M14x Skyrim Performance/Questions/Best Driver/Settings & General Chatter - Discuss Here....

Greetings M14x Owners!

I've received a couple of requests to start a dedicated discussion thread for Skyrim on the 14x. There have been multiple threads on this and some have expressed interest in keeping the discussion centralized as opposed to multiple threads - I agree with this. Makes for a tidier forum

Post away any issues, configuration questions, driver suggestions, etc. This thread is currently stickied and will be easy to find.

Have fun!

 

Thanks BatBoy

Heres the optimization technique I posted in another thread, L1qu1d should post his as well.

Go to Nvidia control panel and set it to these settings
Anostrophic Filter 8X
AA Gamma - Off
AA Mode - Application Controlled
AA Transparency - Off
CUDA - All (default)
Maximum Pre Rendered Frames - Force to 3, dont use application controlled
Single Display Performance Mode (Unless youre using dual monitors of course)
Power Management - Maximum Performance
Texture Filtering - Off
Negative LOD - Clamp
Texture Quality - Quality (normal, not high)
Trilinear Optimization - Off
Threaded Optimization - Force on
Vertical Sync - Force off

Then, Under Skyrim settings, set it to the Ultra button at your native res.
AF to 8 Samples
AA Off
Advance -> Everything on High/Ultra with Shadows on Medium
FXAA Off
All water reflections
Object Detail Fade On

Of course these are just my settings, but Im never dropping below 30fps

Also using an overclock of 765/1080/1530

 

I have almost all my settings on ultra, and it runs pretty smooth. does anyone else use ultra too?

 

i do eats 7..

i actually have everything on ultra and i play at 1600x900.. the only thing i have on low is shadows

i havent checked the framerate but it runs very playable and not choppy at all

oh btw, i only have the i5 2430m @2,4 ghz per core

 

I was using the default high setting but tried ultra and got a decent 26-35 fps range. So im using a mix of high and ultra (mostly for view details). I have an average of around 40-45 sometimes it dips to 33 for a couple of seconds or on the other hand sometimes I get 60 fps depending the location.

Really impressed with the m14x for the perfomance with skyrim.

Thanks for thread

 

I'll paste it below:

Hello,

I decided to post up my graphic settings to both help others and to also see if any1 has gotten a better configuration.

I'm trying to turn off things that make the game look as good as it can, while maintaining an avg of 40 fps at least.

Now I managed to do that so far, although when i look at fire or until some levels load I do still get frame rate drops to 30, but nothing ever goes below that.

Nvidia Control Panel Settings:
EDIT:
I have discrete for all the Skyrim options exe files both with v-Sync off.
Discrete
V-Sync Force off

Skyrim Configuration:

Native: 1366x768
Anti F: 16x
AA: off

Texture: High
Radical Blur Quality: High
Shadows: Low
Decal Quantity: Off

Water:

All Checked

View Distance:

All Maxed

Distance Object Detail: Ultra
Object Fade is not Checked

Hope this helps and I hope some1 finds a better solution!

I have Shadows off because it really doesn't affect me, the shadows are bad in game anyways .

And Decals I actually didn't notice a difference between off and Ultra.

Again, Fire still makes some massive frame drops and the same goes for loading NPCs and change in lighting but it tends to recover as you walk.

 

how do you run the game in dx10, mine keeps loading in dx9 and i have everything set at its highest except shadows on high

 

I'm having an odd issue. For background, Skyrim is a console port, which means they do the typical thing of offloading as much work as possible onto the CPU because the Xbox graphics card is so terrible. Skyrim, hilariously, renders shadows using the CPU and isn't even able to use more than two cores. What this means is that it shouldn't be GPU limited at all. People are reporting 60% load on the 555m.

Instead what I'm getting is 100% load on the GPU and less than max on the CPU. Heat is also really extreme, with the GPU at 92-93C and well above the CPU, which is a reversal from most games. FPS is around 30-35 on high settings with vsync forced off. This is with an i7.

Is anyone else getting something similar? Laptops are fairly homogeneous, so it's surprising that I'm the only one.

 

ok after the second quest i cannot dual wield anymore it will not let me select anything for the right hand, is this normal at all

 

I would try loading from a saved game BEFORE that happened and see if it is still there. Another reason it is good to have like 100000 saves for Bethesda games (I learned this the hard way in Fallout 3 and New Vegas).

I am FINALLY done downloading and updating Skyrim!

 

I have the M14x with an i7 processor, 3.0 GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 555m, 256 GB SSD, and 1600x900 resolution display. I am going to play Skyrim for the first time in a few hours and will let you know what happens with temperatures.

Having GPU at anywhere near 90 degrees sounds REALLY odd. Mine has never even approached 70 degrees with Dragon Age: Origins, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Mass Effect, or S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. My CPU does reach about 89-91 degrees though.

 

i run everything maxed out with shadows at high and res at 720p and im getting about 40-50fps and temps between 68 and 75 on the gpu and 79 on the cpu

 

Is there reason to worry that Skyrim will overheat the GPU or CPU?

People are reporting VERY high temperatures...

 

gpu overclocked to 700/1000/1400 temps 65c with coolers.
cpu temp monitored with iwheatmonitor recorded 85c all 4 cores

 

For what it's worth, shadows were causing me the most significant drop in FPS. I followed Gears' suggestions to the letter - but dropped my shadows setting to low...solved all my issues. Running 40+ FPS indoors and outdoors now.

Haven't seen major temperature spikes, continues to hover around 66-67c on GPU, and 80c for CPU.

 

Ok so I finally played 4 minutes of skyrim and a couple things are apparent:

1) The volume is unacceptably low. I have the Alienware TactX headseat or whatever it is called (super awesome headset) and volume is on full and still barely hear anything properly. How am I supposed to be blown away by Jeremy Soule's amazing music compositions and terrified of dragons when I can barely hear either? SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO RAISE THE VOLUME!

2) Dragon Age: Origins is a good example of a game that was nicely made for PC in that it had a user interface that was a beautiful wooden tome. Oblivion had something similar. And the books were beautiful and warm and the sounds were a pleasure. This time around everything is WHITE ON BLACK TEXT. Seriously who was the artistic genius that thought they should go with plain WHITE ON BLACK? They did this for Dragon Age 2 and it was the laziest insult ever. Hopefully there are mods for this.

3) Overall I am thinking this is going to be a good game, we shall see.

Now someone tell me how to raise the volume. Only good goblin, is a dead goblin. That I can hear.

 

I figured out the volume issue. Right click on the sound/volume icon in system tray, then click on playback devices, then right click on speakers, then properties, then go to the enhancements tab, then select Loudness Equalization (make sure it is checked). That raises the volume to acceptable levels (still have to set volume to max though).

I have m14x with i7 and stock 3.0 GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 555m, and SSD. I went through the entire opening sequence and could not run it on High or on Ultra with GearsGuy's settings without some stuttering. Any Ideas? So far I get between 30-40 FPS max on MEDIUM settings.

I can run on the default High Settings with AA turned off (keeping Anisotropic Filtering at 8x) with 30 FPS minimum so that is definitely a plus.

Does anyone else think that this game on High looks better in third person view? This was not the case in Fallout or Oblivion (in my opinion)

 

I found the beginning to be fairly chunky, framerate-wise. Wait until you're out of the opening section, and I think your framerate issues will be resolved.

 

Please do not bother to judge performance until you are actually in Skyrim. Do not even begin to benchmark until that time. Chunky is the right word for it. Poorly coded or executed might be another. Once you are actually in the Skyrim world and out of the intro dungeon its a whole other experience. Start benching at that point.

 

Im running on all ultra, shadows on low with aa 4x and af 16x and getting about 35-40 fps

oc 700, 1400

Has anyone found a fix to make the shadows less "blocky" that will work without too much of a frame drop on our laptop?

 

OMG, those shadows are horrible !! that's why I have to play with them on high...

 

So yea it seems to run acceptably on High settings with all reflections, except sometimes indoors it gets slow FPS but nothing gamebreaking. The shadows look amazing on high and this game is better looking than any other game I have seen in this genre ever. The mere scale makes it obvious how much of a disgrace Dragon Age 2 was (they recycled the same small houses and dungeons so many times).

Anyone else notice the somewhat subtle humorous references? It opens with the same line as in Morrowind ("Oh, you're awake"), one of the guards in the first town says "Let me guess, someone stole your sweetroll," (Fallout 3 opening birthday scene) and two kids in River-whatever are talking about dressing up their dog to look like a spider (youtube video). Game of the year probably. The way they have been able to use textures that alone are rather low-resolution but together they paint such a beautiful picture is really amazing. And Jeremy Soule is an amazing composer (he did Morrowind and Oblivion music also).

One question: Do you guys prefer first-person or third-person view for this game? Sometimes the scale seems way too grand for the small first-person FOV. It feels like tunnel-vision and you lose sense of how big cavses and the countryside really are. I find myself constantly switching back and forth.

 

default fov is 60 (way too low imo) can change the fov by opening the console (think it's the ~ key) and typing "fov XX" where XX is the fov you want, go for a minimum of 80 imo

 

OMG thank you!! That finally evened out the sound effects and the low voices for me. That was bothering me so much lol.

Now here's another issue (minor but bothersome). During every loading screen, white lines appear on the left and upper borders of the screen. The picture is already centered in my monitor and it doesnt happened in game so thats not it.

 

How are you running at that without dipping to 20s as well? LOL

 

Im actually running the default ultra setting with only shadows on high. I droped the view details options by a bit each. Example 15 to 13. And I never go below 30 fps. average 40 fps.

OC at 715/965

 

So shadows on high actually makes them look better? I didn't do much testing but I couldn't tell much of a difference between low and high/ultra.

If so I'll probably drop view distances some and drop aa/af

 

Ok so I take it back, after installing the latest driver, I haven't tweaked the settings back up since I liked the frame rates.

Between

So I maxed out everything with no aa @ 1366x768 and shadows High with a minimum dip at 29/30 in The City Whitewhatever when peering from the Companion Lodge entrance.

Now when I up the Shadows up to Ultra, I dip to 24/25.

When I down the Shadows to low, I go up to 33 fps.

So about 3 frames IMO aren't worth how much better the game looks at high. Now Ultra is another story, the game becomes annoying.

When Changing Decal settings, it makes 0 difference, from what i have seen so I kept it at ultra. The motion blur is also minimal.

Now tweaking view distance makes a big difference but I leave it max and I still get between 40-65 outside and can vary depending on conditions it drops to 35-39 or up to 80 fps in dungeons.

EDIT:

OK WHAT THE BLEEP! Now I'm enabling 8x AA and it has 0 impact on Performance...I might be loosing it, but I'm def happy LOL!

Oh and when I say 0, I literally mean 0!

New Specs Using Driver (285.79 Beta)

Resolution: 1366x768
AA: 8x
ALL High Except Decal which is Ultra

Water detail All checked

Distance: Ultra and all set to max

Edit 2:

Ok so now that I'm outside, it stays at 30 fps capped, and only dipps below...it looks like AA is going off

 

I am starting to have a problem, for some reason I get a random shut down of the game. I am running Liquids settings but with no aa. At first I was like fine w/e doesn't bother me, but after I killed a dragon, a couple minutes later my game just shuts off.

I do not receive any error messages or anything, my laptop doesn't slow down or anything. When the game closes by itself, it looks like how I manually closing the game.

My temps on CPU and GPU are not over heating or close to any high temps, since I have my laptop propped up and a cooling fan.

Is this like a common bug or something or is it just me? If it is just me, anyone got an idea how to fix this?

 

I got the same, after a few hours of playing game just shuts down and back to the windows desktop with no error message.

After googling I have found a good few people with the same issues.

Again I was just wandering thru some green fields at the time gpu,cpu were cool and using the coolermaster u2.

Must be a bug, hopefully they will patch it again soon.

 

Why not make this a general m14x gaming performance thread. It seems now there has to be a separate sticky for every demanding game out there Don't get me wrong, I'm happy there is a skyrim thread now

 

I followed gearsguy and i tried walking around 50-60fps while in battle around 38-45 fps which is great, game looks amazing but one question my GPU does get up to 75 degrees, is that fine ?

 

I turned off the turbo feature in the bios when I first got my M14X as I wasn't running anything that particularly required it and I wanted to keep temperatures under control. Then along came Skyrim ....

The question I have is do you guys have the turbo enabled and does it make much difference?

 

I was having a problem with the game randomly crashing to the desktop as well. Also, I was experiencing some texture problems where certain items, trees, walls, etc. would turn purple. I found that my problem was with Steam. So far, the solution has been to NOT run the game via Steam. Instead, close Steam and run the game directly from the game exe file in the directory. Hope this helps.

 

@Flamingbadger - Test it yourself. Meaning, download fraps, run it while in game. Get to a static spot, hit f10 to grab a screenshot that shows your FPS. Shutdown, then enable turbo in bios, save and exit bios. Then start game, go to same spot, while running fraps hit f10 again, then compare. Other sites have already completed testing and cpu speed is even more important than cores (meaning more than 4). So you will see a 8-10fps increase. pm me for details if needed

 

Thanks for the info. Will give it a try.

 

Yup this has happened to me many times, and all of my friends playing on PC, not just on the m14x. I hope this, along with the glitchy shadows, get a patch soon.

 

Ok guys and girls, just thought I'd offer some help, if not already posted, if anything is duplicated I apologise...
Firstly my M14X is 8gb RAM, 2.0GHz i7, turbo turned off and 3gb GT555M... HDD not SSD
Secondly, I have whitelisted Skyrim to ensure it uses to GT card although on the settings menu still shows the Intel, this is ok...
I am running 1366 x 768 Ultra High and everything runs on Max, all settings are maxed out and it runs fine, no lag in any sections everything is very, very smooth.
However when changing to 1600x900 it is slightly and I do mean slightly laggy in sections where there is a lot going on. Hope this helps

 

Im going to get a tech sent out to repaste my GPU and CPU with some IC Diamond or something.. I hit 95 on the GPU the other day not even overclocked

 

Using Fraps i get 37-42 fps playing skyrim on average,played for a total of 17 hours now and have not recieved any major problems,even temp wise as i prop up the back to allow extra airflow (in my experience this makes a 15-20c difference)
I use high settings with a couple of changes,my settings are:

aspect ratio : 16:9
Resoulution: 1600x900
Anti-aliasing: 4 samples
Anisotropic filtering: 8 samples
Advanced:
texture quality: high
Radial Blur: Medium
Shadow: Medium
Decal: High
FXAA: On
Water: Reflect land,trees,objects,sky all on


View Distance:
Object fade:11
actor:6
Grass:5
Specularity:10
light:25
item:7
distant object detail: high
Object detail fade: off

These setting all work perfectly for me and the lowest fps i have had was 33 inside a dungeon where the fps always drops to around 35 anyway,outdoors i nearly always get 40 or above.Hope this helps anyone

 

Just FYI, was running on the IGP on Battery (balanced) and can run on the default low settings at 1366x768 at over 30fps most of the time. Was able to kill 2 dragons and get a new shout with just the trackpad! Nice to know I can play some skyrim when on a long car ride or plane or something

 

New Specs Using Driver (285.79 Beta)

Resolution: 1366x768
AA: OFF
ALL High Except Decal which is Ultra

Water detail All checked

Distance: Ultra and all set to max

With these settings I do sometimes drop to low 30s especially in complex areas (weather etc) and Cities when I'm loading into. I quickly bounce back up to 37-44...but I think my avg is around 40, which is perfectly acceptable.

Setting Shadows to Ultra is not worth the 5 fps loss, and thats test by me sitting still in a city, once you go outside the game will need to reproduce that should over again.

 

So do the new drivers bring an increase?

 

The new drivers feel more stable and it does seem to leave some stutter out here and there, but it may be the placebo effect.

 

im using mixture of gearsguy and liquids settings. now while walking around the world its 55-60fps. i enter whiterun and its just not as smooth anyone any ideas?

 

It's prefectly normal. there's alot going on in the city's (i've only been in whierun yet) so you will get a drop in fps. I drop from around 50 walking in the plains to about 38 fps in whiterun.

 

my gpu kept hitting 80 degrees in this game when outputted via hdmi, it usually sits at 72 but when connected to my monitor it rose, anybody else experiencing spiking temps via hdmi?

 

Solitude and Winterhold give me bigger FPS drops than the rest

 

I honestly was just thinking of just putting view distance to half, and it should help outside a lot for frames, now I'm not sure how much it will help for whiterun.

 

I was playing on the stove and my temps skyrocketted to 257C!
The hair on my arms singed and the bottom of my M14x melted into the stove top. There was also a red glow coming from underneath it.
Then suddenly, without any reason whatsoever that I am aware of, flames bursted upwards and my KFC cap caught fire!
So I filled a bowl full of water, dipped my cap in it to save it, but I accidently spilled some water on the computer, and now it doesn't work!

Any ideas why? I think it could be a driver issue or that weak 555m card?
Should I call a tech?

I hope Bethesda's next game works properly, or I will NEVER buy their products again. I ALMOST LOST MY KFC CAP!!!