Is Swap Usage Affecting My System’s Performance on Ubuntu?

Using a lot of swap memory typically means your system is trying to manage memory that's not actively being used, but it can slow things down if your system is relying on swap too much. In your case, 16GB should be enough for Skyrim, so you might want to look at other aspects like your graphics settings or any background processes that are eating up resources. It might not directly swap out Skyrim unless it's really necessary, but it's worth investigating why you're hitting swap so hard. Try checking your system for any apps that are consuming a lot of RAM and kill them before launching the game.

If you're looking to disable swap, you can use the command `sudo swapoff -a` in the terminal. Just keep in mind, if you disable swap and your RAM fills up, your system could become unstable. As for Nautilus crashing, high swap usage can definitely contribute to that, so maybe give that a shot and see if it helps overall.

Excessive swap could definitely lead to performance issues. Swap serves as a safety net but is much slower than RAM, which can cause games like Skyrim to stutter. You might want to disable swap temporarily to see if there's any improvement—that's usually not an issue unless you're hibernating your system. Just remember, if you're not running out of memory, consider turning it off. Also, swap is basically just extra storage acting like RAM, which is why it can cause slowness if it’s being accessed too frequently.