SaltLakeMormon Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 (edited) I'm running Skyrim with a bunch of mods all at once, and it lags on medium settings. With no mods, the game works flawlessly on High, small lag on Medium with an ENB, and minimal lag while on vanilla Ultra. Like I said, I have a lot of mods now that I really want to keep, but my system just can't handle all that. Currently, I have a fairly decent GPU, and an okay system overall. I'm considering getting a second graphics card (crossfire) to boost performance. Would this help? Or would it be better to get a new CPU or something? How do my specs look? thanks in advance!Specs:---------CPU: AMD A6-6400K Richland 3.9GHz Dual CoreRAM: Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB)Motherboard: MSI A88X-643OS: Win. 7 Home PremiumPSU: ThermalTake 600W atx 12v 2.3HDD: Seagate 1TB BaracudaGPU: Sapphire R9 270x TOXICP.S. It's a home built computer... Edited June 22, 2015 by SaltLakeMormon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jones177 Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Skyrim is a CPU game. I can run it in 4K at 84fps with a i7 2600K & GTX 980. Bethesda games are the only games I have tested that I can run at 4K.With ENB, Skyrim is the most demanding game I play. At 1440 my GPU fans sound like a train going up hill. I think you should start with your CPU. The PassMark website is good for hardware comparisons. Big number differences in the PassMark chart don't necessarily mean big frame rate differences in Skyrim though. The differences between a 680, 970 & 980 in my game was only 3fps average. Later Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saurusmaximus Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 While I agree that you would benefit from a better cpu, my questions are: what are you running for texture mods and what ENB are you using? How much VRAM do you have? Because it does sound like your lagging is caused by your gpu not keeping up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaltLakeMormon Posted June 22, 2015 Author Share Posted June 22, 2015 On 6/22/2015 at 2:43 PM, saurusmaximus said: While I agree that you would benefit from a better cpu, my questions are: what are you running for texture mods and what ENB are you using? How much VRAM do you have? Because it does sound like your lagging is caused by your gpu not keeping up. My GPU costed $200 from Amazon, but idk if it's really that good. No texture mods, and I deleted the ENB mod. How do you check VRAM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaltLakeMormon Posted June 22, 2015 Author Share Posted June 22, 2015 On 6/22/2015 at 2:35 PM, jones177 said: Skyrim is a CPU game. I can run it in 4K at 84fps with a i7 2600K & GTX 980. Bethesda games are the only games I have tested that I can run at 4K.With ENB, Skyrim is the most demanding game I play. At 1440 my GPU fans sound like a train going up hill. I think you should start with your CPU. The PassMark website is good for hardware comparisons. Big number differences in the PassMark chart don't necessarily mean big frame rate differences in Skyrim though. The differences between a 680, 970 & 980 in my game was only 3fps average. Later I don't know much about CPU's. Do you think my CPU can run Skyrim pretty good so far? Or should I get an upgrade? By the way what is "4K"? And what do you mean by 1440? When playing Skyrim my GPU fans sound like a jet engine :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saurusmaximus Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 On 6/22/2015 at 7:08 PM, SaltLakeMormon said: On 6/22/2015 at 2:43 PM, saurusmaximus said: While I agree that you would benefit from a better cpu, my questions are: what are you running for texture mods and what ENB are you using? How much VRAM do you have? Because it does sound like your lagging is caused by your gpu not keeping up. My GPU costed $200 from Amazon, but idk if it's really that good. No texture mods, and I deleted the ENB mod. How do you check VRAM? The amount of VRAM it came with should have been printed on the box it came in, it's probably 1 or 2 GB. Otherwise, you can find it in your system settings. On 6/22/2015 at 7:11 PM, SaltLakeMormon said: On 6/22/2015 at 2:35 PM, jones177 said: Skyrim is a CPU game. I can run it in 4K at 84fps with a i7 2600K & GTX 980. Bethesda games are the only games I have tested that I can run at 4K.With ENB, Skyrim is the most demanding game I play. At 1440 my GPU fans sound like a train going up hill. I think you should start with your CPU. The PassMark website is good for hardware comparisons. Big number differences in the PassMark chart don't necessarily mean big frame rate differences in Skyrim though. The differences between a 680, 970 & 980 in my game was only 3fps average. Later I don't know much about CPU's. Do you think my CPU can run Skyrim pretty good so far? Or should I get an upgrade? By the way what is "4K"? And what do you mean by 1440? When playing Skyrim my GPU fans sound like a jet engine :laugh: Your CPU is adequate for vanilla Skyrim, if you want to get serious about modding it, you may run into bottlenecks. IMO, if you want to sink money into that, or another video card, I'd spring for the CPU. "4K" refers to SuperHD textures, as in 4K resolution (4,000 lines of resolution on the screen). 4K textures make the game look really sharp, but they take up huge amounts of memory. "1440" probably refers to the screen resolution he was playing at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jones177 Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Hi 4K & 1440 are screen resolutions. I have a 4K or UHD monitor. The native screen resolution is 3840 X 2160 pixels.1440 is 2560 x 1440 pixels. I play most games at this resolution. If you have a good i5 or i7 CPU with a GTX 970 or equivalent your next upgrade should be a 1440 or 4K monitor.The view is unbelievable at these resolutions. Later Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackRoseOfThorns Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 The first thing I would upgrade is that AMD A6-6400K. Skyrim is cpu heavy and from various players input it performs best on intel chips ( 3.5ghz+ equivalent of i7 2600k or better /// newer i7 4790k is in the same price range, but you can look for cheaper i5 / i7 model). The bad news is that you are stuck with FM2+ cpu socket motherboard, which is not exactly a gamers choice and won't allow any major upgrades. So you are looking at 80-250 usd/euro (eu taxes... sigh) for motherboard and 200-340 for intel cpu (decide first on cpu and only then on motherboard). If you are on a very tight budget the best processor you can use with your old motherboard is A10-7850k FM2+ (I would still rather invest that money into better mobo+cpu combo). I wouldn't recommend buying second card before upgrading cpu, as it will be a bottleneck in your rig and hamper fps in all games. Besides 270x might be worth buying right now only, if you can get it super cheap on clearance sale or bid on used model. AMD has just released a refresh of 200 series (300+) at almost identical prices. On top of that mid range end 2GB VRAM dual-slot card (270x in this case) is not really worth running in 2x crossfire setup, since VRAM from 2 cards does not stack. The 2GB will limit your options in games like: screen resolution, texture resolution, maximum details, turning on additional effects (shadows, ssao in enb for example). When your gpu hits 2GB VRAM you will experience stutter. Before making any crossfire build better ask around how the ENB series handles it nowadays. If you're going to sell your gpu and buy better performing model with more VRAM, you might want to wait just a bit. Since the new gpu models have been released this month (GTX 980 ti, R9 Fury X, R7-R9 300 series) AMD and Nvidia are adjusting prices to be more competitive against each other. I think we can see 5-10% cut within next two months and maybe a bit more on certain models when Fury Nano launches this fall. Next year new card generation is launching Q2 / Q3, which could mean further price slash for older cards. PS: You can use Skyrim Performance Monitor to test your VRAM usage. Whiterun market would be a good place to test it. On 6/23/2015 at 12:09 PM, jones177 said: Hi 4K & 1440 are screen resolutions. I have a 4K or UHD monitor. The native screen resolution is 3840 X 2160 pixels.1440 is 2560 x 1440 pixels. I play most games at this resolution. If you have a good i5 or i7 CPU with a GTX 970 or equivalent your next upgrade should be a 1440 or 4K monitor.The view is unbelievable at these resolutions. Later I would rather play Skyrim at 1080p/1440p with better mod collection and higher texture resolution than 4k with lowered settings. Getting better gaming card (would grab 980 4GB / 980 ti 6GB equivalent) takes precedence over buying higher res screen, unless someone has poor quality one. 1080p is fine up to 23" screen and 1440 up to 27". If I was about to switch to a new screen it would be UHD 3840x1440 widescreen with 2560x1440 fit feature, but only if the gpu could deliver 60fps on ultra settings in normal games and 30+ in heavily modded Skyrim. http://icdn1.digitaltrends.com/image/lg-34uc97-front-full-1500x1000.jpgMaybe someday.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jones177 Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 VRAM usage is the same whether I play at 3840 X 2160 or 1920 X 1080. I did some tests early in the year. Here are the results. My rig.I7 2600k8 gb ramGTX 980Samsung UD590 UHD monitor My frame rates. 4k without ENB 84FPS4K with ENB 20FPS (not playable) 1440 without ENB 87FPS1440 with ENB 47FPS (Playable) 1080 without ENB 128FPS1080 with ENB 61FPS For a while I ran a 970. It was just a few frames slower than the 980.I can only justify the perches of the 980 running ENB. The 970 could run Skyrim well over 60fps at 4K without ENB. My VRAM usage with both cards was:No texture pack 2.1gb average 6 hours playtime average.2K texture pack 2.7gb average 4 hours playtime average.4k texture pack 3.4gb average 2 hours playtime average. My game usually ends(CTD or freeze) when VRAM reaches 3.733gb & RAM is at around 3.1 to 3.3gbs. Later Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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