Im sure this has been brought up many times..

Im getting a lot of choppy motion while looking around using either my mouse or 360 controller
however, the third person camera does not have this problem

anybody know a solution for this?


EDIT: PROBLEM CLARIFIED

this is NOT a framerate problem - the picture isnt choppy, im not losing frames
whats happening is mouse movement is not smooth- it jitters diagonally like an etch-a-sketch
it feels like the mouse is tracking over sandpaper
the problem immediately goes away when changed to third person camera

in other words, if my character wasnt visible in 3rd person, the problem would be solved - perfectly smooth

its a very strange situation
happens with both the controller and the mouse
with mouse accelleration on or off
in fullscreen or in windowed mode

im not using any AA- happens with aa on or off

doesnt happen in any other game (not a problem with the mouse or mousepad or controller)

Try a frame rate limiter. I had the same problem until I used dxtory trial version to limit my framerate to 59 FPS. After that, everything was good.

if you are using ATI video card ,set in CCC your monitor to 50hz, download RTSS 4.3.0 featuring integrated framerate limiter from http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=4192523 (learn how to use it)and limit your fps to 50 . play game . i don't know why but RTSS not desynches the game like others frame limiters .

I tried this and it pretty much fixed it... BUT when I block and look up and down it still is kind of choppy, no matter what my FPS is.
Anyone else experiencing this?

Yes I have. I don't have a framerate limiter, but getting rid of mouse acelleration in the Skyrim.ini file greatly decreased the 1st person stuttering for me.

a few questions

i do have an ati card, but im playing on a laptop so i cant change the refresh to 50hz

also, i dont get 50fps - more like between 20-40
what should i limit the framerate to? 30? or should i still set it to 50 anyway?

thanks for the help
ill try it out

sorry but can't help,i thought you are getting 50fps-60fps because most people do after patch 1.4 ,and I'm not sure what problem do you have ,is it well known frame skipping or lag since your laptop have low fps. just to know one thing on a PC this game must be played at 50Hz=50fps or 60Hz=60fps then you will have smooth image,Skyrims engine looks bad on lower frames . so since you don't have those recommended fps and if you still want to limit then choose your average fps . if you are getting 30 most of the time then limit to 30,but it will be pain to your eyes with this game engine .

For me it was the type of AA I was using strangely.....FXAA and I get smooth as silk any type of other AA even MSAA 2x or SSAA 8x same amount of chop and it was only indoors. I altered shadows to no avail in the end shadows and everything else to ultra max and using FXAA as opposed to the more fancy taxing types and no more chop.

i suppose i didnt explain properly... my problem is more complicated than you think

my framerate is very smooth and consistent- 30fps looks great and i am more than happy with it

i stress that this is NOT a framerate problem - the picture isnt choppy, im not losing frames
whats happening is mouse movement is not smooth- it jitters diagonally like an etch-a-sketch
it feels like the mouse is tracking over sandpaper
the problem immediately goes away when changed to third person camera

in other words, if my character wasnt visible in 3rd person, the problem would be solved - perfectly smooth

its a very strange situation
happens with both the controller and the mouse
with mouse accelleration on or off
in fullscreen or in windowed mode

im not using any AA- happens with aa on or off

doesnt happen in any other game (not a problem with the mouse or mousepad or controller)

I had this problem..can't remember what exactly fixed it, but I did check if my graphics driver panel was set on default and I had the Skyrim launcher re-anolyze my system. After that I turned way down both AA and AF to 2, just because I want performance over graphics and the jittery FPS view was gone.

I'm having the same issue. Most of the time my fps is at 60 and the problem goes away in third person view. It makes the game difficult to play.

Ok so what mouse are you using?
I hate the keyboard mouse UI for this game so much I use my xbox controller.....and my mouse is a G700.....waste of 90 bucks if I didn't play other games.

OP stated he experiences the same issue with his 360 controller as well, so I doubt it has anything to do with his mouse. I tried several mice in my case btw, didn't make any difference.
I don't know what's causing this. Both nvidia and AMD systems seem to be affected. Regardless of having multi gpu or not.

Thread about the same issue:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1345100-i-lag-pretty-bad-indoors-any-idea-why/

What fixed it for me was using the FPS limiter bundled with MSI afterburner beta. Others have also suggested the FPS limiter in Dxtory, but that one resulted in a performance drop for me.

For people having trouble finding this setting in MSI afterburner:

Install MSI afterburner beta (normal version doesn't have this option yet)
This is the exe you need: Program Files\MSI Afterburner\Bundle\OSDServer\RTSS.exe
Launch that file, you'll get an icon in your system tray, open that up
Click the wrench
Set your framerate limit (I'm using 60)
Run RTSS.exe while playing skyrim

Also, don't disable vsync (I'm talking about this setting: iPresentInterval). This only seems to cause more problems.

Try running the game with the Simple Borderless Window mod. (follow instructions)
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=4

I know you'll think it doesnt make sense to try it, and it wont help, but you may be surprised, it REALLY smooths out the game for my setup.
I was getting the same wierd "choppiness" even though my frame rate was a steady 60fps.
Installed the Simple Borderless Window mod and all is smooth as can be.

Plus it's not like it is hard to install and your game will start in a window and go fullscreen in a few seconds after starting and you wont even
notice you're using it.
So it doesn't hurt to just try it and see if it works for you also.

ive got some bad news
it didnt make a difference

i did a huge walk around the world to test different locations
the jerking doesnt happen everywhere
(still only in first person view)

i went to some low fps areas to make sure it isnt related to graphical stress- top of the dragonsreach stairs, solitude entrance
no jerking at all even in first person

its a real mystery...

Mine did it the worst in places like Lower Steepfall Barrow (North West part of the map)
if i enter the cave and look at the ice wall just as i enter the cave, the up/down movement was jerky no matter what my FPS were until i used the borderless window mod
and gave up x-fire.

So i used (and still use) that location for testing on my rig.

Only thing that svcks for me is, i cannot run X-fire in windowed mode so one of my 6950's has gone unused.
I guess on the bright side, it plays just fine with one card.

Curiously enough, i built mine and my wife's pc's and they are identical except for the video card.

I have two AMD 6950's 2gb in x-fire and she has my old GTX 470.
The game has always played smooth on her GTX 470 1.25gb with no issues no matter what driver i install.
Heck, her GTX 470 has played the game just as well as my rig since launch, and NEVER had that weird "choppiness".
I think i'm going back to Nvidia next time around, AMD is just too slow on X-fire driver updates for me.

This sounds similar to my problem. Jittery mouse movement, if I alt-tab out of the game and go back in its fine.

I have a gtx570 had this issues with the last 2 beta drivers. (i7 2600k 8gigs RAM)

@ OP CPU speed? type?

its a laptop
amd phenom II p90 quad 1.70ghz

Not going to bash your laptop but a speed like that is very low and Skyrim is very CPU intensive. I had my turbo (.4ghz) disabled and just turning that on which made a change from 3.3 to 3.7 removed my issue with what I would call indoor microstutter. Even my pretty new i5 2500k gets a strong workout. Might not be that the CPU is too slow but just the way the software works with your CPU....I don't use them but Skyboost or TESVAL might help clear this issue up. Also idk if you tried a complete reinstall of the game since the 1.4 patch. I also noted tons of more glitching, bugs and dirty cells/grids on my old release character and none on my 1.4 made character.

Oh >.< did you change your FOV?

no offense taken, im aware that its super slow
but it usually gets the job done


i formatted my computer due to an unrelated problem and skyrim with 1.4 was the first thing i installed after graphics drivers and updates

it runs as well or better than it does on my 360, which makes me very happy
runs better than fallout 3- almost as well as oblivion

i have no mods, and have only changed a few options in the ini
regardless of whether i've changed things or not, ive experimented so much at this point.... i wouldnt be mentioning this if the problem didnt exist with a clean install


i know that repeating myself wont really help, but a lot of you are talking about cpu speed and fps limiters and so on
the game runs BUTTERY SMOOTH- better than some games from five years ago- except in first person
the problem must exist somewhere in the code for the first person camera..? i obviously have no idea what im talking about, but heres the latest example:

i go into the ivarstead inn- extremely light on the cpu, very little to render, the fps goes up 15 frames easily- mouse movement is perfectly smooth in first person
except when i face the back wall, to the right of the door when i walk in= the camera starts chopping all over the place

with my face right against the wall the camera is chopping - to the best of my observations, it seems like that direction is causing the camera to chop
doesnt seem to have anything to do with textures or models on cpu or any of that- it is merely the direction that im pointing which causes it

if anyone has any other ideas, keep them coming- ill try whatever i can
i played for a few hours yesterday ignoring the jerking and i had a great time
so i can live with it, if theres no solution

I have the same issue and my computer is much better than the OP's.

When I am in 1st person and I draw the string on my bow to aim, the movement is really choppy if I move up or down. This doesn't happen in 3rd person mod or when I move side to side. I reinstalled the game and do not have any mods enabled. I tried both the mouse and the 360 controller and the effect is still there. This did not start happening until after Bethesda released the frist update for Skyrim. Can I fix this issue?

Any progress?

nothing yet
i think ive tried everything... it might be something bethesda will have to fix



are you using an ati card?
just curious about whether its a graphic drivers thing or not...

I have the same problem. It's bugging me since day one. It is not a framerate issue and it's only happening in first person view when I move the mouse diagonally. It's like the mouse cursor is moving on a stair. Like the game engine would only handle vertical mouse movement in one frame and horizontal in the next. The problem disappears when I switch to third person view. It also happens in windowed mode so it's not the 64hz bug. Oblivion does not have this issue.

Edit: I have just tried the game with a gamepad and there is no problem in first person. Camera is smooth. So this is only a mouse issue. Any fix?