Low FPS on good computer!?

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Omega Dragon

Active Member
Your video card isn't that good, it's ranked well below the GTX260, which I know from experience wouldn't handle Skyrim so well (at least non-OC'd, never did OC any I touched). You probably need to play it on low settings.

Here's a fairly decent comparison of video cards. (Your computer model's specs says it has a GT545, which makes me wonder: did you buy it or did you get it as a gift? It's too expensive for the specs.)
 

Dagmar

Defender of the Bunnies of Skyrim
Go to the NVIDIA website and check to see if you have the most recent official release drivers for your video card. The manufacturer's drivers are often seriously outdated and the system check for updating drivers will often only check for vital update drivers or drivers specifically tested and certified by the computer manufacturer.

What are your settings when you are running Skyrim (screen resolution, AA and AS)?
Your video card isn't that good, it's ranked well below the GTX260, which I know from experience wouldn't handle Skyrim so well (at least non-OC'd, never did OC any I touched).
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX260 should handle Skyrim fine on high settings. According to the Tom's Hardware chart to which you posted a link my NVIDIA GeForce 560M ranks lower but I get an average of around 40FPS on Ultra settings with the Skyrim HD 2K Textures mod installed at 1920x1080 resolution.
 

Tarn WIlliamson

New Member
Hmmm, it looks like I will have to upgrade the GPU. However, there are so many Nvidia cards out there I cannot easily choose. I would like one which could handle Skyrim on ultra settings smoothly (above 60 FPS when outside towns as this is where lowest FPS's occur). Can anyone help me out with choosing one?
Thanks.
 

Dagmar

Defender of the Bunnies of Skyrim
You can get a very general idea of the hierarchy of video cards in this UESP Skyrim Wiki article on system requirements. In general, for both Radeon and NVIDIA cards the second number in the model is as important or more important than the second one. While the first number is the generation of the card, the second number represents its rank within the generation, and higher ranked video cards in older generations are often more powerful than lower ranked ones in newer generations (for example note where the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 2GB ranks compared to the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520 2GB).
 

Tarn WIlliamson

New Member
Thanks for your help Dagmar. But just before I dive into looking at different graphics cards, I came across this video which shows someone playing Skyrim on ultra settings (whilst recording) using the same graphics card as me.


He has the same card as me but everything else is slightly worse. I commented, in description, asking if he has done anything to increase performance ( my username is WillowCraft ). He had not -.- What is this all about?
 

Dagmar

Defender of the Bunnies of Skyrim
Did you check for the latest drivers at the NVIDIA website? The most recent one for GeForce series 500 cards is version 301.42 was released in May 2012. The only thing I can think of is that your GPU might not be increasing its clock speed when you launch Skyrim, which would be a driver bug that some of the more recent driver versions have with some GeForce video cards.

You may have to manually set your clock speeds up to their load settings before you launch Skyrim in order to get better frame rates or disable any power saving features and have your card default to maximum clock speeds.

You could also try installing an older driver but I don't know how far back you would have to go. You might want to ask the poster of that video what version driver he's using.
 

Tarn WIlliamson

New Member
I have that driver for sure. I have been searching online for a while now on that problem you suggested about it not automatically adjusting its clock speed. I cannot find anything to help me. How can I test to see if it is this problem? And if it is, how can I fix it? After this and still no succes, I will try out different drivers.
Thanks for your help so far :)
 

Dagmar

Defender of the Bunnies of Skyrim
I use AIDA64 Extreme Edition to monitor my hardware. There's free version but I'm not sure it gives detailed GPU performance. You can try GPU-Z which is a light program that only monitors the GPU performance. Run it and then run Skyrim in Windowed mode so you can see what the clock speed is with the Skyrim open and running. If you're changing drivers make sure you are doing a clean install and try starting with the 296 driver (296.1) and work your way down from there.
 

Tarn WIlliamson

New Member
I tried clean installing, as clean as I could get it. This did not change anything with the 296.1 driver. I decided to revert back to the latest one and monitor my gpu as I launched Skyrim. This is what it looked like on normal settings with a resolution of 1280x720. I walked around for about 2 mins to give it time to get started.


gpu.gif


As you can see, the GPU Core Clock is at its max, along with GPU Memory Clock. However, Memory Used is very low, Video Engine Load is 0% and VDDC is low. Do these low things mean anything which could be effecting performance?
Thanks again Dagmar.
 

Tarn WIlliamson

New Member
Ok, finally fixed, after all this time I have spent trying to solve this. I downloaded AVG antivirus and ran every tool on there, including defragmentation tools, file fixes and viral removal (although I don't think I had any viruses). Although my computer is new, there was quite a share of fragmented files, AVG helped me to clean up my computer and reorganise things, sorted :D It is now playable on ultra settings, I haven't even customised the settings for better performance! Thanks Dagmar for all the help you provided :)
 

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