» Wed Jul 20, 2011 7:14 pm This thread is the catch-all discussion thread for questions concerning computer hardware and its capability of running The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Please post all system spec queries here, as all other threads on this topic are liable to be closed.
The general rule of thumb here is that we are comparing the systems you post with the official system specs for the Xbox 360, which is the platform the game is primarily being designed for. These specs (in basic) are:
CPU: IBM Xenon @3.2GHz (Three cores)
Memory: 512Mb DDR3 (this memory is shared by the CPU and GPU and is bandwidth-accelerated by an onboard eDRAM chip)
GPU: Xenos graphics chip @ 500MHz
>DirectX 9.0c
>Shader Model 3.0
>No dedicated VRAM (it shares the system RAM)
What this means is that although the game will likely not be very demanding graphically (at least, before factoring in the increased texture resolutions and various other graphics features the PC gamers will get), it will likely put a heavy load on the CPU, and it is recommended to have at least a quad-core, although dual cores will probably not have too much issue so long as they have a reasonable clock speed (about 2.8 GHz on a modern dual-core should do).
We then take into account the fact that the game will likely not be as well optimized on the PC due to varying hardware setups. We also take into account the different optimization techniques required for PC setups due to the existence of, for instance, dedicated GPU memory. This means we are expecting Skyrim to require a decent processor of at least dual-core architecture with a reasonably fast clock speed, and GPUs with at least a 512Mb dedicated framebuffer and reasonable core clocks and memory clocks, as well as at least 4Gb of system RAM. If you meet these requirements, you should be able to run Skyrim; maybe not at the highest graphics settings without incurring a large performance hit, but you should be able to run it.
MODS EDIT:
General notice to begin with: at this point the system requirements are not yet known. Anything is speculation and conjecture at this moment. Asking about the requirements can yield an educated guess at best.
- From now on we're going to use this as the system requirement and speculation thread for both PC-systems and laptops.
- People can post questions related to their system in this thread.
- We'll also use this thread for general speculation regarding the anticipated and expected system requirements; be it minimum, recommended and optimum.
- This thread can also be used to ask about possible and potential upgrades that people plan or may want to make.
- Other threads will be closed and referred to this one. Once this reaches 200 posts, we'll continue in a new one and leave a link to the old thread.
- Once the official system requirements have been made public by Bethesda, we can change the topic to 'Will my system run Skyrim?'.
- Since this is unofficial, there are no guarentees and the administration may decide to change the course of this thread.
- We will appreciate it if you could link to this (and any subsequent) thread in new threads people make about hardware requirements. And, that you use the report fuction to report these new threads to the moderators.
Ok, let's see how it goes. :thumbsup:
Thanks in advance.
