Best CPU for Oldrim?

[prinyo]

I have been reading that Skyrim is "CPU bound" and that simply upgrading the GPU will not result in much better framerate. 

 

But I'm having trouble understanding which is the best CPU available for Skyrim. I understand some games use only one core, that with some games the frequency is more important and things like that. But I have no idea how to position SKyrim in all of this. 

 

So please somebody  ELI5 (explain like I'm five y.o.)  which CPU do I need. Thanks!

 

 

[pinky6225]

My Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz seems to do alright from what i've also read higher frequency speeds is better than more cores with the older games so a i5 with a high ghz will outperform an i7 with a lower ghz

 

I've seen people touting the benefits of using UnparkCPU to get more out of multi core CPU's on older games but i've never wanted to give it a try myself

[Guest]

I confirm what Pinky said.

 

i7 4790K at 4GHz is for sure the best one for Skyrim.

Actually you will use two cores on recent OSses, because the calls to DirectX can go on a separate thread, and also the PapyrusVM has the ability to run in parallel.

 

But I never had more than 35% of CPU use on my old 4790K with Skyrim. (25% is just a single core running.)

P.S. forget hyperthreading with Skyrim.

 

[prinyo]

Thanks for the replies!

 

I have i7-4790 @ 3.60GHz. (not K). From what I understand it makes sense to get 4790K and try to overclock it a bit. Or not?

 

It comes down to getting a better fps. Right now with no HD replacers and using only SMIM I get 35-50 fps outside. When using stereo - double rendering, it falls to 15-30 fps. What I'm trying to achieve is a stable 60fps regardless of the cell I'm in. 

[Nazzzgul666]

In the first place, make sure you have proper settings. In Skyrim, your ENB and graphics driver.

 

About Skyrim "CPU-bound": depends on i'd say. On the one hand, which game you use as comparison, and on your mods on the other hand. Vanilla Skyrim may be called CPU bound, but that hardly matters, your mods alone might use more of both CPU and GPU than vanilla Skyrim itself, beeing short on one of them can cause dropping framerates. If your CPU can't calculate the scripts & stuff fast enough that may be a problem, but it can also be that your GPU can't calculate the graphic stuff fast enough.

 

I'm not so much an expert myself anymore, but i doubt that switching from i7 4790 to i7 4790k would make a big difference. Settings and installed mods are much more important, and if your settings are wrong another CPU wil hardly make any difference at all. See it from this point: the difference between those CPUs is 10%. It not that easy, but at least i wouldn't guarantee or expect an FPS increase more than those 10%, from 36 FPS to 40 FPS... if you don't have any plans to donate your i7 to me, i wouldn't recommend to switch but rather search for problems in your setup.

[prinyo]

From what I understand even if you play the vanilla Skyrim the performance will still depend on the CPU. I'm trying to understand what is the best PC configuration that will give the highest framerate. This is the base factor - everything else (settings, mods) is been calculated on top of it. 

 

Two things I know for now:

- The resolution is not too important - I get (almost) the same fps on both 1280×1024 and 1920×1440 (with the same graphics settings). But going higher than that has an effect. 

- The GPU is not too important also - I get the same fps using GTX 980 (4GB) as I did using GTX 760 (2GB). 

 

It is possible that something in my settings is a serious bottleneck but I have no idea what that might be. I have disabled vsync for Skyrim in the Nvidia panel and I'm not sure what else should I do. 

 

Assuming I can OC the 4790k to 4.5Ghz that would be a gain of 900HZ - the difference between 3.6 and 4.5 seems big enough. 

[27X]

Skyrim can use up to four cores and remain stable, but you have to explicitly set that in your ini to separate papyrus, cell loading, havok and npc handling/DX calls.

 

The faster you can go the more frames you'll get, the faster and larger your L3 cache is, the smoother those frames will be.

 

 

 

resolution

 

4K is an enormous hit in framerate, especially in regards to ambient lighting and shadows. Shadows are by far the largest hit to framerate on the graphics side.

[peculiaris]

Any Intel CPU i5 and above from the past 5 years, and the new AMD Ryzen CPU's have great Single core performance and that is what you are looking for.

 

I personally recommend trying out the Ryzen 5 1600/1600x they have amazing performance for their respective price's. AND the 1600 comes with a really good stock cooler so you don't need to buy an aftermarket one.

 

So to go more in depth about the whole CPU performance stuff, most modern games utilize at least 4 cores because both AMD and Intel push Quad-core as the new mainstream core count BUT games that are made more recently and particularly games using Direct X 12 are more likely to use all or almost all of your CPU cores so making Multi core performance more relevant now that DX12 is out for a while. So moral of the story is: Try to create a balance between Single core performance Multi core performance and price.

[prinyo]

Skyrim can use up to four cores and remain stable, but you have to explicitly set that in your ini to separate papyrus, cell loading, havok and npc handling/DX calls.

 

How do you do that? I have found different tutorials and suggestions online but the consensus seems to be that they don't really work and that there is nothing you can do with the ini files that would optimize the CPU usage. What changes do you recommend?

 

My experiments with running the game at 3840x2160 on a 4KTV resulted in almost the same framerate (less than 5fps hit) but very long loading screens. 

[peculiaris]

 

Skyrim can use up to four cores and remain stable, but you have to explicitly set that in your ini to separate papyrus, cell loading, havok and npc handling/DX calls.

 

How do you do that? I have found different tutorials and suggestions online but the consensus seems to be that they don't really work and that there is nothing you can do with the ini files that would optimize the CPU usage. What changes do you recommend?

 

My experiments with running the game at 3840x2160 on a 4KTV resulted in almost the same framerate (less than 5fps hit) but very long loading screens. 

 

 

That is because when you play a game at a higher resolution your CPU will be doing the same amount of work but your GPU will be stressed more and so the performance difference will be less impact-full. 

[prinyo]

 

 

My experiments with running the game at 3840x2160 on a 4KTV resulted in almost the same framerate (less than 5fps hit) but very long loading screens. 

 

 

That is because when you play a game at a higher resolution your CPU will be doing the same amount of work but your GPU will be stressed more and so the performance difference will be less impact-full. 

 

 

So this brings us back to my original question. 

 

Changing the resolution doesn't impact the fps considerably.

Changing the GPU also.

 

What is??

 

Assuming the price is not an issue (I want to understand what is the best PC spec to run Oldrim) and knowing it is an old game and doesn't care about the multi-core mumbo-jumbo - how do I run the game with the highest and the most consistent framerate? CPU? Settings? For now it seems the answer is the CPU with fastest possible per-core speed.

[peculiaris]

 

 

 

My experiments with running the game at 3840x2160 on a 4KTV resulted in almost the same framerate (less than 5fps hit) but very long loading screens. 

 

 

That is because when you play a game at a higher resolution your CPU will be doing the same amount of work but your GPU will be stressed more and so the performance difference will be less impact-full. 

 

 

So this brings us back to my original question. 

 

Changing the resolution doesn't impact the fps considerably.

Changing the GPU also.

 

What is??

 

Assuming the price is not an issue (I want to understand what is the best PC spec to run Oldrim) and knowing it is an old game and doesn't care about the multi-core mumbo-jumbo - how do I run the game with the highest and the most consistent framerate? CPU? Settings? For now it seems the answer is the CPU with fastest possible per-core speed.

 

 

okey so lets start at the beginning: What are your specs atm?

[27X]

Most of the ini tweaks don't work or aren't stable, and of course for a very long time most of them were being put in the wrong ini file, which is why some of them  didn't work.

 

Also, the cores don't magically speed up nor do they speed up the game at all, they just make it more stable and less prone to stutter when Gamebryo's 8 billion draw calls are made, especially when entering a new cell.

 

Again they won't SPEED ANYTHING UP, the cores will still execute at whatever speed they are, and the amount won't change that speed at all, but when new stuff comes in or you enter a new cell, Skyrim will barf less of its guts up.

 

skyrim.ini:

 

iNumHWThreads=4 (the thread assignation remarks don't actually work, but these are what in the ini)
placebo here->*iHWThread6=5
iHWThread5=4
iHWThread4=4
iHWThread3=4
iHWThread2=4
iHWThread1=4
iAIThread2HWThread=3
iAIThread1HWThread=3
iRenderingThread2HWThread=1
iRenderingThread1HWThread=0* <- end placebo

 

 

bMultiThreadMovement=1
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseThreadedBlood=1
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
bUseThreadedTempEffects=1
bUseThreadedTextures=1
bUseThreadedMeshes=1
bUseThreadedLOD=1
bUseThreadedAI=1

bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1

 

SkyrimPrefs

 

[HAVOK]
iNumThreads=2

 

bUseThreadedMeshes=1

 

 

[Veladarius]

In the first place, make sure you have proper settings. In Skyrim, your ENB and graphics driver.

 

About Skyrim "CPU-bound": depends on i'd say. On the one hand, which game you use as comparison, and on your mods on the other hand. Vanilla Skyrim may be called CPU bound, but that hardly matters, your mods alone might use more of both CPU and GPU than vanilla Skyrim itself, beeing short on one of them can cause dropping framerates. If your CPU can't calculate the scripts & stuff fast enough that may be a problem, but it can also be that your GPU can't calculate the graphic stuff fast enough.

 

I'm not so much an expert myself anymore, but i doubt that switching from i7 4790 to i7 4790k would make a big difference. Settings and installed mods are much more important, and if your settings are wrong another CPU wil hardly make any difference at all. See it from this point: the difference between those CPUs is 10%. It not that easy, but at least i wouldn't guarantee or expect an FPS increase more than those 10%, from 36 FPS to 40 FPS... if you don't have any plans to donate your i7 to me, i wouldn't recommend to switch but rather search for problems in your setup.

 

Advantage of the 4790k over the 4790 is that it is easier to overclock since the processor multiplier is unlocked so you don't have to overclock the motherboard, just increase the multiplier on the CPU. I have an i5 2500k running at 3.6ghz currently and average 45 fps outdoors with an average enb and ugrids at 7. The biggest hits to your framerate is the enb you use and the texture size as you will need a gpu to handle that. Currently I run dual amd 280x w/ 3gb. Of all the games I play Skyrim stresses my system the most.

 

As for the multi-threading ini commands I have added every single one I could find I have found that it can make a difference so long as the processor isn't already at max capacity.

 

If you want to increase your framerates then make adjustments to your enb settings lowering or disabling some settings can make big improvements in framerates.

[LukeDuke]

Well it's just Skyrim engine being old as fuck (Oldrim uses modified FNV engine and FNV uses FO3 which uses Oblivion modified engine and so on..lol), I have i7 6700K@4.6GHz with GTX 1070 8GB and 16GB of RAM, I use enb + some HD textures mods, and sometimes I see 40fps or less using 1920x1080 resolution. While all new games works perfectly fine, even Mafia 3 on ultra and Witcher 3 on ultra with mods. NONE of the ini tweaks actually make any difference for me, and Boris (author of the ENB mod) says that they can cause more damage and they don't help at all... One thing that helps a little is to use as small heavy scripted (Wet&Cold, Frostfall etc.) mods as possible. SSE and FO4 works much better on my rig, even with 4k textures mods.

[Guest]

Well it's just Skyrim engine being old as fuck (Oldrim uses modified FNV engine and FNV uses FO3 which uses Oblivion modified engine and so on..lol), I have i7 6700K@4.6GHz with GTX 1070 8GB and 16GB of RAM, I use enb + some HD textures mods, and sometimes I see 40fps or less using 1920x1080 resolution. While all new games works perfectly fine, even Mafia 3 on ultra and Witcher 3 on ultra with mods. NONE of the ini tweaks actually make any difference for me, and Boris (author of the ENB mod) says that they can cause more damage and they don't help at all... One thing that helps a little is to use as small heavy scripted (Wet&Cold, Frostfall etc.) mods as possible. SSE and FO4 works much better on my rig, even with 4k textures mods.

 

True, but with a small imprecision.

 

FO3, FONV, and Oblivion use the TES3 engine (GameBryo V3.6 or 3.7)

Skyrim uses TES4 engine (GameBryo V4)

 

Fallout 4 uses TES5 engine (no clues about GameBryo version)

The same engine (or at least very similar) is used by SSE.

[LukeDuke]

^ Yes, like I said it's modified version of the same old engine

 

Still, at least with FO4 and SSE comes 64bits which did increase stability (better usage for system RAM and CPU's cores & GPU VRAM), also GameBryo engine is modding friendly so there is something.

[zzz72w3r]

From what I understand even if you play the vanilla Skyrim the performance will still depend on the CPU. I'm trying to understand what is the best PC configuration that will give the highest framerate. This is the base factor - everything else (settings, mods) is been calculated on top of it. 

 

Two things I know for now:

- The resolution is not too important - I get (almost) the same fps on both 1280×1024 and 1920×1440 (with the same graphics settings). But going higher than that has an effect. 

- The GPU is not too important also - I get the same fps using GTX 980 (4GB) as I did using GTX 760 (2GB). 

 

It is possible that something in my settings is a serious bottleneck but I have no idea what that might be. I have disabled vsync for Skyrim in the Nvidia panel and I'm not sure what else should I do. 

 

Assuming I can OC the 4790k to 4.5Ghz that would be a gain of 900HZ - the difference between 3.6 and 4.5 seems big enough. 

 

It's hard to imagine how your Skyrim would be CPU bound using i7 4790.   If you are getting the same low fps of 30-35 fps regardless of GTX980 or GTX760 whether it's 1440P or 1080P without heavy texture then it sounds something is off with the game installation. 

 

Have you tried SSE or a new install?  I am running SSE now but in Oldrim outside of Papyrus bottlenecks my i5 3570K was definitely GPU bound at 1080P (980GTX vs. 660) as I scaled up graphic mods.

 

[prinyo]

I'm completely lost in this and I still have no idea what to do. I'm starting to understand that the problem I'm facing is with the concept of "bang for buck" which ignores performance gains if the price difference is seen as too big to justify it. What I'm trying to understand is what is the best CPU to  run Oldrim with "bang for bang", so to say.
For now overclocked 4790K or  overclocked 7700k seem the best solution. What I still don't understand is if replacing my current CPU (4790) with any of them makes sense.

 

 

I have i7 6700K@4.6GHz with GTX 1070 8GB and 16GB of RAM, I use enb + some HD textures mods, and sometimes I see 40fps or less using 1920x1080 resolution. 

 

Do you use an ENB preset or just ENB Boost? Would it run at 60fps if not using ENB and HD replacers?

 

 

 

It's hard to imagine how your Skyrim would be CPU bound using i7 4790.   If you are getting the same low fps of 30-35 fps regardless of GTX980 or GTX760 whether it's 1440P or 1080P without heavy texture then it sounds something is off with the game installation. 

 

I added a bit of confusion to my post by mentioning two sets of numbers. The problem that I'm trying to fix is that the game runs with 45-55 fps outdoors and I need it to run with 60 all the time. I understand that some of the scripted and "populated" mods I use have a negative effect on the framerate and I'm trying to understand if I can fix that by providing more horse power to the system.

 

[zzz72w3r]

I'm completely lost in this and I still have no idea what to do. I'm starting to understand that the problem I'm facing is with the concept of "bang for buck" which ignores performance gains if the price difference is seen as too big to justify it. What I'm trying to understand is what is the best CPU to  run Oldrim with "bang for bang", so to say.

For now overclocked 4790K or  overclocked 7700k seem the best solution. What I still don't understand is if replacing my current CPU (4790) with any of them makes sense.

 

 

I have i7 6700K@4.6GHz with GTX 1070 8GB and 16GB of RAM, I use enb + some HD textures mods, and sometimes I see 40fps or less using 1920x1080 resolution. 

 

Do you use an ENB preset or just ENB Boost? Would it run at 60fps if not using ENB and HD replacers?

 

 

 

It's hard to imagine how your Skyrim would be CPU bound using i7 4790.   If you are getting the same low fps of 30-35 fps regardless of GTX980 or GTX760 whether it's 1440P or 1080P without heavy texture then it sounds something is off with the game installation. 

 

I added a bit of confusion to my post by mentioning two sets of numbers. The problem that I'm trying to fix is that the game runs with 45-55 fps outdoors and I need it to run with 60 all the time. I understand that some of the scripted and "populated" mods I use have a negative effect on the framerate and I'm trying to understand if I can fix that by providing more horse power to the system.

 

I don't think 980GTX is possible to maintain 60fps in 1440P with heavy ENB.  In some ENB presets I definitely wasn't getting that in 1080P with my 980GTX.  Isn't ENB GPU bound?

 

However, is Oldrim even designed with "minimum" 60fps in mind?  Back in those days 30fps was the norm.  If that were the case not getting 60fps consistently might just be shitty optimization rather than CPU bottleneck.  I seem to recall Oldrim vanilla graphics was pretty jumpy even without mods, unlike SSE.

 

EDIT: If you need 60fps minimum, try test with SSE.  It's far smoother than vanilla Oldrim and likely what Bethesda intended when they were thinking Skyrim VR.

 

EDIT2: When I started playing with mods I read a ton of discussions citing how Skyrim was "CPU bound" where one could get 100+ fps in certain cells but only 30 in some.  Yet in all those cases the minimum 30fps was raised by turning down certain graphic options.  I think Oldrim just wasn't optimized for 60fps.  

 

EDIT3: More trips down memory lane.  The only true evidence that Skyrim was CPU bound back then was AMD having hard time hitting 60fps regardless of GPU.   Again, it's another evidence that Oldrim was optimized with 30fps in mind and not 60fps.   i7 4790 is definitely far ahead of any AMD CPU from 2012 and I doubt it is the bottleneck in your system.

[prinyo]

 

EDIT: If you need 60fps minimum, try test with SSE.  It's far smoother than vanilla Oldrim and likely what Bethesda intended when they were thinking Skyrim VR.

 

SSE or (a potential) SkyrimVR are not a solution. Because - SKSE.

Let's face it - if Microsoft really fixes the DX9 memory bug SSE is dead in terms of mods demand and will never have a chance to get even close to Oldrim. Skyrim VR - if it ever gets released, will also need it's own script extender. What are the chances of that happening? None. We don't even know if Bethesda will not make changes in the meshes for example, that would make the mods we have now incompatible with a VR version (I guess we will have some answers soon when FO4VR is released).

 

 

Whatever new technologies are on the horizon, no CGI erotic experience will get even close to a well modded Oldrim in the next years. On a flat screen or in VR - Oldrim is here to stay for quite some time. (Made this bold because it is really important)

 

So the question is - how do we make it run fast and stable across the different environments. And in my mind it starts with - how do I make it run always with 60fps on a flat screen. Without removing any of the essential mods that make the experience worth bothering with any of this.  And I'm trying to understand what kind of a PC spec is the optimal. 

 

There is one answer to this that I find a bit extreme (in terms of money and implementation) that requires 3 things together: 7700K (overclocked and with water cooling) + GTX 1080 or another fast Pascal card + fast RAM. 

 

Maybe Skyrim was not made to do that, but all those mods that make it do things it was never made to do teach us that nothing is impossible :-)

 

 

What I'm actually trying to achieve is to make Skyrim run with a constant 45fps when double-rendered. On a flat screen dips to 40fps are not problematic, but this translates to about 20fps in 3D which is a serious problem. However adding the considerations about the 3D driver to the calculations makes them too complicated. And also I do not have control over how the 3D driver works, but I do have control over my PC. Hence my attempt to make Oldrim run with 60fps always on a flat screen expecting that this will result in a stable experience on different peripherals.

 

[LukeDuke]

I'm completely lost in this and I still have no idea what to do. I'm starting to understand that the problem I'm facing is with the concept of "bang for buck" which ignores performance gains if the price difference is seen as too big to justify it. What I'm trying to understand is what is the best CPU to  run Oldrim with "bang for bang", so to say.

For now overclocked 4790K or  overclocked 7700k seem the best solution. What I still don't understand is if replacing my current CPU (4790) with any of them makes sense.

 

 

I have i7 6700K@4.6GHz with GTX 1070 8GB and 16GB of RAM, I use enb + some HD textures mods, and sometimes I see 40fps or less using 1920x1080 resolution. 

 

Do you use an ENB preset or just ENB Boost? Would it run at 60fps if not using ENB and HD replacers? 

I use ENB Boost with ENB preset for better graphics (Vivid Weathers ENB), without ENB preset I have maybe 5fps more, and HD textures only affects loading times and sometimes causes a little bit stuttering because of Windows 10 issue with only 4GB of VRAM being used if the application is using DX9c or older, both x32 and x64 bit apps.. (for comparison FO4 with 4K textures can use up to 8GB of VRAM from my GPU, but FO4 is DX11 game which don't have this problem, same for SSE) but it should be fixed (according to official Microsoft reply on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/6e9e7a/i_dont_want_to_get_your_hopes_up_but_windows_10/ ) in next milestone for Windows 10 (yay after almost 6 years with this bug, which is also present in Windows 8/8.1).

 

Ah, and without any ENB/HD mods sometimes in cities fps will go down to about 50 but not lower.

Still I prefer much better looking game with 40fps+ than old boring gray Skyrim

[RJLbwb]

I got a new machine with with a GTX1060 and Skyrim works like gang busters now. No invisible physics for example, so the graphics card must make a differance.

[prinyo]

I got a new machine with with a GTX1060 and Skyrim works like gang busters now. No invisible physics for example, so the graphics card must make a differance.

 

 

"No invisible physics" means that your framerate is lower than it was before. Probably because of a change of some setting like Vsync.

[RJLbwb]

 

I got a new machine with with a GTX1060 and Skyrim works like gang busters now. No invisible physics for example, so the graphics card must make a differance.

 

 

"No invisible physics" means that your framerate is lower than it was before. Probably because of a change of some setting like Vsync.

 

 

There is a bug with physics were the NPC will be invisible, or stretched out all over the place or a body part will look like jello. I was getting that after about 10 mins and the no machine all is good.