Heavy FPS Drop and Fluctuation in Skyrim

[SpiritDrak]

Hello,

I get a steady 60 fps when I start up Skyrim and play for a couple minutes. After about 2 minutes my fps plummets to 10 and from then on fluctuates between 10 and 30 until I restart the game again. Here are my computer specs:

OS: Windows 7 x64
CPU: Intel i7-3610QM 2.30GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 2GB Dedicated
RAM: 8GB

My rig should be more than capable of playing at 40fps+ on high settings. This happens with both vanilla and modded gameplay. I've monitored CPU and memory usage as well as temperatures and they are all normal. My drivers are all up to date. I've tried many performance enhancing mods and programs and I've tried reducing graphics quality down to its minimum, and while this does improve fps, it STILL plummets to below 20 after a few minutes. Does anyone know a possible cause of this? Also, does anyone know of a program that could perhaps track other factors that may cause these kinds of issues? Maybe during gameplay I can find a correlation between one of these factors and my sudden framerate drop if I am able to monitor them.

[SpiritDrak]

It might also be worth it to mention that I've monitored VRAM usage during gameplay. I thought it may have been a VRAM issue at first but it only gets up to about 350MB before skyrim's fps drops, even though I have plenty more memory for it.

[Marko]

Are you able to run other steam games without these FPS Issues?

[Falro the Great]

First, try lowering the graphics a little. Second, go into your Nvidia control panel and make sure the game is using your dedicated graphics, not the integrated one.

[SpiritDrak]

No other game I play has this kind of consistent fps drop and fluctuation. And as I said, whether I have my graphics set to the minimum or set to high settings, whether I'm using mods or not, my fps will consistently drop from 60 to 15 within two minutes of gameplay. I have had some fps issues with Dark Souls but its nothing like this. In Dark Souls my fps may drop to like 25 to 30 in some areas of the game, but it doesn't consistently drop after two minutes and fluctuate rapidly between 10 and 30 fps.

And yes, I am sure that my 640M is being used, and I have tinkered with the 3D settings several times to see if those affected this at all. All of my drivers are up to date as well.

Also, I have tried gamebooster, I have tried running skyrim with absolutely nothing but the essential background programs, I have defragged everything, cleaned my registry, etc. And for that matter, I literally formatted my laptop a few days ago, so this thing is as clean as its going to get.

Thanks for all the help guys, I appreciate it.

[Falro the Great]

Wow, ok. You really have tried everything. I can't think of anything else but maybe you need to clean your fans. I have the same GPU and I can run it just fine. Maybe if you run GeForce Experience (with the newest Nvidia drivers) you can optimize the settings, but you've probably tried that.

[SpiritDrak]

I will try cleaning my fans, but I feel as if that were the problem it would be evident in other games as well. This kind of FPS issue is really strange; literally no matter where I am in the world, I'll be playing at 60fps, and after two minutes, consistently without fail, it will drop to 15 and then just fluctuate between 15 and 30. It's extremely odd.