I am an Xbox 360 gamer at heart but I wanted to play Skyrim on the PC so that I could use and make mods,
I recently bought a computer for this reason but Skyrim doesn't seem to run smoothly.
The graphics looks fine but it lags when I move around,
I am using an Xbox 360 controller to play it but the mouse does the same thing.

Any help would be appreciated.

My computer spec is as follows:

Windows 7 Home Premium
AMD FX?-4100 Quad-Core Processor 3.60 GHz
4GB DDR RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5400 series Graphics Card
32-bit Operating System

I am a computer noob so I copyed as much system information as I could find, hope its enough.

Your graphics card svcks for gaming dude, thats the issue. You will need to lower the graphics settings to get smooth gameplay. That or buy a new gfx card. No offence dude, just letting you know straight.

What grapics card would I need, money's no issue

32 bit operating system is not good either I'm afraid...

How do I change the operating system

its fine, the game is designed to run on a 32bit OS.


I would suggest first reading up on what cards are in your expected price range or check out the cost of top of the range cards on a site such as newegg. Also bear in mind a graphics card upgrade will most certainly also require a power supply upgrade to cope with increased power demands of the card.

At least a Radeon 6670, but the more powerful the better but that also means it's more expensive. The recent Radeon 7870 would be quite nice, for example, but it's 3x times more expensive than 6670.

While 32-bit OSes have limits today, they don't really degrade the performance. Especially not as Skyrim is a 32-bit piece of software to begin with.

And maybe a new case, as well.


Well, they do in the sense that the system as a whole is limited to under 4 GB. With a 64-bit OS, and more than 4 GB of RAM, you've got a buffer zone to allow the game to use as much as it can without other stuff cannibalizing the available as much.

How much would the Radeon 7870 cost

I run the game with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 quite well on high settings on a laptop and its driver dates back to 2009..

You can easily check it out on the Internet. A simple search for those terms will suffice...

I say this as it varies from vendor to vendor and seller to seller.

In the UK including VAT around ￡400, its a pretty expensive card.

If it will definitely help I'm willing to pay that much, they are around ￡270 on eBay

If I was you I would stay away from Ebay on such an expensive purchace and stick to a dedicated electonics seller/retailer. The chances of being scammed on Ebay are way to high to trust it and its prices. Plus you will have a valid gaurantee and warrenty by doing so, as any cards sold on ebay are NOT covered by either.

Ok but will the Radeon 7870 solve my problem

Should do, it will run the game maxed out at a very good frame rate on standard resolutions. Just remember that kind of card demands a lot of a power supply and unless you already have a top of the range one, it will most certainly also need replaced.

I have no idea what power supply I have, how would one find out

1. Chances are you will need a new PSU unless you go with the AMD 7750:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1374850-video-card-suggestion/page__p__20799108

And even this might be a little slow. How many watts your PSU?

2. 7870 is awesome for Skyrim: My framerates hardly ever drop below 58. Walked throughout Markarth, 60FPS steady. Settings: Ultra, Reflect sky off (don't like the effect), 2xAA overridden by CCC. Xfire disabled.

That said, your other components would be the bottleneck, you cannot expect results this good if you just upgrade to a 7870. What's more, the 7870 blows hot air into your case, and you would probably need to at least add a few fans; maybe even get another case with better airflow. We just can't tell with such limited info on your system.

will the Radeon 7870 need its own power supply, has it got a plug to put one in

What size plug does the Radeon 7870 use for the power supply

I don't know exactly what you mean by that, most new PSUs >450W include the 6-pin PCIe power plugs for the video cards. But I would suggest a good name brand and >550W for that. "Ultra" = junk.

My mother board doesn't fit 6-pin

It's not motherboard ("mobo"), it's PSU ("Power Supply Unit") cables.

Doesn't the PSU plug in to the motherboard

If you're not so hot with the technical side of PCs I'd recommend you don't rush into buying anything without spending a few days reading forums, a new graphics card would definitely help Skyrim in your case but I'd probably go for Nvidia instead, Bethesda's engines have traditionally worked better on them.