AMD Radeon 7950: Skyrim stuttering with no drop in framerate

[AxiomPoetica]

Here are my system specs, in relevant part:

Intel Core i3-2120 3.3 ghz w/ Hyper 212+ Cooler (Stand-in until Ivy Bridge)
XFX Radeon R7950 Double-D @ 1000/1425
16 gb (4x4) Corsair Vengeance @ 1600
Crucial m4 128gb SSD
MSI Z68A-GD65(G3) MB
Corsair TX850M PSU

I am suffering seemingly intractable stuttering/jankiness in Skyrim. The problem's parameters are as follows:

- Only appears to affect first-person perspective. In 3rd-person, everything appears smooth, even on Ultra.
- It is most severe when using a bow in first-person. When I nock an arrow and attempt to aim, the bow/arrow will "jank" disturbingly on movement, especially on the vertical axis.
- When I "zoom" with Eagle Eye and Steady Hand, the zoom will feel slow and uneven.
- Also stutters or halts a bit when I am moving quickly in first person, especially when turning or spinning in place.
- The problems appear unresponsive to graphics quality. They occur even at the lowest graphics settings.
- FRAPS says my framerates on Ultra are solidly between 55-60 FPS out in the open, slowing to 30-40 FPS in town. On High, they hover around 60 FPS everywhere. There is no corresponding drop in FRAPS framerate when I experience the stuttering issues.
- GPU temp never climbs above 65. CPU temp never climbs north of 50.
- Occurs with both mouse and XBox 360 controller.


I have reviews other threads on this and other forums re: stuttering, and specifically re: Radeon cards.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/332356-33-6970-stutters-skyrim
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/115099-13-skyrim-stuttering-firstperson-view

I have tried every fix I can find (turned off Mouse Accelleration in both Skyrimprefs and Windows, run in Windowed mode, etc.), to no effect. I have toyed with shadows and completely turned off anti-aliasing, etc., all to no effect.

I am inclined to think this is an AMD driver issue, but other people seem to be able to run the game smoothly on 6000-series cards. Could it be my processor? I realize it's the most likely bottleneck, but CPU-Z shows it running no higher than 80% even on ultra settings.

Anyone have any ideas?

If I can't fix this problem, I am going to go back to playing Skyrim on my 360, where visuals aren't as rich, but movement is buttery (and immersively) smooth, return the card, and wait for Ivy Bridge and Kepler to roll out in a couple months. If anyone thinks that is the right option either way, please feel free to chime in.

 

[Rockdpm]

Bottleneck perhaps?. I mean thats the most suspectable thing i can think of. A quad core works best with 7950. But thats all i got to assume it is

 

[joedjnpc]

I was playing some skyrim yesterday, to test the new texture pack. I'm running 100 - 120 fps indoors and 60 - 80 fps outside, I was getting some weird glitches where the entire screen would turn brown or blue at certain points when walking over rough surfaces. The fps would never be affected.

I'm nearly certain there's some driver issues at play here dude.

 

[bestlink101]

update drivers and get latest skyrim patch, skyrim has alot of problems on pc... well every pc ive tested it on no matter amd or nvida or intel or amd cpu

 

[joedjnpc]

The 7xxx serious drivers haven't been updated since early Jan, for now you just have to wait.

 

[AxiomPoetica]

Bottleneck perhaps?. I mean thats the most suspectable thing i can think of. A quad core works best with 7950. But thats all i got to assume it is

That was my first thought. However, the problem doesn't resolve with lower settings. I get the same jankiness when aiming on the lowest possible settings.

I forgot to say in the inital post: I'm running a single 27" HP2711x WLED @ 1080p. No fancy Eyefinity setups here.

According to Toms', my processor should be able to perform pretty well at this resolution. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120-3.html

 

[joedjnpc]

try this:

Launch a Windows Explorer window (win key + e)
Navigate to \Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\Skyrim
Open SkyrimPrefs.ini in Notepad.
Locate [Controls] and then find 'bMouseAcceleration=1'
Change bMouseAcceleration=1 to bMouseAcceleration=0 instead; this will disable "mouse smoothing" and "mouse acceleration" in Skyrim.

 

[AxiomPoetica]

update drivers and get latest skyrim patch, skyrim has alot of problems on pc... well every pc ive tested it on no matter amd or nvida or intel or amd cpu

Drivers are fully updated, as is Skyrim. I would chalk it up to Skyrim wierdness, but I'm suffering some similar jankiness in Dragon Age:Origins, which is ancient.

I think the 7xxx drivers are just very rough at this point; they don't like it is it's too new, they don't like it if it's too old. What the heck do they like?

Also, I can hardly express how much I hate the idea of paying $500 for a GPU that doesn't work as well as my 4 y/o POS XBox.

 

[AxiomPoetica]

try this:

Launch a Windows Explorer window (win key + e)
Navigate to \Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\Skyrim
Open SkyrimPrefs.ini in Notepad.
Locate [Controls] and then find 'bMouseAcceleration=1'
Change bMouseAcceleration=1 to bMouseAcceleration=0 instead; this will disable "mouse smoothing" and "mouse acceleration" in Skyrim.

I did this already. I'm pretty sure I said that explicitly in my original post. Also, the problem persists on both mouse control and 360 controller despite this change.

 

[joedjnpc]

Drivers are fully updated, as is Skyrim. I would chalk it up to Skyrim wierdness, but I'm suffering some similar jankiness in Dragon Age:Origins, which is ancient.

I think the 7xxx drivers are just very rough at this point; they don't like it is it's too new, they don't like it if it's too old. What the heck do they like?

Also, I can hardly express how much I hate the idea of paying $500 for a GPU that doesn't work as well as my 4 y/o POS XBox.

Well, return the card and go play it on the Xbox, I don't think you can do much to change the general state of pc gaming today.

 

[wolfram23]

This is a very common issue with the game. Since the beginning, the Beth forums have been getting a new "stuttering" thread every day.

So far there is no fix.

I find it's the worst when you look down (like trying to gather herbs) and walk. OH GOD THE STUTTERING!!!

Circle strafing is bad too.

But, yes, it's pretty well known and pretty much fucked.

EDIT: Actually there might be fixes.

One is to try running in Window mode. There's a "borderless window" mod so it's basically full screen. This seems to work well for whatever reason, and unless you use crossfire it should be a good fix.

Another possible one is to cap the FPS at 59 instead of 60. Not sure what the deal is there.

 

[AxiomPoetica]

Well, return the card and go play it on the Xbox, I don't think you can do much to change the general state of pc gaming today.

I know some people are able to run the game smoothly and at excellent settings; I've seen the videos. There must be a way to fix the problem.

 

[wolfram23]

Another possible fix is to turn off AA and AF in game and force it through CCC.

 

[joedjnpc]

I know some people are able to run the game smoothly and at excellent settings; I've seen the videos. There must be a way to fix the problem.

Aye there probably is, but more than likely it's from bethesda's end, since so many people are suffering these issues. Baffling really, the architecture of a console versus a pc isn't that wildly different. Maybe we'll be able to play this game in a year or so...

 

[bestlink101]

Drivers are fully updated, as is Skyrim. I would chalk it up to Skyrim wierdness, but I'm suffering some similar jankiness in Dragon Age:Origins, which is ancient.

I think the 7xxx drivers are just very rough at this point; they don't like it is it's too new, they don't like it if it's too old. What the heck do they like?

Also, I can hardly express how much I hate the idea of paying $500 for a GPU that doesn't work as well as my 4 y/o POS XBox.

what resolution do you play at? and did you download the patches? are you playing the game through steam? You update game through steam, if you dont want to use steam i can give you a patch for the game that doesnt use steam,
Do you want to download the high resolution texture pack? it puts up the resolution on everything in the game, but it is 3 gb, you can get it through steam, if you dont want to use steam i can get you to not use steam

try this driver
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/hotfix/radeon_7900_series/amd_radeon_hd7900_win7_64.exe
sorry for the bad english i typed this pretty fast

 

[AxiomPoetica]

Another possible fix is to turn off AA and AF in game and force it through CCC.

Please excuse my ignorance, but what is CCC and how do I use it?

 

[wolfram23]

Please excuse my ignorance, but what is CCC and how do I use it?

It's ATI's graphics management software, Catalyst Control Center. You can get to it by right clicking on your desktop, there should be a link in the popup menu.

Then you can set AA in the Gaming sub-menu and even save the tweaks to only get loaded with tesv.exe so that it runs default for everything else, which is a good idea. To do that, just hit the Save button at the top of the window after making the tweaks and find the tesv.exe file, it will create a profile specific for the game.

 

[AxiomPoetica]

It's ATI's graphics management software, Catalyst Control Center. You can get to it by right clicking on your desktop, there should be a link in the popup menu.

Then you can set AA in the Gaming sub-menu and even save the tweaks to only get loaded with tesv.exe so that it runs default for everything else, which is a good idea. To do that, just hit the Save button at the top of the window after making the tweaks and find the tesv.exe file, it will create a profile specific for the game.

Got it.

I'll give this try. I have only tried turning these off through the game. Thanks!

 

[PaperBoy]

Well, return the card and go play it on the Xbox, I don't think you can do much to change the general state of pc gaming today.

Consoles are for the mentally deficient and dope smokers and people whom just dont have the time and or energy to use there brain to configure and setup a PC proper. Consoles do have a place for gaming such as Forza Motorsport Challenge and Sports games to play wit your friends but make no mistake the real gaming happens on the PC where the big dawgs play.

 

[AxiomPoetica]

Consoles are for the mentally deficient and dope smokers and people whom just dont have the time and or energy to use there brain to configure and setup a PC proper. Consoles do have a place for gaming such as Forza Motorsport Challenge and Sports games to play wit your friends but make no mistake the real gaming happens on the PC where the big dawgs play.

There is something to be said for ease-of-use. Let's not troll the consoles.

But yes, that's why I built a PC and why I'm disappointed to have performance be otherwise promising, but with this one nagging issue that I can't seem to resolve.

 

[PaperBoy]

There is something to be said for ease-of-use. Let's not troll the consoles.

But yes, that's why I built a PC and why I'm disappointed to have performance be otherwise promising, but with this one nagging issue that I can't seem to resolve.

The consoles are having bugs and performance issues with Skyrim as well plus I got Skyrim running with tons of Mods for Graphical and Performance bug fixes and Skyrim runs great took hours to get Skyrim running great tho but it was worth it and I have achieved satisfaction on the other hand it would have never been possible if I bought it for console.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The 79xx series is still suffering driver compatibility issues in various games, especially in CF....then again, Skyrim has had issue with NVidia too......I expect these will shake out in the coming weeks but there's always the possibility that "Revision A" hardware has a bugaboo in it.......it took a while for the P8P67 SATA bug to shake out which is the reason I like to stay off the bleeding edge and wait till Revision B or C hits the streets.

 

[PaperBoy]

The 79xx series is still suffering driver compatibility issues in various games, especially in CF....then again, Skyrim has had issue with NVidia too......I expect these will shake out in the coming weeks but there's always the possibility that "Revision A" hardware has a bugaboo in it.......it took a while for the P8P67 SATA bug to shake out which is the reason I like to stay off the bleeding edge and wait till Revision B or C hits the streets.

It would be wise to say it is Skyrim that is the Culprit !

 

[AxiomPoetica]

The consoles are having bugs and performance issues with Skyrim as well plus I got Skyrim running with tons of Mods for Graphical and Performance bug fixes and Skyrim runs great took hours to get Skyrim running great tho but it was worth it and I have achieved satisfaction on the other hand it would have never been possible if I bought it for console.

This is true. I had to reroll several times, and backtrack several more, to get around various bugs that prevented me from completing many quests ion XBox. That's part of why I'd rather have it on the PC, where mods and, at worst, console commands, can be used to bypass many bugged quests. There is also the availability of third-party mods for graphics, content, rebalancing, etc.

Now if I could only get my bloody arrows to stop janking out! Shaky aim really throws off my deadly Khajit sniper game.

 

[bystander]

Try installing the game on an HDD. If the problem goes away, it's likely a firmware issue with your SSD. I've seen numerous stuttering issues from people with SSD's in the past on other games.