Skyrim is a console port, confirmed by Bethesda.
Sounds like a good game to play on a console then, no?

Are you serious? I was asking if the system could run the game on maximum settings, not on lower ones.
You're answer is like telling someone who wants to know if their freezer will keep ice cream really hard, that if their not sure; then it is best to put the ice cream in the fridge and settle for melted ice cream.
I don't want bad graphics and standard definition. I want the best, or I'll stick with the consoles.

Well, if your pc is a "beast", why worry?

If you're buying it just for skyrim, I'd suggest waiting, components will get cheaper and you'll have a better idea of how low you can go and still run the game at max. The PC I just built has a GTS 450 and a Phenom II X2 555 BE, both of which are far from leaders in their field, but neither of which have an issue with games. A lot of the other stuff is personal preference, you want your case to look nice (But don't go too cheap on the case - it's not just a box, airflow is *very* important), you want your motherboard to have all the features you need (Personally I'm fine with a single PCI-E x16 port and 2 RAM slots, but you might want more - maybe even a duel-CPU configuration if you really splash out!). Don't skimp on the PSU. You'll probably want DDR3 RAM in that mobo, too, it's cheaper these days.

I won't bother building up a comprehensive specsheet, because I'd advise you to not follow it - wait until closer to release, then see what you can get for your money. At the very least, you'll get the same components but cheaper.




A "Console port" means it's not as good as it could be, it doesn't mean it's not better. Especially for a TES title, the faster loading times alone are worth it, the fact it can run with significantly less lag as well as better graphics? Icing.

@Jude11;
You want the absolute best that PC can deliver, or you'll drop to low framerate, low resolution, low settings? That doesn't seem right.

When did I claim to have a "super computer" or that it was a"beast?" I didn't.
I bought a nicer one, yes, but I know for a fact that there were many upgrades that i passed on. Being unfamiliar with PC gaming it is not only plausible but logical to ask for guidance from people who are more experienced in the field. Especially since I am on a laptop and not a desktop.

But there is where you are wrong, the console will run Skyrim with great FPS AND in HD, maybe not 1080P but 720P looks good enough, especially if you have a good modern LCD or LED TV! Its not as though you will be playing Skyrim on the Wii in 576P, 480P or below! At least you KNOW you will get good performance, with your laptop you won't be running Skyrim in Maximum settings I am sorry but that is the facts! Skyrim like Oblivion and before are very graphically intensive, there is alot for your PC's hardware to process, laptops don't have the juice unless you turn the resolution down. Like I said my 3 year old Desktop hardware outperforms the fastest Alienware Laptop and they are specifically designed for gaming!

No, I want to know what the limits of my system are, and how they stack up to the consoles. If I have to have graphics and resolution that are less than the quality of a console, i'll opt for the console.

Oh, don't worry, you'll pretty much need to not have a graphics card to go that low. It *is* 2011.

Doubtful on both accounts.

I just want to know what the maximum capabilities of my laptop are on a game like this, or oblivion. I don't need to know the capabilities of the white houses computer network.
Will I be able to run the game smoothly and it still look better than on a console?

Just using those suggestions as a guide, I came up with something like this:
CPU $100
GPU $150
Mobo $70
Memory $50
HDD $40
Optical $30
Case + PSU $75
Windows $120

Total $635

That's already a pretty "budget" system, I think, yet it's $200 more than a console. That's probably too much for me to justify the benefits of mods and so on. But you're right, maybe things will get sufficiently cheaper by November. I don't think I'd be willing to pay any more than about $100 more for the PC than for a console, when it's really just going to be for playing Skyrim.

"Probably".

Not having any benchmarks or technical specifications we can't get any better than that - but if the game can run oblivion on full at decent resolution, then it stands to reason it can perform similarly on Skyrim, as it has to run on exactly the same hardware as Oblivion did, and it'll be (better?) optimised this time round.

@srk; Hm, it appears you're paying a little more for those components, but I suppose that's not exactly unheard of.
Consider that that will get cheaper (How much? Nobody knows!) over time, and that you're getting much, much more than a console there. Even ignoring the fact that for an extra $200 you're getting, if moore's law holds true, about 16x the power and support for modern technologies, you'll also be able to buy the game for cheaper, as well as any other games you have. You'll also have a decent PC, which is great for just about everything you can do on a PC. So while yes, the initial cost of entry is higher, the value you're getting for your money is quite astronomically higher.

That was all given on the last page.
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666248683#specifications
Sorry, thought you were up to date on what I was talking about.

Oh, no, sorry, I meant for the game itself. We don't know how well it'll run on anything for certain, we can only estimate. I *guess*, based on how well it runs Oblivion, that you will run it decently at very least (As in, 60fps on a high resolution with medium/high settings, at a minimum (As opposed to the consoles, running it at a reasonable resolution with a low framerate and medium/low settings)), but until we get the game, we cannot give any absolutes. When we get the requirements we can give better guesses, but they say nothing about how it'll scale, just approximate benchpoints.

That's Australian $ - sorry for not making that clear. Also, I only looked at one store. But that store tends to be pretty cheap anyway...

As far as the "you'll get more functionality" argument goes - I don't really buy it. (i) That desktop will be less powerful than my notebook in every respect except for the GPU. (ii) I'll only be using the desktop for playing Skyrim. Perhaps the only extra functionality I'd get is that I'd be buying Windows, which I could then also install on my laptop, if I so desired.

But anyway, it's food for thought, so thanks.

Ah, I didn't realise you already had a decent laptop, that throws a lot of the advantage out of the window. I assumed australian dollars from the .com.au domain - but doing a quick currency conversion showed I paid slightly less for the graphics card at least. Even so, if I were in your position I'd be finding it hard to justify buying a console - slightly cheaper, but you're getting a lot less power, the games are more expensive, you have more freedom in how you use it, if a component breaks you can replace just it without having to buy a whole new machine, obviously have no freedom to do things like mods or ini tweaks, or indeed much freedom at all.

I suppose if you're looking for the absolute minimum outgoing money, and are only ever going to use it for skyrim and nothing else ever, don't mind longer loading times and probable stutter during cell loads and possible framerate issues late-game when you have a large save file, are willing to forgoe mods, and don't mind having a machine you can't upgrade, then console is the way to go - but for anything else, I can't reccomend buying a console, simply because the value for money is so much lower, even as a pure games machine.

My year old GTX285 cost over 500 dollars AU when I bought it there go's that budget To get a half decent Desktop PC these days you need to spend upwards of 1000 dollars AU and even THAT won't play anything like Skyrim or Crysis etc on High settings.... its frustrating but true, that is why I had to go to my PS3 to game, can't afford to upgrade all the time like I have in the past, things change priorities change... like having a family and buying a house in my case Its ridiculous how much Nvidia and ATI charge for their top of the line gaming Video Cards, any many cases you can buy a whole PC for the same price as you are spending on the Video alone! Look at this http://www.msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=6994 GTX580 top of the line video card $629 and that is from a CHEAP store

Look. No.
The 285 is a high end card, you do not need a high end card any more. Graphically, games are so stagnated that even a comparatively weak card can run games on top settings. My GTS 450 (The card I reccomended as a budget card) runs crysis at 1680x1050 on max at more or less constant 60fps, runs the crysis 2 demo on top settings at 60fps, runs heavily modded oblivion at 30fps (And considering how heavily modded it is that's much more of an achievement than it looks - if only my graphics card was the bottleneck!), Dead Space 2 maxxed out at constant 60fps, GTA4 with every setting on full except view distance (Which I'm pretty sure isn't designed to be maxxed out for a while), Modded fallout 3 at 60fps, Just Cause 2 at near-max settings at 60fps, need I go on?

You do not need a top of the line card to get top of the line graphics. If you have a top of the line card, put it to use on doing 3D or rediculously huge resolutions, or 32xAA, or *something*, because it sure as hell isn't being put to use just by the games.

If thats the case then you must have a decent CPU and Ram, what are you running? Yeah this may be the case NOW with the 400 range but the fact is the OP doesn't have one he is using the laptop equivalent! You still need a decent CPU or else the power of the GPU becomes redundant and becomes a bottleneck. My GTX285 still runs Crysis on VERY HIGH in 1680X1050 but I am still running an E8500 duel core @ 3.4 Gighz.

If the OP wants to run Skyrim in Full HD 1920X1080 it won't happen on his laptop OR a mid range PC desktop that was my point, he would need a HIGH end PC to be able to do that and they are not cheap as examplified by my link to the top of the range GTX card above !

Advantage of a PC: you're not stuck with the same quality for the lifetime of the game. If Oblivion can be made to look like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbwQOioCMO0 five years after release, just imagine what Skyrim can look like in 5 years. Even if your current machine may have to turn down the settings to run smoothly, you will more than likely be upgrading the machine eventually, at which time all your PC games will benefit. Your XBox and Playstation games don't benefit all that much when the next console versions are released.

No, he won't, my Phenom II X2 555 BE is just as midrange as my graphics card, and the majority of the games I quoted are in no way CPU-bound (Most games aren't, the CPU is often fairly irrelevant so long as you're more modern than a P4), and run on a 32bit architecture limiting them to the perfectly mediocre 2GB of RAM, making the 4GB I have somewhat immaterial. My PC is about as midrange as you can get, do you want me to do actual ingame benchmarks? It's not a case of "This is what you need to run games decently", it's a case of "Most games aren't even stressing it". My CPU lies relatively untouched and while I don't have a similar metric for my graphics card, I can take temperature deltas as an approximate indication of load. Games aren't difficult to run any more, and the graphics card in his laptop has been shown to run Oblivion on max settings at its resolution. It will handle skyrim just fine, though obviously I can't say any closer than that. If the OP wants to run Skyrim at 1920x1080 they'll, for one thing, need a monitor! At its resolution, the card is perfectly fine. High end graphics cards aren't cheap, but mid end ones are, and for mid-end resolutions, a mid end card more than does the job.

It's sad to see that every pc title is a multi-port nowadays.
I was somewhat disappointed when I saw Skyrim graphics, I was expecting something as outstanding as oblivion was when it was released, but thanks to consoles stagnation, Skyrim is no better than the ancient almost 4 years old Crysis.
I'm also worried about AI, physics and others CPUs tasks, they require powerful CPUs and are extremely important in a detailed game with an open world as TES. Crappy PS3 and X360 CPUs will serve as bottlenecks to Gameplay and AI innovations that is about time to be implemented.
I hope Bethesda doesn't ignore the PC capability and at least write some aditional features like new shaders and tesselation.

(pardon my english, it's not my mother-tongue)

:flamethrower:

I assumed it would be similar to Oblivion. So, I suppose you could answer my question based on that.

Get it for PC. Better running if you have the rig for it, and mods. I'm a 360 gamer myself, but that's because I'm in the Navy and have no interest in lugging a PC around with me everywhere I go. XBoxes are simple to transport, hook up, and use, and they're not as valuable so it can take more of a beating. But if you have a computer that's ready to handle the game at its best, there's no reason not to get it for that.