GPU performance going down?

[TheRealDiaborMagics]

Hello everyone!

 

I'm DiaborMagics (new here; somehow the username was already taken, yet I can't find a member with this name, but I had to pick a different one still, thus TheRealDiaborMagics) and... I've got an important question.

 

You see, I have a laptop with dual graphics; the best card in there is the AMD Radeon HD 7970M 2 GB GDDR5 and I bought it about 1.5 years ago. But I am under the impression that my performance of my GPU is going down. FAST. Is it possible that how older a GPU get, the worse the VRAM performs? Like... maybe it can get damaged, or clogged with memory it doesn't use anymore or something? I don't know much and search engines didn't really help.

 

Here's the problem: I run modded Skyrim on High settings, generally, with Sharpshooters ENB and the Bethesda High Res Texture Pack; some high quality followers and only a few armors. Oh and my water has improved visuals as well. The thing is, up until about 1 month ago, I could play my game just fine for maybe even 2 - 4 hours in a row without noticing anything weird. I generally don't play that long, nor longer, so I may just have never noticed anything strange. But since about a month, I see textures 'breaking'. What I mean by that is that they are just purple or black. And it happens faster and faster and eventually crashes my game to desktop; I just played for 15 minutes and it already had many broken textures (generall armors, weapons, animals, people, walls, floors, etc), so I think it has to do with my video card. 

 

But... how can it be that my GPU degrades in quality so rapidly? Can this even be explained by a GPU problem? I've played that game fine for about 1.5 years. I tried some other texture packs and as soon as I noticed problems, I started getting rid of them again, so they are no longer there (except the water overhaul, ENB and Bethesda pack, etc). 

 

Basically I want to know a few things:

1. Is it even possible that a GPU degrades in quality this fast?
2. Can it really be my VRAM causing this? Never had a problem before....
3. If it is my GPU, what I can I do about it? Clean it somehow? I don't think that's possible, is it? The question alone sounds stupid.
4. If it's NOT my GPU, then what is it? Or how can I find out? And fix it?
5. I've monitored my GPU with GPU-Z and the temperature never goes above 85 Celsius, usually sits in between 60 and 80; the clock speed and memory speed keep sitting at their max and the load never goes above 85 either. It doesn't specifically state my VRAM usage; can I safely assume that's the 'load' or not?
6. Looking at the things listed in question 5 and what I asked in question 1... is there any indication for malfunctioning of some kind? 
7. Did I fail to ask a specific (set of) question(s) and do I really need more info than what I have asked for?

If you need to know my system, it's an MSI GX60 series (don't know the exact one. Not the Hitman Edition, it seems), with Windows 8.1 64 bits, AMD A10-4600M CPU (bottleneck?), AMD Radeon HD 7660G and AMD Radeon HD 7970M 2 GB GDDR5 dual graphics, 2x 4GB of RAM and a 750GB 7200 RPM HDD. The computer came with Windows 8.0 64 bits.I also recently un/reinstalled windows comepletely to go from 8.0 to 8.1 I didn't update. This was about 3 months ago.

 

I hope I was clear and that I listed all the required information. Naturally I could say this as well: my game and my SKSE, SkyUI and all other mods are all completely updated and I am running the latest Catalyst 15.3 beta drivers since about 1,5 months (so I don't think the drivers are the issue here).

 

Thanks in advance people, I really don't know what's going on, or what to do!

 

- TRDiaborMagics

[Sakkura]

You see, I have a laptop with dual graphics; the best card in there is the AMD Radeon HD 7970M 2 GB GDDR5 and I bought it about 1.5 years ago. But I am under the impression that my performance of my GPU is going down. FAST. Is it possible that how older a GPU get, the worse the VRAM performs? Like... maybe it can get damaged, or clogged with memory it doesn't use anymore or something? I don't know much and search engines didn't really help.

 

No, the VRAM performance will stay the same as long as it's still working properly. But the software side of things can get degraded. Doesn't seem likely just 3 months after Windows installation, but maybe if you're changing around mods a lot you have messed your Skyrim install up. You might want to try reinstalling Skyrim.

[Likwid]

I think this could be overheating problem. You should clean your laptop

[pablopg69]

Is DiaborMagics supposed to be someone famous or something? I'm confused.

[TheRealDiaborMagics]

@Sakkura I use Mod Organizer, so the chance of Skyrim being messed up already should be fairly slim right? However, I tested it on 2 seperate profiles and they both have it.

 

@Likwid 2 months ago I used compressed air to give my laptop its very first dust cleaning. Since I wasnt sure if it was effective, I did it again 1 month ago. I saw dust coming out. I generally only use it on desks, because I am very careful about dust problems (yet not everything can be prevented, I know). Could that still be the issue? It doesnt seem like its getting way too hot? But I do however feel like it gets hot faster than when my laptop was new. Is there another way to properly clean it? Or should I take it to a store to clean it? That would most likely spoil the warranty.

 

@pablopg69 I dont expect you to know me at all; I'm only well-known in Tekken Card Tournament's community, as I make many videos for that (havent in 1 or 2 months now though, due to school and stuff). The thing is just that either someone is out there pretending to be me, or I already made an account once and don't remember, which I highly doubt, because that should use the same email adress as I'm currently using. But because Diabor is the main character of a work of fiction that I published, I highly doubt that anyone else would come up with the name DiaborMagics. So it's either me, or a fraud. That's the point and not important to this topic, which is why I initially wasnt making a huge deal about it It does bug me that I dont know who or what it is, though.

[pablopg69]

.

@pablopg69 I dont expect you to know me at all; I'm only well-known in Tekken Card Tournament's community, as I make many videos for that (havent in 1 or 2 months now though, due to school and stuff). The thing is just that either someone is out there pretending to be me, or I already made an account once and don't remember, which I highly doubt, because that should use the same email adress as I'm currently using. But because Diabor is the main character of a work of fiction that I published, I highly doubt that anyone else would come up with the name DiaborMagics. So it's either me, or a fraud. That's the point and not important to this topic, which is why I initially wasnt making a huge deal about it It does bug me that I dont know who or what it is, though.

Cool.

Your best bet would be the missing textures that appear purple or brown. I mean, maybe VRAM module got damaged? With desktops, the normal procedure at this point would be just to return the gpu and get a new one but I don't know how viable is this for you.

Have you tried running vanilla skyrim and seeing how much is your VRAM usage while playing?

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers?

Have you tried reinstalling Skyrim?

I remember reading this other dude that had purple trees and it turned out it was because Immersive Creatures was interfering. Maybe some mods are in conflict with each other?

[Likwid]

@Likwid 2 months ago I used compressed air to give my laptop its very first dust cleaning. Since I wasnt sure if it was effective, I did it again 1 month ago. I saw dust coming out. I generally only use it on desks, because I am very careful about dust problems (yet not everything can be prevented, I know). Could that still be the issue? It doesnt seem like its getting way too hot? But I do however feel like it gets hot faster than when my laptop was new. Is there another way to properly clean it? Or should I take it to a store to clean it? That would most likely spoil the warranty.

You could try

on intake and blow compressed air in exousts

[Watsyurdeal]

The likely culprit is of course dust, but also just overheating in general. 

When your stuff gets pushed to certain threshold, it starts to cook itself. That overtime can cause it to degrade, so yea, clean it out the best you can, and I would recommend not pushing it too hard in the future. Especially if it's showing signs of wear and tear.

[TheRealDiaborMagics]

@pablopg69 no i hadnt tried those things yet, mainly because my install is so... young already. I mean 3 months? Maybe it's the beta drivers, but those fixed a different problem that I had... so yeah... but i might try going back to the previous version or something. And maybe back up my entire drive and then start reinstalling Skyrim again. But others say it's most likely overheating. Maybe it indeed is?

 

@Likwid @Watsyurdeal I am going to try the suggestion methods indeed. Again, I don't think the 60 - 80 degrees Celsius is a likely culprit, but then again Im not expert. So if cleaning it myself fails, I might still take it to a workshop instead. Would that be a good idea?

 

Thanks for the help so far everyone If I don't respond for a while: I'm going to bed, so thats why

 

EDIT: Sorry for the typos and stuff... it's late and I'm not English myself

[TheRealDiaborMagics]

Thanks for all the replies. After testing, it really seems like everything is OK. It was just my savegame being messed up because of my mods. I started a new game in vanilla; ran 2 hours without problems. Then I quit, threw in mods (a different setup/mod list) and I quit playing after 4 hours; it ran smoothly the whole time. Only had 1 CTD, but that was my own fault for messing with the wrong console command. 

 

So in short... it seems like I was afraid for no reason. I had never seen textures breaking because of mods and I have seen (and usually fixed) my share of problems. I'm just going to continue with this new savegame, though. It sucks, but it's better then having a broken graphics card or something. Far better  

 

Thanks for all the responses! 

 

- DiaborMagics