PC Configuration improvement help

[Envyjapan]

Hello everyone !

I'm coming to you because I'm in need of wise advices n__n

 

After a non-playing time, I'm back on Skyrim, and obviously on modding it.

Like a lot of you guys, I spend most of my time looking at nexus to try new mods.

I'm a perfectionnist and since I discovered the ENB... well, I cannot play without it, even if it alters my FPS.

The game is still playable, if it's not snowing and if there is not a lot of NPC on screen.

I believe this is the ENB's fault because when I press shift+F12 to disable it, the game runs perfectly. ( I tried that while it was snowing, and the difference is there )

 

I also tried to download new HD textures for weapons and clothes... well let's just say I can't for now, especially while fighting in first person view.

 

Here my question. I want to use ENB, I want to use some mods (currently using 35 of them, I can make a list if it can help you) and I would love to download HD textures.

 

This is my PC configuration:

 

Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Processor: Intel® Core i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.7GHz

Memory: 4096MB RAM

DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Card name: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series

 

(I think this is all you need to know, if not, tell me what you need n__n)

 

I want to improve my computer, in order to make Skyrim as fluid as possible, with ENB, mods and HD textures.

Obviously my computer miss that little something to make it perfect. But I do not know what I should Improve. Graphic card ? RAM ?...

I would like to do it cleverly at the lowest price possible, but still, the FPS thing and the beauty of the game is my priority.

 

If someone know how I can make it possible, what should I change and buy. I would be very grateful ! =)

 

Thank you ~

[Werne]

OS is ok, CPU is also ok though I would personally raise it to 3.1GHz (no reason, I just like tweaking it), RAM is ok, however the card is not (depending on the amount of VRAM, is it 512MB, 1GB, 2GB?).

 

I believe the 5800 series has GDDR3 VRAM which is fast enough for Skyrim but depending on the amount of VRAM, it can't run ENBs alone, not to mention running an ENB along with HD textures. You basically have two choices, either overclock it or rip it out and buy a new one. If you have 1GB VRAM or more, I'd go for overclocking, if it's below you can still overclock and get a performance boost but you'll have to buy a new one sooner or later.

 

Since you said you want to upgrade at lowest price possible, you can buy a used one, sometimes you can get a really decent one cheap. If you want a new one cheap, look on eBay, Amazon, etc.

[Envyjapan]

Thanks for the reply, here the rest of my config diagnosis:

 

 

DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)

Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6899&SUBSYS_22901787&REV_00

Display Memory: 2805 MB

Dedicated Memory: 1014 MB

Shared Memory: 1791 MB

Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

I will look at an overclock tuto on the internet if you think I should do that. And if I'm not that stupid, what I read on the description above, I should overclock.

I was actually thinking on buying a new graphic card, but I'll try overclocking first.

If I want a good one, do you have name in mind ? I know I could look on the internet, but I prefere gamer's advices.

[prod80]

Which ENB is that?

The current ENB's have some issues...

 

You should disable Reflection and disable Image Based Lighting ... They have big performance hits and little to no visual enhancement.

 

You should also make sure that if you use Ambient Occlusion in ENB or the FXAA feature that your Videocard settings in Windows has all AO and AA settings set to Disabled. Otherwise it will either cause buggy behaviour or have a double performance hit.

 

In general ENB should drop your FPS by around 10-15%, not more.

 

Since you are on a 1GB VRAM card, I would suggest you use all the lite versions of texture packs and run this program as well: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12801/ using the option Resize: half "If >2048" (this >2048 is important or everything will be halved!). Read through that page before using it as those actions CANNOT BE UNDONE.

[Werne]

Listen to what the guy above said, I forgot to mention that. Also...

 

Since you are on a 1GB VRAM card, I would suggest you use all the lite versions of texture packs and run this program as well: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12801/ using the option Resize: half "If >2048" (this >2048 is important or everything will be halved!). Read through that page before using it as those actions CANNOT BE UNDONE.

What's the point? Reduce it to 1024x1024, compress it and you're back to vanilla, just the color may be different. He'd be better off making a compromise like I do for mine.

 

I reduce mine to 1536x1536, that way they're not as large in filesize as 2048x2048 (usually they are twice smaller) but look much better than 1024x1024 (it's 1/2 bigger). It's just that the standard is doubling the texture size like so: 512x512 - 1024x1024 - 2048x2048 - 4096x4096 - you get the point, but you can basically use whichever size you want as long as it has the same height/width aspect ratio. Couple that with overclocking I mentioned before and he can get a stable framerate even on that card.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Werne

[prod80]

Listen to what the guy above said, I forgot to mention that. Also...

 

Since you are on a 1GB VRAM card, I would suggest you use all the lite versions of texture packs and run this program as well: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12801/ using the option Resize: half "If >2048" (this >2048 is important or everything will be halved!). Read through that page before using it as those actions CANNOT BE UNDONE.

What's the point? Reduce it to 1024x1024, compress it and you're back to vanilla, just the color may be different. He'd be better off making a compromise like I do for mine.

 

I reduce mine to 1536x1536, that way they're not as large in filesize as 2048x2048 (usually they are twice smaller) but look much better than 1024x1024 (it's 1/2 bigger). It's just that the standard is doubling the texture size like so: 512x512 - 1024x1024 - 2048x2048 - 4096x4096 - you get the point, but you can basically use whichever size you want as long as it has the same height/width aspect ratio. Couple that with overclocking I mentioned before and he can get a stable framerate even on that card.

 

I wrote everything above 2048, not below... so either 3k textures will be 1.5k or 4k will be 2k, 2k will be left alone as it will only handle them if they are bigger than... as the majority of textures in texture packs are either 1k or 2k textures only the bigger performance killers will be hit... You can also just try and be selective on folders to handle or not by selecting them in the program itself...

 

On a side note for that program (an important one) is that you must run as administrator or it will NOT make a backup of your textures, aaaand, please do not run this on your whole Data folder and do not run this on textures\actors either. If you have dragon textures (which are like 10K textures) they will be compressed to hell and your dragons will look like crap because they are quite big.

 

Another way to approach this is to uninstall your texture pack(s)... If game plays like normal, check the mods page for 1K or 2K versions of the textures.

 

I have a 1GB VGA card as well, and I can tell you that even with only Skyrim HD 2K textures (the lite version) and Skyrim Flora Overhaul (the standard version) you are CONSTANTLY running on your max VRAM. And this can case issues in the outside world if you stress it too much (stuttering when turning, textures not loading, crashing, loading screens hanging, showracemenu crashing, etc). I will soon upgrade to a 3GB card because im (honestly) sick and tired of having to modify all textures to be able to run on my system.

 

Edit..

BTW,

 

"512x512 - 1024x1024 - 2048x2048 - 4096x4096"

 

This is not doubling...

1024x1024 = 4x bigger than 512x512.

4096x4096 = 64x bigger than 512x512

 

And about the size... a bit explained... lets say you have a 1920x1080 monitor, that is more or less 2K... so if you want unpixelated viewing in 100% viewing distance, you need 2K textures. As soon as you need to zoom in (for whatever reason?!) you will need higher resolution or when it's always zoomed out (whole body) you need lower textures... eg an actor in Skyrim you can see the whole body - so the body should be 2K texture, but you can also see just the face, so the face also needs a 2k texture (if they could fill the whole screen)... Also you see, dragons are big... at 100% size you need higher resolution not to see pixels... So they are 10K textures because they can fill your screen multple times.

 

Now, there are actually weapon and armor textures on nexus with 4k and even 8k textures. I would challenge you to see a huge difference in normal viewing distance (100% real size - not full view) between a 8K texture sword and a 2K texture sword, besides a big impact on your system resources :P

 

What im trying to say is - choose your textures wisely because picking the biggest one offered doesnt always equal the best choice.

Edited May 3, 2013 by prod80

[prod80]

As actually to the topic... you need another video card to run all those things you describe, and definitely 2GB version (dont go 1GB, youll be sorry sooner or later).

 

If you absolutely without a doubt want to know if your videocard is the thing holding you back then you can try this;

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15123

Download, install, run it with ENB (see readme on how to configure it... you have to proxy your DLL (very easy, dont worry :p)

 

In game you press * to see your FPS as ENB does

Now press and hold U or O (50% and 33% resolution) on your keyboard to go for a lower quality... if your FPS goes UP then your game is Video card limited. If nothing changes then it's either CPU limited or CPU and video card limited (cant say - it doesnt show CPU usage).

 

HTH

[Werne]

@prod80 Yeah well, I didn't have my coffee yet so I understood half the post wrong. :P That program basically reduces the size if the texture is larger than 2048 I believe (never used it). I modify all textures manually using GIMP so I choose the size I want based on what it's being used for.

 

And it's quadrupling but my brain wasn't functioning. Anything larger than 2K is pretty much useless in my opinion (except for dragons and big things), unless it's a 2560x1600 screen like on Mac. There's pretty much no difference between 2K and 4K on a 1080 screen, I know that when I render a model in Blender on 1920x1080 it makes no difference between them. 8K is only useful in huge 3D renders like 10000x5000 but it still has no use in a game.

 

 

 

 

@Envyjapan Like prod80 said, you need a new graphics card with at least 2GB if you intends to use both HD textures and an ENB, checked on how high can the clocks be upped on 5800 series and it seems the boost ain't much on a single card. I also highly doubt the CPU is limiting performance, I can reach 50FPS+ on a C2D E4500 @2.83GHz in Skyrim when I drop to 33% with HiAlgo Boost, a Core i5 @2.67Ghz should mop the floor with it.

 

I'd say one of the GTX 600 series or AMD 7000 series cards should be enough for Skyrim the way you want it and future games. The other option is to put in another same card in crossfire if you got a PCI-E port to spare and up the clocks on both, it might be cheaper than just getting a new single card but you'd have to upgrade it sooner than a single, powerful one, especially for new games. It's all a matter of how much money you can spare for a new card, both ATI 7K and Nvidia 600 series cards are quite expensive.

[Envyjapan]

Thank you very much! I will not try to overclock my card, too risky and I'm not that comfortable with that.

Actually you helped me a lot, I thought it was a RAM problem.

I will change my graphic card then.

 

Again, thank you ! =)