yup, it should, but it doesn't.

Untill then i've disabled shadows and its a world of difference.

I feel awkward.

I'm running a lowly i7-870, GTX 570 and have no issues whatsoever. Ultra. Framerate is 50-60fps and GPU sees 90+% usage when not escaped (paused) out.

Not sure what you guys have going on, there...


The only complaint I have, so far, is that ground/floor textures in the shadows seem like they are massively over contrasted. They glow a light-grey. Like a disco floor, but grey... Bleh.

Edit: 266.58 drivers, btw.

No it shouldn't, your processor isn't a GPU, it's not its work. I could say too that I should easily play most of Physx with my 2600k...do you know what that results in?...god it's aweful.

All gamesas games have been CPU intensive, this shouldn't be news.

You want to play a Beth game, you better make sure your CPU and GPU are up to the task - I bought a new vidcard when Oblivion came out and was disappointed by limited gains because my CPU was the bottleneck. A few months later I upgraded the rest of the PC and times were great.

I suspected this issue as soon as they said they starting bragging about how well it was optomized on the Xbox's 3 core cpu/gpu combo. The architecure is just fundamentally different than a standard gaming PC.

Shadows are likely similar to PhysX.

Test it:

Take a Game Like mafia 2 for example.
Set the PhysX to high, & be processed off the CPU.
Next, set it to render it on the GPU, and play.
You will find, in certain areas youll get lag and slow downs off the CPU, even 2600ks. It just can not keep up with a high powered GPU.


I would imagine shadows would be somewhat similiar, although to a lesser degree.

Anything related to rendering visuals of any kind really should be rendered directly by the GPU.

Not sure what you have going on there.....

Exactly.

If I put six NPC's in front of me in Oblivion, I get a massive framerate drop despite being 60+ before. (i5 650 3.2 GHz)

Exact same thing happens in this game, Skyrim.

Needs. To. Be. Fixed.

OP is absolutely right.

Does not utilise graphics cards well due to a lazy port to PC, use any apps you have to monitor components performance to prove this. (Either that or just inefficient code in general!)

Bad bad bad!

I have an i2600K and I get 25-30FPS with shadow quality on Ultra. Without it, I get 70-90FPS.

Hate to say you're wrong but you're wrong. Battlefield 3 does use the GPU for shadows and Skyrim probably does too.

What makes you say that? Do you know something we don't?

I run shadows on high with a core 2 duo from 2006 @ 2.8GHz, I get ~40 FPS in town. If you guys with the 2600k are getting less FPS than me is it really because of the shadows or some other bug?

THere is probably specific hardware bugs to be worked out. I get great frame rate with a phenom II BE and a gtx 480 oc on ultra. WHile other may not, seems to be memory leaks, and other hardware issues causing problems. May want to over haul somethings.

I think the game looks fine. I play The Elder Scrolls for the story and environment. People can compare this to MW3 and BF3 all day long, but they are totally different games. I think a better comparison would be Minecraft. No one complains about the "blockey textures" (pardon the pun) because they enjoy the game for what it is.

As for the low GPU usage, so what? If anything you save power when playing Skyrim. The game looks fine, if you don't think so then go play another RPG that looks better....Actually there isn't one, Bethesda set the bar once again as far as I'm concerned.

As for the wah wah wah my FPS's are low sometimes....Or why does the game crash so much....Learn to build a decent computer, or play on a console, that's why they were made, for simple people.

Reading these forums makes me irritated. Bethesda and other developers are making 'console games' because the PC gamers have become whiny noobs who can't fix their own problems. I'm honestly waiting for the day when a texture pack is released and people get angry because they don't know how to "unzip" something.

I love this game to death so far, the story is great and the graphics are amazing. I can max everything out and get a solid 60fps.


/rant

Are you kidding me? These aren't OUR problems, it's Bethesda's. We can't be held responsible for their mistakes. Get real, dude.

Battlefield 3 uses the GPU to do shadows. http://www.slideshare.net/repii/02-g-d-c09-shadow-and-decals-frostbite-final3flat Proof here.

The reason I say Skyrim like uses the GPU also is because of Shaders. Shaders are completely done by the GPU which are also used for lighting and anything that effects the final image you see on a screen. It would be stupid to do something else on the CPU when the GPU has been optimized to do that task.

are you kidding me? rofl i can run BF3, Rage, Crysis, ect. Fine but when it comes to Skyrim i can possibly get an hour of play time before it crashes, that's definitely not a hardware issue bub, that's bethesda making a game meant for a console with a pc port...

Cool story bro. Now can you find something nice and/or constructive to say, or is it time for bed?

They're working on the Xbox DLC... I'm not pre-ordering anything from these guys again until I have one of every single PC part in the world so I can find something that works when their games are poorly made and inexplicably incompatible with a multitude of powerful components. I haven't been having hardware problems, but them not using my GPU is like spitting in my face. Thanks for the heads up, I was actually thinking about buying a new one.

I'm using a EVGA GTX 560ti SuperClocked and it uses 99% of the GPU most of the time. Using the newest beta drivers. CPU is i7 2600k @ 4.5ghz. Haven't really checked what the usage for the CPU is. Have some slow downs, but it doesn't ever drop below 30fps. Average is about 60fps, with V-sync off.

This game needs another patch really bad A lot of random crashes to desktop.

Time to start checking your motherboard drivers and firmware, girls.

Relax, it was sarcasm.

pretty sure those who say they get 50-60fps have not strolled around Solitude at night yet. That city is the most demanding on my rig so far. With everything cranked on ultra i have seen it drop to 25fps in some areas of Solitude. I can't figure out what causes the drops, but i don't think it's shadows. I've tried with them on ultra, and low, and the difference is only a few fps. It's a head scratcher for sure... Other areas that appear more visually demanding are yielding silky smooth 60fps for me. *shrugs I dealt with it in Oblivion, i'm sure i'll learn to deal with it in Skyrim also.

i5 750 @ 3.4Ghz
8GB ram
win 7 64 bit
radeon 6970 (11.10)

Thing is... Noone is giving any details as to where and what they are doing when they are having these framerate issues. I'm only 6hrs into the game. No, I have not been to Solitude. Yet, one other poster stated that they would get fps drops just from having 5 npc's in front of them. I've not experienced that.

If you guys want to iron this out, start giving details....like where you were, etc...