I am quite new to the forums, forgive me if I'm asking something already solved. When I'm outdoors, when I'm hunting elks or bandits, in caves, anywhere, everything is fine. No lags, no stuttering. Yet when I'm inside a city, though everything looks perfect, when I talk to an NPC, or when an NPC greets me, or when an NPC starts talking to another NPC, just before the sound plays, the game jumps a couple frames. Same with the dialogue, everything is perfect until an NPC wants to speak. Note that I have no problems with the framerate, even in ultra high, or low settings, everything runs smooth except this problem, there are occasional stutters only after the talk lag begins. IMHO nothing suggests a framerate or performance problem, I was able to play Skyrim with a garbage PC without this problem before, but I'm completely confused now. Any help appreciated greatly. And here are my specs:

Acer Aspire E1-572G

Intel Core i5-4200u 1.6Ghz - Up to 2.6 with TB

AMD Radeon HD 8670M - 1Gb dedicated VRAM

4Gb DDR3 L-Memory

But have you tried to lower from ultra to high and see what happens.

Have you tried to disable Catalyst .A.I. ????

Without offense, but how fast do you thing is the HD 8670M GPU. ???? (considering it's a 64 bit GPU, and scores only 4600 on 3D Mark 2006 with an i7 !!!!!)

------------

IMHO nothing suggests a framerate or performance problem, I was able to play Skyrim with a garbage PC without this problem before

Don't compare Desktop GPU's with laptop GPU's. !!!!!

I've had this trouble once, and it was not only in Skyrim. It turned out that I had forgotten to install drivers for a sound device I have in my computer. Once installed, all this stuttering disappeared.

No offense taken My laptop is quite mediocre in terms of performance, and other things. I was merely referring to the fact that it runs Skyrim perfectly, even in high/ultra high settings, except that irritating stutter just before NPCs start talking. I lowered it from high to medium, and medium to low, still the problem persists. About desktop GPU's and laptop GPU's, I obviously wrote the word PC, but it was a fairly unconscious word, I was talking about my old laptop. Sorry for that. Btw I'll try disabling Catalyst AI, thanks in advance.

Thanks! I'll give it a try. Hopefully something will work at the end.

Update: Tried to disable Catalyst, CCC.exe was active, but apparently not working, I get the "amd catalyst control center cannot be started there are currently no settings" error. This probably refers to a driver problem, and it forces me to use the AMD Driver AutoDetect tool. However, when I start that tool, it (amddriverdownloader.exe) stays completely idle, literally doing nothing. I also can't download the driver directly from AMD and install it manually, because if I do that, it causes the same "amd catalyst control center cannot be started there are currently no settings" error. Maybe I should incinerate my laptop?

Never shut down the CCC; it's what makes your video card work; nothing to do with the sound problems you have. Please post here a dxdiag in spoiler tags. How to make a spoiler tag: http://i.imgur.com/9ssWwlT.png