[His Bella]

When discussing laptops, the "Turbo" speed is more important than the base CPU speed. If the APU / CPU could not exceed 1.8 GHz, it would be too slow.

The CPU may be capable of running the game, however, the GPU number refers to a business class of video card, not a gaming card. You want the second number to be no smaller than "500" on a Radeon, so that an HD 6570 is adequate, while a 6450 is not. Geforces use a different number system, and it changes quite frequently.

For the proposed purchase, an HD "63nn" would be unlikely to be satisfactory. Bethesda wants more VRAM available in-game than a card that inexpensive can handle at a smooth animation rate.

[Kathryn Medows]

Seems that we PC users are stuck in a "svck it and see" situation these days, what with game companys now refusing to release demos prior to general release.
Can U Run It tells me my PC is totally incapable of running Skyrim, so dunno what I've been playing for the last week and a half, but it looks like Skyrim, plays like Skyrim and my Steam games list tells me it's Skyrim.

Laptop graphics are gradually getting better as time goes by, but I think they'll always be a little on the back foot simply because of the architecture and lack of space for full spec video cards.

[Danger Mouse]

Seems that we PC users are stuck in a "svck it and see" situation these days, what with game companys now refusing to release demos prior to general release.
Can U Run It tells me my PC is totally incapable of running Skyrim, so dunno what I've been playing for the last week and a half, but it looks like Skyrim, plays like Skyrim and my Steam games list tells me it's Skyrim.

Laptop graphics are gradually getting better as time goes by, but I think they'll always be a little on the back foot simply because of the architecture and lack of space for full spec video cards.

Can You Run It seems to be a very poor utility to use for gauging your ability to play games. Instead, you might wish to go with the Minimum/Recommended setup specs that are usually listed on the back of the box and on official websites to get a better indication.

[c.o.s.m.o]

Everyone playing games should LONG SINCE have learned that the morons at SR Labs aren't smart enough to hire a qualified Hardware Geek, and go strictly by numbers that they simply do not understand. Of all the sites purporting to assist in this manner, SR Labs is the worst. The best general-public type site is part of YouGamers, and is called the "Game-o-Meter", but it's not close to 100% accurate.

P. S. Added in Edit. That reply came after I began writing my own, but I swear I thought your time had gotten too precious any longer than diving down into these trenches with us mere mortals. Good to see you again!

[Dragonz Dancer]

Hey everyone,

I've decided that I'm going to quit console gaming and change to PC gaming, and so I was looking for a computer that could run most recent games with good graphics, but I can't afford a gaming rig, so could someone tell if this PC is a good choice? I'd really like to know if it could run Skyrim on High or Ultra.

• AMD CPU A4-3420 - 2,80GHz
  
• 4GB DDR3
  
• Nvidia GeForce GT 620 1GB

Thanks.

[jennie xhx]

The GT 620 is a fence-sitter. It's miles short of playing games at high settings, although it is better than the more ordinary of business video cards. If you must have a Geforce, get nothing slower than a GTX 550 Ti card, although I still think AMD beats those on a price to performance basis:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-2.html

[ANaIs GRelot]

Hum... That's too bad, I can't spend much more than 600 euros right now...

How would an Intel Core i3-2120 @ 3,30GHz and an Nvidia G405 1GB fare?

[Jerry Jr. Ortiz]

Don't worry about VRAM until after you get GPU core speed, System memory bandwidth, and memory speed up to gaming quality levels. Until nVIDIA sorts out the crew they have on driver updates, I have given up on them, Just way too many bad drivers to suit me!

I have never, ever heard of any such as a "405" from nVIDIA. (I suspect, however, that it's total crap.) What does Toms Hardware tell you about that one?

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=647&card2=654

P. S. The only "G" Geforces I know about are the 210, 305, and 310:

http://www.gpureview.com/GeForce-210-card-621.html

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+405

[luke trodden]

I'm starting to think I would get more bang for my buck if I built myself a custom PC at my local shop, what do you think about that?

[Allison Sizemore]

I started building my own PCs nearly twenty years ago (edit: Whoa! It was really almost 30 years!) because I could do so for about 75% less than buying a readymade of any kind. I still save some money, but the main reason I do it now is to get exactly what I want, not whatever the manufacturer wants me to buy.

[Unstoppable Judge]

Would a pentium g630 (2.7 ghz) with a 550 ti run skyrim on high? And Crysis if you know?

[Siidney]

Would a pentium g630 (2.7 ghz) with a 550 ti run skyrim on high?

A Pentium? I highly doubt it.

And Crysis if you know?

Not the thread for that. You'd do best either in Community Discussion or on the Crysis forums, if they have 'em.

[Misty lt]

I started building my own PCs nearly twenty years ago because I could do so for about 75% less than buying a readymade of any kind. I still save some money, but the main reason I do it now is to get exactly what I want, not whatever the manufacturer wants me to buy.

Yeah, I think that's what I'm going to do. Problem is I'm at my local shop's configurator, choosing which partes I would like, but with the exception of the CPU, GPU, hard drive, OS and RAM memory, I have no ideia on what to choose in other categories, like power supply, cooling system or even motherboard...

[Solène We]

Every possible option you could want to include has been thoroughly reviewed somewhere on the 'Net. All of everything you need to know is out there. When I was getting started, there were only a half dozen magazines covering the basics, and they were all printed on paper. The Internet was still DARPAnet, and civilians had no better than second-hand access to it.

Incidentally, my subtraction has really gotten terrible -- 1986 was much closer to thirty years ago than to only twenty . .

[helen buchan]

Hey, I've just gotten this desktop from my father, it's not old, but it's not exactly "New"

Anyways, I almost meet the recommended specs except for the processor which meets minimal requirements... Yet skyrim lags so much, even if I close everything else out and play on the lowest custom settings. I've tried a couple of mods to optimize it, nothing worked. I have the latest drivers, for everything. These are my specs:

Windows 7 professional 64 bit.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ ... 2.21 GHz.
5 Gigs of ram
Nvidia GeForce 6200 - total memory is 2289 MBs. which if my math is correct is just over two gigabytes.

Can someone tell me what's going on? Is the processor really that bad or is it also the graphics card? Or something else...?

Thank you in advanced.

[Queen]

Hey, I've just gotten this desktop from my father, it's not old, but it's not exactly "New"

Anyways, I almost meet the recommended specs except for the processor which meets minimal requirements... Yet skyrim lags so much, even if I close everything else out and play on the lowest custom settings. I've tried a couple of mods to optimize it, nothing worked. I have the latest drivers, for everything. These are my specs:

Windows 7 professional 64 bit.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ ... 2.21 GHz.
5 Gigs of ram
Nvidia GeForce 6200 - total memory is 2289 MBs. which if my math is correct is just over two gigabytes.

Can someone tell me what's going on? Is the processor really that bad or is it also the graphics card? Or something else...?

You don't come anywhere within a hundred miles of the minimum graphics requirement. That is an eight year old POS card that was already just crap when brand new, and being sold in dealers' lots of a dozen within nine months, 12 for $100, is was so bad, so cheaply made.

What is really amazing is that so many hundreds of thousands of the horrendous things were produced, and they are still being sold now, today.

The minimum card's VRAM is the least important measure of its performance, but Bethesda's people are so techno-phobic about hardware, they don't know that.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=192&card2=544

If you wanted an "Old" card, the Radeon HD 3850 from five years ago, and the Gefore 8800 from the same time are what would be needed today to actually USE half of a GB of VRAM for a 1080 HD screen at gaming speeds. For lower screen resolutions than the game was designed for, the HD 4670 from four years ago would be fine, along with the Geforce 9600 GT.

Moving forward in model years, still going for "Budget" options that do not offer full 1080p definition, a Radeon HD 5670, Radeon HD 6570, and Radeon HD 7570 are all usable. Geforces from the GT 240 and GTS 250 to the GTX 550 are also usable. For 1080p high resolution, however, generally, think more expense.

[TOYA toys]

A Pentium? I highly doubt it.

I've seen some sites saying it'll run it fine. Anyone else have any opinions on a pentium g630?
Toms hardware says it is even with a phenom x4 955

[Vicki Gunn]

You don't come anywhere within a hundred miles of the minimum graphics requirement. That is an eight year old POS card that was already just crap when brand new, and being sold in dealers' lots of a dozen within nine months, 12 for $100, is was so bad, so cheaply made.

What is really amazing is that so many hundreds of thousands of the horrendous things were produced, and they are still being sold now, today.

The minimum card's VRAM is the least important measure of its performance, but Bethesda's people are so techno-phobic about hardware, they don't know that.


If you wanted an "Old" card, the Radeon HD 3850 from five years ago, and the Gefore 8800 from the same time are what would be needed today to actually USE half of a GB of VRAM for a 1080 HD screen at gaming speeds. For lower screen resolutions than the game was designed for, the HD 4670 from four years ago would be fine, along with the Geforce 9600 GT.

Thank you, for pointing that out... This I did not know nor even think about. Maybe it's time I try to invest into a newer or at least better card.

Thanks again, for the quick reply.

[Tha King o Geekz]

I've seen some sites saying it'll run it fine. Anyone else have any opinions on a pentium g630?
Toms hardware says it is even with a phenom x4 955

Most of the processors from Intel since the C2D replaced the Pentium 4 have been amazingly powerful, but almost uniformly, any more recent models using the name "Pentium" have been crap. Yours doesn't appear to have been crippled as terribly badly as has been the usual, but we (game players) no longer feel at all friendly toward the name any more. I would say to not expect outstanding performance from it, myself.

[Manuela Ribeiro Pereira]

So should I go with an i3 instead. It's 50 more dollars?

[elliot mudd]

So should I go with an i3 instead. It's 50 more dollars?

Shop around a little more, and see if you can get an i3 (C2D) and not pay quite so much of a bonus over the cheap Pentium, or get an AMD that runs better than the Phenom 955 . .

[Kelly Upshall]

Alright. What are the newer i3s? Like the number after them, and some of the older cheaper ones?

[Daniel Brown]

Alright. What are the newer i3s? Like the number after them, and some of the older cheaper ones?

Sorry, but gotta interrupt this a bit as this thread is mainly to let players know how their system would fare in the game. If you're looking for a PC to buy and need some suggestions, you should ask in the Community Tech Topic:
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1397168-the-community-tech-thread-no-117/

Please head on over there and read the first post, specifically regarding the questions to answer if you're looking for a PC, and we'll surely help you out there with whatever questions you got.

[Shelby Huffman]

My computers about 6 years old,was wondering how well itll run skyrim.

Windows XP
Intel Core 2 Duo e8400 3.00Ghz
Nvidia 9500GT 1gb
4GB Ram

Could i get around medium at 1280x720 res?

[Angela]

http://www.comet.co.uk/p/Laptops/buy-ASUS-N55SL-S2019V-Laptop/791580

Am looking at getting this laptop and wondered what sort of graphics level it would play Skyrim at?

• Processor - Intel Core i7 2670QM - 2.2 GHz
  
• RAM - 6 GB
  
• Hard Drive - 750 GB
  
• Operating System - Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
  
• Optical Drive - Blu-Ray
  
• Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M Optimus
  
• Graphics Memory - 2

Am also looking at this less expensive one and would appreciate some insight as to whether it would run Skyrim (at all?) as it only has an i5 processor

Processor: Intel Core i5
Processor Model: i5-2450
Memory (RAM): 8 GB
Storage (hard drive): 750 GB
Dedicated Graphics: nVidia GT6102 GB