Skyrim Tech Help - What Happened?

[doomdragon6]

So back when I got Skyrim, I started playing on Ultra High Settings with very little framerate problems at all (I have a beast of a gaming laptop).

Then I didn't play for two weeks, during which I think 2 patches came out.

Now when I play, I have horrible framerate problems and input lag (like pressing a key results in an action 1 second later).

I thought it might have been some of the mods I installed, so I disabled them all. It was still happening, so I completely re-installed Skyrim with no mods at all and it's still happening.

I decided to take it down to "Low Quality" settings, and the game runs perfectly.

What the hell happened? I had absolutely no troubles before. Did an update do something? (I heard people had crashes and such after the updates.) Do I need the 4GB RAM mod?

I know I "can" play on Low Settings, but I shouldn't have to, seeing as it played perfectly before.

Anyone have any ideas?

(First World Problems)

 

[Terrik]

Does it affect any of your other games? Do your other games run slow too?

You know, I had that problem once. I got my alienware laptop when SC2 came out, and a while later, I noticed stuttering when I use to run it on ultra settings. Turns out I needed to make a bios CD/USB and redo the video card bios with the latest version. That fixed all my problems.

 

[PatrThom]

Using too much video RAM.
(or GPU is overheating)
Try to clean out your GPU fan, or see if there's some way to turn off GPU RAM sharing (if activated).

Failing that, I'd concentrate on other GPU-related things.

--Patrick

 

[doomdragon6]

Well, it was fine once before, is the thing. Why would it have changed? Also, fans are freshly cleaned, etc.

 

[PatrThom]

I would only really be concerned if all of this is happening even though you made NO changes since your last time. Otherwise I would start my investigation by running through all the updates/installs you did in those two weeks.

Textures might have been upgraded, code might have been rewritten to hold more in VRAM, other programs may be competing with Skyrim, GPU app profile might have been changed. I'd start by tweaking the driver settings to see if they made a difference.

--Patrick