How well can your PC run Skyrim?

[eroeronomi]

I'm curious about how well everyone's PC is running Skyrim. So if you don't mind please share your PC spec/what your graphic options are set to, and just how Skyrim looks and feels for you.

 

As for me, my laptop meets the minimum requirement, but not the recommended requirement, My ram is 500mb fewer(3.5gb) and my graphic card only has 512mb of dedicated video ram instead of 1gb. The frame rate I get aren't bad, a few rare moderate stutter here and then, and the occasional unavoidable drops like at the beginning of the game when Alduin is going berserk on Helgan and the whole screen is blurry.

But other than that I think this little fella of a laptop is a beast.(lol, and this is on medium) I still lowered all the settings to lowest/somewhere along that mark though to decrease the sound the laptop makes and the heat(and maybe the electric bill lool). Though to my notice the frame rate doesn't increase/decrease much and every now and then the fan still becomes a bit loud that I have to press ESC to pause the game and wait for it to shush before continuing otherwise it'd just keep making the sound(nothing wrong with it, but I'm just silly guy that cares for the well being of his laptop making groaning sounds like it's overworking itself lol). But yeah it still does a great job at playing Skyrim

 

Okay sorry for having you guys read all that up there lol, anyways I have something very important to ask: Do you need a good computer that can run Skyrim great/perfectly( I don't think mine fits the bill) to be able to run mods or modding with ease or moderately successful? This might just be a misconception of mine as I saw a lot of videos here and there of really great looking videos of mods with FAAAABUUULOUUUUUSSSS quality and I got jealous and doubt whether my Skyrim can look like that(with reasonable FPS), haha.

 

 

P.S. forgot to state my spec(you guys don't have to), here it is:

AMD A6-3420m quad core APU @ 1.5ghz with turbo core up to 2.4ghz

AMD Radeon HD 6520G, 4gb ram.

[senser]

Running well is relative... There's just wayy too many factors to consider when running this game to have a good thread about it.

 

I'd say for me, running well is ~30 FPS

 

which is my goal to squeeze as much out of my GPU as possible while staying at 30FPS. That being said. I have a Lenovo Y470p with a AMD Radeon HD 7690m.

I play on an external monitor too.

 

Base Skyrim settings at 1440x900 AA 4x AF 2x Everything on high, reflecting all, and most my sliders for fade distance are close, but not at the right side with uGrid set to 7. 9 for screenshots but it effectively cuts off a 1/3rd of my FPS.

[Steve]

My processor is Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E7500 @ 2.93ghz, ~2.93ghz with a 2gb RAM, and a good ol' reliable NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT(I desperately need to upgrade sometime).

 

By default, the launcher sets the quality to medium. But I changed it up a bit. Resolution 1280x720 / AA OFF / AF 16x / Windowed Mode / Texture High / Radial Blur Low / Shadow Low / Decal High / FXAA ON / Reflect All / And the rest of the view distance to medium(apart from the Actor render distance, which I maxed out since I'm a long range archer). This setting has the game run from 25 to 30 FPS with the rare occurrence of lag spikes and a fairly acceptable aesthetics to it.

 

I'm also playing a heavily modded game as I use a total of 45 mods(probably gonna download more soon). Though no ENB, because that usually cuts the FPS down to 15.

 

To answer your question; it really depends. There are plenty of mods out there that are just small edits and doesn't really do much stress on your rig and then there are the variety that plain fries your GPU(ENB and high resolution texture replacers tend to do this). So if you're aimed at quality, yes you're gonna need a moderate to awesome rig.

[eroeronomi]

I tried ENB earlier today, 5 minutes ago to be exact and the frame rate got butchered lol, so I guess I'll forget about it.

[orhkorhk]

I tried ENB earlier today' date=' 5 minutes ago to be exact and the frame rate got butchered lol, so I guess I'll forget about it.

[/quote']

 

30-60 FPS constant

 

Quad-core

Radeon HD6670

8 gig

[Emhyr]

Had a Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM and a 3870X2 running Skyrim at 1920x1200 on medium/high settings for a while with a good frame rate. Just upgraded my card to a 7850 this week and now have everything on ultra with extra high res texture packs no problem. Getting a SSD made a massive difference to the load times too.

[discariot]

I tried ENB earlier today' date=' 5 minutes ago to be exact and the frame rate got butchered lol, so I guess I'll forget about it.

[/quote']

 

(I apologize in advance for the wall-o-text. Also, I started writing this a while ago, so I may have missed other posts. Sorry for any duplication.)

 

Depending on what kind of card you have, you might not need to give up so readily. Not every ENB setup will have the same hit on your framerate. Additionally, if you are having issues, you can disable ambient occlusion and depth of field in the enbseries.ini to give you a little more boost. You also need to make sure that you have made the necessary changes in your Skyrimprefs.ini file, since there are settings you may need to change depending on which ENB configuration you are using. Lastly, some ENB configurations don't initially work as advertised--there's a lot of variation among video cards, so you may have issues other people don't. Stakado's ENB, for instance, ran horribly on my machine the first time I tried it. After the next update it worked wonderfully. You just have to be patient, read all the descriptions, experiment and tweak as much as you can to free up system resources.

 

If you need help, ask here and check the Bethesda forums. I generally check the forums here once or twice a day and will be happy to help you in any way I can. Some days I don't make it here, so there might be a delay in responding.

 

In place of the ENB depth of field, I highly recommend the excellent Dynavision mod. You won't believe the difference and there's little to no FPS hit. I am using it with and without ENB.

 

Here are a couple of screenshots (resolution is 1680x1050) from my secondary PC without ENB using Dynavision and Imaginator with Zoner's Realistic Lighting and Imaginator Settings (I highly recommended both of these).

 

Fuck it. The pics won't stay viewable, so I'm linking to the entire album. None of the pics are using ENB.

 

http://imgur.com/a/1cGUT#0

 

The video card on this machine is a Quadro 600. While I can run other stuff pretty well, it is total shit for Skyrim.

 

My actual gaming machine is a Dell 17' XPS (Model LX1701 or something like that). Despite its ability to run other games fluidly and flawlessly, I have been told that it, too, is relatively shit for Skyrim. I haven't had the spare money to build a new system.

 

Specs:

 

Intel Core i7-740QM x4 1.73 GHz (2.93 Turbo)

nVidia GeForce GT 445m 3GB (GDDR3)

8GB DDR3

2 x 500GB 7200rpm SATA drives

Windows 7 Ultimate x64

 

Right now I am getting 28-35 FPS in Whiterun, with the low being at the top of the Dragonreach stairs. I get a little extra lag in the countryside at times, but I am not convinced that this entirely due to ENB (i.e. it may be related to changes with shadows implemented in the latest Skyrim patch).

 

Here is an album of screenshots from the most recent ENB Mods I've tried. I'll list them below. All Shots are at 1600x900 resolution.

 

 

 

 

The shots with the purple elf don't particularly showcase the features of ENB but I figured, what the heck? Purple tits!!

 

I am using Dynavision and SMAA. I use the one here (be sure to read the mod description.

 

The Drow elf pics were taken using Beautiful Skyrim ENB (Cinematic Winter and, maybe, Unreal Cinema--both are included). The purple chick pics are using Moody ENB.

[discariot]

Imgur is over capacity right now, but do have a look when you can. ENB is soooo worth the effort.

 

1. Just to verify, are you running Windows 7? If so, disable Aero (I just use the performance settings for mine).

 

2. Do you have a secondary hard drive or just the one? If you have two drives, you can move your Page File to the secondary drive, which will speed things up a bit. It made a fairly big difference on my PC.

 

3. Quality settings. If you haven't already, switch your shadow settings to low. Also, look up and experiment with different shadow tweaks. Be sure to backup your Skyrimprefs.ini files before any tweaks. You should back up Skyrimprefs.ini and Skyrim.ini anyway, but make sure you are doing it before implementing new tweaks or it will be a pain in your ass.

 

4. You might also want to try using Gamebooster. I'm not using it now, but it made a slight difference for me.

 

5. Be sure you are regularly defragmenting your hard drive; or, if nothing else, the Skyrim game folder. This can make a difference.

 

6. If you are using ENB, do not use ambient occlusion or depth of field. They will wreck you. As I mentioned earlier, Dynavision really does a good job making up the difference with a next to zero FPS hit (for me there was no detectible performance hit, but I don't want to tell you there won't be a small one--everybody's different).

 

7. You can try using lower resolutions to see if there is a lower resolution that balances appearance with performance; however, since you are on a laptop, you are probably better off with the default game resolution. Still, have a look to be certain. When you are using a less than stellar system, you have to be willing to experiment.

 

I wish I could give you reliable advice for tweaking a Radeon, but all I have are nVidia cards. Check out the Bethesda forums and the AMD/Radeon forums to see if anyone can suggest some ideas for you.

 

If I can be of any help, feel free to PM me.

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

Wasn't Radeon the card brand bethesda doesn't test on ?

[kuromahou]

Skyrim runs well on dated hardware, note that I cannot (nor do I really want too but thats another topic) use that official HD tex pack without my frames dropping to nil, but with only 512mb vram thats to be expected.

 

I run a Phenom II X4 @3.2ghz (undervolted to keep it cooler), 8gb dualchan ddr2-1066, ati hd4770 512mb.

Also 3x 1tb wd green storage drives for massive anime storage Ok not relevant to gaming, but I <3 my collection. They are completely full tho, need to upgrade em to 2tb drives one day.

 

I run skyrim with no AA, 1680x1050 (I have a native 1920x1200 24" but cant run skyrim that high), all settings maxed except shadows on medium, the shadow engine kills older gfx cards.

 

All in all I have zero complaints, this box was budget when it was brand new and its 2+ years since I have upgraded anything. I am always pleasantly surprised how this ultra-budget amd/ati box runs modern games considering how damn cheap it was to build.

 

<3 amd/ati

 

Dont even know how many mods I have running with no issues, as long as you have lots of system ram you can go mod crazy, just go easy on HD textures in the game if your not 1gb+ on vram. I have at least 50 mods installed no issues.

[Mars]

I get around 40-70 fps without certain enhancement mods, with high res textures and mods it's around 30-55. Before they patched it was lower but it's very well optimized now.

 

Running at 1680x1050

AMD 3.0 mhz 4 core

Radeon HD 6850

8 gigs ram.

 

Considering I built this rig for only around $500 it does very well.

[Guest]

I play on ultra with graphic mods at usually 60fps

 

Basic specs:

Gtx 570

i5 2500k 3,3ghz

8gb RAM

[Brucealso]

AMD Fx 4100 oc 4.3ghz 4 core bulldozer

990FX ASrock mobo extreme 3

8gb Gskill sniper series 1866 mhz

EVGA GT 460 superoverclocked GPU

Antec 25 650 earthwatts psu

Windows 7 premium 64 bit

 

I have run frapps and in game i run around 70fps pretty steady with the HD resolution pack.

 

Runs skyrim on ultra settings, built unit myself for about 400 bucks.

[Guest galana]

Not good, currently :/ But Getting a new pc soon with i7 processor and 16gb ram and a pretty good graphics card. (:

 

Then I will probably be able to play with ultra settings in around 100 fps

[kuromahou]

I want to add as long as I use a 108 variety of ENB i get no performance hit really.

 

Using zoners enb profile (with some custom edits) and it looks and works great. I dont like DOF/motionblur anyway.

[Niobia]

It runs pretty solid. It's a PC I built from scratch. I'm pretty confident I could run two instances of skyrim at the same time with HD texture packs and enb etc. I wouldn't though since it cost me so much and since my last PC died I rarely even multitask, lolz

[Gagoloth]

i have over 100 mods installed + enb 2ktextures along with other visual enchantment mods. i get on an average of 45 to 60 fps all the time. my system .

 

Intel Core i5-2500K CPU @ 4.5GHz

 

ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

 

APPHIRE FleX 100312FLEX Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

 

ORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

 

OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBRL

 

NZXT Phantom PHAN-001RD Red Steel / Plastic Enthusiast ATX Full Tower Computer Case

 

Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler

 

Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

[imabaka]

full power at 1440 x 900

 

I personally built this computer for gaming

 

windows 7 ultimate 64bit

intel core i5 2500 3.30ghz

8 gigs of ram

ati firepro v4800

[Lumpyhead]

i have over 100 mods installed + enb 2ktextures along with other visual enchantment mods. i get on an average of 45 to 60 fps all the time. my system .

 

Intel Core i5-2500K CPU @ 4.5GHz

 

ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

 

APPHIRE FleX 100312FLEX Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

 

ORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

 

OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBRL

 

NZXT Phantom PHAN-001RD Red Steel / Plastic Enthusiast ATX Full Tower Computer Case

 

Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler

 

Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

 

hmm wow, that build is VERY similar to mine, going to edit my post with my fps to compare shortly

 

edit: yep i run at 60fps constantly out of combat/dungeons, high 40-50s outdoors

[MekiNeki]

I don't have the most powerful laptop, in fact I don't think it meets the requirements.

Just the basics that allow me to run Skyrim (Hardware T&L, Shaders 3.0 or whatever, etc)

I can't seem to get my FPS to display so I don't know the exact frame rate.

But with my experience with 100's of other games.. I'd say it's a solid 25-45 (With ENB).

Too embarrased to post all my specs....

But it's a cheap lil' $200 laptop that I got from Target.

Like.. 4gb RAM and I believe ATI 4000 series graphics.

 

Laptop doesn't heat up or cough blood while running Skyrim.

Settings set to high, with lower draw distance. (Pics maybe sometime later)

 

AMD Fx 4100 oc 4.3ghz 4 core bulldozer

990FX ASrock mobo extreme 3

8gb Gskill sniper series 1866 mhz

EVGA GT 460 superoverclocked GPU

Antec 25 650 earthwatts psu

Windows 7 premium 64 bit

 

I have run frapps and in game i run around 70fps pretty steady with the HD resolution pack.

 

Runs skyrim on ultra settings' date=' built unit myself for about 400 bucks.

[/quote']

 

Would like to know how or where you built that abomination for $400.

Places I try to get close to that system are askin' for $2000+.

[Guest]

My computer gets all scared inside when it even starts thinking about skyrim. I was only able to play skyrim with reasonable frames at a low resolution and on the lowest settings which looked like shit in all honesty.

But, I'll be getting a new comp very soon which should be able to eat skyrim for breakfast. Until then...

[deathparade]

Running it on low yay duo core!