I recently acquired Skyrim for my PC and I can hardly run it. Loading screens last around 10-15 minutes each, and I run it at about 3 FPS. This is obviously unplayable but I wanted to know what I can do to improve my PC in general. The PC is not very old, 5 years max (can't quite remember ). Back when I bought it, it ran everything perfectly and my fan didn't even kick in.

So, here are my specs.

Processor: AMD Phenom 9650 Quad-Core Processor 2.30 GHz

8 GB Ram

64-bit OS

Vista Home Premium

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics


If you need to know anything else let me know and if you know of anything I could do to increase general performance levels so I could run Skyrim well, please let me know.

You should buy a real video card to use, and a matching power supply to support it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125353

That one is $140 after rebate, with free shipping, and a decent power supply will be between $65 - $85.

Decent power supply? wut.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171052

$55 after rebate, plus $4 shipping.

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3630#sp

You don't mention a budget.

An AMD 555 can be purchased very cheaply, is high performance (best dual gaming core) AND overclocks beautifully! Spend a bit more for a quad core...see CPU Hierarchy Chart & Tom's Hdwe.

Definitely buy the highest quality video card you can...6000 (6850, 6950-70 is terrific) or better. See GPU Hierarchy Chart.

Upgrade your motherboard to something like an ASUS M4A88 (inexpensive performer) or better.

Make sure your power supply is 500w or 600w or better. Corsair 750 V2 recommended (inexpensive HIGH QUALITY). Allows Crossfire X upgrade.

Matter-of-fact you can see the build at: "H100 Install in 600T case" on utub.