[Solina971]

My game runs like poop on my rig. I am not new to the gaming world and I am a Microsoft developer... I have to run Vanilla on low

2.2 ghz i7 radeon 6750m, 16 gb ddr 1333, win 7 x64 ultimate. Licensed updated drivers.

IMO, a 2.3 GHz processor is more practical as a real minimum that should be able to run the game, and a 2.2 would be pushing things:

Corrected Skyrim Minimum Requirements

* Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
* Processor: Dual Core 2.3 GHz C2D or equivalent CPU
* 2GB System RAM
* 6GB free HDD Space
* Direct X 9 compliant video card with 512 MB of RAM (and
sufficient performance to actually put that VRAM to use)
* DirectX compatible sound card
* Internet access for Steam activation

[Rich O'Brien]

You need a better video card.

Do you have any recommendations for a low cost videocard that would get me at least high settings if not ultra?

Your graphics card has grown old, You didn't name any screen resolution. What you have now will get you Medium Quality at Medium Resolution.

You can get to "High" at Medium resolution inexpensively; "Ultra" will cost you more than that.

Sorry about that, I have a Samsung 206bw 20" LCD monitor with a resolution of 1680x1050.

[Destinyscharm]

$59 after the rebate:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150542

[Avril Churchill]

$59 after the rebate:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150542

thanks for the recommendation. So would this give me high settings?

what about for ultra?

[Sierra Ritsuka]

thanks for the recommendation. So would this give me high settings?

what about for ultra?

What did I say before? "You can get to "High" at Medium resolution inexpensively; "Ultra" will cost you more than that."

You may need a better (newer, at least) power supply. 10% of capacity is gone each year due to capacitor degradation. What budget?

[Tracy Byworth]

I've got:

win 7 home premium 64bit
3,30 GHZ Intel Core i3-2120 CPU
4GB RAM
and an Intel HD Graphics Family graphics card.

You guys told me that I should get a better graphics card to be able to play this game. I can easily play on low settings without any problems at all though, just so you know .

[Timara White]

What did I say before? "You can get to "High" at Medium resolution inexpensively; "Ultra" will cost you more than that."

You may need a better (newer, at least) power supply. 10% of capacity is gone each year due to capacitor degradation. What budget?

How about $200 budget?

[Erin S]

Add a $130 (after rebate) HD 6850, here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150573

to an Antec 620 Watt for $65:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371048

That's if your current PSU is three years old, same as the graphics card is (and now down to about 400 effective watts instead of 550). If it's been in there less than that long, here is a nice HD 6870 for $180 after rebate:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150563

[Lovingly]

IMO, a 2.3 GHz processor is more practical as a real minimum that should be able to run the game, and a 2.2 would be pushing things:

Wrong.

I want to put an end to the GHZ myth that's taken as the truth in this thread.

1: Not all GHZ are the same, please remember this. A modern 2GHZ i3, for example, will dominate an older 2.5ghz core 2 duo.

2: The graphics card is the main bottleneck. If you have a laptop, this means your CPU probably isn't the bottleneck.

3. Oddly enough, Skyrim seems to be a well threaded game. While the majority of games are generally limited to 1 or 2 cores, Skyrim seems to take advantage of quad core CPUs. This means those seemingly slow i7 CPUs in 15" and 17" macbook pros are actually very fast.



Personal testament to this: I Have an AMD A8-3500M CPU at 1.5ghz in a $579 HP Dv6 laptop. Yes, 1.5ghz. And this is a slow 1.5ghz, since the old K10 CPU architecture has a low IPC. So you can think of my processor as a 1.45ghz Core 2 CPU, or a 1.2GHZ i3/i5. BUT My processor is a quad core, so it can spread the load out to multiple cores. Still, my processor is very crappy compared to a modern laptop i3 at 2.0ghz+

I also have no dedicated graphics card, or dedicated video memory. Integrated graphics: bad news for Skyrim right? Wrong, this isn't Intel. The A8 has 6620G graphics, meaning it has powerful integrated graphics that can use the laptop's normal RAM. I can play Skyrim on high settings with a few mods with no problem, despite my crappy CPU at 1.5ghz, all BECAUSE I have a decent graphics card.

Just for a test, I overclocked the processor to 2.05 GHZ, just to see how it would affect gameplay. Indeed, my game was a bit smoother, but not by much.


The moral of this story: Don't obsess over CPU speed. See what graphics card your computer has, go to notebookcheck.com, and look it up to see what it's capable of.

[Wanda Maximoff]

i7 2600 3.4 GHz
win 7 64bit OS
8 GB ram
GeForce GT 420
@1440x900

Just want to be able to play at high with consistantly good fps. I have to go down to 1152x720 to achieve this atm and even then I get the occasional dip. Is this card really that bad????

Looking for <$200 reliable replacement.

[daniel royle]

i7 2600 3.4 GHz
win 7 64bit OS
8 GB ram
GeForce GT 420
@1440x900

Just want to be able to play at high with consistantly good fps. I have to go down to 1152x720 to achieve this atm and even then I get the occasional dip. Is this card really that bad????

Looking for <$200 reliable replacement.

The GT 420 is worse than you know. Skyrim is easy on graphics cards, but still wants one actually designed to play games on. For $200, right now, stateside, you can get an HD 6850 and a power supply upgrade to support it for $195 from Newegg. Scroll up a few comments to an answer I gave to another member in this thread, on this page.

[Chloé]

The GT 420 is worse than you know. Skyrim is easy on graphics cards, but still wants one actually designed to play games on. For $200, right now, stateside, you can get an HD 6850 and a power supply upgrade to support it for $195 from Newegg. Scroll up a few comments to an answer I gave to another member in this thread, on this page.

I still have an old HD5670 with an upgraded power supply I could transfer over to this rig..but is an HD5670 still better than a GT 420? That is pathetic if true.

[Becky Palmer]

I still have an old HD5670 with an upgraded power supply I could transfer over to this rig..but is an HD5670 still better than a GT 420? That is pathetic if true.

Even an HD 4670 is better:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=GeForce+GT+420

Yes, it's a pathetic thing, only intended for business graphics, really (of course, it's *MILES ABOVE* the total, absolute CRAP from Intel).

[Kelli Wolfe]

To the people that always lol when integrated cards are discuss and are quick to say "it wont even open the game" I have the intel HD 3000 video card and it is playable. video proof here that I just uploaded

http://youtu.be/DaehyUfWNmU

[Craig Martin]

I still have an old HD5670 with an upgraded power supply I could transfer over to this rig..but is an HD5670 still better than a GT 420? That is pathetic if true.

As noted, yes, it's better.

[Unstoppable Judge]

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-dv7-4285dx-Entertainment-Laptop/dp/B004HTK2VW/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

ATI Radeon HD 6370

I5 2.53GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.80 GHz

6GB DDR3 System Memory

1600 x 900 resolution ( I think?)

Windows 7

[Greg Cavaliere]

The HD 6370 is a Low End card intended for business graphics, but ought to run Skyrim at the lowest settings and lowest resolution anyway. It won't perform well at all at a resolution in the high range that you are interested in.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Mobility+Radeon+HD+6370

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+6370M

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6370M.40970.0.html

[Mariaa EM.]

Heyall

I was wondering if the current iMac generation has enough horsepower to run skyrim in high (or ultra-high) detail settings. Anyone tried skyrim on one of these machines? I might add that I'm not that keen on high display resolutions. I'd rather choose lower display resolutions (1200 or 1024) and use hardware power to play at the highest detail level possible (e.g. max out texture resolution, details, view distance, effects etc)

Now to prevent any troll comments, as seen on other mac threads here - The reason I'm narrowing my computer choice to macs is because I need to maintain cross-compatibility of working files between my macbook and a potential desktop mac. I'm a sound designer, and my software of choice only runs on macs. So please no silly mac flaming comments.

Here the specs of the imacs I'd be buying:

Small version:
2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
1920 x 1080 resolution
8GB memory
AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 512MB

Big version:
3,1 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
2560x1440 resolution
8GB memory
AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 1024MB (optional 2048 mb)

I'd rather go for the small one... but would t be sufficient, or should I take the big one?

[herrade]

Wrong.

2: The graphics card is the main bottleneck. If you have a laptop, this means your CPU probably isn't the bottleneck.

Wrong.

3. Oddly enough, Skyrim seems to be a well threaded game. While the majority of games are generally limited to 1 or 2 cores, Skyrim seems to take advantage of quad core CPUs. This means those seemingly slow i7 CPUs in 15" and 17" macbook pros are actually very fast.

Wrong. Skyrim usees only 2 cores. Go watch your cores while you play if you don't believe me,

Just for a test, I overclocked the processor to 2.05 GHZ, just to see how it would affect gameplay. Indeed, my game was a bit smoother, but not by much.


The moral of this story: Don't obsess over CPU speed. See what graphics card your computer has, go to notebookcheck.com, and look it up to see what it's capable of.

Wrong. As you saw, increasing your cpu speed translates into frames. Meanwhile people with Nvidia 580s cant reach 60 fps because gpu power isn't very important in this game.

I have a Core 2 Duo at 3.0 ghz and a 8800 GTX gpu. How do you explain my cpu sitting at 90%-100% usage and my gpu sitting at 40%-60%?

[Josee Leach]

Hi, I'm thinking of buying a new laptop and was wondering how well this would run skyrim:
Intel? Core? i7-2670QM/2.2GHz
AMD Radeon HD6850 (2 GB)
16 GB RAM
15,6" screen

[K J S]

PSU-700 watt kings win
cpu- amd phenom 2 3.2ghz quad core (older model, 955 i believe)
ram- 4gb ddr3 1600mhz ballistix
gpu- 1gb gtx 460 superclocked edition

wondering how to get more juice out of this rig. even with some default overclocking shadows kick my ass and i exp framerate drops.

any tips welcome.

edit...just so you know i have a fxaa injector mod and skyrim 4gb...tho i dont know if its workign or not.

im assuming the 4gb is for 4gb ram? how do i unlock my other 2 cpu cores then?

[Mizz.Jayy]

Hi, I'm thinking of buying a new laptop and was wondering how well this would run skyrim:
Intel? Core? i7-2670QM/2.2GHz
AMD Radeon HD6850 (2 GB)
16 GB RAM
15,6" screen

Screen "size" is irrelevant. Screen resolution is what matters. For this game, if 2.2 GHz is the maximum, I would not recommend that machine. I would say that 2.3 GHz is the practical minimum CPU speed. A great many laptops these days are equipped to automatically speed up in a "Turbo" mode, when needed, and knowing about (and what the max boosted speed is, that is another key element in choosing any particular laptop model.

[Spencey!]

Hi, I'm thinking of buying a new laptop and was wondering how well this would run skyrim:
Intel? Core? i7-2670QM/2.2GHz
AMD Radeon HD6850 (2 GB)
16 GB RAM
15,6" screen

I'd say you need a faster processor.

[:)Colleenn]

Just thought I'd add my specs to the board for reference. i run on Ultra, No game AA, Shadows set to high.

Display: 1920 x 1200
CPU Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66Hz
NVIDIA GTX 9800+, 1MB
RAM 4 GB
Win Vista/64

Default .ini files. No Mouse issues.

No lag, No crashes,

Since patch 1.2.12 some crashes on exit.

[JAY]

So i'm going to buy a new notebook and one of the things i would like to do on that notebook is, well you guessed it, play skyrim. I don't know alot abouth notebooks and such so i'll need a little bit of help.

I found this notebook: http://icecat.ch/p/acer/lxrq002073/aspire-notebooks-4717276713140-5755g-2678g64mn-11115786.html

Would it be able to run skyrim? I don't really need high setting just normal would be nice.

Thanks for your support (As english is not my main language there will be mistakes, srry)