Issues running Skyrim

[Zealot12]

So I downloaded Skyrim about a week or two ago. And the first time it logged me it, it set my graphics to high. The game ran smoothly until this weekend, now it can barely chug along on medium graphic settings and takes forever to start up my save. Anyone have any idea what happened here?

Processor - Intel i7 Q740 @ 1.73ghz
Graphics Card - ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730
500 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
6GB of RAM
Windows 7 64 bit

[Aliens]

Try checking if your drivers are up to date, and keep an eye on your temperatures while the game is running maybe?
Also, try ending any unneeded processes running behind Skyrim via task-manager.

[Mr. Smith]

What kind of cooling system do you have?

[Zealot12]

Well I am running it on a laptop, but the it doesn't over heat. I have one of those cooling pads and it does a good job. It says all of my drivers are up to date too when I try to update them. Any other suggestions?

[Zealot12]

The drivers are up to date, just did an update. I tried it out and it still chugs along kind of slow at medium, but it doesn't take as long to load. To cool my laptop I just have a cooling pad, it does a good job though.

[Mr. Smith]

Scan for viruses.

[Gordon Frohman]

Apparently Skyrim has issues detecting more than 2gb RAM. I believe there's a workaround somewhere. I'm going somewhere in a few so I can't help you but when I get back I'll look. It may help with performance. I'm not 100% if RAM affects framerate but it couldn't hurt to try.

Until then, mess with your GPU control settings and Skyrim's settings. You probably won't check back here though.

[Zealot12]

Apparently Skyrim has issues detecting more than 2gb RAM. I believe there's a workaround somewhere. I'm going somewhere in a few so I can't help you but when I get back I'll look. It may help with performance. I'm not 100% if RAM affects framerate but it couldn't hurt to try.

Until then, mess with your GPU control settings and Skyrim's settings. You probably won't check back here though.

Thanks man I'd appreciate it, I'll check again tomorrow to see if you found something.

And I'll also do a virus scan.

[Mr. Smith]

Apparently Skyrim has issues detecting more than 2gb RAM. I believe there's a workaround somewhere. I'm going somewhere in a few so I can't help you but when I get back I'll look. It may help with performance. I'm not 100% if RAM affects framerate but it couldn't hurt to try.

Until then, mess with your GPU control settings and Skyrim's settings. You probably won't check back here though.

Thanks man I'd appreciate it, I'll check again tomorrow to see if you found something.

And I'll also do a virus scan.

Malwarebytes is a good free program you can download.

[Gordon Frohman]

See if these help:

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=48

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... -my-6GB-PC

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=134

[Zealot12]

See if these help:

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=48

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... -my-6GB-PC

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=134

The one for the graphics cards has helped my smoothness noticably on medium, but high still does not work. I tried to RAM fix, however mine was already enabled to use more than 2GB of RAM, so it did nothing. At this point I'm ok with running smoothly on medium, it's better than choppy. Thanks for the help!

I did the virus scan too.. nothing came up.

[Gordon Frohman]

No problem. So you say it ran fine on High until recently? That's very strange.

Have you messed with your GPU control panel/Skyrim settings? High AA and AF can kill FPS.

Also, do you have alot of stuff in your inventory or in a chest somewhere?

Check this out, too: http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/132254 ... -thread-3/

[Quack]

Are you running any mods?

[Zealot12]

No problem. So you say it ran fine on High until recently? That's very strange.

Have you messed with your GPU control panel/Skyrim settings? High AA and AF can kill FPS.

Also, do you have alot of stuff in your inventory or in a chest somewhere?

Check this out, too: http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/132254 ... -thread-3/

Yea, it's happened to me before though. I used to play rift earlier last year and I was running it fine on high then one day it decided that high was too much and had to do the same thing.

I've messed around with the settings, I can get it to work on high, but it's just not as smooth as I'd like so I've been keeping it on medium.

And I am not running any mods except for one of the fixes you've showed me.

[Gordon Frohman]

In my experience that kind of thing only happens when an update of some sort happens, I install new drivers or I do system maintenance. Try rolling back video/audio drivers and see if that helps. ATI doesn't have the best track record with drivers though and that's really the only thing I can think of that can be causing this. Try this and defrag it. IObit has great defrag tools too and it's free.

Other than that, I'm stumped.