Running Ultra Skyrim

[kennymcg1995]

I have a bit of an issue with running Skyrim. Well, it'll play fine and everything, but I feel like I have my settings way too low. I can play most other (newer) games with highest settings and no issues, but I haven't had much luck with Skyrim.

 

My specs are:

nVIDIA GeForce GTX465

AMD Athlon II X2 3.2GHz

Hitachi 1TB HDD

4GB RAM

Windows 7 32-bit

 

I feel like my "weak link" is my processor. 4GB of RAM should be more than enough for Skyrim. My video card is great and should be able to easily run whatever Skyrim can throw at it. It can run much more graphically intensive games with no hiccups. I'm not talking about running crazy ENB settings (or any ENB at all for that matter). I don't use the Hi-res texture packs, and I only use a few graphics improvement mods (mainly just Realistic Lighting With Customization). Even with all mods uninstalled, except a few armor mods, I can't even start the game with my texture quality at High. Medium is the best I can do. My shadows and decal quantity are both set to low. With my video card I'm pretty positive I should be able to at least do High textures.

 

I definitely plan on upgrading to Windows 7 64-bit (I already have it, I'm just putting it off because it'll take forever to reinstall everything). I don't want to get a SSD because the 1TB HDD I have is less than 6 months old and has plenty of space left on it. The only thing I can think to do is upgrade to a quad-core processor. Will this help, or am I even more technologically ignorant than I thought?

[FMod]

Yes, your CPU is out of date.

However Skyrim doesn't use all four cores.

What is your motherboard model? If it's a decent one, it makes sense to upgrade to Phenom. Alternately just do a full MB+CPU replacement to i5-3570K.

The former is $100, the latter will run you $350.

 

A newer OS would sap more resources from your current system, not increase performance. Except when running 64-bit programs, which Skyrim isn't.

If not buying a SSD, I'd suggest adding a 4GB RAM stick and installing fancycache: http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/index.html

After about a day of use, 2GB in L1 disk cache should improve your performance close to SSD levels. Avoid restarts or full on/off, although you can use sleep mode.

[kennymcg1995]

I can't remember exactly what my motherboard is, and I'm on my laptop at the moment. It's pretty new and fairly high-end, however, so I shouldn't need to upgrade it anytime soon. My main question at this point is whether or not a new processor will have a noticeable change. Do you think a new processor will significantly improve my specs for Skyrim? I have the $100 to spend, but I would rather save it for something else if it won't make much of a difference.

 

And thanks for the tip about the OS. I was never completely sure how it would work, I was just guessing. I would much rather not have to deal with switching over, and you saved me a ton of wasted reinstallation time. :)

[hoofhearted4]

if you are using a laptop, it might not be possible to upgrade the CPU and most certainly not the mobo.

[kennymcg1995]

I'm on a MacBook typing right now, but I play games on my desktop at home, which is what I'm looking to upgrade. I meant my desktop motherboard was new, and I should easily be able to get an upgraded CPU for it. I'm definitely not trying to mess with my laptop. Sorry if I was unclear. Edited December 13, 2012 by kennymcg1995