SKYRIM what is the point ?!

[mrdavidscott]

NOTE: PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS SONG WHILE YOU READ MY FORUM POST " SCATMAN'S WORLD by SCATMAN JOHN "

 

Hello everyone who may even take the time to read this message, I appreciate if you patiently listen to what I am about to tell you about my experience.

 

First of all I want to say " I LOVE SKYRIM " and it brings a tear to my eye to write what I'm about to write.

 

I fell in love with Skyrim as soon as it came out November 2011 - that is 2 years ago now. I purchased a new graphics card to play it , cost me £230 ! ..GTX 560Ti 2GB GDDR5

My PC in 2011 was pretty decent, even had 8GB of memory. I should mention that I have worked in IT for over 15 years now, I know my way around tech and will try my hand at most things. I used to really enjoy playing SKYRIM back in 2011. It ran very well with my GTX560Ti 2GB video card, it used to get pretty warm though, but apart from that no complaints really. A few months later I sold everything and went travelling.

 

I haven't personally owned a PC since then, now lets fast forward to 2014 ! .. I got a good deal on an XBOX 360 and started playing SKYRIM again, I realised how much I enjoyed it and used to envy PC gamers when I watched MODDING videos on Youtube.

 

...So I decided to build myself a sweet ass PC:

 

the basics are:

 

AMD FX6300 - 4.2GHZ

16GB DDR3 RAM

SSD - main drive - os and programs etc.

ASUS GTX770 DCU II 4GB OC = ( this alone cost £320 !!! )

Excellent 750w PSU

Great case, cooling system... I researched it a lot and took great care in the components and build.

 

Now for the last week, I have been spending hours and hours, days and days configuring, testing, tweaking and modding my PC just for SKYRIM.

 

It was all in vain!

 

I swear even with a rig of this expense and delicate operation I still can't SKYRIM to perform constant and smooth. I haven't come to this conclusion easy, It took me hours and hours of headaches and trying again and again to get things right. I have read the views and so called experience of so many " PROS / GURUS " all over the internet. I have tried so many so- called fixes, memory patches etc.

 

I've tried SKYRIM with mods, without MODs, tweaked , not tweaked...upgrades, patches, anti-virus on / off ... believe me I have tried all things... and eventually I decided enough is enough .. I give up, ask anyone who knows me It takes a lot for me to give up.. I always seem to find solutions to problems.

 

One thing that really caused me a lot of headaches was being naive enough to believe what some people randomly said in FORUMS! .. I can't believe the amount of misinformation out there, some posts in reply to skyrim problems would start like this " Well I'm not sure, but perhaps maybe you should try this... or tweak that. This could work, but I don't know " .... it is SIMPLY RIDICULOUS the amount of people who post there own home made, hear say solutions. None of which I found worked.

 

Anyway, I have updated graphic drivers, downloaded updates for BIOS... my list is huge, I even done complete reinstalls... at this point I should mention that WEI has given me these excellent scores:

(7.9 is top)

processor = 7.5

memory = 7.9

graphics = 7.9

gaming graphics = 7.9

primary HDD = 6.9

 

...pretty good I thought, then why don't I get a perfect smooth performance from SKYRIM.

 

SKYRIM runs well, it looks great on ULTRA and I get good FPS, BUT .. I noticed that in a battle scene with the STORM CLOAKS when there was perhaps 25 people all fighting, there was an intermittent choppiness in the FPS = AND THAT JUST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH, I WON'T ACCEPT IT! .. not after investing £320 for a damn video card.

 

- I replayed this battle over and over, MODS ON/OFF, AV OFF / ON, lowered graphics... my list is large, lets just say I tried so hard to not have this choppy FPS.

 

and I REFUSE to lower my specs, because my 2014 system should be able to handle a game from 2011 surely! ?

 

Anyway, my experience with PC gaming has been one big huge headache ! .. I will dismantle my rig on the weekend and sell the parts off.

 

I have only had this ASUS video card for 7 days so far, I will box it up and send it back for a refund .. Its performance is crap and not worth £320 .. ASUS support was terrible, the ASUS website is pathetic, half the time it didn't even work.

 

This whole experience has opened my EYES WIDE open to PC GAMING. There are billions and billions being made in this industry and I don't think it is deserved.

 

There are millions of people out there with empty wallets and severe headaches because of PC gaming.

 

My PC from 2011 seemed to be no different to my PC from 2014 .. so what the hell is going on ? - are we all being fooled and lied to, and being sold repackaged old chips and technology ? ( ever noticed that we are still playing excellent quality games on console that came out many years ago - GTA 5 on the XBOX 360 ! ? .. strange eh, have a ponder about that )

 

PC gaming is a world full of upgrades, patches, updates, fixes, solutions and infinite variable with relative truths.... IT IS FAR TOO COMPLEX ( but I suppose if it was simple, there wouldn't be as much money to be made ) .... in my experience errors, mistakes and complexity makes a lot of money for a lot of people - BUT WHO GETS THE HEADACHES ! ? US!

 

... WHEN DO WE GET TO PLAY THE GAMES ?!

 

THIS IS THE END OF PC GAMING FOR ME, WE ARE NOT IMPRESSED.

 

My relationship with my girlfriend, job and friends has been tested because of this whole PC gaming thing ... its not healthy at all. I will testify to that.

 

- oh and by the way, in all my tests.. not one MOD was the cause for my CTD, CHOPPY FPS ... I tried with and without.

 

* If you want to comment on this, don't open your mouth and let you belly rumble, I only want you to say something if you know what you are talking about, and as I understand it - nothing is absolutely true, the truth is relative... where does that leave any advice given at all.

 

.. I was going to say that I will now just play my XBOX 360, but you know what this whole experience has made me sick of gaming... I will find a new hobby.

 

[OnoSendai58]

Well, that was a waste of my time...

[Dkboy24]

I can relate in a way to this post... this type of hobby can be frustrating at the best of times if not down right insane at the worst. I have clocked over 900+ hours on my PC playing just Skyrim. I have tried hundreds of mods, have read a books worth of forum posts, tweak guides, etc. I have purchased two new GPU's just for the sole purpose of playing Skyrim and have obsessed over "why are these shadows still blocky?!?" or "I don't quite like the way this minute texture looks." Fair to say it has become almost an obsession of mine (Thankfully I have a gamer girlfriend so she understands!).

 

I guess what I'm getting at is the way you have to look at it. I don't see it as merely me playing video games on my PC. If I wanted to just play games for the sake of playing them, I would still game on my Xbox. This type of PC gaming is a hobby, and like most hobbies, it requires dedication, time, money, and involves lots and lots of stress at times. My girlfriend jokes that I spend more time modding than I do playing the game! And she's right :) But I find the challenge of it all the most intoxicating aspect of the whole thing. Why do we do it? Each person is different, but I do it for the thrill of solving a complex problem. Striving to make my game exactly to where I want it to be and making the most out of my investment. But it certainly is not for all and if you realize in the end it just isn't worth it, it's good that you knew when to take a break and step away. Maybe you'll revisit this hobby in days to come? Or move onto something else? Who knows! But for me, I'm very excited to see what kind of modding, upgrading, or even game breaking adventure I'll go on next.

[FerociousBeast]

Memory sounds like the issue. You can have all the memory in the world, but Skyrim caps how much it will use unless you mod that setting. I'd recommend researching that.

[xPatosonx]

The problem is poor game optimization, like in all other cases where you get poor performance when you really shouldn't (a good example is Age of Conan). Read this guide. It has helped me a lot.

[davoshannon]

First of all; it's insane that you've the same (original) name as me. Although I went over to Dave decades ago.

 

Logged over 1000 hours on Skyrim, and by far the best game I've ever played. Love Bethesda open world thinking. 64 next birthday, and never got beyond late adolescence.

 

Only last Christmas did I finally realise Win XP 32 bit couldn't hack it, at all, and migrated to Win 7 64 bit. Spec is AMD Phenom II X6 1090, 8GB RAM, ATI HD 4670 (512MB - now that's cheap), 5TB on various WD HDDs, and on a ASRock 990 MB. Year old. Rebuilt the entire Skyrim install (on a new Legendary edition) with all prior operational mods. Running 116 as of today.

 

Have tried almost any (female) follower mod I liked the look of (and discarded 50% plus), Falskaar and many New Lands mods, and discarded several. Similarly with vanilla location mods, etc., etc. Would be at 30MB saves without Save Cleaner - as it is it's 20MB+. Have BOSS & TES5EDIT as constant companions on the control side.

 

Currently running around with Dawn, Eliana, Morgen, Kartika, & Danariel simultaneously (and yes, Sexlab stuff is all there - I'm only human).

 

Can do LC_CastleInvasion with a posse without too much graphical difficulty.

 

The POINT is I've spent ages trying every mod and discarding those that introduce graphical or other glitches. After a while I learned to introduce them one at a time, and build carefully.

 

So, don't give up. Gradual introduction and evolution is probably the way to go, instead of broad installs and dumps.

 

[Rusey]

1) Do you use ENBs? Improper (and what's "proper" varies from rig to rig, some experimentation is required) memory settings can affect FPS drastically, in particular if you disable preload to ram (because your game is trying to render things as you turn, instead of when you first load in).

 

2) Shadows on ultra are a humongous FPS hog with (imo) very little visual improvement over high.

 

3) The SSME helps with memory issues. It's pretty glorious.

 

 

I get that this was a rant/vent, but there's no reason you should be having the problems you are on a rig that beefy with just vanilla Skyrim.

[Shadeybladey]

The latest SKSE has a built-in version of Sheson's memory patch which helps a lot of people.

 

But as soon as you add mods with scripts, graphics-enhancing textures and lots of spawn points, you are taking Skyrim beyond it's design parameters and have to spend a lot of time tweaking.

 

Your rig is way overpowered for Skyrim. It's a console port, so it was written for an i3 with 2 GB RAM and a 0.5 GB graphics card.

 

The people who have the biggest problems always seem to be those with the most powerful systems. But there is stuff you can do to fix it.

 

~.~

[Lord Garon]

Well, I'm not sure what you are ranting about, exactly. Your Skyrim doesn't perform the way you THINK it should, and you are mad and stressed out because of that?

 

You have to understand the tool you are using to get the best from it. For instance, consider: Skyrim is "poorly" threaded; it was developed for the XBOX which uses two CPU cores for game processing. The most important characteristic of a modern CPU for optimal Skyrim performance is Single Thread Performance (IPC).

 

If that doesn't make sense to you (and your WEI rating screenshot tells me it doesn't), that means you embarked into PC gaming for Skyrim with an insufficient understanding of what, why, and how. The FX-6300 is a good CPU; I like it. It is not the best for the cpu hog called Skyrim. You have an awesome video card and an average CPU; FPS is affected by BOTH the CPU and the GPU. I would bet dollars to doughnuts your game is CPU bound on Ultra settings and that is causing your stutter when things get computationally intense. Put your resolution to 720p and limit your FPS to 30 and see if you get stutter then. (XBOX 1080p is usually upconverted video actually rendered at 720p) I would guess your PC is rendering at 1080i at 60FPS (on any newer flat panel monitor). That's about 4.5 times the pixel rate of an XBOX, and your "poorly threaded" Skyrim is STILL only using two of your six CPU cores for most of its work. That's why a "2011" game is still a challenge for modern (multi core) CPUs to run efficiently. The main problem, amongst others, is that Skyrim is a console port, NOT a real multi-threaded PC game able to use all 6 of your cores and that 7.5 WEI rating. Divide that WEI by 3 and THAT is your effective CPU power in Skyrim. Its not the PC gaming industry causing this problem, its the console industry and game developers.

 

Your FX-6300/GTX-770 is a very good gaming PC for MODERN titles. I've built a few of them (not with a 770) for friends. I hate to tell you this, but in my testing experience, an INTEL Core i3 3240 (dual core) will run Skyrim better than ANY FX-xxxx chip because it's Single Thread Performance is better by about 30%. An i5 is the goto Skyrim performance CPU because of its unsurpassed Single Thread Performance, and a modded Skyrim can grind even an i5 into the dust with little effort.

 

A few questions in some knowledgeable forums (Tom's Hardware) would have saved you a lot of grief in your foray into PC gaming. Remember this experience in your new hobby and ask around a little before spending a lot of money on it. Expectations seldom coincide with reality.

Edited February 1, 2014 by Lord Garon

[stressnadiction558]

I have only had this ASUS video card for 7 days so far, I will box it up and send it back for a refund .. Its performance is crap and not worth £320 .. ASUS support was terrible, the ASUS website is pathetic, half the time it didn't even work.

 

 

I can vouch for ASUS being utter garbage and I will leave it at that, I feel the troll breaking through all ready...