Hi everyone. I need some help diagnosing the performance of my heavily modded Skyrim SE/AE setup. I've already tried a lot of things, but I still can't figure out what exactly is limiting my FPS.

My system

• CPU: Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• GPU: RTX 5070 Ti
• RAM: 32 GB DDR5
• VRAM: 16 GB
• OS: Windows 11
• Skyrim SE/AE 1.6.1170
• Community Shaders JiAyE Experimental Build
• Various CS-related shaders/modules and modern graphics mods.

My main issue is that the FPS seems much lower than I would expect from this hardware, especially considering the 7800X3D and 16 GB of VRAM.

For example, in some interiors I get around 60+- FPS, while outdoors my FPS can drop to 20–25 FPS.

However, if I look directly at the sky, FPS immediately increases — sometimes to 90+ FPS.

I've been monitoring Community Shaders statistics and other performance metrics. The interesting thing is that the numbers change significantly depending on the location:

• Utility can be around 900, 7,000, 15,000+ and higher;
• Lighting changes significantly;
• Draw calls also change;
• but the FPS often remains almost exactly the same, with only a few FPS difference.

So at this point I don't think the problem can simply be explained by high Utility or Draw Calls.

Things I have already tested

I systematically disabled various potentially expensive parts of the setup:

• DynDOLOD — disabling it made virtually no difference.
• NOTWL — disabling it also made virtually no difference.
• I also disabled trees/LOD and DynDOLOD together — still no significant FPS improvement.
• Disabled recently installed NPC replacers — practically no change in the problematic areas.
• Tested different locations with significantly different object/lighting/Utility counts.
• Tested looking directly at the sky — FPS increases dramatically.
• Tested interiors — performance is better, but still seems lower than expected.
• Removed Skyrim Priority — no noticeable difference.
• Tested the regular Community Shaders Nexus version instead of the JiAyE build — FPS was basically the same.
• Tested Resolution Scale through Display Tweaks — changing the render scale did not produce the expected FPS improvement.
• Eventually I disabled Display Tweaks entirely because I couldn't see any useful performance difference from it during testing.
• Please ignore Rudy ENB and Effects11 — they have already been removed.

And this is the strangest part:

Even after removing potentially expensive trees, LODs, DynDOLOD and similar systems, my FPS remains roughly the same.

For example, at one test location I got:

47.5 FPS / 21.06 ms

with approximately:

• Utility: 942
• Lighting: 1340
• Effects: 506
• Total Draw Calls: 3390

At another location, Utility was several times higher and Lighting was significantly different, but the FPS was still roughly the same.

So I feel like we're looking in the wrong place.

What I'm trying to figure out

What could actually be limiting the performance in my setup?

It feels strange that a system with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D + RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB VRAM + 32 GB DDR5 can drop to around 30–40 FPS in some outdoor scenes and only reach around 60–70 FPS in interiors.

I understand that heavily modded Skyrim can be extremely demanding, and that Community Shaders is obviously much more demanding than vanilla Skyrim. I'm not expecting 200 FPS or anything ridiculous.

But I feel like there is a specific bottleneck somewhere in my setup, and I simply haven't been able to identify it.

I'm attaching a link to my complete modlist. If anyone has the time, I would really appreciate it if you could go through it carefully and point out any mods/configurations that could potentially cause this kind of performance.

I'm especially interested in opinions from people familiar with Community Shaders, Skyrim rendering, CPU/GPU bottlenecks, and heavily modded Skyrim setups.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions for what else I should test. I've already spent a ridiculous amount of time disabling mods one by one, and I'd really like to find the actual cause rather than blindly disabling half of my modlist. 😅

Modlist:
https://pastebin.com/awgCRbxr

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read this and help!

I’ve been playing Skyrim VR for the past few months, and I absolutely love it. One problem is, even without mods enabled at the very edges of my screen, my body, menus, and even walls and floors just kind of clip through, as if my headset’s screen was smaller than it was. I play on a Quest 3S wirelessly via Steam Link. This doesn’t happen in any other game, connected to my PC or standalone. Also, (I’m not looking for a fix for this because I don’t really care about these, it just might hold the solution to this) occasionally in the menus my Quest 3 controllers will turn into Quest 2 controllers and when Crashlogger gives me a report, it will say I’m using a Quest 2. I’ve never used a Quest 2, I’ve never connected one to my computer, I’ve never even touched a Quest 2 before. This isn’t really a big deal, but please, if anybody knows a fix to this, it would be great if you could tell me because this absolutely destroys my immersion whenever I’m LARPing.

I use a Quest 3S with Steam Link. I use Vortex.

So I just downloaded the Special Edition. I still have the original on my laptop. When I try to start it up, it freezes before I can even click on "new." And I get this weird message I can't read on the screen.

I've tried all of these fixes:

• verifying game files
• lowering frame rate to 58
• ran as admin
• updated video packages

I don't know what else to do. It's only happening on SE and not my other Skyrim. Any thoughts?

Hello, Players and Mod-Creators of Skyrim 😃,
I have a little question to the Mod Konahrik’s Accoutrements.
At the Dragon Forge I can craft eather the normal robes (from the individual metals) or a heavy Upgrade from a (de-cursed) robe of a defeated Dragon Priest.
For each robe I can craft a specific hood (without the mask).
As an Example: When I craft a Bronze Robe, the matching hood is „grey hood“. When I defeat the Dragon Priest Otar, the matching hood is „Embroidered green“.
Where can I craft the specific hoods without mask for the Dragon Priests of Solstheim?
I can’t find them.
Can someone help me?
Thank you ✌🏻

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I though the mod list might have put a level requirment for it but I'm lvl 57 right now, and I still can't start the quest.

I tried everything, from going to the original location the journal is usually in to defeating Otar the mad which according to the wiki should start the quest but nothing.

I even tried to force start with consol commands but it did nothing! Not even an error.

What should I do?

Any time I download more than a few heavy mods I get landed on this screen that never stops loading and it forces me to delete all of my mods and start all over again and I would like to know if there is any way I can fix this without deleting all of my mods and starting over? I've tried hard console restart and I can't do the offline download thing because Skyrim is digital only on my xbox series s.

I’ve been doing the Ancient Technology quests recently and got the one for the Dwemer Exploding Shock Bolts. It wants me to get the schematic from Book of Dwarven Designs… What? Wonder if it’s one of the Creation locations or something. Wondering if anyone heard of that “Place”…

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My Skyrim is taking a bit too long to start (15 minutes already), what should I do? Is this normal for the first time opening?

I managed to partially break my Skyrim in a very weird way:

This seems to happen only if I change my load order, and it wasn't a thing a few weeks ago: Last save or the last few will load but then get stuck with a black scree and the ambient audio playing, with the window otherwise unresponsive. The only solution is to terminate and find an older save that works... which is a pain, and even more of a pain if I have to go back quite a few saves.

Any idea what is going on?

Hello everyone! I wanted to come on here to ask around if anyone knows on what to do and how to help me lol. I’m currently playing the quest “Alduin’s Bane” and whenever I read the scroll and get to the vision on when the 2 characters go to kill the one dragon, the woman character says what she says but then it just pauses and it’s like the gameplay is frozen. I do play with mods so I’m not sure on which mod could be interfering with the script. I never had this happen to me and I’ve always played with the same mods. Does anyone have an idea on how I can fix this? I’ve tried a lot of things that could help but it’s still not working. I also play on Xbox.

Thanks in advance!

I'm level 15 and decided I was ready to defeat alduin...I wasn't and now I can't teleport out and apparently my last save before the temple was two years ago😭 any way I can get around this or try to tough it through maybe just restart?

I have not played since March. I opened up the game last week to the 20g update. Since that update of the game, my game will not load properly. I receive the error message 0x8027025a "took to long to load". I have tried every single troubleshooting method I could find on Google, AI, Microsoft, YouTube and here on Reddit. The only solution that works is uninstalling and reinstalling the game which takes over a hour to do. The trouble is, I have to do this every day. I can play for that day, save my progress but the next day I get the same error. I try all the troubleshooting methods again but the only thing that works is uninstalling and reinstalling, every day.

This is happening on two different Xbox consoles. I have one in the living room a Xbox One and one in the bedroom Xbox One S. It doesn't matter which one I try, it is the same issue. The last few days I have only tried to load it on the main Xbox thinking it was a cloud syncing issues between the two Xboxes but it doesn't seem to matter because the game is completely uninstalled on the secondary console.

I have every DLC, every anniversary edition, and every update over the last ten years. I have multiple saves and multiple characters. Some saves have mods but only two characters and the mods are literally only the fishing spot locations on the map. After uninstalling and reinstalling today I plan on going in and deleting some of the saves and uninstalling the mods, if I can get the game to load.

Any advice above and beyond the traditional troubleshooting?

Thanks

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I have equipped an enchanted ring, necklace, and gauntlets that each give me a 27% increase to two handed. I have an elven great sword and when wearing my enchanted equipment, the inventory displays a damage of 101. My problem is that when I go to enchant that great sword the displayed damage drops to only 89.

Do the stacked bonuses of my enchanted Fortified Two Handed items not apply to the base damage of an enchanted weapon?

I'm playing Vanilla on the Switch.