Just wondering. Since people say that iPresentInterval is "some sort of vSync", would I benefit from Triple Buffering?

Also, what should I do to enable Triple Buffering? I assume that by fliiping the switch to On in nVIDIA Control Panel it's enabled, but people seem to use Direct3D Overrider, even nVIDIA users, so I'm confused

add to that that I don't feel any performance improvement before and after flipping that switch

can anyone elaborate to me about this?

Others will explain more because I have yet to get the triple-buffering to give me any improvement in D3D. But, Triple Buffering won't work just by enabling in nVidia Control Panel, or nVidia Inspector. This is because Triple Buffering and DX don't mix (works with openGL). So programs like D3Doverrider are unique in that they force Triple Buffering in DX environment. For the reasons that nVidia won't make software that allows this, you can search their forums because it is much discussed...each time someone asks for it, nvidia responds with no and the technicals of 'why'.

In short to use triple buffering with Skyrim you'll need D3D Overrider in play and it knowing to force it on with Skyrim as a profile (just make a new profile and point it at tesv.exe). The effect is while no gains in FPS it maximizes the chances that every frame drawn will make it from the video card to the monitor whenever your FPS is beneath vsync's wanted rate, the result is visually smoother or more consistent play in harder to render scenes. Or you can just turn off vsync to accomplish the same end-goal...but Gamebryo games traditionally have odd behavior without it and there is the usual chances of screen-tear so your milage may vary.

Without triple buffering but with vsync and the game play is running at less then vsync's want then you get into a situation where your video card can spend a lot of time trying to draw frames meant to be sent but are being dropped because it can't quite finish each one in time (based on the schedule defined by vsync), that's a lot of wasted effort.

The downside to triple buffering: your video card has to keep that third frame in memory instead of just the one its drawing and the one its ready to present so it eats a little more vram that's all, from my completely unresearched asumption it'd be roughly (your screen size * 4(32bit=4bytes)) bytes more then without (or ~8MB for a standard 1080P display).

just a fyi...... for anyone that doesn't know

Triple Buffering REQUIRES That vsync be enabled and working.. otherwise triple buffering will not work properly or at all.

But yes... using triple buffering will improve smoothness (less likely to see stuttering) at the significant cost of vram due to the extra frame it has to render out to keep up. Some people may appear to see a little "lag" when it's in use too.

The directX side of things has already been explained above.

Well! Finally, my confusion is cleared up. I have always been wondering about the D3DO thing, as there is an option right there in the Control Panel itself

Guess I'll give D3DO a try. I heard that ENBPatch had a problem with D3DO, is that true?

i only just tried this (triple buffering) last night

roughly the same FPS, but panning the view around seemed smoother

Ok, for me too, tell me in short version.

To proper use triple buffering, i need to use D3DOveridder (and not using triple buffering from the nvidia control panel?)

Yes, triple buffering settings in Nvidia Control Panel and CCC only effect OpenGL games (Rage, Doom 3 etc), not DirectX games like Skyrim.

Only use Triple Buffering when you experience FPS drops when using VSync.
Only use VSync if you experience screen tearing and you already maxed out the video settings.

Both VSync and Triple Buffering are fixes. If you don't experience the problem, don't apply the fixes. It will do more harm than good.