MacSuibhne

So, I guess the question not answered...the elephant in the room...is whether the gtx 760 4GB 256 is better, worse, or comparable to the 280x 3GB 384? And still do the Radeons run hot and loud? I've seen conflicting results...supposedly with a current or new bios they don't have the heat of noise problems.

This may be an unfair comparison, but I am looking at an Nvidia760 4gb 256 bit and a Radeon 280 3GB 384 bit. Both are about the same price--right in my range/budget.. Which of these two cards is gonna give me the better value for running Skyrim at 1280 X 1084 (native and max resolution on my monitor) and a few mods dealing mostly with textures--water, foliage, etc.. Looking for a more realistic, immersive experience. I also want to play Wolfenstein the New order...if for no other reason than to return to my gaming roots. I have always had Nvidia cards but the specs on the Radeon are inviting...yet I have heard that the Radeons run hot and loud. Thoughts? All comments welcome...

Oh my... There's so many misconceptions in this topic I don't even know where to start :pinch: First of all that local shopkeeper is trying to sell concept he believes in and not what is best for his customer. Don't even think about 512mb vram card in this era if you plan on playing new games in high resolution on high settings. 9800 gt sli would be great for old games (~8 years), but not for this or next gen gaming. In addition Nvidia announced that legacy cards (9800 gt including) support ends this year. What it means is no more driver updates. The old ones may have been polished, but you won't get any performance boost updates for new games in the future (not that you would want to play them on this card). Now what you should not do is mix VRAM with Memory Interface Width. VRAM is what caps your resolution and textures size. The higher it is and the more effects you use, the more VRAM your gpu eats. In some cases your game will crash when you run out of it, but most of the time your game starts to chop when you hit the limit or your fps get cut down. Now most modern games will try to adapt to your video memory size and with 1920x1080p / 1920x1200 resolution (on ultra settings) 3gb is sufficient in modern non moded games as of now (this may change in next 2 years). All video cards nowdays are gddr5 type, which means their VRAM will perform similar (note: just vram, not the card itself). I heard rumors that 3gb cards are easier to overclock than 6gb, but that is no concern for average gamer. I would choose 2gb card for gaming on high setting and 3gb for ultra. The only exception is Skyrim, the only game that you can overmod to the point where it needs more than 3gb at 1080p. However even if you won't get restricted by vram, you will still need more computing power than a single card can offer, with such set up. Hence I would stick to 3gb option. I see sometimes people trying to convince other they can substitute GDDR5 VRAM with DDR3 RAM and DDR3 RAM with Hard Drive memory. No, just no.... Any conversion like that cuts down your machine performance tremendously. For instance Pagefile assigns certain hard drive space as ram just so application won't crash when you're for example Alt+Tab'ing to desktop, but the process itself will be slow. I recommend 8gb ram with 64 bit system, for those that don't use professional programs or those that don't use their ram as disk. The windows itself uses ~1.5gb and most games will use from 2 to 3gb. Always buy two identical sticks (like 2x4gb) for dual channel to avoid complication or performance lost. What can help with fps is getting any ram that is faster than 1333mghz, IF you have Hasswell processor (1600mghz CL7, 1800mghz CL8, 2133mghz CL9 or 2400mghz CL10). The biggest impact on gpu performance (when not capped by VRAM) will have it's actual clocks speed, bus width and Cuda Cores amount and architecture (old Fermi cards Cuda are not same as new Kelper gtx Cuda). You could look on the internet for algorithms to see how those specs multiply. The easiest way to compare cards is to check for review sites where they post Memory Bandwith. For example standard gtx 780 ti can output 336000 MB/sec while gtx 760 will 192256 MB/sec (75% less). However it does not mean you will get 75% fps less, it means it's 75% less effective at computing and the difference ingame will depend on application itself. Here is Nvidia benchmark based on Titanfall: As you see the difference is about 50%. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions. Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second. Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// The last thing I want to mention is SLI. Two cards in sli mode will duplicate information in their vram and you will not get double vram size of the single gpu. Also there is performance lost with each additional card added to the system. So 2x gpu won't always equal to 200% increase in performance and 3 cards won't output more than 280%. That of course depends on application sli performance, which is kinda bad in old tittles, but it's getting better in newer ones. In worst case scenario you won't see improvement at all if the game was not updated for sli. Hope that helps! Some of that went a bit over my head but I understood most of it. And I thank you for taking the time. So if I may , lets get specific...I have an older motherboard--an Asus P7H55-MLF. That's the delimiter in my quest to upgrade my ssystem...so no Haswell for me. That said I am looking at an i7 quad core cpu to replace the i5 dual core that is in there. And of course 8gb sram (2x4) to replace the 4gb. So the video card is the issue. I need to stay at right around $200.00 for the video card --that's the hard part and I'd welcome suggestions. Looking at a SAPPHIRE 100364-4GL Radeon R9 270X 4GB GDDR5 (is this PCEe?) or a SAPPHIRE 100352-3L Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 or something like it. However, I'm not sure about the 3gb why it works or doesn't work, and I've heard iffy things about Radeon video cards. Again I would welcome any help here.

I still don't know (and haven't seen a definitive answer here) which would be better--a box with large amounts of system ram(16gb) and a minimal amount of vram (2gb)on a wide bus or moderate amounts of system ram (4-8gb) and a relatively large amount of vram (4Gb) on a narrow bus.

No one?

Strut a bit? :D

I don't know much about modding or computers. That's why I asked both at the computer shop and here. "Get a new tech" doesn't help much, I'm afraid. I still don't know (and haven't seen a definitive answer here) which would be better--a box with large amounts of system ram(16gb) and a minimal amount of vram (2gb)on a wide bus or moderate amounts of system ram (4-8gb) and a relatively large amount of vram (4Gb) on a narrow bus. (Obviously ginormaous amounts of both on a huge bus would be best...but not for my pocketbook.)

You should look for a new tech shop! What's wrong with what he said? Please explain. So...2G at 384 would be better than 4 GB at 192? All else being equal, would 16gb of system ram paired with a 2gb 384 bit videocard perform better, as well or less well than 8gb system ram and a video card with 4gb of vram and a 192 it bus?

Do mods benefit more from high ram...like 16gb or high vram like 3 or 4 gb? Also I had a shop tech tell me that 3gb of vram was kind of a kludge since there are no 3gb sticks...thoughts?

I'm a complete newbie when it comes to mods. But I am hoping for some suggestions for mods that will upgrade the look of Skyrim. Detailed foliage that moves with the wind, better textures on stone and wood surfaces. More realistic water. Maybe more foliage and animals in town and cities. Stuff like that. i suspect that such mods are the most taxing on ram and vram but those that affect performance the least would be more interesting (to me) than ones that cause hiccups for everyone but experts and those with cutting edge graphic cards. . Any advice and/or help would be appreciated. PS I have NMM.

Well that's what I thought too but the techs said that because of the way the two cards trade off "calls" for graphic processing (or something like that...my interpretation), it doesn't matter too much. That it more than compensates in other words.

My local computer shop--manned by hardcore gamers--told me to day that two NVidia 512 mb GeForce 9800 GT's linked in SLI would work just as well as a 4 GB at 256 or even higher. (mind you they can't come up with two 9800's simply because they're not being made anymore but...) And with a slew of texture mods. I don't know...not that tech savvy...just thought I would throw that out there for possible comment.

speaking of graphics cards..if the card in question had 3GB memory and a 384-bit bandwidth...would it suffice to play Skyrim with multiple texture mods? Would 4gb and 256 bit be better or equivalent?

I think the real issue is that I struggled first time around to get to level 48....I'm not a "natural." And as much as I love Skyrim and think that it is the best game I've ever played, some of the quests are a bit tedious and after a while the dungeons are almost boring. If I could start over at level 48 and with the quests I've successfully completed done, I'd be a happy camper...but then I wouldn't be starting over. [sign] http://www.thehcc.org/forum/images/smilies/brickwall.gif

That worked...I didn't twig to that button before. Of course the documentation on using NMM seems pretty sparse....? Thank you! You've been a big help.

So...I am starting to play Skyrim again after an hiatus of two years. When I quit playing I had reached level 48. I quit partially because I had some bugs/glitches that I didn't know how to resolve--mostly quests that couldn't be completed. I wanted to start again to play the DLCs but I am not eager to start all over again with a new character. In my Journal, one of the main quests that seemingly cannot be completed is The Liberation of Skyrim. In the Game it seems Ulfric has won control of Skyrim. But among the three sub-quests "Liberate Hjaalmarch" displays as uncompleted but I cannot not set a marker on the map. In the Misc quests, I have killed the Hagraven Petra but that quest is marked as incomplete. I have two copies of Waters of Oblivion in my inventory but the quest to" Find a copy of The Waters of Oblivion" is unfulfilled. I have collected a bounty from Skaald at least twice. I have brought a Dragonscale and a Dragonbone to Esbern but it shows as needing to be done. I am still a werewolf...although i have healed the others with the heads from the Glenmoril witches (I still have two in my inventory) I cannot seem to heal myself and the Purity (?) Quest does not//no longer appears in my journal. And there's a a woman in Riften I'm supposed to help or get something from who never responds to my inquiries. I reinstalled Skyrim and got the official update and I think I have properly installed the unofficial update. Are these problem really problems? Must I start over or can I go on to Dragonborn?

Thanks again, Earlier (shortly after your first response), I found a link on Nexus to NMM that worked and I DL'd and installed it. Then I manually downloaded the unofficial patch and installed it through NMM. But newbie to mods that I am, I'm not sure all is copacetic. NMM lists the unofficial patch under the mods tab but that's it. I thought I had read somewhere that it would show up in a list below skyrim.esm and update.esm. In NMM, under the plugin tab, both Skyrim.esm and update.esm are listed but nothing else. And when I click on "data files" as I start Skyrim, nothing is listed. So...is the unofficial patch installed and working or not?

Thanks for the response. Yes, I understand how to associate programs with file extensions. But what program do I need to associate with .nxm?

I'm having trouble downgrading the unofficial Skyrim patch. When I click on either button the end result is that I get an error message: The address wasn't understood Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because the protocol (nxm) isn't associated with any program. How do I address this problem? How do I download the patch?

Well, I don't know if this is in the right spot but need to start somewhere... After a hiatus of about two years I have re-installed Skyrim. It appears that I have the latest official update--1.9 something or other. Otherwise my installation is pretty much vanilla (and always has bee) But I am looking to add SLC--Dragonborn, Hearthfire and perhaps Falskaar. So...what about the un-official update? What does it do? Does it help? My system is an Intel i5 650 at 3.2gh with an Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT I am thinking about adding the Steam dlc high resolution texture pack. Is that a good mod or should I look at some of the enhancement packs on Nexus, instead? Which ones?I want to improve the look and immersion of Skyrim without...hopefully...significantly impacting performance. Suggestions please. Should I install Dragonborn and Hearthfire before or after adding mods to the basic game? Will I need to run Tessedit? When? Lots of questions...sorry about that...but I'm new to modding and would appreciate any help I can get. PS...I have roughly 275 hours in the game and really don't want to start a whole new play-through before being able to go on to DragonBorn.

You know I didn't mean that in a disparaging or bad way. I just meant that I'm not looking for mods that give me an advantage over what is the default in the game. At least not yet. :thumbsup:

Thanks again to both of you. Since I've played the game once, I think the first mods I want to install are anything and everything that enhances appearance without sacrificing gameplay or conflicting. I want to be amazed by the looks of the game all over again. And then I'm looking for things that will increase or renew my immersion in the game. I'm not really interested...at this point...in mods that "cheat" so to speak. Will enhancements to scenery and so forth carry over and not conflict if I dl Dragonborn?

Thanks for taking the time to respond. How exactly do you do that? I know this is simple stuff but if I reinstall both the Steam client and the game will I be prompted to get the official updates? Also, got any mod you might recommend?

Hi, I bought Skyrim through Steam and always ran it through Steam. I believe I even got and installed an update through Steam. No mods though. I played through the game and eventually uninstalled the Steam client as well as the Skyrim. I find myself thinking about the game and some of the places scenes and adventures I had and was thinking I would reinstall Skyrim...maybe to add Hearthfire and Dragonborn...maybe as a prelude to playing Skyblivion and or Skywind when they are available (if ever). I have the disc for Skyrim but would like to play it offline--not through the Steam Clinet if possible. At the same time I would like to update the game and perhaps add some mods. Can someone give me a quick and dirty run down of how to go about installing the game, getting th eupdate and playing off line? And while were at it, perhaps a list of useful or interesting mods? A lot to ask I know but I'd appreciate it...I'm only a sometime gamer, mostly fps's (but Skyrim was the best I ever played) and I'm 68 years old so my memory and my tech savvy isn't like it was 20 years ago.

It is well to remember that the Empire engineered the whole Markarth Incident. Ulfric was loyal to the Empire until they arrested him and betrayed the promise made to engage his help in putting down the Forsworn and recovering Cidhna mine and other valuable resources for the Empire. I'm not convinced that by the terms of that craven treaty (the WGC), the Empire had any option but to accede to the Dominion's demands to abrogate the promise made to Ulfric. Throwing him in jail is another matter, however. And in any event, if the Empire cannot, or, more importantly, will not, protect its own citizens...treaty or no treaty...against murder and the depredations of a foreign power, it has no legitimate claim to suzerainty over Skyrim. That, in a nutshell, is what the Stormcloak Rebellion is all about. Parenthetically but to the point, I was roaming about down near Brittleshin Pass yesterday and ran across an out-of-the-way Talos shrine. Scattered about the base of the shrine were five or six dead Talos worshipers. My first thought was "this has to be the work of the Thalmor." So, I widened my search. Sure enough, off to the edge of a low cliff there was also a dead Justicar.