[SOLVED] Skyrim SE fps drop because of script lag or my rig?

[TimmyProves420]

So recently I decided to finally switch from Legendary edition to Special Edition, and the reason is because NEMESIS engine and a lot of new combat animation I like to try and also because I heard the 64bit system of SE run better than the 34bit LE. Never switch before because my previous rig is bad and I'm still comfortable with FNIS and not familiar with NEMESIS yet.



So anyway, I downloaded a bunch of mod and start a new playthrough. At first everything seems normal, but then I went to Whiterun and starting to get fps drop. I counted average fps from 40-60 fps dropped to a mere 7-15 fps outside and inside of Whiterun . Haven't tested other area tho but I know the road leading to Riverwood, Riverwood it self, and Bleakfalls barrow got a stable fps. True that I install some mods that add new meshes and texture (the mod will be listed bellow), but I think my rig now is good enough to handle it. I also install mods that use scripts but I'm not sure how many (I will give a link to my full mod list). On the area that is lagging, I test it with Elephant's Script Latency Tester and come out with average of 350-500ms, while as in stable area its only 65ms.



A few things that I already try to fix this issue:

-Manually clean my mods with SSEEdit

-Use ENBoost method

-Use BethINI to tweak my .ini file

-Install Vanilla Script microOptimizations

-Install Skyrim SE - Project Optimization

-Install Paramount - FPS Galore for Newrim

-Install FPS Boost



Here the graphical mods:

-SMIM SE

-Skyrim 3D Trees and Plants

-Septentrional Landscapes

-Folkvangr

-Dynamic Volumetric Lighting and Sun Shadows

-Blended Roads

-Noble Skyrim

-Origins Of Forest - 3D Forest Grass

-Populated Cities Towns Villages SE

All the mods above uses the 2K texture variant or lesser because I don't want my PC to blow up,



Here's my rig spec:

-Nvidia RTX 2060 6gb (Laptop version tho, so I know it's weaker that the full desktop version)

-16gb RAM DDR4

-AMD Ryzen 7 4800

-1tb ssd

Full mod list on pdf format:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7lSvwokFfU3xCQZ6Ayuq-Q4pGBvLkNU/view?usp=sharing

Bear in mind, I don't use some of the mod that overwrite/not compatible with each other. These mods I usually manually download and save in my hdd

[UPDATE]
So turns out it's definitely script lag, but there's more to it. I test my game on a new save on vanilla Skyrim and progress until I reach Whiterun. After that I quit my game and install the graphical mods above and do few things to boost the fps like installing mods that fixes the fps and such. When the game loads, the game real pretty smooth, we talking 50-60 fps. Then, I decided to add my mods that are currrently install on the other save to this save little by little. After all the mods are install, I load the save again and to my surprise the game still running pretty good. I decided to wait longer to let the mod load, and still it run smoothly without any fps drop

So from the case above, is it my save that is bloated that cause the script lag or something else cause it? Any tips how to clean my save? I already use fallrim tool to clean any unattached instances and threads, but the game still lag for me

[RESOLUTION]
After a bunch of play testing and getting the same result after doing a bunch of things to fix the fps, I decided to just accept my Skyrim as it is. I'm ready to give up when suddenly I saw it. When I was riding a horse I saw on the horizon, there's something streching into infinity. As I got closer, the thing decrease in size, keep getting smaller and smaller. Then I saw it attach it self to a guard shoulder, a cloak.

So the one that been tanking my fps is this mod called HDT-SMP for Cloaks and Capes. It's basically added a bunch of cloaks and capes that have hdt physics. And, as well all know that HDT-SMP is an skse plugin that uses scripts. So putting two and two together, and we got this problem. I notice this when vanilla scripted event played out, the script latency just skyrocketed. I remove the mod, 60 fps ever since.

[Corinze]

3 landscape mods is a lot. You can try looking back at the mod pages for ini tweaks to lower the impact.
Personal I gave up on grass and tree mods because even if the game starts out smooth as the game processes along, grass still taxes my computer.
Since you're on a laptop make sure you us the power pack so the gpu has proper voltage, on battery power the gpu is limited.

[TimmyProves420]

Originally posted by Corinze:

3 landscape mods is a lot. You can try looking back at the mod pages for ini tweaks to lower the impact.
Personal I gave up on grass and tree mods because even if the game starts out smooth as the game processes along, grass still taxes my computer.
Since you're on a laptop make sure you us the power pack so the gpu has proper voltage, on battery power the gpu is limited.

I already set my laptop on turbo mode when plugged in, sufficed to say it's run any other game such as The Witcher 3 pretty well, 40-50 fps on ultra.

I tried testing my other profile in MO2 with only the graphical mods above and no other mod, and it run pretty smooth, about 40-50fps. Testing the script latency also return a pretty good result, about 70-80ms (Probably from Dynamic Volumetric Lighting and Sun Shadows)

[matt]

If you double the population of every town, it'll kill your frame rate, especially if you're using high poly replacers. You also need to keep an eye on how much VRAM you're using if you're loading a bunch of texture mods. Close your other applications before launching Skyrim.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/articles/3091
I didn't read the whole thing, but this seems like reasonable advice.

[Vlad 254]

Originally posted by matt:

If you double the population of every town, it'll kill your frame rate, especially if you're using high poly replacers. You also need to keep an eye on how much VRAM you're using if you're loading a bunch of texture mods. Close your other applications before launching Skyrim.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/articles/3091
I didn't read the whole thing, but this seems like reasonable advice.

This is something so important yet something many are not aware of. Hopefully a few more will benefit from your post.

[TimmyProves420]

Originally posted by matt:

If you double the population of every town, it'll kill your frame rate, especially if you're using high poly replacers. You also need to keep an eye on how much VRAM you're using if you're loading a bunch of texture mods. Close your other applications before launching Skyrim.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/articles/3091
I didn't read the whole thing, but this seems like reasonable advice.

True I may have went overboard with the graphical mods, but I did another test on a new clean save. I tested it with all the mods that I currently have installed and weirdly enough this one is not lagging. I tried going to the previously laggy area, and it's pretty good around 40-50 fps. The script latency is also good, 70-80ms

Btw, thx for the article, I'll give it a read

[CaptainR3x]

Use Skyrim CPU monitor 64 to see what is reaching its limit (vram or cpu), although it never really helped me, it might help you.

To know if scripts are causing lag, open the console while in game, if your fps sky rocket it means lag are caused by script (because script are paused when you open the console), if nothing change it means it's a graphical problem (=GPU not good enough, you need to tweak your setting or your simply asking to much)

One of the biggest fps killer is npc, adding more npc AND giving them all 2k textures is not something the game can handle, no matter the rig

[TimmyProves420]

Originally posted by CaptainR3x:

Use Skyrim CPU monitor 64 to see what is reaching its limit (vram or cpu), although it never really helped me, it might help you.

To know if scripts are causing lag, open the console while in game, if your fps sky rocket it means lag are caused by script (because script are paused when you open the console), if nothing change it means it's a graphical problem (=GPU not good enough, you need to tweak your setting or your simply asking to much)

One of the biggest fps killer is npc, adding more npc AND giving them all 2k textures is not something the game can handle, no matter the rig

I opened console in the laggy area, you know to use Autotest mod. When I opened it, the fps come back to 60 in no time, so I know it's script lag

I'll give Skyrim monitor a try, thx