I just bought Skyrim for PC and downloaded it via Steam. I had the Xbox version too first, so I bought it for PC so I could mod it this time.

The launcher set my settings to low by default. I have over the minimum settings, and have just about the recommended settings apart from I have a dual-core rather than a quad.

I originally had some mods installed that overhaul/increase graphics but have since un-installed all of these as I suppose they'll probably never run properly on my PC. I have left a few mods installed for things such as hair, eyes and horse armour etc. but nothing that changes the graphics or anything major in the game.

On the lowest settings, including low textures the game lags/judders whilst moving and looking around; and the loading screens take an age, especially when I first load my save where it can take up to ten minutes. I have edited my Skyrimpref file to 0 for some of the shadow settings as recommended to me, but that hasn't even touched it.

My system specifications are:

Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 250 Processor 3.00GHz
Installed Memory (RAM): 4.00GB (3.25GB usable)
System type: 32-bit (windows 7)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. M68MT-S2P (Socket M2)
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 5450 (MSI)
Hard Drive: 977GB Seagate ST1000DL 002-9TT153 SCSI Disk Device (ATA)

I would have thought that this spec could run the game at least on medium texture settings with the rest on low. Do mods cause the game to lag much? This computer runs Crysis smoothly on high settings, so I didn't think Skyrim would have a problem. Is it just the fact that I have a dual-core?

I have tried running the game with the 4GB mod too, but it makes zero difference.
I feel like I have just wasted ￡25. I may as well play Morrowind again. Oblivion's graphics look better than the lowest settings of Skyrim! And Oblivion runs perfectly on high.

Any help or ideas would be great, thanks.

Thats your problem i'm afraid, It's a very weak card not designed for any serious gaming.

Edit: Although that wouldn't affect your loading times, not sure what would cause that other than a badly fragmented/worn out hard drive?

Edit 2: your CPU should be fine, I have an e4700 2.6Ghz DC and it handles Skyrim fine and yours is faster so should be ok.

Thanks for the reply!

What makes the card weak? I've heard other people say this too, but I don't know enough about it to understand how. I just thought the VRAM was the important thing, and 1GB being enough. Looks like I've bought the wrong thing again. It was advertised as a gaming PC. Great, aha

Hi, Basically it's just a low end card designed to handle pretty much everything except modern games, Oblivion is 6 years old which is why you can play it ok, but your card just doesn't have the required horsepower for games like Skyrim.

Ok, I suppose I'll buy a new graphics card when I can, would you recommend any that can handle all modern games and should keep me going for a while? Are ATI better than NVidia in general for gaming?

VRAM is only important when you consider texture size. The most important things are the maker (ATI/AMD or nVIDIA) and the model (which can be confusing sometimes as manufacturers don't really keep to any obvious naming convention).

nVidia and ATI are both equally fine, it's usually just a case of which comparable card you can get for cheaper (local deals and such). I currently have an nVidia GTX 560Ti, which is more than enough to max pretty much any game out right now.

If this card isn't out of your price range, this would be a good option for you to get. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130660

And they are right, your system is decent enough, you just have a fairly weak and anemic GPU ( graphics processing unit ) for your video card...it's in need of a decent upgrade to run Skyrim, much less any other "current" or new game coming out.

Make sure you have a PSU unit ( Power supply ) of around 600-650 watts minimum to have enough stable power to run this card....700-750 would be even better but 600 or so should be adequate. This card also needs not only a PCI express slot, but it will use 2 slots so make sure you have the room for it.

If that card is too pricey you could try something like this one, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130625 while not as good, it's a lot better than your current vid card.

And if you have cash to burn....get one like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130751

Your motherboard does have pci express x16 slot, so that does give you some options for your gpu upgrade. As another post said, your power supply is a variable to consider.
Your best approach is to spend a little time researching and growing a better understanding of at least some of the basics concerning computer hardware.
What you learn will certainly improve your comfort level when selecting what is within your budget.
depending on where you purchased your rig, you can always reach out to the supplier/retailer to help you choose an appropriate and compatible upgrade.
The more you educate yourself on it, the funner the buying process becomes.

Thanks for the info.
What I don't know is what all the specific things on the cards do, but I know generally about computer hardware. I thought the motherboard had a pci express x16 slot so it's good that I don't have to buy a new one as well.
I bought the PC from a company on ebay (Vibox) because my budget wasn't very high, and it was quite cheap for the spec compared to other retailers (￡250). I had instructions on how to upgrade etc. in a manual with all the drivers but when I sent it back because the fan wasn't working properly and they returned it, they didn't send the manuals/drivers back. That was last year and I'm contacting them again to try and get them back 'cause they were pretty useful.
I'll probably save up for one of the ￡300+ graphics cards if I'm going to get one anyway, heh.

Checked my power supply unit and it's 400W, so if I were to get a really good graphics card would I need to buy a new power supply too? Is 400W an ample amount for anything decent?

You would be looking at a new PSU (Power Unit) as well. Getting a brand named one, such as Corsair etc, does pay off... they tend to last longer because they use higher quality capacitors which deal better with prolonged use. If you are looking to save upto ￡300 on a card, then you really only have one option... save an additional ￡60 and go for the 7970. It has so much memory on it that it is really the only thing worth getting when talking about that sort of money, not even the yet to be released nVidia has as much memory at it's disposal... all other 3GB cards are actually two stuck together and Skyrim does not like that.

The HD 7970 is the only 3GB single card that will be on the market for several months. Anything else is Crossfire/SLi ready, meaning it is not a single card but two of them on a single base. You run the risk of experiencing massive texture flickering in Skyrim if there is a patch pumped out by Bethesda. I know a few people who have both AMD and nVidia's like this and some patches look great, others have messed things up.

Your PSU will be fine if you don't buy anything too high-end.

560-series cards don't need 600W of power. Whole system full loaded with 560-card takes ~300W of power depending on the CPU.

Provided it delivers enough amps on the 12v rail, even my GTS 450 (not exactly high end) needs 22a on the 12v rail and I have seen many 500w+ psu's that only supply 18a.

Just something to consider.

Totally agree, I just always error on the high side of having more than enough power. And some lower end ( or lower wattage PSU don't put out relialbe stable power on the 12v rail ) Too many people skimp on a PSU, not realizing how important it is in maintaining long term PC health, by not overstressing the power supply, and having too little stable power, trying to run too many system components. It's one of the ways companies can sell PC's at a cheaper price, they skimp on a quality PSU, making it necessary for a lot of consumers to upgrade the PSU later, not really saving them any money in the long run.

Good to know that about the 7970, ProjectVRD !! I agree with the PSU choice of Corsair, either that or a good Seasonic...my current rig is running on this PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139010

Hey Rusticate, if you do decide to upgrade your PSU, you can do so fairly cheaply and still get a good upgrade with something like this... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028 and after the rebate it's only $49.99

Regardless, you do have to upgrade your vid card

As people have already mentioned in this thread.

The ram in the card simply controls how much texture/shader information can be loaded. The reason a gtx 580, 680, 7970, costs so much more - is because of the power of those specific cards. Not the amount of ram. Which is more of a bonus so long as you have over 1gb.

Having a lot of gpu memory simply allows you to run more anti anti aliasing, high resolution texture mods, etc. Without the game outright breaking.

Skyrim is also heavily cpu dependent. I had a duel core intel cpu that I had to downgrade to when my corei7 2600k was in for repairs. And the game stuttered a lot. Skyrim does not make use of 4 cores perfectly, however it manages to be a lot more stable across 4 cores due to the load never reaching maximum on each core. The two core stuttering can be somewhat mitigated by overclocking the cpu to 4ghz+, not a lot of chips can be overclocked that much however. And it's not always a good idea.

That's the thing about bethesda open world games (and open world games in general), the hardware requirements change depending on the exact location you are in.

If anything, I would say that skyrim is more of a cpu based game than gpu. With my ugrids set to 7 instead of 5, i get a consistent 60-80% cpu useage across all 4 cores, clocked at 5ghz. And even with my very powerful system, I still get very specific viewpoints and locations that drop fps below 60.

The engine tends to hate framerate switches, (when the fps goes from 35 to 45, then to 22, then to 52 - etc) that causes a lot of stuttering.

Luckily the engine is also scaleable, and editable. Setting the object distances and distant landscape distances reduces the requirements a lot.

At some point however, that significantly digs into the actual quality of the game. And even modding.

Honestly, I would say a 4core cpu and a reasonable card are the only way you can ever get skyrim - consistently smooth and stutter free. A gtx 560ti or a amd 6870.

If all of that seems like a price you don't want to pay - another desperate measure would be to cap the fps at somewhere around your average framerate. So if you see 20fps a lot, or 30fps a lot. Get msi afterburner and use the framerate capping feature to set it to that number. That way the framerate switches won't cause additional stutter.

Also worth mentioning, if you do upgrade your card - and skyrim is the only serious pc gaming you are doing. Get a Nvidia card.

The game is crazy nvidia biased. And a nvidia card will run the game a lot smoother. I personally have a AMD 6990. And the fact that it's an AMD card has caused me a lot of headaches.

So now it looks like I'll have to buy a new power supply, video card and processor, heh! Maybe I should have just bought an expensive computer with the best equipment in in the first place, aha

I play a lot of games so it isn't just for Skyrim - it's definitely worth investing. I got Msi afterburner with the pc, but I'm not sure I've really looked at it before. I did overclock as the pc also came with a program to do it safely. Also I don't know how to find out the framerate whilst playing the game, as strangely I've never really had this much of a problem with other games for PC.

Thanks for all your help and info everyone
I've bookmarked the products you suggested for when I can upgrade. Very helpful.

Agree wholeheartedly and yeah, the Ti is a slightly better card than the 560 GTX Fermi I linked for him, but he sounded "cash concious" * maybe a bad assumption on my part, so I was trying to save him a few dollars, as for $30.00 dollars less the 560 Fermi I linked gives "almost" comparable graphic ability to the 560 Ti.

It's also a crossfire card so that causes even more problems.

You could also benefit from a 64bit OS

I'm not a man, I'm female aha

Actually you are 3 jellyfish ....with a 400 watt PSU I am sure you could get something in the way of a new GPU without needing to opt for other new hardware(PSU CPU etc.) which would enabled you to play Skyrim. The question is do you plan on playing other PC games in the near future? If so best bet would be to put together a gaming PC which I am sure plenty of people here would be willing to help with. If you want to play the game in all its glory with HD texture pack then a new system is probably the best bet.

Heh

I'll definitely be playing most games that come out in the future, some I'll get for 360 but there'll be a lot for PC too probably, so yeah - think it's worth getting a whole new set of stuff, maybe one at a time aha, starting with video card!

My apologies dear lady A bad assumption on my part unfortunately

I am on a dual Radeon HD 6870 setup and I still get lagged out when I turn in circles. For me, I feel that I am just going to have to wait for future patches and drivers. Also, for me, it could be some of my mods conflicting. I am about to dump 'em.

It's ok, apology accepted aha