Modding Advice - Is my PC strong enough

[ebg2465]

Hello Fellow Skyrim Nexus Members,

 

I have been away from Skyrim for the last 7 months due to frustration over issues of VRAM and modding. I have what I think is a pretty good system that plays vanilla Skyrim fine. But with mods still run into major issues of freezing, stttering and continually having to reduce mod texture sizes.

 

Here is my system:

 

• Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 2600K 3.4GHz/3.8GHz Turbo
• Memory: 16GB Patriot® Division2 G2 DDR3-1600
• Motherboard Intel® DP67BG Extreme USB 3.0, SATA
• Graphics Card: 2x NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 570 2.4GB (SLI) - In reality only - 1280mb of VRAM
• Soundcard: 7.1 Channel High Definition Surround Sound
• Monitor Size: 27" 1920 X 1080

Would upgrading my Video Cards dramatically improve performance? I can run on HIGH, but get better performance on MEDIUM or LOW. I am almost always at 1230-1250 VRAM with nearly all my mod textures optimized and reduced to 1024 X 1024.

Does anyone have suggestions about what I could/should do? I would greatly appreciate some advice and suggestions. Both on my system or particular mods that I should use or avoid.

Thanks,

EBG

 

 

[FiftyTifty]

Load order.

[eabbud]

More graphic power + VRAM

SSD

Load Order

Clean Mods

Load Order

Memory Patch

 

 

My rig: i7 2600k

16GB 1333Mhz Kingston

Radeon HD 7970 3GB

SSD 120GB

 

 

Everything on Ultra + 150 graphic mods at 2K + RealVision ENB Performance A = 50-60fps

[ebg2465]

I do use a solid state drive just for my games (and my c:drive is also solid state.) Obviously load order is crucial and I use BOSS for that. Should I definitely upgrade my video card? Is a one larger VRAM card better than SLI?

[FiftyTifty]

BOSS is, at best a shitty guideline.

 

You can have all the VRAM in the world, but if the card is s#*! (I.E, a 2GB 6670 DDR3), it won't matter one bit.

[ebg2465]

BOSS is, at best a shitty guideline.

 

You can have all the VRAM in the world, but if the card is s*** (I.E, a 2GB 6670 DDR3), it won't matter one bit.

What would be a better guideline than BOSS? Is a GTX 570 SLI, 1280 MB VRAM considered a crappy card?

[FiftyTifty]

A better guidline? Organizing the mods in order of the content that they modify, and then resolving the conflicts in Tes5edit. Takes around three days of work to get a clean load order that way, but you'll be thankful for it as you progress through the game.

 

Using multiple cards in general is a bad way to go. The performance scaling is nowhere close to being linear; I'd suggest going for...I dunno, a 3GB GPU if you will be playing at 1080p with an ENB on top.

[ebg2465]

A better guidline? Organizing the mods in order of the content that they modify, and then resolving the conflicts in Tes5edit. Takes around three days of work to get a clean load order that way, but you'll be thankful for it as you progress through the game.

 

Using multiple cards in general is a bad way to go. The performance scaling is nowhere close to being linear; I'd suggest going for...I dunno, a 3GB GPU if you will be playing at 1080p with an ENB on top.

Thanks! Is there a guide you could suggest for decribing how to organize the mods by the content they modify and resolve conflicts in Tes5Edit, as I am unfamilar with using it to clean.

[Georgiegril]

HI, I would say my card is a crappy card-- its a 9800 GT.

With that (and a similar i7 CPU) I can play a really pretty and smooth game, though without a bunch of HD mods or ENBs.

Your card is at least double mine in speed and memory, so I can't imagine it would be impossible to have a satisfying game with your setup.

 

I'd say that a newer graphics card WILL improve your visuals, probably, but you can also find lots of posts here from people with 700-series cards that are having problems. Eventually you run into the limitations of the game engine--and at some point everyone has to make choices about what areas of the game they are willing to concede for performance sake.

I agree with Fifty--careful construction of your load order and judicious testing are probably the most important factors. BOSS is a great guide IMO, definitely a starting point, but it is not perfect.

[ebg2465]

HI, I would say my card is a crappy card-- its a 9800 GT.

With that (and a similar i7 CPU) I can play a really pretty and smooth game, though without a bunch of HD mods or ENBs.

Your card is at least double mine in speed and memory, so I can't imagine it would be impossible to have a satisfying game with your setup.

 

I'd say that a newer graphics card WILL improve your visuals, probably, but you can also find lots of posts here from people with 700-series cards that are having problems. Eventually you run into the limitations of the game engine--and at some point everyone has to make choices about what areas of the game they are willing to concede for performance sake.

I agree with Fifty--careful construction of your load order and judicious testing are probably the most important factors. BOSS is a great guide IMO, definitely a starting point, but it is not perfect.

Thanks! I always optimizes my textures and other than face and body replacements never go above 1024X1024 dds. Sadly I still have trouble with 1280 VRAM limit. I wonder if it makes sense to double that to one GPU with 3 GB.