want my new laptop running skyrim on high settings

[winterhold27]

I just purchased the Dell inspiron with the HD 4400 grapics card. I don't know much about hardware in computers but what can I do to help the cp run skyrim and look beautiful at the same time ?

[bben46]

Give us a model number and we can look it up to see what the actual hardware is.

[winterhold27]

Inspiron 15 i5558-5718SLV

[bben46]

Specs

• 15.6" Full HD LED-backlit touchscreen Display w/ Truelife
• Intel Core i5-4210U Processor
• 1TB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
• 8GB DDR3L 1600 MHz Memory
• Windows 10 Home, 64-bit
• Intel HD Graphics 4400
• 1x USB 3.0 and 2x USB 2.0 HDMI Ports

 

Intel graphics is not really considered a true gaming video. You will probably be able to get it to work, but please don't expect any high performance graphics out of it.

 

5400 RPM hard drive - fairly standard on laptops, but slow. Expect longer load times.

 

Typically laptops in this range share Ram between system and Video. With 8G that should not be a problem as long as you don't expect high FPS and HD graphics.

[winterhold27]

What can I do to increase the graphics but still have the game run smoothly with what I have ?

[stringjade]

Here's a couple of things I recommend you should do if you have a bit more cash to spend.

• Buy an SSD and use it as your boot and skyrim install drive. 250gb should be the cheapest one you can get for decent storage size. This should make loading a whole lot faster. I recommend Crucial as they're the cheapest and reliable ones I know. It comes with its own cloning software so you don't have to do install everything from scratch. Just clone the files in your HDD to your SSD but do make sure that the files in your HDD doesn't exceed the size of the SSD.
• Buy an Optical Bay Hard Drive and swap the Optical Drive with it, putting your 1tb in it for mass storage like school stuff, skyrim saves, mods, etc. Make sure the OBHD fits on your laptop first!!
• Running Skyrim on it will no doubt make your laptop really hot! Get a good well known Laptop Cooling Pad or those Laptop vacuum exhaust. Or both!

As for graphics, I'm pretty sure there's nothing you can do except set your graphics quality to low-medium and optimize the s#*! our of your skyrim. You can still mod it but I'd stay away from graphic extensive mods.

[sLoPpYdOtBiGhOlE]

Recomend not spending another cent on the laptop you've got if your intention is to play Skyrim or other 3D games with graphics mods.

 

In all honesty the laptop you have will not run the game the way your describing you want, regardless of harddrive and memory you have or add.

 

Instead consider selling that laptop and purchase something with a low/mid end dedicated graphics chip.

(low/mid end obviously due to cost would be an issue if your after Mid to high end graphics chips, gaming laptop)

I recently went down the same path.

 

The cheapest and best low end graphics I could find with an i7 4510U CPU / HD 4400 graphics and an Nvidia GT840M graphics with a dedicated 2GB of video memory for $600 (Australian dollars).

The Nvidia video chip is weak, but still lets me use 1024x1024 Textures, at 1366x768 High and Medium settings (customise eg: Good view distance High detail textures, but knock back shadows, med decals, 4 xAA etc).

 

I sit between 45 ~ 60 fps constantly indoors, outdoors and in combat (capped at 60 FPS intentionally).

 

If I swap over to the HD 4400 graphics leaving game settings the same, then the game is almost unplayable anytime any action happens on screen.

I struggle to get 40FPS and it dips below 10FPS regularly averages around 18 ~ 24FPS most the rest of the time.

 

For $600 AU it's the best laptop I've owned in the past 8 years (apart from the crappy Win 8.1 it came with...pooo).

Prior I've had 5 different Dell laptops and was happy with them all..

But really they don't offer much in dedicated low/mid end graphics for a cheap price.

Also all of my dell laptops have run damn hot while gaming (I live in a tropical climate which doesn't help).

Throttling if I persisted playing..

 

This cheap ass laptop I currently purchased runs cool and never breaks a sweat or thottles after hours of playing.

And I do mean hours eg: 23 hours straight I did playing Risen 3 just the other day.

I often do 9 ~ 10 gaming seasons in Skyrim as well.

 

Not once has the cheapo laptop throttled and I can actually sit it on my lap without it becoming hot and unbearable..

Something I was never able to do with any of my Dells with dedicated low end video chips.

 

Also 8GB of memory in Win 8 ~ Win 10 is not pleasurable at all.

You'll often find playing games that chew 1.6GB of memory while playing and the OS will whine that it needs to close apps to keep stability..

Even when you have 5GB of free available memory displaying in Task Manager and you have no other apps open...

Screwing with OS settings can null this rubbish, but as I said 8GB is just not so plug and play friendly tbh in Win 8 ~ Win 10.

Mainly due to it's OS cache crap, which is spose to speed things up, but usually causes user frustration instead due to the OS reserving more free memory then it needs and not allocating the memory to the app that actually needs more.

Edited January 9, 2016 by sLoPpYdOtBiGhOlE

[obobski]

+1 to what's been said already - the Intel IGP will never run this game (or many others) at max settings, high frame-rates, tons of mods, etc. It's a low end IGP meant to cruise through multimedia content (e.g. movies and the modern web) and not much else - it isn't going to make nice with demanding games like Skyrim. Since its a laptop, there's no upgrade path for the hardware, so you can't just pop a more powerful graphics adapter in there. Alternately, like bben said, accepting lower settings would probably see this machine work to a modest level (e.g. beats no gaming at all), but if you bought this machine expressly for gaming, I would consider returning it for something better suited to the task at hand.

 

On the note of memory, 8GB should be more than enough for any contemporary operating system or game, even if working with an IGP that shares memory with the system.