It runs smooth as silk on my 5850, so no, AMD cards aren't crap for Skyrim. I think there's been ONE occurence where my framerate dipped below 20 in 100 hours of playing on Ultra at 1920x1080. (admittedly with FSAA turned back to 2 rather than 4.)

How fast is your CPU?

wtf_man wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 21:21:

Jerykk wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 19:52:
These gave me a nice performance boost in Skyrim and Arkham City. Skyrim still runs like ass in cities but it's better than before.

Either AMD Cards are crap for Skyrim, or you are running settings too high for your resolution.

Skyrim runs fine in any of the cities, on high settings, with my nearly 5 year old 8800GTX @ 1280x1024.

It runs smooth as silk on my 5850, so no, AMD cards aren't crap for Skyrim. I think there's been ONE occurence where my framerate dipped below 20 in 100 hours of playing on Ultra at 1920x1080. (admittedly with FSAA turned back to 2 rather than 4.)

Creston

2.4ghz quad core, 2gb of ram, AMD 5770 - solid performance even in cities. Of course I tweaked my settings. I started off on Ultra and lowered things until it looked great and played smooth. I get some chop when I first load up a big city like Riften or Solitude, but once the texture data is loaded, I get totally smooth performance.

Overall I think they've done well with the Gamebryo engine. It is the Gamebryo engine, by the way, no matter what they're saying. The launcher is the same, the data folder is the same, the console is the same, and I'm sure everything is put together the same. They just outlasted the company that made Gamebryo and probably got the rights the source code at rock bottom prices, and can now just call it their own.

Nothing entirely wrong with that, at all either, so don't get me wrong. It's the same strategy Valve went with their Source engine. As shiny as that engine is these days, it's neat to know that its core was/is the original Quake engine.

Jerykk wrote on Nov 27, 2011, 01:47:
Yeah, I'm already doing that. I think the issue is that the game is highly CPU-dependent. My CPU is relatively old and only clocked at 3 GHz. Apparently you need at least 4 GHz to get a good framerate in cities.

Ah... that might explain it... My Core 2 Duo E8600 is running at 4GHz... but it always has, so I didn't even think of that. I guess that's one of the benefits to a liquid cooled and overclocked CPU and GPU rig... the need to upgrade comes less often (if you aren't into pushing BS synthetic benchmark numbers every year, for bragging rights).

ochentay4 wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 18:25:
11.11a gave me some vpu recovery... hope this one not since the performance gain over 11.10 are really good

I was getting some weird vpu recovery issues, too--and also some problems with resolution settings (at reses lower than native), which all disappeared when I went into the CCC's MyDigitalFlatpanels/Properties and unchecked the box for (turned off) gpu scaling.

* REMOVED *
This comment was deleted on Nov 27, 2011, 05:59.

Inside the cities, your FPS is more tied to your CPU than graphics card, with all the AI happenings. That's why the bigger, more populated ones are separated from the rest of the overworld map.

Jerykk, try running your shadows 1 notch down... there isn't a huge visual difference from Ultra down to High.

Yeah, I'm already doing that. I think the issue is that the game is highly CPU-dependent. My CPU is relatively old and only clocked at 3 GHz. Apparently you need at least 4 GHz to get a good framerate in cities.

Skyrim runs fine in any of the cities, on high settings, with my nearly 5 year old 8800GTX @ 1280x1024.

I run the game at 1920x1080, not 1280x1024. I'm sure if I turned down the resolution, I'd get improved framerate but I don't like playing at anything less than 1080p.

On an unrelated note, when I run Arkham City at Very High detail, I get random crashes when leaving the WayneTech menu. It's pretty annoying. Doesn't happen at all when I run at High detail. Not sure if it's an issue with these drivers or with the game itself.

Pundit Guy wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 22:39:
I've got everything except shadows on ultra, and I'm not having any trouble with my 5850 at 1080p. I haven't seen FRAPS dip below 45 and it consistently hovers around 60.

Yeah... that makes sense... Morrowind and Oblivion ran crappy with shadows turned up... and even though Bethesda claims this is a "new engine" it still uses the bulk of the Gamebryo renderer.

Jerykk, try running your shadows 1 notch down... there isn't a huge visual difference from Ultra down to High.

Pundit Guy wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 22:39:

Crustacean Soup wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 22:09:
My settings (Ultra, 1920x1080) run fine everywhere except Markarth

I've got everything except shadows on ultra, and I'm not having any trouble with my 5850 at 1080p. I haven't seen FRAPS dip below 45 and it consistently hovers around 60.

My ever-increasing silent CTD issue was solved completely with the Large Address Aware workaround.

The shadows are a pretty big hit, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're smacking Markarth hard. Everything is at Ultra, 8x AA, 16x AF, (edit: draw distances maxed in the launcher, and I might have increased a number or two in the ini, but the cities were running poorly before that) on a 6950. I haven't used a framerate counter, but visually I'd guess the game is well above 45 (probably close to 60 most of the time), except in cities where it wobbles (Markarth can be >40, but anywhere in the upper city looking out probably brings it below 30). All guesses, but they're probably close.

This comment was edited on Nov 26, 2011, 23:51.

I also had some trouble with cities (not catastrophic but lower frame rates) and the best thing I found to improve things is in SkyrimPrefs.ini:

fShadowDistance=3000.0000

Check your value isn't higher than this, mine was 8000 although that may have been from a shadow mod's ini file while I was experimenting. It's the distance at which shadows are drawn, setting at 3000 is almost never noticable in towns and saved me a great deal of FPS, even with the quality of shadows set highter than Ultra. In the open wilderness 3000 is a little noticable though, we'll need a util to set these kinds of values depending on interior, exterior and wilderness locations I think. Also I suspect the FPS loss in cities is caused by CPU limit not GPU limit in many cases, mine was.

Edit: oh and I didn't really notice a performance increase with these drivers but I have not had a single crash since. Before while using one of the FXAA injectors I was CTDing occasionally.

Crustacean Soup wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 22:09:
My settings (Ultra, 1920x1080) run fine everywhere except Markarth

I've got everything except shadows on ultra, and I'm not having any trouble with my 5850 at 1080p. I haven't seen FRAPS dip below 45 and it consistently hovers around 60.

My ever-increasing silent CTD issue was solved completely with the Large Address Aware workaround.

wtf_man wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 21:21:

Jerykk wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 19:52:
These gave me a nice performance boost in Skyrim and Arkham City. Skyrim still runs like ass in cities but it's better than before.

Either AMD Cards are crap for Skyrim, or you are running settings too high for your resolution.

Skyrim runs fine in any of the cities, on high settings, with my nearly 5 year old 8800GTX @ 1280x1024.

Or option C: the cities just run more poorly than anywhere else.

My settings (Ultra, 1920x1080) run fine everywhere except Markarth (also to a lesser degree Solitude and Whiterun if I get in a position to see the whole city). I'm not going to turn them down just so the cities run slightly better though; combat is usually outside or in dungeons, where it runs perfectly, so gameplay isn't being hampered by this at all.

Jerykk wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 19:52:
Skyrim still runs like ass in cities but it's better than before.

Try turning your graphics settings down? Specifically the 'distant objects' setting uses a lot of resources in cities I think because it is rendering and computing AI for distant NPC's.

Jerykk wrote on Nov 26, 2011, 19:52:
These gave me a nice performance boost in Skyrim and Arkham City. Skyrim still runs like ass in cities but it's better than before.

Either AMD Cards are crap for Skyrim, or you are running settings too high for your resolution.

Skyrim runs fine in any of the cities, on high settings, with my nearly 5 year old 8800GTX @ 1280x1024.

These gave me a nice performance boost in Skyrim and Arkham City. Skyrim still runs like ass in cities but it's better than before.

If you get silent CTD check your sound properties for the default device (advanced tab) and make sure they are 44.1k or lower.

The performance gain on Skyrim with my 5850 was noticeable, but I've also picked up a silent CTD while playing. I don't know if this is due to the small Skyrim patch or the new drivers, but the 11.11b are installing now, so we'll find out.

11.11a gave me some vpu recovery... hope this one not since the performance gain over 11.10 are really good