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So I am going to try not to make this sound vague, but if it weren't I would know how to fix it!

I have a decent PC. I have been playing Skyrim for a while on it, but it has always been kinda funny with anti-aliasing. Anyway, recently it has gotten progressively worse. And I mean that literally. Around March it was starting to lag a bit, and then a lot more lag and stutter, and now it is pretty much unplayable. I am pretty sure it is a problem with my CPU and the game, because when I try to do anything else on my PC while Skyrim is up it is very slow and the Rainmeter CPU stat I have shows that it is high. Other games are fine, I can run Oblivion on max settings perfectly.

Also, I just did a fresh install of Skyrim and it is still happening. No other significant programs run in the background, no secret anti-aliasing is turned on (that I am aware of), I have cleaned out my PC very recently and I have been doing so since I got it, etc.

If you want my PC's stats, here you go:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30 GHz
8GB DDR3/1600MHz
AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit Edition)
GigaByte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 Intel Z68 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard

You have plenty of system; I think you should be able to play on Ultra without problems *and* have things running in the background. Are perhaps your draw distances set to goofy-high maxed out values? Though you said you did a fresh install ... Oblivion is a poor comparison because it shouldn't be near as resource-demanding.

Have you been monitoring your temps (CPU and GPU) as you play Skyrim? When things start slowing down alt tab out and use something like realtemp to see where you're at (post back results). You could get some big slow downs if you're overheating. Maybe try turning off the Steam in-game? And if you don't have steam in-game as an option - maybe there's some malware in the bootleg that's tying everything up

Ok so now it is a little better, that is, I can play it. (Weird how it went from unplayable to somewhat decent in 2 hours without me doing anything)

First I put it on low, and also went into advanced settings and set everything down (kept resolution though). This was to test if it was really a performance issue or not.

Proof that I actually turned it down to assure you I am not an idiot
So it looked like that.

And it was totally fine. I could play with little to no lag at all. Then I turned it on High settings. Regular old high settings, I didn't change anything, just the default "High" setting. It was pretty good, but when a dragon would breathe fire or lots of people were fighting and I happened to look at it, the performance dropped. I would alt + tab out and look at the CPU stat quick and I found that it was generally at 70-80% usage when the game was up.

I don't know... I mean I guess I could just try to play at medium or change the settings a bit but I should be able to play just fine. I am out of ideas on what to do now. I have tried those CPU script enhancers on the Nexus before but they didn't really seem to do anything.

Hmm, I don't get why the game would be so CPU intensive. Your 6870 should be chewing up Skyrim on Ultra like butter. Have you tried updating your graphics card drivers?

Yep I have the latest drivers. And I only got my computer about a year ago so this really shouldn't be happening.

Have you tried looking at your temperatures? Maybe there's a big fur ball in your CPU heatsink?

Yeah, I have narrowed down the problem to that. I am positive it is a temperature issue. I just wasn't really considering that. I am getting two fans for the top of my PC to blow down into the system as it runs. But temperature issues does fit the criteria of the problem:
1) "random" rate of stutter (in reality it is depending how hot it is in the room)
2) Game runs well for first 20 or so minutes of playtime, and then it progressively gets worse
3)The CPU is greatly affected

I was going to post back but I didn't want to double post. But since you responded I just wanted to let you know. Thank you for the help though!!

Your hardware should support various programs out there to monitor your temps, if your gigabyte motherboard didn't come with its own temperature dashboard. Realtemp is simple and easy to use otherwise

I have a temperature display on the front of my PC case. Thank you though!

zzfallens wrote:Yeah, I have narrowed down the problem to that. I am positive it is a temperature issue. I just wasn't really considering that. I am getting two fans for the top of my PC to blow down into the system as it runs. But temperature issues does fit the criteria of the problem:
1) "random" rate of stutter (in reality it is depending how hot it is in the room)
2) Game runs well for first 20 or so minutes of playtime, and then it progressively gets worse
3)The CPU is greatly affected

I was going to post back but I didn't want to double post. But since you responded I just wanted to let you know. Thank you for the help though!!

Quick tip, don't have the top fans blow down, have then blow out. The hot air rises and wants to escape. You'd just be keeping it in the case. By having more fans blowing out, you'll create a vacuum which will bring in more cool air through your lower fans.

Skyrim is very CPU demanding and you will probably benefiting your i5 to something higher. Im running it at 4.5ghz n its silky smooth.

Check out this article for cpu scaling http://www.techspot.com/review/467-skyr ... page7.html

Also if your still struggling try disabling the official HD texture pack as I found that it caused alot of stuttering.

Hope this helps.

GodWarner wrote:Skyrim is very CPU demanding and you will probably benefiting your i5 to something higher. Im running it at 4.5ghz n its silky smooth.

Check out this article for cpu scaling http://www.techspot.com/review/467-skyr ... page7.html

If you read that article you linked, they're over 60fps @ 3.0Ghz on a 2600 ... I don't think he needs to OC when he's already @ 3.3ghz and may be having temperature issues. It's awesome that you're able to run yours at 4.5, but FWIW I've seen lots of CTDs in my short experience of pushing 4.5 on an i7-2600k (no problems @ 4.0). The computer I play Skyrim on has a AMD quad core I have clocked at 2.8ghz and plays ultra with no perceivable slowdown on a high refresh rate monitor (though only at 1280x1024) and max core temps of 50*C (so it's not being pushed) - my point is that I don't think the CPU throughput should be an issue. And in the case of Skyrim I don't think the i5 shouldn't perform any worse than a pre-Ivybridge i7 @ 3.3ghz

GodWarner wrote:Skyrim is very CPU demanding and you will probably benefiting your i5 to something higher. Im running it at 4.5ghz n its silky smooth.

Check out this article for cpu scaling http://www.techspot.com/review/467-skyr ... page7.html

Also if your still struggling try disabling the official HD texture pack as I found that it caused alot of stuttering.

Hope this helps.

CPU intensive my foot.

For one, the came isn't highly multi-core optimised, so clock speed is the main issue. However I have less a clock speed than the OP, a i7 950 @ 3.08GHz, and the same graphics card and even slower RAM to add to the conundrum. And I play the game on highest setting, HD texture pack included without any issues.

In my eyes, I feel like there's either something conflicting with Skyrim or running in the background chewing up the resources from Skyrim.

Easy fellas im just trying to help out. Maybe that specific article didnt highlight my point.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sky ... 074-9.html

This one however shows a clear difference by overclocking.

Also just out of interest zzfallens, why havent you overclocked your i5 anyway? That thing begs to be sped up

With his set up he shouldn't need to so a stupid thing like over clock. 3.30GHz is more than you'll ever need unless you're doing things like 3d rendering.

It's on par, if not better than mine. And my rig runs it perfectly. So that points to the fact that something might be conflicting with Skyrim.

Just out of interest, what temperature readings are you getting?

Invest in a liquid CPU cooler or a heatsink if you're not in to liquid, set me back about 100AUD and runs like a charm.

Also referring to above post, definitely don't have the top fans blowing down, they need to be exhaust fans, with your intake at the bottom and lower sides or back of your case.

Ok well I found out the issue. I installed the fans the right way don't worry. But the problem was my CPU fan wasn't even connected correctly. I have this huge hadron-collider in my computer (SpinQ thermaltake CPU fan) that wasn't doing anything! Well, it was blowing the air, but not in the right place. I am lucky I didn't fry my CPU. I fixed that and put in the fans and now I can play on high with no stutter at all. I'll try ultra later. Thanks for the help guys.