Question regarding what components effect which aspect of gaming?

[Joey Martin]

Hello,

So recently I have been adding a bunch of mods to my Skyrim game as I would like to play it again but I've already played the crap out of it in its original form. My game currently locks in around 52 FPS and won't component would be causing this? My initial instinct was that it was the CPU since its having to process all those extra entities. Is this correct? I plan on upgrading to a 980ti at the end of this year and am looking into possibly upgrading my CPU as well. Would upgrading my CPU provide higher framerates in this situation? I know usually CPU upgrades only provide a few frames but clearly this is a special situation that is bringing my computer down to a crawl. Also, if i were to upgrade my CPU, what would be the best CPU to upgrade to? I would prefer to stay on the LGA1150 platform so I don't have to buy a new motherboard as well, unless I could make huge gains by switching to a specific CPU on a different socket.

I have done some monitoring in and out of these high density modded areas and have noticed that my CPU usage jumps around from 60-90% usage, maybe occasionally spiking to almost 100 when I am looking around rapidly. This is initially why I suspect this could be the bottleneck. Is there a way to measure GPU usage? Currently I can only observe via EVGA Precision X that the fans ramp up to 80-90% speed. My ram sits around 6.9 GB usage so even though I play on expanding to 16GB as well, I don't think this is the issue.

My build:
CPU: Intel i5 4670 k
Motherboard: ASUS Gryphon Z97 LGA1150 DDR3 mATX
RAM: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR
Boot Drive: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 60GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Main Drive Currently Being Used For Skyrim: Western Digital WD10EZEX 1TB 7200RPM 64MB CacheSATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
PSU: Cooler Master i600 - 600W Power Supply with 80 PLUS Bronze
GPU:EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card

Any help, insight, explanation, or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

 

[Archgaull]

What mods do you have installed? It would help to use a program like modwatch.

I can tell you that there might be a setting giving you some issues, as my 4690K and GTX 750ti can run Skyrim on ultra with several graphical mods no problem.

 

[Joey Martin]

Is there any way to quickly export the list of my mods? I have 116 currently installed through NMM and it would be very tedious to type those all up ha.

 

[Archgaull]

Modwatch is my suggestion, you can download it through the nexus website, and it has instructions on what to do from there.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/56640

 

[Joey Martin]

I couldn't really get modwatch to work as I wasn't sure which ini file it was addressing so here is the list:
Skyrim.esm
Update.esm
Dawnguard.esm
HearthFires.esm
Dragonborn.esm
ClimatesOfTamriel.esm
AOM.esm
ApachiiHair.esm
moonpath.esm
LevelersTower.esm
AmethystHollowsMaster.esm
RiverHelm.esm
MagicDuel.esm
HighResTexturePack01.esp
HighResTexturePack02.esp
HighResTexturePack03.esp
immersive roads.esp
SkyFalls + SkyMills.esp
SDO Full-LOD - Waterfall Effects.esp
Skyrim Flora Overhaul.esp
Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Major City Interiors.esp
RealisticWaterTwo.esp
Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Major City Exteriors.esp
SDO Full-LOD - The Morthal Swamp Light.esp
fallentreebridges.esp
SDO Full-LOD - Whiterun Trundra Creeks.esp
SDO Full-LOD - Giant Campfires.esp
Watercolor_for_ENB_RWT.esp
Skyrim Particle Patch for ENB - Flame Atronach Fix.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Dragonborn-Patch.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Dawnguard-Patch.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Sound.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Sound-Dawnguard-Patch.esp
CoT-WeatherPatch.esp
TrueStorms.esp
TrueStorms-CoT-WeatherPatch.esp
Supreme Storms - Cot Version.esp
CoT-WeatherPatch_Snow-40.esp
CoT-WeatherPatch_SupStorms.esp
CoT-WeatherPatch_NL3.esp
CoT-WeatherPatch_DB.esp
TrueStorms-SupremeStorms-CoT.esp
mintylightningmod.esp
MintyLightningMod_COT_Patch.esp
Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Minor Cities and Town Interiors.esp
Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Dungeons.esp
Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Dawnguard Interiors.esp
Purewaters.esp
SMIM-Merged-All.esp
dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp
dD-Dragonborn-Dawnguard-EBT Patch.esp
DeadlySpellImpacts.esp
SkyUI.esp
Tytanis.esp
AOM.esp
isilNarsil.esp
Orlong's Hearth vdot9.esp
Whiterun Ferns.esp
BlackSacramentArmor.esp
BlackSacramentDBReplacer.esp
BetterRiften.esp
Cloaks - Dawnguard.esp
Dragon Falls Manor.esp
VariousGuardReplacer.esp
moonpath_questdata.esp
BetterQuestObjectives.esp
Blink - Standalone.esp
elvenwood.esp
armored-horses.esp
Phenderix's Magic Evolved.esp
Elementalist.esp
UFO - Dawnguard AddOn.esp
UFO - Heartfire AddOn.esp
UFO - Ultimate Follower Overhaul.esp
Uncle Sheo.esp
WheezesDungeonPack1.esp
AmazingFollowerTweaks.esp
dovahkiinrelax.esp
DragonsDiversified.esp
hobbithouse.esp
Nirn Falls Manor.esp
RiversideLodge.esp
Apocalypse - The Spell Package.esp
Dr_Bandolier.esp
Chesko_WearableLantern.esp
AmethystHollowsUpdate.esp
BecomeKingOfRiverHelm.esp
BFFAnimalCompanions.esp
ribeable-broom.esp
SoS - Civilization.esp
SoS - The Dungeons.esp
SoS - The Wilds.esp
TAVESolitude.esp
WhiterunREVISION.esp
WhiterunFortified.esp
RRBetterWhiterunInt.esp

 

[Archgaull]

It looks like you're running a ENB like Realvision. If it is, make sure you're editing ALL the ini settings it tells you to. I made the mistake of not doing that once, and one line in the ini settings tanked my FPS from 60 to 15. Once I set it up properly, it went right back up to 60.

One question I should probably ask is if this occurs with no mods at all?

 

[Joey Martin]

Yes it is the realvision enb and I followed the instructions on this page exactly, changing all settings:
www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30936/?tab=1&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D30936%26preview%3D&pUp=1

And yes it would have been smart to benchmark this without all these mods...but I sadly did not think to do this..It's really only one mod in one area that causes this low 20-30. It is the 7K Better Whiterun - City Under Construction - BETA mod. (This is not counting some custom player homes as some of them take it to the extreme with items and its nearly unplayable inside some of them) I maintain 50ish fps when this mod is off. The 50 fps is completely playable for me. I only ask this as although this is way in the future I would reallly like to be able to play this modded skyrim with the oculus rift when it comes out next spring. I know I will need high fps (higher than 52) for this to work and I plan on upgrading my computer this Christmas season in preparation for this rift. I ran GPU shark and took screenshots of the results along with task manager and evga precision x (sorry theyre actual pictures and not screenshots, I couldn't take a 3 screen screenshot when in the game)
When running around and looking around quickly in this dense area (where I get the 20-30fps) I was getting results like this: https://drive.google...iew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google...iew?usp=sharing

I am not sure how my VRAM can be exceeding the available ha... But I guess thats why I'm on here asking for help ha..

When I am just standing around in this area I get numbers like these:
https://drive.google...iew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google...iew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google...iew?usp=sharing

 

[Archgaull]

Unfortunately, none of the google drive links work, they are all the same.

However, it's a fact of modding that sometimes you've done all you can software wise, but your hardware just doesn't keep up.

My advice would be to drop the problematic mods, and possibly upgrade to Mod Organizer aside from NMM. Mod Organizer handles mods SO much better than Nexus does, it makes life so much simpler.

 

[Joey Martin]

Sorry about the links, they were just showing the usage of my computer components. I will give Mod Organizer a try and see how that works.
Thanks for such speedy responses!

 

[Archgaull]

No problem. Mod Organizer makes testing, installing, and uninstalling new mods far easier and faster than with NMM.

 

[Joey Martin]

Sound great! One last question ha... I am looking to really fill my game with tons of extra content. (IE custom made quest lines and things like that) Would these have an effect on performance even when I am not using them? Ha there are so many mods and player made expansions out there that I really could keep adding and adding. Is there a point I should stop? Haha... Sorry I know this is a difficult question to answer I'm just curious and want as much content as I can fit into the game without completely ruining performance. Thanks again!

 

[Archgaull]

The main limitation of adding mods is called "save bloat" which is when the game has to save so much data, the saves corrupt and lag out/freeze. There's no hard limit to adhere to.

 

[Joey Martin]

Is there a measure of this "save bloat"? Or how would I know if I were to hit this?

 

[Archgaull]

Usually, 25MB is when you will start to see frequent lag or CTD's. Your game will most likely become unplayable, so you'll know if you've hit it or not.