Damn skyrim specs

As most of you know Skyrim is coming, many of us are excited. I timed my PC re-build for the release.
Also as many of you know I have just upgraded my PC to an X6 and 8GB of RAM, ready for this game.

I just looked up the specs.

Or higher????....... OR HIGHER?????..... man the 1 piece of my PC I felt safe with for a while and it's now listed as needing to be higher to be on the safe side! :mad
I cannot believe my card is listed as the "Minimum" required for recommended specs.
My card has held everything and anything, nothing been released it cannot handle with ease.... now Skyrim is about to finally put her to the test.
While I relish this opportunity too start jack-clocking the crap out of my card and see how she does... this is a double edge sword because it means my card is becoming out dated

So I think after xmas the search will begin for another Sapphire Radeon HD4890 vapor X 2GB (just in case any of you come across one lol) card so I can x-fire them.... wooo mama could you imagine 2 of those x-fired :strong

But still.... DAMN you Skyrim for setting new benchmarks!

Well you know what... in the spirit of true gamers I say...... Skyrim.... Just bring it! :strong

 

Hehehe Ned(that's gotta hurt!), a 2 year old good GPU card bites the dust. It's always the same, new hardware comes out and the programmers go nuts seeing new possibilities thereby making previous hardware obsolete. That's just normal really. However, I'd sell that card instead and get a 68xx or 69xx. Ya ya I know more money but that's gaming and comes with the territory. It is really sad, so have a Loonie/Twonie jar handy and you'll get a new card quickly.

For those that are confused by my Loonie/Twonie remark, they are our one and two dollar coins respectively. Pocket puff these days.:-D

 

My tower actually sits right at the recommended specs. I am very badly tempted to buy a GPU upgrade for my husband for our anniversary, and then get him Skyrim for Christmas. I have no interest in Skyrim at all, but that combination sounds like the sort of thing he'd enjoy.

 

@Auggie...Well realistically speaking, my card is still a heavyweight in the GPU world and as I said I still havn't ever needed to clock it up, I did a couple of quick tests this morning and produced approx 15% more power, both clock and mem speed while retaining stability.... but that was a quick test lol

Looking at the newer cards the only real thing that stands out from mine is the Stream Processors, while mine sits at 860 (I think) the high end newer ones sit at 12-1400 yet core clocks are a very small increase , same with mem clocks.

I wish I could find some proper benchmark comparisons for my card, it seems right from release it was a rare card and early on way too expensive for most people.

So while Stream processors are important.... how much real difference would 3-400 extra make while retaining the same core and mem clocks?

Whatever happens, to out perform my card I am looking at $280 minimum.... that will have to wait, I just dropped a grand lol

I guess all thats left is to see what happens when Skyrim runs.

@Mimsy.... oh wow will you be in the good books, he's probably only expecting a tie :-D

 

Wow, I'll have to put you in touch with my wife! :cool

 

I have ordered Skyrim! :major

I ordered the Collectors Edition for PC from Amazon, because the dragon statue that comes with it is just the sort of thing he would love, and I have conspired with his sister so I can have Amazon ship the order to her house, so The Guy won't ever suspect what I'm ordering for him. Muahaha. LOL

Now, I need to go to Newegg and research the video card sales. The one we have now is sadly incapable of Dx 11, so we obviously need to upgrade. Ati or nVidia... decisions, decisions... :-D

 

OK, I'm sure you're just doing this to make me envious.

I'm sure the socks I get for Christmas will be just as good as Skyrim and or any hardware update. My socks might even have reinforced heels. :cool

I'll post a pic of my socks when I get them and I'm guessing Mr. Mimsy will be super jealouse...:drool

Ask him to post a pic of himself playing Skyrim with his new card and I'll try to post a pic of me wearing my socks (not just my socks for obvious reasons).

 

Because you figure you'll get a tie as well? :-D

I havn't pre-ordered it yet, for some reason I have it in my head that steam will put it on half price the day before release , I just hope I don't miss it and steam run out of stock :-D

 

It's here... the time is now.... the game... is on :strong

Got my pre-load and there it sits, the word "Play" just wanting to be clicked.
But I'm not going to, not until Saturday night (the start of my week off work :-D )

 

OK, we'll see you next weekend then.:-D

 

:-D

Just fired her up just to have a look, it's very purdy, it automatically set the specs to "Very High" and runs very smooth (well only watched the intro and then walked around a little)

Dammit, now it's very tempting to call in sick :-D

"Yeah I can't come in today, I have Skyrimitis, it's very contagious" :-D

 

Be brave Ned. Congrats on the card as I'm sure that you'll enjoy it, at least 'til the next 'bump' in specs.:-D

 

Ok so now I'm a "Couple" of hours in and have played with settings a bit... read that as rammed them straight up to max :-D

On the default settings I was getting 35+ FPS , when I turned it up I was still getting great frame rates but it would trip and stutter when busy, so I jacked my card to core 915mhz and 1115 on the ram clock. Set the fan to manual 80%.

Now I'm getting a clean 28-45 FPS 98% of the time and GPU temp has yet to breach 64C.
I get a few minor frame drops when in well lit caves with lots of movement but nothing you really notice.

Otherwise it's running pretty damn nicely.

So panic over :-D

For those wanting to run it on max spec. This is me..

AMD Phenom x6 1100T
8GB GSkill Ripjaw 1600mhz
ATI Sappire HD4890 2GB

The CPU and RAM are not even feeling it but as this thread explains , the GPU needs overclocking to run it maxed with good FPS.

By the way, the game is.....Oblivion but prettier and better in so many ways

 

Hi Ned

Playing Skyrim on a 5850 and then a 6870 I think you are missing the most critical aspect about the model revisions (upgrades)....

The GPU Architecture went from 49xx series to DX11.....new boundaries....from 5xxx series to 3D (6xxx). Although the 49xx may crank a "LOT" more FPS on games of that era and look a LOT better than a 5850 (for that ERA)....it begins to pale on newer "graphical rendering models". Great card for games of that era.....we can lament and curse our loses and persist with something that "isn't quite rendering the potential output".

Buy current "mid-range" stay abreast of gaming and try to minimise loss.

 

I have read a few comments about this exact thing, not sure what I'm missing though because in the past couple of weeks I've run Skyrim, BF3, MW3 and Crysis all 100% maxed out. Oddly enough Crysis was the hardest to run with later levels dropping to the occasional 18fps.
MW3 I run at 60fps solid, BF3 I get 35-50.
Are newer cards running it better than that?
Again everything I've read about DX11 says there is little to no difference.

I will be upgrading even though I want to keep my card forever because it's my baby, but next card would have to be bare minimum 6790.
I can't convince myself to spend money on a card even with new architecture that only just tops my card on the numbers, especially when it's 128bit.
I do need to look into all this again and relearn it AGAIN lol

Thanks for the info, put a couple of new thoughts in my head... :-D

@gloozit... It's not a marketing ploy to make you buy new hardware, it's us gamers screaming for more prettyness, Skyrim will actually run on a somewhat lower end PC. I don't want to say you can run it for sure but your numbers suggest you can (albeit probably not very nicely)

goto www.canirunit.com

While I take what they say with a heafty does of salt one thing it does tell you acurately is pixel and vertex shaders, when it's down to these you either have the requirements or you don't, there's no "It might run", it either will or it wont.

Post a screen shot of the results.

There's also another website that does the same thing that Mimsy uses, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is.

The 512mb of GRAM is a little missleading, my old 512mb ATI card wouldn't even fire this game I'm sure, but then I know of some that would run it fine.

 

Personally I hate hearing it "won't do it" "it can't" until I have tried. We live in a world of Designed consumption. Where am I heading? You the reader!

These links are good for "baselines":

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/131

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/132

 

I just checked over at nVidia for Skyrim needs. My GTX260 is just fine according to them. Really?:confused

 

I got a GTX 570 to go with Skyrim. Since we celebrate Christmas on the 24th in Sweden I plan to give him the video card on Christmas Eve, and Skyrim when we have the big celebration with family on the 25th.

 

You'll never see him again!:-D

 

That's why she's not letting him have it on the 24th, otherwise he would suddenly develope Skyrimitis :-D

 

You mean if you were given a new video card you'd let it sit for a couple of days, just because you don't have a new game for it? Silly Ned.

He's in the other room, playing Deux Ex HR with the new card.

 

My wife bought me an AMD 6950 2gig to coincide with her giving me skyrim for Xmas.

Good thing my son already helped me build my 6 core gaming system at fathers day.

And now im reading that Bethesda updated skyrim for the pc to utilize 4 gig of ram.

I have 8.

Life is GOOOOOOD.

Now ill just save up 300 and get an additional 6950 to Xfire.

heh

 

Nice gaming machine man!:drool

 

The 570 runs Skyrim very well. The Guy threw a dozen or so graphics-improvement mods on the game, loaded it up, switched to Dx11, and maxed everything out. And then he purred. LOL

 

It's pretty.

Just because I never had an excuse to play with the screenshot ability before.

 

lmao I have taken soooo many screenies of Skyrim, just because either the coolest or the weirdest things can, WILL happen frequently :-D