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also @ TechSpot: Building a Thin Mini-ITX PC: Small and Silent Performance
Based on early estimates, Skyrim has shipped seven million copies worldwide across all platforms, including digital stores such as Steam. During a peak hour last Monday, Valve's platform alone recorded some 287,000 Skyrim players -- greater than the combined peak activity of MW3, Counter-Strike, Football Manger 2012 and Team Fortress 2.
We usually don't open our performance reviews with sales figures, but we felt compelled to illustrate the magnitude of Skyrim's launch because role-playing games rarely garner this type of attention. Although its popularity is undoubtedly aided by the cult-like status of the Elder Scrolls franchise, Skyrim isn't just a clone of its predecessors (we're looking at you MW3). Bethesda has made many gameplay refinements, especially to the graphics and animations -- our area of interest.
While it may not bring your PC to its knees, Skyrim promises to be the best-looking Elder Scrolls title to date with its newly developed game engine, called the "Creation Engine."
Read the complete performance review.
User Comments: 48
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Great review but you have the charts listed as Battlefield 3
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Staff
No, we don't... wait, yea fixed! Thanks.
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Xclusiveitalian said:
Hmm I play on maximum (Ultra) in 1900 by 1200 using a slightly overclocked 1GB 550Ti and my game runs fine... Am I missing something or is my 550Ti special?
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Nvidia's graphics cards seemed to perform much better, as the GTX 560 managed 89fps versus the HD 6850's 77fps.
Thats sort of a puzzling comment. The GTX 560 is $50.00 more than the 6850, and the 6850 passes up the 560 at higher resolution.
I also dont understand why you would be "disappointed" with the 6950 at $250 when the GTX 570 @ $350 is just 3 FPS faster in your benches.
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Arris said:
Also "Meanwhile, the more modern i5-2500K was sitting pretty with a respectable 67fps -- 1fps below the i7-2600K.". In the chart it's actually 67 vs 70, 3 fps (still not a lot) difference.
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spydercanopus said:
Running a single X5550, GTX480, and 6GB DDR3 run's amazingly smooth on max settings with FXAA. I was surprised. Going to add a second xeon, use GTX480 for physics, and buy a 680 soon as they come out for main 120fps display
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Interesting review, especialy with regards to CPU scaling.
However I'm a little confused with the high/ultra settings - I get different values when clicking on the presets, e.g. for ultra you have AA=4x and AF=0x but when I click on ultra I get AA=8x and AF=16x. Maybe this explains the drop off in image quality between high and ultra?
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StaffSteve said:
Hmm I play on maximum (Ultra) in 1900 by 1200 using a slightly overclocked 1GB 550Ti and my game runs fine... Am I missing something or is my 550Ti special?We got 55fps so I am not surprised.
Interesting review, especialy with regards to CPU scaling.However I'm a little confused with the high/ultra settings - I get different values when clicking on the presets, e.g. for ultra you have AA=4x and AF=0x but when I click on ultra I get AA=8x and AF=16x. Maybe this explains the drop off in image quality between high and ultra?
What version are you using?
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Hey Steve, I've got a few questions if you don't mind.
1) Are you testing with Vsync off? I've heard there are problems when not running with it off (physics problems apparently).
2) My game also defaults to Ultra with AA=8x. I have a 2500K + MSI 560Ti
3) I can't seem to get my games FPS above 60 FPS even with Vsync turned off. Not that I like VSYNC off as I hate the screen tearing, just thought it was curious.
4) I have a weird lag issue. The game runs perfectly outdoors, but sometimes while I am indoors (in a corridor or a room etc.) the FPS drops to 30 and I notice quite a bit of mouse lag. Very annoying and it doesn't really make sense as these indoor areas are definately less intensive than the outdoors ones (which run at a stable 60 FPS). Funny thing though is my GPU usage is always at close to 100%, maybe it has got something to do with FXAA or the shadows and the CPU?
5) Have you tried testing the game with FXAA on? I've turned it on an it makes a huge difference visually as foliage etc. is a lot less pixelly. U can turn it on in the options (in the launch screen).
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How do you enable maximum settings?
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I really enjoy these types of reviews. I've never seen another site that takes on a single game the way TechSpot does here. Good work, and thanks!
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okrings said:
I really enjoy these types of reviews. I've never seen another site that takes on a single game the way TechSpot does here. Good work, and thanks!
+1
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StaffSteve said:Hey Steve, I've got a few questions if you don't mind.
1) Are you testing with Vsync off? I've heard there are problems when not running with it off (physics problems apparently).
2) My game also defaults to Ultra with AA=8x. I have a 2500K + MSI 560Ti
3) I can't seem to get my games FPS above 60 FPS even with Vsync turned off. Not that I like VSYNC off as I hate the screen tearing, just thought it was curious.
4) I have a weird lag issue. The game runs perfectly outdoors, but sometimes while I am indoors (in a corridor or a room etc.) the FPS drops to 30 and I notice quite a bit of mouse lag. Very annoying and it doesn't really make sense as these indoor areas are definately less intensive than the outdoors ones (which run at a stable 60 FPS). Funny thing though is my GPU usage is always at close to 100%, maybe it has got something to do with FXAA or the shadows and the CPU?
5) Have you tried testing the game with FXAA on? I've turned it on an it makes a huge difference visually as foliage etc. is a lot less pixelly. U can turn it on in the options (in the launch screen).
1. Vsync has to be off to exceed 60fps so yes we were testing with it off, I noticed no problems.
2. Not sure why my ultra-settings were different, I was using the latest version at the time of testing.
3. You need to edit the config file to disable vsync.
4. A lot of people seem to think that has to do with the CPU, what CPU are you using? A dual-core?
5. Our maximum quality test uses FXAA.
How do you enable maximum settings?Manually turn everything up.
I really enjoy these types of reviews. I've never seen another site that takes on a single game the way TechSpot does here. Good work, and thanks!Thanks mate I am very happy you appreciate all our hard work.
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There's is definitely something off with the default settings for your copy of Skyrim. For example, my high settings include 8x AA and 8x AF by default (8x AA and 16x AF for Ultra). Also, it's very odd that your Ultra setting have all the options disabled for water textures. I think with the correct presets, Ultra will actual be the Max mode you test in this article (except for FXAA enabled I believe). A retest might be order to get relelvant results for Skyrim players. These presets are very different from the correct/normal presets.
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As a heads up,the ultra preset is broken in that it does not set some of your sliders to the max, like high does. This might explain the disparity between high and ultra. You have to manually change them.
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1. Vsync has to be off to exceed 60fps so yes we were testing with it off, I noticed no problems.
2. Not sure why my ultra-settings were different, I was using the latest version at the time of testing.
3. You need to edit the config file to disable vsync.
4. A lot of people seem to think that has to do with the CPU, what CPU are you using? A dual-core?
5. Our maximum quality test uses FXAA.
1. Yeah I know, which is why I find it weird that mine never went above 60. I have using the Steam version of the game btw.
2. Same here (I played over the weekend)
3. Yeah, I know. skyrim.ini I think it was...
4. Intel 2500K, non-overclocked. I haven't played with the settings much but it still seems very odd that this is only happening indoors...
5. Sorry, obv I never read through this portion closely enough :-p
Anyways, thanks for your great performance review. I always enjoy reading these :-)
I think I will look into overclocking my 2500K to 4.5Ghz (I have a decent aftermarket cooler so it shouldn't be a problem).
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Oh, one more thing. There are a few ini tweaks out there I think really are worth trying out. I'm interested in the following two:
1) The tree and small object shadows enabled option
2) The GrassStartFadeDistance option
The second one in particular looks very compelling as I've noticed that even on Ultra quality settings when looking out over distances the hills look very bland as the grass stops rendering at a certain point.
You can see the full thread I read here: [link]
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I am using an 460gtx with 8gig Ram and Core i3 cpu and i am having loads of trouble. Only having about 20-40 maybe sometimes up to 50 on low settings. Is something wrong?
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Cota said:
Guest said:I am using an 460gtx with 8gig Ram and Core i3 cpu and i am having loads of trouble. Only having about 20-40 maybe sometimes up to 50 on low settings. Is something wrong?
if you have a GeForce GTX 460"M" then your cards doesn't have the juice for it, else yes there's something fishy, I'm using a 5770 and runs "fine" but whit lots FPS drops.
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Sadly I have to run Skyrim on the lowest setting, it does run ok on a E8500 C2D, GTX8800 graphics card and 2 gigs of DDR2 ram. Only issue I get is sometimes in the outside world or right when I step into a new area the game with lock up for 5-10 secs then go back to normal. Twice I have had it completely lock up in the middle of larges fights and had to force quit the game
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Steve said:Interesting review, especialy with regards to CPU scaling.
However I'm a little confused with the high/ultra settings - I get different values when clicking on the presets, e.g. for ultra you have AA=4x and AF=0x but when I click on ultra I get AA=8x and AF=16x. Maybe this explains the drop off in image quality between high and ultra?
What version are you using?
The latest version. This is hardly the only bug in the game, let's hope they patch them soon.
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Your article really should detail exactly what constitutes "Max" settings.
If AA and AF can be set independently of the preset, how is it valid to test with AF on with High and off with Ultra?
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seeing as most people who buy this will have much poorer graphic cards than the ones tested there are going to be lots of frustrated people.
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Using both a GTX 580 and a 6970 (currently RMAing the GTX 580) I can say they both will run the game wonderful at 1920x1080/1200 with max quality.
The GTX 580 runs it a bit better than the 6970, but is also 150 dollars more and the difference seems negligible.
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Prosercunus said:
Using both a GTX 580 and a 6970 (currently RMAing the GTX 580) I can say they both will run the game wonderful at 1920x1080/1200 with max quality.
The GTX 580 runs it a bit better than the 6970, but is also 150 dollars more and the difference seems negligible.
Just what I wanted to here on a 920 @ 3.8ghz + 6950 @ 900/1325 with unlocked shaders.
I should be able to play at max at 1920x1200 based on these numbers.
I was also quite surprised at the speed difference in SB-E would love to see a Westmere chip thrown.
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