Micro Freezes During Gameplay [solved]

[an STD]

I wish I knew how to explain this better, but for every four seconds that I'm playing, one of those seconds is spent with the game frozen. I don't believe that this has to do with framerates because it's so incredibly predictable. It's like a clock. The freezing doesn't increase in duration/frequency when I enter populated outdoor areas and reduce in duration/frequency when I enter isolated cells; it stays exactly the same: one second of being frozen and three seconds of normal gameplay.

Even more weird; sound is unaffected during the frozen game. Dialogue, music, effects, etc.; they all continue normally while the game is frozen and don't skip or speed up when it resumes (dialogue pauses between sentences so that the animations can catch up though).

I do not have any mods installed and my Skyrim installation is fresh as of yesterday. I'm playing the game on High instead of Ultra graphics (I normally play a heavy graphically modded Skyrim on Ultra with ~20-30fps outside).

The game is sadly unplayable like this as I'm spending 25% of my time standing still. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[an STD]

Did some digging around and there seems to be a lot pointing to mods causing savegame bloat that this stems from. My saves after a few hours into the game are only 3.16KB and I have no mods installed. Just to rule this out, I ran the "ClearInvalidRegistrations" command (0 results), rested for 24hrs in a house, and saved. After restarting, the freezing is still present.

Again, any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

[Aegison]

The next thing I would check are game overlays. Steam, Afterburner, FRAPS, Xbox App DVR, etc. Make sure all of those are disabled or not running.

Also, If you restore your Skyrim install and play vanilla Skyrim does it still happen? If it just happens in Enderal maybe try an ini reset?

[an STD]

So as far as I know, there are no overlays. The Enderal launcher always starts up Steam, but I keep it in offline mode; though I haven't tried exiting Steam prior to playing yet, so I'll check on that.

How would one go about restoring Skyrim? With this not being a traditional mod, I assume I simply can't "disable' it and fire up Skyrim.

[Aegison]

If you have a fast connection I would just rename your current Skyrim folder to Skyrim.ENDERAL or something and then let steam redownload Skyrim vanilla and try it out. You can then just delete the newest downloaded skyrim folder and rename your Enderal one back.

[an STD]

I found the Enderal launcher had a sort of uninstallation function, so I archived Enderal and loaded Skyrim. No freezing whatsoever after about an hour of dicking around in the open as well as other cells. I've played a heavily modded Skyrim for hundreds of hours and I've never experienced this during that time.

[Aegison]

Have you tried completely deleting your ini files and letting the Enderal Launcher re-make them?

Also, since it is clearly Enderal that is the problem maybe try re-downloading the Enderal install files?

[an STD]

When I initially installed Enderal, I followed a YouTube video's instructions. It recommended that I start Skyrim first in order to have the .ini files present before modding just like any other installation. After taking your advice (deleting my .ini filed), in addition to deleting all of my saved game files, I am no longer experiencing my issue.

It would appear (for me at least) that having Skyrim create my .ini files instead of Enderal may have been the reason behind my game's stuttering.

Thank you for taking the time to offer some troubleshooting steps for me.

[Aegison]

Glad you got it sorted! I would also recommend trying the inis posted in the Enderal FPS thread on this forum. They have greatly improved my fps in Enderal.

[an STD]

It would appear that I got ahead of myself. I've tried deleting my .ini files and letting Enderal generate them again, I've tried using the set from the thread you linked (thanks for that by the way), and I've tried hybrid .ini files (blending those that you linked with the settings from the S.T.E.P. Wiki since that's the modded version of Skyrim I previously had no issues with) and the mini freezes were always present.

While the freezes are like clockwork when they get started, it appears that they don't always start at the same time when I load the game. Deleting my old saves and starting a new game with fresh .ini files allowed me to get all the way through the beginning cut scenes before I started freezing in the level-up cell or the island (I don't exactly recall which). Replacing my .ini files with those that you linked allowed me to play for about 30m on the island before freezes began. Using the hybrid .ini files had me freezing after about 5m.

Honestly, I don't think it's my .ini files anymore; or if it is, it's a specific setting that's clashing with Enderal that didn't have issues with Skyrim. Another factor might be my hardware; since I couldn't find anyone else in the forums with this issue, there might be a conflict or deficiency with my PC and this mod.