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Best PC Parts for Skyrim Modding?


Elysianx

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Recently got a new job that pays pretty well, and I'm wondering if anyone wants to chip their opinions in on the best/most essentials PC parts when it comes to Skyrim modding or gaming in general.

 

My current PC is a CyberPowerPC Gamer-Xtreme, which I got on sale about 2 years ago (PC: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cyberpowerpc-gamer-xtreme-vr-desktop-intel-core-i5-8gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-1tb-hard-drive-white/5712949.p?skuId=5712949) I haven't made any changes since I got it, and overall it gets the job done, my game looks pretty darn nice, but it can't run an ENB at all. Seriously, even the most Performance Friendly ENB's cause severe FPS drop (like 10 fps even when standing still.)

 

Feel free to chip in your opinions! :)

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5 hours ago, Elysianx said:

Feel free to chip in your opinions!

Skyrim is a game from 2011 and have very low requeriments for today.

But a lot of mod's are made for give the game another look and that mod's NEED some better machine.

All is related about HOW you want see your game.

If you want install high poly mesh and high textures plus a lot of climatic mod's and ambient mod's you need a semi powerfull machine.

 

I have a 4 years old machine with a simple i5-4460 and gtx 660, but i can play in 1920x1080 at 50-60 fps without any problem with more than 200 mod's in a super stable game that not give me any CTD this year while playing my stable installation. I get some while making test but not more.

 

I play with ENB in Boost mode because my old gtx 660 2g not support a full ENB, but that not make my game look bad, imo, of course, but you can judge:

Spoiler

879286746_TESV2018-09-0913-25-12-70.jpg.35a84bafed389649e4ca1ffc5e2383b3.jpg341038218_TESV2018-09-0902-02-46-55.jpg.d5c86945bd9cf3e37b5c2308401729d2.jpg962026579_TESV2018-09-0902-01-10-45.jpg.9472364864e2099a88d52132a180e7e0.jpg83670236_TESV2018-09-0901-35-05-49.jpg.1bd6e0adcf6059a5dced25f53af54766.jpg1228185027_TESV2018-09-0901-33-31-79.jpg.a40b580a0e4c6bc05421cbe9534ce73e.jpg346882855_TESV2018-08-2710-44-56-81.jpg.dfc595c4338accbb5ab02caaeffba13a.jpg818929077_TESV2018-08-2710-41-28-72.jpg.323c006d84340e95966d7a531ff5c5de.jpg1542680492_TESV2018-08-2710-12-57-12.jpg.ed8bded5e4083a2b59c4dc29e65c1494.jpg626003519_TESV2018-08-2710-10-29-36.jpg.0d20b9f9a442905e6da75fc0f5158c0e.jpg1013629168_TESV2018-08-2710-09-30-41.jpg.a4097a08a7e2bb48d4e1be7190a25c61.jpg306009238_TESV2018-08-2710-06-05-79.jpg.dd7a40dc333629ea0a04eda083385904.jpg

 

Of course, i not have the most common mod's like Climates of Tamriel or Pure Waters, and as said, not have a full ENB. I only have in this screenshots ELFX + URWL + Imaginator. 

 

A full ENB give you some advantages like better shadows, better snow and rain, better reflections, and much more things, but of course, all of this need computer power.

 

Nexus have a lot of ENB configurations and you only need search, download, install and test until you find a configuration that run good in your machine whitout give you high frame drops and good effect. Of course, NEVER use the default configuration that come with the basic ENB when you install it because EAT all your machine.

 

If you have the money for buy a new machine, not ask, buy it.

If you not want spent money unnecesary search for a configuration that run good in your actual machine.

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try nova-enb and its dependencies... IMHO it is a modern ENB without loosing too much FPS... I am playing this mod at 4K resolution outdoor between 35-50 FPS, indoor mostly at 59 FPS with a GTX 980 card... other tested ENB at the same machine are more FPS consuming, so my guess is, that this ENB is a very good mix for viewing and playing... at 1920x1080 resolution the FPS in-/outdoor is the same... mostly 59 FPS

 

but the only point is your personal preference... if you like ENB with the very unique flair like "Somber", you will accept the FPS-loss, since it is your kind of viewing skyrim... same for Caffeine (a modern ENB, more cinematic-colours)... the last is somewhere in the middle between FPS-loss comparing to Nova and Somber...

 

the whole trouble with the FPS-lag (or the hype of it) is easily solved by yourself, too.... skyrim plays very well with FPS outdoor around 25 FPS and better, indoor the FPS will be 10-15 FPS better as outdoor with the same settings... modern ENB have a menu which is reachable ingame-style... so you are able to test some settings (like shadows, colours, dimming or DOF) to see, if it will gain some (needed???) FPS...

 

So the enb-files from Boris 319 for old skyrim.. a personal test of some ENB will show you, if you are able to play and have fun...

 

... and yes... generally speaking a modern box will be better, as an elder one (better CPU, better graphic-card, faster RAM, faster HDD, better cooling... ) you name it...

 

if you want do some compiling, scripting, maybe some graphic-works with photoshop or other stuff, too, you will look for a very good CPU (likely a one with 6 or more kernels), this will boost the overall performance of a box in the same way, as a modern graphiccard...

 

so again... scribe down your (wanted) features, work with a box... and check it against the hardware... maybe there is only one or 2 parts to update... but if you need a new board, cpu and graphiccard it is most likely, that your better choice would be to buy a complete new box.... and maybe the old one is good enough to play backup-server

 

have fun in modding

 

p.s.: Have I mentioned, that no monitor could be big enough, if you are doing seriously modding, scripting, gaming? Creation Kit with its several boxes needs a huge place, and if you want to run a windowed skyrim to see the results without closing some other programs (like hardware-monitoring, debuggers or others, you are in need of a monster... 32" will be soon too small, since the trend is going to 21:9 and even greater monitors... so don't forget, what you see is what you get... so a good monitor (big, fast responding, high framerate, G-Sync with nvidia-card or FreeSync with AMD-cards) is very high on the part what is needed, too

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Your pc specs aren't really bad at all.

 

1. Upgrade memory to the max speed the board will support hopefully it's better than 2133 and go with 16GB dual channel kit.

 

2. Replace nvidia 1060 with a real one, real one has 6GB or go with 1070 or better however check power supply first it may need to be replaced with higher watt unit. I almost always toss out pre built pc power supplies because most of them are unreliable garbage brands.

 

3. Add ssd and put games there, load times will improve so much  you can actually add all those high res texture mods and get to use them in the same day.

 

4. Load all the mods you can find at the same time so skyrim freezes and crashes all the time.

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  • 1 month later...

Men, what kind of enb are you running? I have almost the same specs and run the game with a good fps until reach cities(fuck skyrim engine and fuck me to add these npcs mods), I mantain something maintain 55~60 fps on the wild and 45~55 on combat and nothing more than 30fps in cities, never, like really never.

 

 

Can someone confirm to me, but seems like skyrim take things like models and textures from the disk so a SSD could help with stuttering into some degree?

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In my opinion the best/most essential PC parts for playing any game without a doubt if the Graphics Card and the CPU. That means you need all the supporting parts (RAM, Motherboard, PSU, SSD...) for those 2 components and they need to complement each other.  From what I see in the link you have: i5-7400, 2166 Ram (2x 4GB Sticks) and a GTX1060 3GB.  

 

Your motherboard probably doesn't support many upgrades but it should be able to run this:

 

Keep the i-5 7400

Replace the ram to 2666 16GB (2x 8GB sticks)

Replace the 1060 3GB (sell it) for a 1070Ti 

 

That should still be within you PSU capacity. 

 

Skyrim being a Bethesda title... has the game physics tied to the game's frame-rate. So more than 60 FPS just causes physics glitches... I refreshed my PC this summer, I'm running a i7 8086K CPU overclocked to 5.1Ghz on water, with an overclocked 1080Ti on water as well, Trident Z 3600 CL15 Ram, 960 Pro M.2 SSD and all the supporting stuff. That's enough to keep the game at 60 FPS in 1440p using over 230 mods. max out graphics,High Poly models for everything, 4K textures, Rudy ENB, HDT-SMP fully enable physics (all the Body, Hair, clothing) for CBBE and UNP at the same time, running in the latest ENB Boost for memory management with Safety load.  It really looks glorious! 

 

If I didn't have the limitation of Skyrim physics (60 FPS) with that amount of mods it wouldn't do a whole lot better (Maybe 70-80 FPS) fully GPU bound. If I added a 2080Ti I would still be limited at 60 FPS because of the physics engine. The amount of time it takes to set up all those mods even if you have the hardware it's pretty crazy, Skyrim is the most heavily modified game ever... a system like mine could probably run vanilla skyrim over 200 FPS since it's such an old game, yet fully modified it can have trouble keeping 60 FPS in some areas.   ?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/12/2018 at 1:35 PM, Elysianx said:

Recently got a new job that pays pretty well, and I'm wondering if anyone wants to chip their opinions in on the best/most essentials PC parts when it comes to Skyrim modding or gaming in general.

 

My current PC is a CyberPowerPC Gamer-Xtreme, which I got on sale about 2 years ago (PC: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cyberpowerpc-gamer-xtreme-vr-desktop-intel-core-i5-8gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-1tb-hard-drive-white/5712949.p?skuId=5712949) I haven't made any changes since I got it, and overall it gets the job done, my game looks pretty darn nice, but it can't run an ENB at all. Seriously, even the most Performance Friendly ENB's cause severe FPS drop (like 10 fps even when standing still.)

 

Feel free to chip in your opinions! :)

I have one of the most powerful consumer PCs available, in my basement, as I run an internet business as my primary income which leads me to need resource-intensive CAD programs open alongside photoshop and maybe a video editing program, each on it's own monitor. It really is outrageous, but I need it.

 

I also mod Skyrim in my spare time, which I do on another PC in another room which is an old, decommissioned dell OptiPlex 7020 work computer.

 

I've ran Skyrim on both, on the highest settings, as well as the Creation Kit, and I can see absolutely no difference between the two - the game simply doesn't need a whole lot of resources... since it's from 2011. 

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I am presently running two GTX1080s in SLI with an AMD Ryzen 2600x 6-core, 12-thread processor running 4.2GHz, and 16GB of DDR4 3600Mhz RAM running at 3200Mhz with insanely tight timings.

 

And yet, with the right mods, I can bring the system to its knees, not better than 40fps outdoors at 2k resolution (2560x1600). Or I can let it run at maxed out vanilla settings and get 300fps, which is much less fun (PC is stuck because of frozen engine, NPC is flying about landscape).

 

I've also had a carefully curated setup with a light ENB and a fair dose of mods of all kinds including light graphical mods, running on a RX460, Core i3 and 8GB of DDR3 memory. That didn't look toooo bad and still got me 40fps albeit at 1920x1200. Both setups are equally enjoyable (as I remember it) when playing the game, though as you can imagine one of them looks quite a bit more stunning.

 

I can not understand how a GTX1060 cannot run an ENB, when a puny little RX460 handles one just fine. I was using Truevision ENB with the 0.113 dll, which performs superb with low-end hardware. Before I sold my GTX1060, I was running White Orchard ENB on it at 2K resolution with DOF and AO switched off, and was close to 60fps in outdoor areas. I sold it only because it didn't have a quiet mode for the fan, which was critical for me. At the time I had switched to a RX580 which I re-ran recently with Caffeine ENB, and it does 60fps at 1920x12000 just fine (60fps all areas indoors and out). And the RX580 is slightly slower than a GTX1060.

 

Anyway I think your PC is sufficient for running a moderate ENB with a decent set of graphical mods. I looked at my RX580 data folder and it has the following visual mods:

 

ClimatesOfTamriel.esm
ClimatesOfTamriel-Dawnguard-Patch.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Dragonborn-Patch.esp
Skyrim Flora Overhaul.esp
SFO - Dragonborn.esp
EnhancedLightsandFX.esp
SMIM-Merged-All.esp

 

The SMIM was subsequently replaced with Noble Skyrim, and I had compressed the SFO textures to half their original sizes. All NPCs including custom followers have 2K textures and 4K body diffuse maps. This should run as easily on a GTX1060 - better in fact as nVidia cards are better at DX9 - with high settings and a well-optimised  ENB such as Caffeine. 10fps drop is a very light drop. You've no idea what something like Rudy or SDPrime can do to a system.

 

If you are intent on getting a new PC anyway, there' no need to go crazy. Skyrim will run on almost anything - even Alexa. Get fast memory - which is presently the worst value in any PC build, a good CPU with 4 or 6 cores and hyper-threading and a mid-range GPU like the RX580 which is insane value with the free games tacked on. This should be perfect for a great experience at 1080p with a small bunch of graphical mods, for 2k resolution you should consider stepping up to the GTX1070Ti which is a great card for Skyrim.

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On 9/12/2018 at 8:33 PM, GenioMaestro said:

Skyrim is a game from 2011 and have very low requeriments for today.

But a lot of mod's are made for give the game another look and that mod's NEED some better machine.

All is related about HOW you want see your game.

If you want install high poly mesh and high textures plus a lot of climatic mod's and ambient mod's you need a semi powerfull machine.

 

 

A full ENB give you some advantages like better shadows, better snow and rain, better reflections, and much more things, but of course, all of this need computer power.

 

 

did you bother checking your performance with/without that stuff?

...



18112003345655939.jpg

don't have 60 fps and i don't care (had 20-40 fps with a gtx 570 1280 mb, with a radeon 8gb it's about the same, i can pick bigger textures, that's about it for the difference)

the only thing i look for is to not drop too much under 30 as that disable tree animations

 

same hardware, another game

18112003414793974.jpg

not 60 fps either...

no texture replacer, no armor pack, no npc replacer.... to be able to say performance are because of the mods...

performance suck because of the game, not the hardware, it's the same with skyrim

 

181120033543936770.jpg

body is black

that mean i am out of ram (if no more ram to load something, game unload the biggest textures to miss less textures, for me it's the bodie, arm and leg msn, then mountain, then night sky, then some landscapes)

20-40 fps as usual, doesn't matter if there's enought ram or not for performance (you better avoid if you can ram ctd, or don't want to see black stuff)

 

water is 5-10fps for me (animated double face crap, if you were only rendering the face you can see, that would be divided by 2, not enought mesh too so a lot are much more bigger than necessary to render more useless stuff)

now my biggest fps hit it's grass

181120040228929473.jpg

about 5-15 fps, not the same grass everywhere

181120033520991463.jpg

that mod grass have a huge density

181120044012776471.jpg

too much for my grass ini settings (nobody can't guess that king of problem before trying a mod)

On 9/12/2018 at 7:35 PM, Elysianx said:

Recently got a new job that pays pretty well, and I'm wondering if anyone wants to chip their opinions in on the best/most essentials PC parts when it comes to Skyrim modding or gaming in general.

 

checking what you install matter much more than checking what hardware you buy

 

a few broken mods that spam stack dumps, that's 2-3 fps (and some broken stuff in game)

an infinite loop, you drop to 0 fps (freeze)

a 6000*6000 texture, 1-2 second freeze for the game to make a 4096*4096 from that

etc etc, there's a lot of way to drop performances

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In my opinion, important parts are the GPU, the processor and the hard drive.

The GPU is the most important i believe.

 

On a highly modded skyrim, Hard drives may be a bit slow sometimes. So, a ssd is recommended.

About the GPU,  something with more than 4GB or equal is recommended. (gtx 970, gtx 980/ti, gtx 1070, gtx1080 , ti versions and more)

 

Test your skyrim without ENB as well. You can have stutterings/ fps drops without ENB just because of textures or meshes or anything else. So, do a lot of "stress tests" before.

An ENB isn't so fps drop with actual GPUs.

 

If you want to mod very lightly and easily, go for Skyrim Special Edition.

 

The problem of your CPU is your GPU. It's a gtx 1060 3gb version . It's not enough to mod decently Skyrim.

 

Happy gaming :)

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  • 1 year later...

I came across this thread from a search for PC parts, so forgive me for rehashing or necro-ing an old thread.

 

Have a degree in IT and been building my own PC's since 1995. Modding since Oblivion.

 

My most recent screens can be found on Nexus here:

SCREENS

 

1. GPU - The number one most important consideration is vram, the more the better. 4GB minmum, 6GB or higher recommended. I have GTX 1070 8GB vram but wanting to upgrade when Nvidia comes out with its next lineup. I have used many AMD and Nvidia cards and have had much better luck with Nvidia for modding.

 

2. CPU - Again I have used both AMD and Intel and Intel seems to work better for me for some reason. Intel i3 bare minimum but i5 or better preferred. Hyperthreading helps but it seems that Intel has gotten greedy with its hyperthreading these days. i7-8700K was the last reasonably priced one. I have an i7-4790K on a Z97 mobo which should give a hint at how much more important GPU is than CPU. Have not tried a Matisse chip with an Nvidia card yet. But for now I recommend Intel and Nvidia for modding at least.

 

3. RAM - 8GB minimum - 16GB recommended. Works with CPU to determine overall PC speed. I have 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 2400 at CL10. Make sure to select a dual channel kit if that is what your motherboard supports. Amount of actual RAM is more important than speed or timings.

 

4. SSD - M2 if possible or regular 2.5" SSD bare minimum. Make sure it is a separate drive from your Windows drive though. Basically reduces loading time.

 

5. Windows - I have had better luck with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit but Windows 10 64-bit has made many improvements since I last tried it. Microsoft will no longer offer updates for Windows 7 in 2020 so it will slowly but surely become a virus and ransomware ridden piece of trash. Will take some time and it's not going to happen overnight or anything...but basically it is time to make the move to Windows 10 if you have not already.

 

Hopefully this will help some people...feel free to pm me on Nexus if you still have questions.

 

Peace

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