Skyrim FPS drop and lag after a couple minutes of playing.

[TronixGT]

My old PC was getting a bit slow running modded Skyrim, so I decided to build a new PC. I built a decent system (on a budget) and I've spent over 100 hours now trying to get Skyrim to run properly on it. I have completely uninstalled Steam and Skyrim and drivers and started new characters and nothing seems to work. I've monitored and done dozens of screen shots with Performance monitors and just can't seem to find what is causing this lag.

When I start with a fresh boot and running only essentials in BG (1% CPU,13%mem) and start Skyrim.. I can literally stay in the same spot and walk in circles and for the first minute or two (sometimes less) and get a solid 60FPS and then all of the sudden it drops to 30 FPS and then just sits and rocks back and forth between 15-55 FPS. Nothing different is going on in the game. I'm just walking in circles inside a house or in the middle of nowhere.
This is just plain Vanilla Skyrim. I'm not even trying to set mods up until I get it working right. It does the same thing in Ultra/High/Medium It doesn't matter if i turn off AA and AF.. or even if I turn off shadows.. I've tested all the tweaks to make Skyrim perform better and nothing works.

I just can't figure out why it starts lagging.

Here are a few screen shots of Performance monitor that shows solid 60FPS that just becomes erratic after about one minute. The first few dips are menu screens but once it dips from 60FPS it becomes crazy erratic. Again nothing going on in game, no intense rendering or anything:

http://beerthirty.net/Tronix/Screenshot_8.jpeg
http://beerthirty.net/Tronix/Screenshot_10.jpeg
http://beerthirty.net/Tronix/Screenshot_12.jpeg

I've re-installed everything several times. Virus free.. nothing running in background. It's just bizarre..

Any Ideas?

System Specs:

O/S: Windows 8.1
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz
MB: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming
RAM: 16GB DDR3 (8@667 MHz,8@800 MHz)
GPU: MSI GEFORCE GTX 970 4G Gaming
DRIVES: C: 120GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD (OS/Driver/Util)
D: 60GB Sandisk SSD (Games)
E: 2TB Western Digital Black 7200 HDD (Storage)
F: 2TB Western Digital Black 7200 HDD (Backup)
PSU: Corsair CX750M (750w)
CASE: Corsair Carbide Series Air 540
COOLING: Corsair H100 CPU Extreme Performance Watercooling System
(5) Corsair AX120 High Performance Fans
(1) Corsair AX140 High Performace Fan.

 

[ferwindjacks]

Download Nvidia Shadowplay, check drivers through there and then optimize your game with that optimizer tab. When I was reading all I could think of is "it's eating up memory" but according to your monitor that's not it. Try my suggestion and report back, hopefully others can chime in.

 

[TronixGT]

I had tried the optimized mode there before and saw no change. I just re-installed it and tried it again. Same. I also turned shadowplay on for the first time ever and recorded a session. The Shadowplay made it 10x worse. 7-20FPS.

 

[TronixGT]

Here's a quick vid.. starts at 60 fps and without even moving it starts to drop and progressively gets worse. It shouldn't be fluctuating this much when nothing is really going on in the game. You can only imagine how bad it gets in an intense fight scene. I never see the system memory go over 2 of 16gb or the GPU go over 2 of 4gb.. so I don't think theres a bottleneck.

I'm just completely baffled.

https://youtu.be/Kb7wgQST3p0

I'm looking for signs that it's a bad card or something. but I would think I'd be seeing spikes in GPU or some sort of indication in the monitors?

 

[ferwindjacks]

There are many things that could be causing this stuttering. Does this type of performance hit happen in every game, or just Skyrim? How recent is this build? Have you downloaded a benchmarking program (ex. Heaven) to see if this happens there too? I'd like to see more testing done.

Try to remember everything you've installed recently. Check your processes, it is highly possible something you installed is causing your game to stutter even if it doesn't seem like its taking up a high % of CPU/MEM. Hell, it could even be that monitoring software you have.

Have you got VSYNC disabled? What are your HDD temps (I have an Air 540 as well, those drives in the back get no air)? I recommend the program Speccy to find this out (made by Piriform. They also make CCleaner, which I highly recommend installing as well!).

To eliminate this factor, even though I don't think it's an issue, just run MEMtest to be sure your memory isn't failing. Also, I don't like saying that parts could be the issue (80% of the time they're not) but your PSU isn't the highest quality, and like I said up top, it could be a reason why you're getting performance hits. Just putting it out there though.

I've got more, comment back if none of this helps. Also, try not to double post in the future.

 

[jessterman21]

Skyrim drops below 60fps for me around Riverwood and in Whiterun - if you have Vsync enabled (iPresentInterval=1 in the SkyrimPrefs.ini) then you will get stutters down to 30fps in these areas.

You can overclock your CPU to 4GHz to mostly eliminate the problem (should be as simple as changing the multiplier to 40 in your UEFI - temps should be fine even with the stock cooler), or turn off Vsync by setting iPresentInterval=0 in the SkyrimPrefs.ini (located in Documents\My Games\Skyrim).

 

[ferwindjacks]

He stated that no matter the graphical quality he gets stuttering. OCing won't necessarily help.

 

[TronixGT]

Ok, well I finally figured out the cause. Now I'm trying to figure out the fix. My CPU core temps are hitting 100C and when it does that, the CPU throttling is dipping the performance. It figures, Thats the only thing my monitors were not tracking.

I just took my cooler off, made sure the CPU is seated right, cleaned the top of the CPU and cooler surface with a clean lint free paper and alcohol and re-applied a pea of Therm paste.. put it back together and it's STILL doing it. Room temp is 68.. everything inside the case feels cool. all fans are running. I even manually cranked them all up. i can feel cool air blowing through radiator.

I'm guessing now it's either the pump has gone bad on the cooler or I have a bad CPU? sitting idle right now. Just surfing the web for the last 30 mins its down to 80C. But if I were to start a game i'm sure it will jump back up quick.

 

[ferwindjacks]

Do you have your original reference cooler to test? You can snag one on Amazon as well for pretty cheap and send it back if need be. I never mess with water cooling, air cooling has always been easier to deal with. If figured you had sophisticated enough software to see what your temps were and never bothered to ask.

 

[Archgaull]

It seems like you got a bad pump in your system.

 

[TronixGT]

Thanks everyone. I can't believe how simple it ended up being. I ran down and grabbed a new H100i cooling system and installed it. Running a cool 30C and never went over 40C while playing Skyrim for 30 mins. FPS pegged at 60!

Now that its running right I'm off to mod and maybe do some OC'ing.