Heavily modded Skyrim on a low-end laptops. Before/After pics

[Laptoprocker]

Hey all


I've just taken some screenshots to compare my skyrim with or without mods. I wonder what's your opinion. I am currently running Skyrim on a quite low end laptop.

Samsung E5X S02
CPU: Intel i3 3110m 2x2.4Ghz (with hyper threading)
GPU: Nvidia Optimus GT 620m (1gb)
RAM: 6gb 1600mhz DDR3

I am running 189 mods currently, my settings are between High and Ultra and I get around 40 fps (I capped it to 50). 60+ fps in interiors, 38-40 in cities and when I have 10+ giants 5 mammots and a dragon next to a fireplace it's dropping to 29 (very rarely)

Anyway I just wonder what's your opinion and feel free to ask any questions, I have more (better) screenshots too, these are just for comparison.

http://i48.tinypic.com/2ywv60m.jpg

http://i45.tinypic.com/2zew1ao.jpg

Edited March 15, 2013 by Laptoprocker

[artificialsloth]

I have around 80 mods on my laptop no visual mods on low settings with everything except grass loading at the max distance and I average around 16 fps (according to fraps). I'm lucky if I get up to 20 fps.

[Laptoprocker]

what are your specs?

[IsharaMeradin]

Your low end laptop is better than mine

 

Toshiba Satellite A505

Intel Core i3 CPU M 330 @ 2.13GHz

4GB ram

Win 7 64-bit

NVIDIA GeForce 310M

 

I can hit some dark corners where the fps is almost 40, but my fps tends to fluctuate around the 12 mark when on the move and 20 when idle. I usually have no more than 30 mods and nothing that changes lighting (some people's ideas of realistic is way too dark for a game). Anyway, my system gets default flagged as medium and so far on 1.8 runs "flawlessly" on a pure stock game. With mods I can crash.

 

So all that to say, you can definitely do more than I. So long as your game runs smoothly and you aren't crashing randomly for no apparent reason then go for it. If you do start randomly crashing, consider backing off of some of the more intense mods as the #1 reason for random crashing is game system overload (that's not to say that there aren't other reasons, just don't rule out a game system overload).

[Laptoprocker]

I'm getting crashes very rarely, like 1-2 times a day in real life. I have no idea why though, I try to maintain the load order, merge the mods when it's possible. I suppose 190 mods might be just too much.

 

I'm using Climates of Tamriel - Remove Interior fogs - Saturation Boost - Enhanced Light and FX - W.A.T.E.R., also the 2K HD textures/Serious HD Retexture. I tried various ENB-s but I didn't like them that much and they do have a significant performance hit.

 

As for darkness at night, I think one can easily get used to it, I sometimes find myself turning the brightness all the way down.

 

http://i50.tinypic.com/xbmv41.jpg

[GeminiContractor]

I'm not very savvy about comparing computer hardware.

Is that GPU better than an Intel GMA HD Integrated card?

[LoneLycan]

dude , with such laptop you run skyrim+mods and have over 50 fps.. :mellow: tell meee plss howww ? are u using any fps boost and performance mods/tools ? any reccomendations ?

Edited March 15, 2013 by LoneLycan

[Laptoprocker]

Well yeah my GPU is way better than an integrated graphics card indeed.

 

I don't use many special mods to boost my fps

 

I use this:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/5695 (it's integrated into my shortcut but I doubt if it worths anything.

 

this:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/6387 (actually helps a lot, when it's raining or snowing I have no fps difference at all)

 

I also use Skyrim Project Optimization but I guess it's not necessary if you don't use any lighting mods. I tried to tweak my .ini files but I didn't experienced any significant improvements and my game became unstable, crashing etc. I only tweaked the shadows to become a bit less sharp-more blurry which looks way better and realistic than the original shadows even on low settings (I have them on Medium now I'm not too bothered about shadows).

 

This mod gave me around 20+ fps gain: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15123 I'm not using it anymore though because it sometimes got bugged out and it's very annoying

 

If you think it would help I can tell you my in game and Nvidia control panel settings.

 

I don't think that it's too dark for a game at night, look at these:

 

http://i50.tinypic.com/2howca0.jpg

 

http://i48.tinypic.com/2a65jmh.jpg

[ShimoOkami]

Looks like you know how get much more out of what you have than I do. I could never figure out why my laptop has issues with Skyrim. No matter what I do, I can't get it to run at an average of over 17 FPS outdoors. And it's not like I have a crappy computer, my specs are actually pretty good as far as I can tell. Well, except for my hard disk. It has some data transfer issues. I don't know if that's the problem though since I don't actually know what that does.

 

Intel Core i7-2630QM @2GHz

NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M

8GB RAM, 2GB VRAM

 

I've tried changing the settings to low even though the launcher recommends high, and installing various performance enhancers. So, I just installed all the graphics mods I wanted for the heck of it and I only got a drop of 2 FPS. I really don't get it. Oh, and HIALGOBOOST gives me the dreaded BSOD every 20 min. :I

[jackowonderful]

my laptop was freakin awful, till i turned off outside shadows then it went up to 40 without problems. attk seems to make things smother too.