I've been looking forward to Skyrim since I first saw its thought-provoking trailer on the television.

Unfortunately my PC has been out of action thanks to a faulty PSU which I'm hoping to bring back to life sometime in the new year and I thought about celebrating by getting hold of Skyrim at the same time. In the mean time I've been scouring the forums for the good and the bad in all that is Skyrim and I have to say that the technical issues I've seen arise with the PC version of the game fill me with doubts about even buying the game right now.

I've seen so many complaints about crashes, black screens and game performance with no real response nor hint of a solution from Bethesda, nor does it seem that the reasons for said issues have even been worked out yet. Given the time of year and the fact that this game has only just been released, this is hardly unexpected. I can't help but feel that if I give in to impulse then I may have a ticking time bomb on my hands that sooner or later is going to blow, even if at first things may seem to run smoothly.

My question is; from what you have seen of the game so far, do you think the good outweighs these issues and is it really worth taking the risk and buying this game when so many problems have arisen so soon after release?

So far my experience on the pc has been pretty positive. I had some crashing issues that were first solved by the 4gb patching and then by Beth making the game LAA, but other than that it's been a far better vanilla experience than Oblivion was. Your own milage may vary due to hardware differences but I'd definitely go for it. One thing to keep in mind is that like any Beth game there are bugs, but nothing really game breaking for me at least so far in over 200 hours of play.
Plus as a bonus you can start finding some mods you like to improve appearance and some gameplay tweaks already. That and the fact the the CK is due out this month.

I can only speak for myself. I run about five mods (four are houses and/or house add ons, the fifth is the Balance Magic mod). I've had three crashes since release day. They are all when Steam opens up it's little ad window and gives me three or four pages of games to look at. Outside of that I haven't had any crashes. Freezes have only occured when I try to Alt>Tab to check the Wiki or surf my sim websites...and then usually when I've been playing for hours.

I've had no issue with game performance on my system. I've never seen a black screen (except the background here on the beth forums) and unless you plan to wait for the game price to go down in a year or so then I'd jump at it. You know it's likely that more mods, DLC and the CK are coming in the near future; although that may be something you want to wait on so the mods really start to pop (with the CK release). And no, I don't know when that may happen. *281 hours played

So, for the game itself; I say buy it now.
If you want to wait for the CK, then that's a personal option as there are some good mods already released.
You need to make the call on your machine specs though as Skyrim is the FIRST TES release I have ever been able to play at release without having to get a new computer or do some serious upgrading.

This is pretty similar to my experience. Yes, some quite bizarre bugs appear once in a while, but I wouldn't say they're game-breaking, plus they're mostly easily fixed by quitting and starting the game again. I think the game runs great on my PC, and I've also found a mod that increased the performance further (better FPS in certain areas).

Having played Skyrim for what must be 100+ hours now, If i had the decison to buy the game now or later, i'd say Now.

You dont have to have an amazing PC to play it on. It does have the odd tendancy to freeze on occasion (the game loads up really quickly though), so just make sure you save regulary, F5 is King!

The negative voices are loud because all the people having fun in Skyrim are off playing it. If I had waited, I'd have missed the last 300 hours I've been playing since release and I'm having a blast. I'm not close to being done either. It's so huge, you won't believe it. Clear your mind from the stuff some people are spewing and have some fun...it's an awesome game, a true masterpiece. I'm on PC too.

You should start by sharing the specs of your PC and/or PC you plan on buying/upgrading. Many of the threads started by gamers having issue in the PC section of the forums have less then stellar setups. Their system was more in line of watching youtube videos, nothing more.

I've had no problems with crashes but the console interface absolutely blows. There are a couple of mods out already that are trying to fix it, SkyUI is a good one. Go to Skryim Nexus before even installing the game.

If performance is your only issue, buy now. 1.3 fixed just about everything for PC players, if you still want more there's SkyBoost/ENBSeries, and you can deal with any bug with the console.

• Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R
  
• Intel Core i7 950 (4 x 3.06GHz)
  
• ATI Radeon HD 5870
  
• Corsair 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3
  
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 BIT

My doubts come from numerous reports of people with ATI cards having issues (go figure), but the issues are evidently not limited to those cards as I've seen people with Nvidia cards posting too, perhaps I'm being overly cautious and looking too much into reasons for NOT buying it.

I got Skyrim the day it came out for PC, I am personally very pleased with it. The only crashes i have ever had was after spawning NPC's with the Console commands, then leaving that general area or loading a different save, But, it doesn't affect my gameplay at all, since when I spawn them im just messing around with something

I would recommend getting it for PC over Console though, Due to mods adding more lasting appeal. Imo, anyway.

I first ran the game on a 3/12 year old PC that at the time was a low end gaming machine. Had no problems. I had one game freeze and that's it. Just couldn't run it on the highest settings.

Now on a new PC and haven't had a single problem either. Using the highest settings and running with about 25 mods now.

Lol, I gave MS the benefit of the doubt about the entire RROD charade and a year later, my Box RROD'd. That won't be happening again.

Similar specs here and I'm having a great time with Skyrim, highly recommended. Yours will be even better.

Definitely make sure all video drivers are up to date and yo ushould be fine. I had a serious lag issue with a 4 gb card and an 8 core 16gb system just because of out of date video drivers. After that it runs like a dream, looks fantastic and had no issues with it. Like with all ES games (very rarely) ive had the crash to desktop, but infrequently and usually cause i have extensive mods attached.

Your system looks like it can handle skyrim just fine even on high settings (and it will look incredible!). You should definitely go for it.

I'm running 1600x900 on a Mobility HD 5870 [underclocked HD 5770] and i7 720QM [1.6-2.8GHz] w/ugridtoload = 7. Runs mostly well, Markarth is my toughest area. You should be completely playable @ 1080p. Fix your PC first then pick it up on a sale.