Weird periodic lag spikes.

Svensander

Honorable
Jun 29, 2013
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Laptop - Acer Aspire V5-573G. brand new laptop, arrived 4 days ago.

Specs:

intel i5-4200U @ 1.6 GHz, up to 2.6 with turbo boost
Nvidia GeForce GT 750M with 4 GB of dedicated VRAM
4 GB RAM
Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit

I installed Skyrim Legendary edition on it. Settings automatically set to high. Bethesda HD texture packs enabled. Resolution @ 1920x1080. Beginning scene ran at a stable 30-40 fps. Indoors @ stable 50-60 fps. But after about half an hour, i started getting very annoying fluctuating fps. It would be 35 fps for like 10 seconds, then 5-10 fps for around 8 seconds, and so it went on and on. Tried making new character - now i had the same problem even in the beginning scene. changing battery setting to 'high performance' didn't help.

GPU temperature never went over 70 degrees celsius. CPU and RAM never reached 100% capacity.

Today, i played it with battery settings on 'high performance', and the charger plugged in. battery was at 100%, and i played Skyrim for over an hour and half without any problems. Tried putting it on ultra, and it ran at a stable 25 fps, but it was a bit too low, so i kept it on high. No problems.

So, do i really need to keep the charger plugged in all the time to be able to play without these lag spikes? Or what else do you think might have caused it?

Thanks in advance.

 
Solution
Code:
When not plugged in your laptop might reduce performance a little bit to keep temperatures down, even though its set to "high performance", it might also reduce to save battery life. If its plugged in it doesnt have this worry. I have an old laptop running linux, and I've noticed this a lot (not in gaming obviously, but in general use). Also for the lines, can you just paste them to the end or do you have to put them in their corresponding categories?

wrathofdragon

Honorable
Nov 26, 2012
19
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10,590
Stock, skyrim uses only two cores, try adding the following lines in the Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini. (i also use my Toshiba for Skyrim sometimes, and since adding these lines, i get 5-15 Fps more than i did before. My friend has a crap GPU, but a good quadcore pc, and after modifying his ini-s, he was able to play skyrim on low-med settings on his old computer (even though its technically impossible).
In Documents/My Games/Skyrim/
In Skyrim.ini Add/Edit:

[BackgroundLoad]
bBackgroundLoadLipFiles=1
bLoadBackgroundFaceGen=1
bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1
bBackgroundCellLoads=1
bLoadHelmetsInBackground=1
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1
bUseBackgroundFileLoader=1
[Animation]
bMultiThreadBoneUpdate=1
[HAVOK]
iNumThreads=XX
[General]
bUseThreadedTempEffects=1
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bMultiThreadMovement=1
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
[Decals]
bDecalMultithreaded=1

In SkyrimPrefs.ini Add/Edit:

[Navmesh]
bUseThreadedMeshes=1
[Trees]
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1
bShadowMaskZPrePass=1
[BackgroundLoad]
bBackgroundLoadLipFiles=1
bLoadBackgroundFaceGen=1
bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1
bBackgroundCellLoads=1
bLoadHelmetsInBackground=1
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1
[General]
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseThreadedBlood=1
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
bUseThreadedTempEffects=1
bUseThreadedTextures=1
bUseThreadedMeshes=1
bUseThreadedLOD=1
bUseThreadedAI=1
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
[Decals]
bDecalMultithreaded=1

For "iNumThreads" set this to the number of CPU cores your PC has. If you have 4 or more leave this as 5 (maximum).
 

DJLolly

Honorable
Feb 8, 2013
3
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10,520
Code:
When not plugged in your laptop might reduce performance a little bit to keep temperatures down, even though its set to "high performance", it might also reduce to save battery life. If its plugged in it doesnt have this worry. I have an old laptop running linux, and I've noticed this a lot (not in gaming obviously, but in general use). Also for the lines, can you just paste them to the end or do you have to put them in their corresponding categories?
 
Solution

DJLolly

Honorable
Feb 8, 2013
3
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10,520
I just added them to the bottom anyway, I didn't sort them into the categories already there, and it seems to be working fine, it's been a while since I played and I don't have an fps counter set up so I can't tell if it's made a difference
 

Svensander

Honorable
Jun 29, 2013
35
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10,590
anyways, adding those lines didn't help

I tested it some more - played skyrim for 4 hours straight with the charger plugged in - no lag spikes. As soon as i unplugged it - bam, there we go again.

I don't have the slightest idea what's causing this.
 

Svensander

Honorable
Jun 29, 2013
35
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10,590
Haha ok, i searched some forums, and apparently, gaming laptops are supposed to throttle the gpu and cpu while on high performance mode. I'll just leave it plugged in when i play, i'm fine with that :)