Dissapointed with GTX 970 in Skyrim

[LordRahl90]

First post here so go easy on me. I just built my PC last night. Specs are as follows:

 

Intel I5-6600k with Hyper 212 Evo installed

Asrock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K4 MOBO

16gb DDR4 2400 RAM (Viper Elite)

ASUS STRIX GTX 970 4GB OC

Silencer EPS 610w Continuous PSU

Dragonlord Series Lian Li K58 ATX Tower

24" 1080p IPS Monitor from AOC (connected via HDMI)

Fresh Install Win 10 Pro x64

 

Ok so a nice little gaming system. Problem is that Skyrim is running at only 20FPS inside the initial caves when starting the game. This is whats odd. I had to wait a couple of days for my CPU cooler to come in so I threw the GTX 970 in my old tower with my AMD Phenom X II unlocked to an X4 555 at 3.2Ghz with 4gb mushkin ddr3 ram and was able for several days to play at 60FPS Ultra high settings. This is from Steam, and only mod if you call it that is the default HD textures pack steam has for free.

 

Move forward a couple of days, and boom, 20FPS inside the tunnels trying to get out from the dragon, and its killing me. How can I go from a bottle-necking POS AMD from like 2010 to a 6th gen intel i5 and be getting significantly worse FPS? Ive not tweaked settings, but I shouldn't have too. It auto set it up on the AMD and did the same on the intel. Now I have a fresh install of win 10 pro x64, just the base drivers for the system, no bloatware, etc. This system played WoW Legion last night on maxed setting no issue giving me 45-60FPS in Dalaran and world without so much as a hiccup. So what is going on here?

 

I noticed my VRAM was getting absolutely maxed out too. ASUS has a nice little utility that runs over your games to show FPS, clock speed, Vram, and Temps and it showed my card maxed the hell out for some reason on what I would consider a rather vanilla Skyrim install. I don't even know where to begin here. Can someone help just point me in the right google path so I may find enlightenment on my predicament?

 

Edit: I have looked on google for this issue, but it is 99% about people running heavy mods, etc. Im not, im trying to run vanilla basically at this point.

[Mr.Humble]

1 minute ago, starcoaster said:

yeah uh, haven't you heard? Skyrim is VRAM intensive and the 970 has 3.5GB. Your VRAM is full and you played yourself by getting a 970.

Sell the 970 and get a 6GB 1060 or a 980. They perform about the same and cost about the same at the minute, but the 1060 has 2GB more VRAM

RX480 will set you up too with its 8GB of VRAM.

[DXMember]

Are you sure you're not running off an integrated graphics?

Are you using any mods on Skyrim?

I believe Skyrim has issues with Windows 10 on it's own

and Skyrim is like on DX9 or something... so don't expect much from it

[Herman Mcpootis]

6 minutes ago, LordRahl90 said:

 

I noticed my VRAM was getting absolutely maxed out too. ASUS has a nice little utility that runs over your games to show FPS, clock speed, Vram, and Temps and it showed my card maxed the hell out for some reason on what I would consider a rather vanilla Skyrim install. I don't even know where to begin here. Can someone help just point me in the right google path so I may find enlightenment on my predicament?

 

 

there's your problem. the 970 only has 4gb of vram. worse still, only 3.5gb is useable, the other 0.5gb will cause stuttering if you tried using them. go rx 480 8gb or gtx 1060 6gb to solve the issue.

[Morgan MLGman]

5 minutes ago, starcoaster said:

yeah uh, haven't you heard? Skyrim is VRAM intensive and the 970 has 3.5GB. Your VRAM is full and you played yourself by getting a 970.

Sell the 970 and get a 6GB 1060 or a 980. They perform about the same and cost about the same at the minute, but the 1060 has 2GB more VRAM

980? With 4GB again? Do not get a 980. It's not worth it AT ALL.

 

390X, RX 480, GTX 1060 all are better choices around the same price points.

[LordRahl90]

Well when i was running the AMD setup I was on a fresh install of win 7. Now im on win 10. I mean I could return the gtx 970 as i got it through amazon, and spend the 50 or so extra bucks on a 1060 6gb, my main game i play is WoW legion, but I picked up the legendary skyrim for 20 bucks at walmart cause i loved it on my 360, and when i got my xbox one I was sad it wasn't compatible. I really would hate to have to wait a week for another graphics card again, but i think i paid 245.00 for this one and they have a 6gb 1060 for like 269.00. I am running the HDMI from the GPU to my monitor so I am pretty sure its running off the GPU. CPU-z says gtx 970 on it when i load it up.

[LordRahl90]

No mods other than the HD pack from Steam.

[Herman Mcpootis]

1 minute ago, LordRahl90 said:

Well when i was running the AMD setup I was on a fresh install of win 7. Now im on win 10. I mean I could return the gtx 970 as i got it through amazon, and spend the 50 or so extra bucks on a 1060 6gb, my main game i play is WoW legion, but I picked up the legendary skyrim for 20 bucks at walmart cause i loved it on my 360, and when i got my xbox one I was sad it wasn't compatible. I really would hate to have to wait a week for another graphics card again, but i think i paid 245.00 for this one and they have a 6gb 1060 for like 269.00. I am running the HDMI from the GPU to my monitor so I am pretty sure its running off the GPU. CPU-z says gtx 970 on it when i load it up.

there are a few gtx 1060 6gb cards for $250, you can try those if you pay the extra.

[Morgan MLGman]

1 minute ago, LordRahl90 said:

Well when i was running the AMD setup I was on a fresh install of win 7. Now im on win 10. I mean I could return the gtx 970 as i got it through amazon, and spend the 50 or so extra bucks on a 1060 6gb, my main game i play is WoW legion, but I picked up the legendary skyrim for 20 bucks at walmart cause i loved it on my 360, and when i got my xbox one I was sad it wasn't compatible. I really would hate to have to wait a week for another graphics card again, but i think i paid 245.00 for this one and they have a 6gb 1060 for like 269.00. I am running the HDMI from the GPU to my monitor so I am pretty sure its running off the GPU. CPU-z says gtx 970 on it when i load it up.

GTX 970 is really, really bad value for money now. R9 290X, R9 390, R9 390X, RX 480, GTX 1060 all are better, much more futureproof choices.

 

You should look into a GTX 1060 more if you're interested in Skyrim, as Bethesda games don't like AMD in general.

[LordRahl90]

Well I can return the card later this week, as I have raids the next 3 nights in WoW. Ill look into a 1060 and see what I can do there. If I really stretched my budget I could get a 1070 but thats really pushing it

 

[AresKrieger]

13 minutes ago, starcoaster said:

Skyrim is VRAM intensive and the 970 has 3.5GB. Your VRAM is full and you played yourself by getting a 970.

If you add 4k textures, with a reasonable set up it is not

 

Edit wait the HD texture pack is maxing out vram dafuq, it doesn't on mine

[Unhelpful]

13 minutes ago, starcoaster said:

yeah uh, haven't you heard? Skyrim is VRAM intensive and the 970 has 3.5GB. Your VRAM is full and you played yourself by getting a 970.

Sell the 970 and get a 6GB 1060 or a 980. They perform about the same and cost about the same at the minute, but the 1060 has 2GB more VRAM

No. You can mod the everliving shit out of Skyrim on a 780 (I have) and not dip below 60 fps. You need 4k textures along with a horribly optimized ENB to require more than 3gb in that game. It likes more RAM, but it shouldn't drop below 60fps if you mod it correctly. 

[LordRahl90]

So what about this guy? I can buy this no issues, once amazon returns my money of course? https://www.amazon.com/GeForce-STRIX-Ready-Graphic-STRIX-GTX1060-O6G-GAMING/dp/B01IPVSN1S/ref=sr_1_9?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1474377246&sr=1-9&keywords=GTX+1060

[Nord]

I've been able to play skyrim heavily modified on a gtx 970 and the same goes for Fallout 4, w/o getting any noticable issues from the slower 500mb of VRam on the 970.

I mean hell, I played skyim on a 660 ti with 2GB Vram (w/o the official HD textures mind you), but still a ton of visual improvement mods and barely had any FPS problems.

 

So while the statement of getting a 10xx series GPU is probably still valid, you should disregard all those comments telling you its the 970's fault, as they obviously didnt even bother to read the entire post. Since if they did they would have noticed that you did kinda proof allready that the GPU is able to perform 60FPS in a different system.

 

Possible fixes:

Since you have a overlay program allready, check the GPU clock & memory speed when playing skyrim. Clock should be around 1300mhz and memory around 3500mhz (non OC'd), if its below that go to nvidia settings on your desktop and change it to "maximum performance" for skyrim.

Alternatively you could try running skyrim in compatibility mode for windows 7.

If you happen to run the game in fullscreen-windowed or windowed, change it to fullscreen.

 

 

[Bazadar]

I have a 970, Dont remember having any issues on SkyRim. Will try it tonight see if i get any issues as i have basic Skyrim as well with no mods besides the ones they provided.

[AresKrieger]

Just now, LordRahl90 said:

So what about this guy? I can buy this no issues, once amazon returns my money of course? https://www.amazon.com/GeForce-STRIX-Ready-Graphic-STRIX-GTX1060-O6G-GAMING/dp/B01IPVSN1S/ref=sr_1_9?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1474377246&sr=1-9&keywords=GTX+1060

It's fine though you can get a cheaper 1060 and still be fine they all clock more or less the same, so don't pay more if you don't have too

[LordRahl90]

Ok I will try it tonight when I get home, I can still return it for the 1060 as it probably would be better for future proofing, but I would like to get this to work on the 970 now just for the sake of it. Ill try on lunch and tweak some things and see what happens.

[Herman Mcpootis]

3 minutes ago, LordRahl90 said:

So what about this guy? I can buy this no issues, once amazon returns my money of course? https://www.amazon.com/GeForce-STRIX-Ready-Graphic-STRIX-GTX1060-O6G-GAMING/dp/B01IPVSN1S/ref=sr_1_9?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1474377246&sr=1-9&keywords=GTX+1060

that's a really hefty price you're paying for a gtx 1060. not worth it. i'd get a gtx 1060 SC gaming from EVGA at the most.

[Herman Mcpootis]

5 minutes ago, LordRahl90 said:

So what about this guy? I can buy this no issues, once amazon returns my money of course? https://www.amazon.com/GeForce-STRIX-Ready-Graphic-STRIX-GTX1060-O6G-GAMING/dp/B01IPVSN1S/ref=sr_1_9?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1474377246&sr=1-9&keywords=GTX+1060

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IPVSLTC?tag=pcpapi-20&pldnSite=1 cheaper, just as good and far better warranty and customer service.

Edited September 20, 2016 by herman mcpootis
wrong GPU

[LordRahl90]

1 minute ago, herman mcpootis said:

http://www.ncixus.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031504&sku=135390&promoid=1264 cheaper, just as good and far better warranty and customer service.

Wouldnt i want the 6GB version though?

[ShadowCaptain]

There is no reason skyrim would run at 20fps on a 970 no matter what people are saying about VRAM,

[Herman Mcpootis]

Just now, LordRahl90 said:

Wouldnt i want the 6GB version though?

wrong GPU, sorry. edited the post, now its the SC gaming 6gb instead.

[Praesi]

Your Vram is 100% not the Reason.

[LordRahl90]

Just now, herman mcpootis said:

wrong GPU, sorry. edited the post, now its the SC gaming 6gb instead.

Ok thanks

[LordRahl90]

Could having the card in OC mode be causing it to max the Vram out? By default I have OC mode, Gaming mode(balanced all around) and silent mode(light gaming low fan speed)