around riverwood now for about 15 minutes and it seems to be fine. GPU doesn't even bother to boost to max clock speed (2050mhz) and CPU load isn't worth mentioning (40% on two cores). But maybe I'm not where you're having problems. If you post a map location, I can try to find it and check it out for you.

Oh no, I didnt spend anytime even downloading it yet. I still have my OG copy. I just figured that would be the earliest area people would be having problems as there is a lot of foliage around riverwood. (also a river, waterfalls, etc etc).

In my experience int he past, that area was a good way to tell early on (at least with ENBs enabled)

EDIT: Markarth is another one. WEW! try that later on.


To everyone with performance issues :

SET GOD RAYS TO LOW


In fallout 4, that was one of the main culprits. Might be the same thing here... Try it, guys.
 

Xcell Miguel

Gold Member
In 1080P I get regular stuttering on Ultra, downsampling from 4K on Ultra I get zero stuttering and a locked 60. WTF?

The GPU may be downclocked by the driver in 1080p as some scenes can be less demanding, try setting the maximum performance mode for Skyrim SE in the driver (assuming you have an Nvidia card).
 
The GPU may be downclocked by the driver in 1080p as some scenes can be less demanding, try setting the maximum performance mode for Skyrim SE in the driver (assuming you have an Nvidia card).

Thanks I've just done that, are there any other settings I can tweak in the control panel, the game looks quite 'flat'.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
Autodetected settings: ultra.

Kicks my gpu to 90 degrees in during the wagon ride, gpu driver resets.

Looks absolute shit compared to my normal ENB settings, which aren't half as taxing.

Thank fuck this was free.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
Video card? Fans? Restarted computer? Driver version?

GTX 780, extra fans, didn't restart my pc, ver 368.81.

I normally run RealVision ENB (with static DOF) + SweetFx + Higher Res Texture Mod + Extended View/Object Distance mod at 1080p Ultra at 50 to 60 fps in the base game.

Edit: Godrays. It was Godrays, turns that shit to low and suddenly the game 's GPU load plummets.
 
nvidia just released its game ready driver for Skyrim SE, version 375.70

So far so good with my GTX 980, playing all settings maxed @ 1080p
 
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