PC Low FPS with Recommended Settings

[Marina]

I have a fairly decent computer (not a gaming computer by any means though) and when I open the skyrim launcher it detects my hardware and puts my settings to very high quality. But when I try to play the game with these settings with no mods active, my fps is only at 10-15. This is horrible for combat.

I tried turning all settings to low, disabling anti-aliasing and anisotropic-filtering, and running inwindowed mode. Now my fps maxes at only 20! I have verified integrity through steam, but to no avail. My drivers on my system are up to date according to my update manager. I guess I'm just confused as to why if Skyrim thinks my hardware is good enough for Very high, why can it barely even run on very low? I am not sure what else I can try.

System specs: attached as image


If there's any important info I didn't include let me know.

Thanks for any help/insight that anyone can offer

 

[Iveri Sarothil]

Eh, games aren't always good predictors of how much their computers can handle. My game is....somewhat playable on high settings, but it's much better on medium - it used to immediately set me to high, and now it just puts me down at medium. It's not going to be a perfect match, and you're kind of expected to tweak it a bit to suit your needs.

When you open Options in your Skyrim launcher, does it give you your 640LE or something else?

What you could try is going into your Nvidia control panel and changing Skyrim's performance options to High Performance. If you search 'performance' in the nexus mod site, there's some good performance boost mods as well, and some of them make a big difference in FPS.

 

[Marina]

Oh ok, thanks. It just sucks when I have a computer with what I thought was a decent graphics card and processor and the game is almost unplayable even with all settings turned as low as possible. So I'm not sure how much I can tweak the dang thing. Although I will try playing around with the NVIDIA settings as you suggested and see what happens.

In the launcher under the Graphics Adapter dropdown it gives me the option of NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M LE as the only option.

So far I've tried a few different performance mods I've found at the nexus and none have seemed to improve my fps beyond 25 fps. Which is better than nothing but still...

Perhaps I should also mention that other games that I own are able to run on HQ settings. Most recently I've played Fallout 3/NV and Bioshock Infinite with almost ultra settings and have gotten a good framerate. Skyrim is the only one giving me trouble.

Also when I first bought Skyrim (on this same computer) I didn't notice any of this "lag" that I do now. I wasn't playing with FRAPS then, but I remember the game being smooth and running nicely now that I think about it... I modded my game heavily since then, but even after a complete wipe of all mods and a re-install it is still being slow.

 

[ShenziSixaxis]

My laptop handles Skyrim on Ultra with plenty of mods with little issue, but occasionally I do get a dip in FPS that's just enough and just often enough that it bothers me, so what I've done is lowered the Shadow Detail from Ultra to High, made the water reflect everything but objects, disabled Object Detail Fade, and set the Distant Object Detail to medium.
I do notice a bit of a difference in shadows, but it's not bothersome enough that it ruins the game for me, and the Distant Object Detail setting I've noticed nothing different with except an FPS gain.

I'm not sure what your exact issue may be. Have you tried using a different character or starting a new game? Removing mods can actually do the opposite of what you're trying to do, and that may be your issue.

 

[Marina]

Update: I've tried a few more Nexus performance mods and my fps shows almost no change... Even after installing Hialgo boost I'm still getting 15-20 fps.

Shenzi, I've been checking the FPS by starting a new game each time :/

 

[Marina]

Ok, I finally have gotten to a playable fps of 30. I just had to use the right combination of performance mods and settings and .ini tweaks it seems.

I used the NVIDIA settings Iveri mentioned along with Hialgo boost and Skyrim performance PLUS along with High and medium graphical settings (surprisingly) with medium draw distance.