ccarambe Posted September 3, 2012 Share Posted September 3, 2012 When Skyrim auto detects my settings, it chooses Ultra quality. I also have a few mods installed. On Ultra quality I'm getting 9-10 frames per second. When I reduce the settings to medium, I'm only getting around 15 FPS. I made sure that the game can use more than 2 GBs of ram. I also tried installing SkyBoost but the game wouldn't run so I had to delete it. I'm not good with hardware, so I don't know where my bottlenecks might be. Instead of getting a new computer I want to try to upgrade this one to be able to run Skyrim with lots of awesome mods installed with good FPS. What components do you think I should buy? Here is some computer information, if you need more info let me know! Model HPE-170tIntel Core i7 860 @ 2.8 GHz8 GB RAM64 Bit Windows 7 OSATI Radeon HD 4650 Display Adapter24" monitor (and thinking about getting a second dual display) Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinlar Posted September 3, 2012 Share Posted September 3, 2012 Hi ccarambe, Your graphics card is the bottleneck. A HD4650 will never give you a playable frame rate unless you lower your resolution down to 1024x768 or something close. A 24" monitor presumably has a much higher native resolution, therefore requires a much more powerful graphics card at that resolution. So either upgrade your graphics card or lower your resolution. If you decide to lower your resolution to see if that makes any difference: - Set the "Aspect Ratio" to Standard - Set Resolution to 1024x768- Set the settings to medium first and experiment with it by using "Advanced" settings. HTH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccarambe Posted September 3, 2012 Author Share Posted September 3, 2012 Thanks for the tip! I tried a lot of things, but it never dawned on me to change the resolution. In windowed 1280x700 mode I'm getting MUCH better frame rates. What graphics card do you think would work with my computer to allow me to play at full resolution with awesome mods? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinlar Posted September 3, 2012 Share Posted September 3, 2012 Honestly, I'm not really familiar with the latest cards, in fact I've been thinking of buying one for myself. All I can tell you is that,if you are happy with your ATI/AMD then consider upgrading to their latest series, which is the HD7xxx IIRC, or 6xxx series depending on your budget. I'm sure you can find many guides on the net. For example, the following is a performance comparison of various graphics cards on Battlefield 3 at 1920x1080 and HIGH settings. Should give you and idea. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/13-Battlefield-3-DirectX-11-B-Performance,2968.html (also includes prices) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandy1123 Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 You also might consider looking at your Power Supply. If you do plan on an upgrade GPU, look at power consumption of EVERY thing under the box. Also remember that although you may have 6 or 200 USB ports, they are limited on power too. So, everything you plug into one chews at the heart of your whole system. Yes, I definately agree, that at a glance of what you posted, it is the graphics adapter. EDITI just looked at your system from HP. That Power supply is horrible. It supplies a paltry 460 watts. Look into a relliable power solution - corsair is always a good choice.Also, check to see what the Hard Drive is. More then likely is a really slow access one. Upgrading that will also help. The hard drive is usually a bottle neck in any system. Its mechanical and has spinning and linear motion. You could consider and SSD - solid state drive (device). They are more expesnive, but rather zippy. Be careful on your Case bays and even the power supply. It may be proprietary. A standard power supply may not fit in its bay. You might need to purchase a new case. I hope this helps :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccarambe Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 Yikes! This seems complicated. Do you think it would be worth upgrading the graphics card, power supply, and possibly disk drive (right now I have a 7200 rpm one) for this computer or is it better to buy new? This computer is a few years old. The last thing I want to do is get electrocuted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUninvitedGuest Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 (edited) Yikes! This seems complicated. Do you think it would be worth upgrading the graphics card, power supply, and possibly disk drive (right now I have a 7200 rpm one) for this computer or is it better to buy new? This computer is a few years old. The last thing I want to do is get electrocuted. Depending on your budget your priority would be a new graphics card and power supply. I say both because in order to get the better card you should upgrade the PSU to at least 650 or 750 W. As for your drive - if you have a lot set aside for an upgrade then by all means go for an SSD (they have a fantastic uptick on load times), however you'll be fine playing games off of a 7200rpm drive for now. A decent graphics card will set you back £250 at least, power supply up to £100. You wont get much of a gaming rig for £350 so I would go with upgrading. On the other hand - what model of case and motherboard do you have ? That could shape your decision considerably. EDIT: Sorry - just realised I gave all the prices in £. Tbh though you guys get tech a lot cheaper so through new egg you can probably almost just swap the £ for an $ without worrying about conversion rates. I would imagine a good card could set you back $300 though. Edited September 4, 2012 by TheUninvitedGuest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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