FPS Confusion

Hi,
Can someone please explain what causes different/worse frame rates in PC games.

For instance, in games such as Dead Space 1 and 2 I can play with 60 fps all the time and even if it does go below 60 it never goes below 50. (Settings pretty much maxed out)

In Assassins Creed 2, it plays at 30 fps but the gameplay is smooth. (This is maxed out)

In Bulletstorm and Dirt 2, gameplay is very smooth at 60 fps most of the time.

However, when I play Skyrim, it hardly ever reaches 60 fps and when it does it stays on it for only a few seconds. The fps change a lot, its at 40 fps one second, then 30, then 50. Sometimes even 15-20 fps The only solution I can think of it the environment I'm in and whether there is a lot going on.. But surely that wouldn't change in the frames per second so much and so often. Gameplay is only ever smooth at 60 fps which it rarely hits. Its okay at 40-50 but not ideal. I sure there must be something I can do.. (I have AA off by the way)

My laptop ist: Dell XPS 17 ~ i7 2630qm @ 2-2.9 GHz ~ GeForce GT555m 3GB ~ 6GB RAM ~ 1920 x 1080 17\" 3D screen ~ 1TB HDD

I play all these games on 1920x1080 too.

Thanks

(If you haven't guessed already, I'm kind of new to PC gaming )

Most reputable sites / magazines will tell you that 30 FPS is the minimum you need for smoothe game play, anything above this figure is a bonus.

There are several causes of lower FPS - usually due to high demand of Graphics / textures required for any given scene you are playing.

However, I notice you are gaming on a laptop - which although it is a decent spec does have its draw backs. The bulk of the game is installed onto your HDD - which frequently has a lower spin speed than the desk top equivalent. To be sure you are not getting lag from a fragmented drive you can try to defrag the disk using a decent utility (i use Auslogics desik defrag - Free) and it is much quicker than the windows version.

Also you can check what programs load on start up - many of which wont be needed for gaming

I don't know where you got that 30 fps figure from, but that's only true for things filmed for television, and console games designed around 30 frames per second lol.

30fps isn't remotely smooth or even acceptable in computer gaming and you can instantly tell as soon as you drop below 50fps in most games without the use of the fraps counter. It's glaringly obvious in pc gaming.

To help the OP: the SKSE mod + the tesselation layer acceleration plugin that goes with it will make a huge improvement in your gameplay. It increases some peoples fps, for others it doesn't increase their topend, but it universally increases smoothness and helps to cut down on the chugging effect of rapid fps-rate changes in populated areas.

I'm a member of that site, I'll see what they offer. Any recommendations?

Of course, sorry. Thanks, I'll try it.

Yes that and the base SKSE mod (which you need to make that plugin function) do have tangible benefits in skyrim with regard to minimum fps and smoothness.

some of your fps issues are related to your gpu vs. your resolution. the 5770 isn't fit for 1080 in modern games really. The skse+tess accel won't fix those issues. It's strictly aimed at lightening the poorly coded load on the cpu.

your gpu is a problem the 555m is only about as good as a 96-98gt which will run the game but is pretty much minimum spec. look around the rest of the nexus forum for more tweaks... also turn off fxaa drop the shadow distance and maybe turn off bloom in favour of hdr...