hello!

First of all, it seems like Skyrim is taking a lot of my pc's resources and pc starts to lag after some half an hour playing. The specs are set to medium. Dont think much will change with low ones. Is there a mod or something that would improve (or lower) the performance of skyrim on older/slower machines?

Secondly, what to chose? light or heavy armor? why would anyone take the light one, if heavy gives you higher defence?

Thanks ;D

Depending on your character light armor is suitable to quick players like archers. Heavy armor is for defensive purposes but it slows you down; with heavy armor you can take a hit but it takes longer to throw one back. Light armor on the other hand you are more mobile and quicker.

Plus you can reach armor cap with light armors so it doesn't matter which has the better stats after the armor rating cap.

http://images.uesp.net/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg

as mention above with both armors you can reach max 640 armor cap latter i game and you can also make heavy armor weightless later in game, so it really is what you prefer at the beginning heavy armor equals better protection but slows you down and you wont be able to carry as much weight, or not as good armor protection but being more fast and agile with light armor

The cap is 567 if you're wearing all four pieces of armor.

About performance: have you actually tried lowering your settings, or is it just a guess? What are your PC specs?

Sneaking is harder in heavy armor, so if you play a sneaky character, go with light. (Depending on playstyle, it is of course also possible to skip armor and use clothes/robes.)

If you wear heavy armor, I highly recommend choosing the Steed Stone, which makes the armor you wear weightless.

Welcome to the forums! Have a fishy stick!

(This Ol' Cap'n can't post links yet, so you'll have to make do with my avatar.)

For the performance question, it would be better asked here....http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1406654-unofficial-will-my-pc-run-skyrim-thread-61-w-hardware-guide/

For the mod question, search here...http://www.gamesas.com/forum/183-skyrim-mods/ or here...http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/index.php although, mods do not really improve performance. One or two might help, but actual settings and type of hardware are the main problem solvers.

For the armor question watch this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VOoSYGTKTc&feature=relmfu

And...Welcome to the forums.

By the way, what is with henchmen? are they stealing my experience (note - i know there is not such thing as experience in skyrim) ? I mean is it actually beneficial to take henches or rather try to go tru everything on my own? Also, is there a fast switch thingy in skyrim? in Morrowind and Oblivion, you were able to assign number keys for wepons or skills. is there something like that in TESV?

There isn't hotkeying in Skyrim. You have a favorites menu that you open with the press of a button.

In Oblivion you had 8 hotkeys. In Skyrim..you only have two. The item or spell must first be tagged to the favorites menu. From there, one can assign the left and right d-pad as the two hotkeys.

EDIT : Oh! I see you mentioned number keys...Sorry, I assume you are playing on the PC then. If so, you literally have the entire keyboard to hotkey items and/or spells. In addition to the default number keys...

Here is one example...http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3865

here is another...http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/23416

allright, have been playing for some time now. But the thing is, that computer starts to lag earlier and earlier. does this mean that i should forget about the game and put it in a shelf for better time? or are there some things that might improve performance -> lower resource demand?