Can I run this heavily modded Skyrim on this PC?

[HagridPotterz]

Alright, so I'm planning on getting a new PC. Please no recommendations on different hardware, as I've already decided on this one. I'm really curious to see if I can run Skyrim with the following graphics mods: Nyclix's ENB ReShade, Enhanced Lighting and FX, Skyrim Flora Overhaul, Verdant Grass Plug In, Static Mesh Improvements, Nordic Snow, Gecko's 4K Textures, Simply Bigger Trees, HQ Tree Bark, Footprints, Wet and Cold, Osmoduis Textures, Realistic Water 2, and Matso's Immersive Sun. That's a lot of intense mods, but here's the problem. My (soon to be) PC specs:
X4 845 @3.5GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost)
GTX 1050 2GB GDDR5
8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM
Deepcool Captain 120X Liquid Cooler
Obviously the problem is the 2GB of VRAM on the GTX 1050. I just want to know if my PC can handle all these mods at a stable 30fps or higher. Sorry for the long post.

 

[superninja12]

the problem is not the 1050/


its that ridiculous water cooler with an athlon 845.

4k textures , no youre asking too much

 

[Jester Maroc]

It is hard to help if you do not want advice on what I agree with ^ Ninja is a "ridiculous" build considering the cost of the Liquid Cooler and the age and performance of the CPU.

 

[Sylvvester]

I used to run many of those mods on i7-4790K and GTX 970 and got 40-50 fps @ 1080p, so I highly doubt you will be able to get 30+ with those specs that have about half the power.

 

[DSzymborski]

Alright, so I'm planning on getting a new PC. Please no recommendations on different hardware, as I've already decided on this one. I'm really curious to see if I can run Skyrim with the following graphics mods: Nyclix's ENB ReShade, Enhanced Lighting and FX, Skyrim Flora Overhaul, Verdant Grass Plug In, Static Mesh Improvements, Nordic Snow, Gecko's 4K Textures, Simply Bigger Trees, HQ Tree Bark, Footprints, Wet and Cold, Osmoduis Textures, Realistic Water 2, and Matso's Immersive Sun. That's a lot of intense mods, but here's the problem. My (soon to be) PC specs:
X4 845 @3.5GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost)
GTX 1050 2GB GDDR5
8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM
Deepcool Captain 120X Liquid Cooler
Obviously the problem is the 2GB of VRAM on the GTX 1050. I just want to know if my PC can handle all these mods at a stable 30fps or higher. Sorry for the long post.

If you've already decided on the hardware (very strange build, but whatever), then the answer is no. Skyrim graphic mods can up the requirements needed to make it playable very quickly and you're wanting to use a lot of heavy graphic mods on entry-level parts.

 

[HagridPotterz]

Ok, so its clear that I would need a different build. Would an i5 2320, 8GB of RAM, and a GTX 760 4GB work? None of the liquid cooling BTW, just air cooling. Oh, and I'll be playing at 1440x900. I know that the 760 is a bit less powerful than the 1050, but is does have 4GB VRAM (unsure if the 760 can utilize it all) and I've got a fairly low resolution as well.

 

[DSzymborski]

Ok, so its clear that I would need a different build. Would an i5 2320, 8GB of RAM, and a GTX 760 4GB work? None of the liquid cooling BTW, just air cooling. Oh, and I'll be playing at 1440x900. I know that the 760 is a bit less powerful than the 1050, but is does have 4GB VRAM (unsure if the 760 can utilize it all) and I've got a fairly low resolution as well.

If you're playing at 900p, you can pretty much ditch half those mods, many of which won't make much of a difference at that low resolution. In which case you'd probably be OK. But again, loading a ton of graphic mods can really change the realistic system requirements of Skyrim - if you're truly intent on using this many mods, I'd want to be at least in the 970/1060/RX 480 range.

 

[HagridPotterz]

Perhaps I'll get a 1680x1050 monitor. Will the 760 still be decent with those mods at 1050p? Oh, and Ideally I would like to have a 970, but I don't think it's possible ATM. Thanks for the help by the way.

 

[Karadjgne]

Skyrim is heavily dependent on single thread IPC, which means anything AMD pre-Ryzen suffers horribly in the fps department. Once you add mods, it only gets worse as those mods are highly cpu bound, with comparatively little affect on the gpu.
My skyrim runs over 130 mods, all of which are 2k,4k or 8k, and that includes flora/fauna (huge cpu hits there) cities, characters etc with an enb. I run a i7-3770k at 4.9GHz and a gtx970 (124% OC) and get consistent 60fps at 1080p with all settings maxed except for I don't use the 4k DSR (much of the in-game text becomes far too small to effectively read).
Your issues won't be with the gpu, that's more than good enough for anything skyrim at 1080p, the issue will be with the cpu. Modded Skyrim is simply one of those games that needs the IPC of Intel cpu's or a Ryzen. And not the little Intels either. The faster the processor, the better skyrim is.

 

[HagridPotterz]

Yes, I've heard that AMD CPUs don't play well with open world games such as Skyrim. Sorry for all the questions, but would an i5 2300 and a GTX 760 4GB or GTX 950 2GB fare well in Skyrim with those mods installed? And should I go with the 760 or the 950? They are identical in performance, but the 950 is much more power efficient, though the 760 has 4GB of VRAM while the 950 only has 2, which will limit modding potential likely.
EDIT: Alternatively I will consider the GTX 1050Ti. It's slightly better than the 960 and has 4GB VRAM. I think it will utilize the VRAM better than the 760 as well. What do you think?

 

[92hatchattack]

To the OP.... Why don't you tell the kind people here what kind of budget you are working with? There are a lot of very smart people here that may be able to help you get the most for your money if you are willing to listen to their advice.

 

[Karadjgne]

I can run skyrim on a gtx660ti on 1080p, with about 70 or so mods, but no enb, and run it at ultra, but that's with an i5-3570k at 4.3GHz. The 760 will be fine if you keep mods limited to the 4k range, but that's not going to be the issue, the cpu is. Almost all skyrim mods are very high intensive cpu, more so than gpu, the more mods, the stronger the cpu needs to be or you start loosing fps fast. So buy the strongest Intel cpu you can, then worry about the gpu. And no, the i5-2320 doesn't cut it at all with modded skyrim. Figure an i5-3570 as a minimum.

 

[HagridPotterz]

Hey Karadjgne, I have decided on an i5 3470 and RX 460 2GB. The 3570 is about 5% better than the 3470, so I'm fine with the CPU. The RX 460 is a bit better than the 660Ti, so do you think I'll be fine playing at 1440x900 with all those mods installed? And what frames do you expect me to get, based on your FPS?

 

[Karadjgne]

Depending on the mods, flora/fauna and cities can be hard on the cpu, you'll most probably be getting ultra and a solid 60fps or pretty close.

 

[HagridPotterz]

Thanks for the help! And would using a 1680x1050 monitor drop the FPS significantly? If it's around 45-60fps at 1050p then I'll get a 1050p monitor, as I found one for $10.

 

[Karadjgne]

1050p won't be an issue, honestly 1080p wouldn't be a problem. What I mean with solid 60fps is that on the lower resolutions, you'll exceed 60fps,but the monitor will cap you at 60. You might see the occasional 57 or such. It really does depend highly on what mods you use. If it's just a bunch of armor/weapon/character etc then that's child's play, very different to weather or flora.

Definitely use NMM and LooT though if you have close to my count, even adding 1 mod for me now gets problematic as there's so many chances for conflict.

 

[HagridPotterz]

Thanks for the help! I'll be getting this PC very soon. And I'll be using NMM and LooT as well.

 

[Karadjgne]

Best skyrim mod : Better Vampires. Does have some considerations, like list placement and some conflicts with other mods, but many of them are patched. I'm currently waiting on skse64 to finalize, it's responsible for more than a few mods working right, ones I really do not want to eliminate from the list, so I haven't touched my skyrim since it swapped to the 64 platform.

 

[Karadjgne]

Best skyrim mod : Better Vampires. Does have some considerations, like list placement and some conflicts with other mods, but many of them are patched. I'm currently waiting on skse64 to finalize, it's responsible for more than a few mods working right, ones I really do not want to eliminate from the list, so I haven't touched my skyrim since it swapped to the 64 platform.

 

[HagridPotterz]

Heard a lot about Better Vampires, is it on SSE? If so, I may get it.

 

[Karadjgne]

I do believe that it is. I'm just really attached to SkyUI, skyrim just isn't the same without it. I also use skeleton mods for body characteristics, kill moves, running, dual wield etc and especially to put just the right curves on females and companions, and much of that relies on skse64 release. For original skyrim, that's all done, so no issues with any mods there, but skse64 is what's needed for the skyrim SSE, so I'm stuck waiting.

You'll need to be careful with SSE mods, make sure they are viable, I've seen some that are just ported over, but no consideration for skse (does not work with 64bit skyrim) so you'll get conflicts.

 

[HagridPotterz]

Yeah, I'm waiting desperately for SKSE64. It's a requirement for so many mods on Oldrim, I'm hoping it'll come soon, hopefully in a couple of months. I never used SkyUI myself, never had the need for it, I think the vanilla UI is actually quite good.

 

[Karadjgne]

SkyUI is great. It has switches! Many of the better, more complex mods will have SkyUI tie-ins, and you'll be able to add/subtract certain parts of the mods. It'll also adjust the way your inventory shows, so instead of seeing 20 listings for the same armor, you'll see armor (20) etc. It's also tailorable, so you can change the fonts a little, change the compass bar to show or not show certain things. If you've never used it before, sorry, you are missing out.

 

[HagridPotterz]

Hm. I'll check it out tomorrow. I have nothing against it, but I think the vanilla HUD is good enough, I will install it and check it out though. Thanks for the heads up! Lots of mods depend on it as well, it'd be good to have it.