The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an open-world (sandbox) RPG video game developed and published by Bethesda. The game is the fifth installment in the Elder Scrolls series which takes place in the same universe. Skyrim has thousands of mods available and is one of the most modded games of all time.

Issues

ENB poor performance

An ENB is a mod that adds high dynamic range and other visual enhancements to the game, but it often comes at the price of a significant drop in performance or even stuttering where the game will temporarily freeze when loading new environments or turning around quickly. There are a few ways in reducing the performance hit of ENBs.

Solution 1

Disable ambient occlusion and depth of field. These two options greatly affect the game's performance as they require complex algorithms to function.

1. Press Shift+Enter

   

   Skyrim Shift+Enter ENB menu

2. Use the mouse to untick or uncheck ambient occlusion and depth of field

Solution 2

Decrease anisotropic filtering. Anisotropic filtering, like ENBs, can utilize a lot of graphics memory leaving the video card with little free memory. This can result in poor performance but also stuttering. Turning around in the game quickly or moving from one place to another as the new environment loads can cause temporary freezing or stuttering.

1. Open the Steam directory by Right clicking on Steam and selecting Open file location
2. Go to the Skyrim directory, usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\Skyrim

   

   Skyrim enblocal.ini file

3. Open the file enblocal.ini
4. Press CTRL+F and search for MaxAnisotropy=
5. Decrease the number in half. So if it says MaxAnisotropy=16 set it to MaxAnisotropy=8
6. Save the file and exit

Skyrim stutters and freezes temporarily

The game will occasionally or frequently stutter as you move around in the world. Standing still usually does not cause the game to stutter. The reason as to why this occurs is unknown, however, there are a few solutions for this problem.

Solution 1

Let your video card's settings handle the anisotropic filtering (AF) and anti-aliasing (AA). For whatever reason, Skyrim's built-in AF and AA cause poorer performance than forcing it enabled in the video card control panel.

1. Start the Skyrim Launcher
2. Select Options
3. Turn off anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing

For nVidia users:

1. Open the NVIDIA Control Panel
2. Under 3D Settings click on Manage 3D Settings
3. Click on the Program Settings tab
4. Under Select a program to customize choose Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (tesv.exe)
5. Select Antialiasing - Mode and change the setting to Override any application setting
6. Select Anisotropic filtering
7. Change the setting from Use global setting (Application-controlled) to a sample rate
8. Select Antialiasing - Setting and change it to a sample rate
9. Save the settings and exit

For AMD users:

1. Open the Catalyst Control Center
2. Click on Gaming -> 3D Application Settings
3. Find and select Skyrim as the application
4. Select Anti-aliasing mode and change it to Override Application Settings
5. Select a sample rate
6. Select Texture Filtering and change it to Override Application Settings
7. Select a sample rate for Texture Filtering
8. Save the settings and exit

Solution 2

SkyrimPrefs.ini file

Disable Skyrim's built-in VSync and enable VSync in the video card's control panel. Skyrim's built-in VSync can cause stuttering and/or poor performance. Disabling it is not listed in the Skyrim options window because Skyrim requires VSync to work properly. If VSync is disabled then the game starts to run either faster or slower than normal and this can cause all kinds of glitches and bugs. The solution is to disable Skyrim's built-in VSync and force it enabled through the video card's control panel.

Disabling Skyrim's VSync

1. Open the Skyrim folder in your document, usually C:\Users\[YOUR NAME]\Documents\My Games\Skyrim
2. Open the file SkyrimPrefs.ini
3. Press CTRL+F and find iPresentInterval
4. Change the value from iPresentInterval=1 to iPresentInterval=0
5. Save and exit

For both nVidia and AMD users the procedure is similar.

1. Open the video card control panel
2. Select 3D Application Settings
3. Select Skyrim as the application
4. Enable Triple Buffering
5. Enable VSync
6. Save and exit