Very unresponsive melee

[Majora]

I’ve been playing Skyrim for a while, but there’s one big problem that’s been dogging me since the beginning: melee weapons are so unresponsive, they’re useless!

I now exclusively use archery and magic, which work perfectly, nice and snappy. But as soon as I try to swing a sword, it takes three clicks and three seconds for anything to register.

I’m using a standard keyboard and mouse setup. Menus also have serious mouse lag.

I do get slightly better melee results if I reassign the mouse buttons to the keyboard, but it’s still rubbish. Menus in particular work much better if I only use the keyboard to navigate. I’ve already done the basic stuff like turn off the Xbox controller option (why was that even on?) and I've fiddled with the mouse acceleration or whatever. It’s made no difference. Turning the resolution down has made the biggest positive change, but melee is still bordering on unplayable.

This is obviously restricting the way I play the game and what characters I can build. I know from my searches I’m not the only one with this issue. But I’ve not found any definitive answers. So can you help me out, Skyrim community?

[Trigger]

try melee with a controller

[Juzifer]

it is kinda sloppy - you can try searching for good mods that might improve it, i believe there are few good ones

[Apheirox]

Sounds like your system just isn't fast enough to play the game properly. There are lots of Skyrim videos on YouTube so you can compare how your game behaves to theirs and see how it's supposed to look.

[Majora]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Besides the lag with the menu and melee, Skyrim runs smoothly on my laptop. I've got a dual processor at 2.4GHz and 8 GB RAM. The Achiles' Heel is always the watered down mobility graphics chip: AMD Radeon HD 7650M 2GB. It runs Arkham City beautifully, and Mirror's Edge like an upside down drunk. Anyway, detail is Ultra by default and, weirdly, turning it down doesn't make any difference to performance. It also seems to much prefer having some anti-aliasing to having none.

I'm going to get myself an XBox controller for Windows soon. I'll report back if it helps.

[Hamsterbytes , bits and nibbles]

My mouse does the same. It seems to be different everyday. My audio is the same. sometimes loud and other times too quiet.
It takes several seconds to drop things into my chest from my person using the mouse. It is quicker using the KB. Yet everyday it is never the same. sometimes it is very quick using either mouse or KB.
If I figure out where the problem is I will be sure to post it.

[reality/fiction]

neve had this probel, its just system lag.

[Majora]

I said I would be back with an XBox controller - here it is!
PROBLEM SOLVED.

It *is* mouse button lag that is entirely the problem. XBox controller is totally fluid. Menus are still slightly slow but massively improved. Melee combat is now flawless, no lag whatsoever in the input. I can use axes and swords again!

It's official. Skyrim's mouse controls smell like Lord Dagon's excrement. There is no reason why it should be like this and Bethesda should fix it already.

[19wulf80]

The problem though "Majora" is that the really slow mouse lag you decribe is not experienced by the majority of players. Most players even using V-sync don't suffer such horrible lag.

[Stoob]

I only have delayed reponse problems when I'm really pushing my system to its limits with the game's effects/ENB/HD/etc. When I turn off the excess it clicks fine.

[Majora]

I was playing the base game until now. I just purchased one of the expansion packs. To my surprise, it's completely fixed the menu lag! For both keyboard and controller! Wasn't expecting that! Since I haven't done anything, it seems Bethesda have tweaked something for the DLC, with nice smooth results.

[maldyus_grm]

Originally posted by Majora:

I was playing the base game until now. I just purchased one of the expansion packs. To my surprise, it's completely fixed the menu lag! For both keyboard and controller! Wasn't expecting that! Since I haven't done anything, it seems Bethesda have tweaked something for the DLC, with nice smooth results.

Hello,and nice to hear you have this sorted already.My humble advice additionally is to check the speed of your laptop;s usb ports,and check their type.If at least one of them is usb 3.o nad your mouse or keyboard or controller supports it, you should use that one.Also,have you set your power options to performance when having the laptop plugged in?The game needs all the juice it can draw from your machine.

[AikenAidan]

I wasn't impressed by the melle untill I got most of the Perks for the weapon. Then it's wam bam loot the corpse. And some of those wonderfull comments the enemy makes is the Key to the impressive death blow that follows [into them]. I perticuallarly like the Jump ontop of the dragon's head and beat him down.

[Majora]

@maldyus_grm - Interesting suggestion about the USB ports, I hadn't thought of that. My mouse is a simple USB 2.0, but my machine ports are 3.0. Maybe a USB 3.0 mouse would get better results?

(In the meantime, still very happy that my menus are snappy! In, out, in, out, just for the pleasure of it!)

[Casul Gamer]

Skyrim isn't optimized for certain PCs and it's unclear why since different tweaks work for different people. I'm one of the ones with that problem. I've had to turn the resolution way down which has helped, but it's still sluggish. I guess it's sort of a built-in difficulty mod. The lag and sluggishness does add to the motion sickness effect though which is why I end up spending time in between battles grinding alchemy, enchanting, smithing, and speech.

[Majora]

Originally posted by SuperLotus97:

The lag and sluggishness does add to the motion sickness effect though which is why I end up spending time in between battles grinding alchemy, enchanting, smithing, and speech.

I get motion sickness during the intro of Skyrim because of all the blurry filter effects. I do wish there was a way to turn these off. Perhaps there's a mod out there? Thankfully, it's only a big problem in the introduction, due to the forced first-person and Bethesda showing off. The rest of the game is more tame and I can go third-person if necessary.