Specs for an ENB'd skyrim?

[Cowgoesmoo3]

Curious what specs people who run a rather heavily-modded Skyrim have on their systems.

 

I don't mean if you run the new Nvidia 1080 though.

I should rephrase a bit. What i'm really asking is based on your specs, would you say what you have is good, just right or insufficient?

 

Do you have any games you would compare your rather-heavily modded Skyrim game performance-wise to?

 

 

I'm planning on a gaming PC, but I'm centering it around Skyrim. Which says a lot about how much I still play and enjoy this game-

So if there's a game, let's say, Hitman: Absolution ends up being pretty comparable performance-wise to a modded-up Skyrim, that'd be great information for me.

[heyiforgot]

curious as well, I'm looking at refurbished pc's so I'd like to get an idea of what to expect

Edited September 17, 2016 by heyiforgot

[BlackRoseOfThorns]

The truth is there is always a tradeoff and it's not all about fps. You see adding a full fledged Enb preset will always result in heavier cpu load and increased script latency. Ideally the latency should sit around 50ms, anything above that gives you slight delay in game responsiveness (@200ms it's totally broken). However for most users it's playable up to 100ms. So you have this small window of 20-100ms and now you have figure out what you can fit into it. There are light and heavy scripted mods and new npcs eating up latency. Mods adding either more detailed meshes or more objects increase your cpu load.

If your cpu is too weak, some gameplay mod combos combined with decent Enb will be out of the question. The cpu won't manage to update all the scripts fast enough.

Skyrim is very CPU dependent. Even shadows are cpu bound. Poor game optimization and 32bit engine is not helping. Without hyperthreading support it chokes on bigger amounts of draw calls.

 

 

 

So what do you want to run modded Skyrim with an Enb?

 

CPU

Quad core (4 physical cores) min @3.5GHz. I have tried 2.7-2.9GHz and the experience wasn't that great. Each cpu generation has bigger performance gains per each 100mhz, hence you will be able to squeeze more power out of newer models.

 

I would rank i7 2500k 3.5GHz-4.0GHz and i7 3770k at same speed as an "ok, but with limitations" (also harder to overclock, proper cooling solution might cost you more than you are willing to pay).

 

i7 4790k and i5 6600k @4.0GHz-4.5GHz are high tier and you can get quite a lot out of them.

 

i7 6700k is god tier, though it still won't let you have modded anything you want. Shoulg get a bit better with 64bit Remastered Skyrim.

 

 

Graphic card:

Gtx 660TI is a bare minimum for very light Enb preset and 512-1k texture packs. It won't go past 30-35fps.

Gtx 770 4GB with light Enb preset and 1-2k textures will play @35-40fps, but will stutter a lot (might be due to the heat). This card is about as fast as Gtx 960 4GB. Gtx 1060 6GB will be a better Investment (~300$).

 

Gtx 970 performs same as 1060, but slows down when it fills first 3.5GB of VRAM and then access slower 512mb memory part. It was a design flaw. Most of the modern games are not affected much by it thanks to good memory managment. Modded Skyrim is NOT one of them. If you own 970, you will have to watch out for your screen and texture resolution.

Gtx 780TI is able to run 2k packs and normal Enb preset @45fps. It has only 3GB of VRAM, which fills fast causing stutter. The only solution is to downgrade some of the textures resolution (smaller size). Runs hotter and less smooth than 980TI. Gtx 1070 8GB and good Gtx 980 4GB model will outperform 780TI.

Gtx 980ti is a great card. 6GB VRAM, high clocks. Still I wish it could do more, so I could enjoy heavily moded Skyrim at higher screen resolution (1440p/4k) @60fps without giving up on anything. Some of the mods will have to be dropped and Enb downgraded to play 4k @60fps.

[Cowgoesmoo3]

Ah!

 

Thanks for this response. That's great.

 

I'm not sure I'm willing to compromise with Bethesda's enchroach in SkyRE, however.

Skyrim is problematic as is, but we've lived with it and people continuously find better solutions.

 

 

Can you give me a guess as to how well an i7-5500U and 950M will do?

Edited September 17, 2016 by Cowgoesmoo3

[SwindleUK]

"Can you give me a guess as to how well an i7-5500U and 950M will do?"

 

I'm guessing that a laptop will not perform too great. The 950m is very underpowered compared to the cards that BlackRoseOfThorns was listing off.

Even a low-end card like the 750ti benches double what the 950m does. Even a basic desktop will outperform whichever Lenovo or whatever brand laptop you are eying up.

 

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=3171&cmp%5B%5D=2815&cmp%5B%5D=2954

[ckhong87]

I always got CTD, whenever I try ENB whatever its light or heavy enb. With my laptop, gtx 970m ddr5 3gb vram.

gtx 970m is not bad because theres not yet gtx 10XXm series outthere and gtx980m is the highest one.

But I get random CTD everytime when I try enb.

well of course sadly because of the unstability of skyrim, we sometimes get ctd even with cleaned vanilla skyrim.

and enb boosts the chance of getting ctd.

so I finally gave up and expecting remaster version with unofficial texture mods.

Edited September 29, 2016 by ckhong87