Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: PC Performance, Benchmarked

[assassin123]

hmmmmmmmmmmmm. it look like a quite nice game i think its graphics intensive game

 

[Headspin_69]

[citation][nom]noodletoe[/nom]Headspin - did you even click on Cleeve's link or just going by your vast experience - how is the 955 not bottlenecking SC2? Is 39fps vs 28.5fps considered menial to you? In GPU dependant games the 955 may not be the bottleneck, but in other games they will benefit from better CPU's. Time to go back to school... you're not maxing out SC2 at 60fps so we can't really take anything you say as fact...[/citation]
I don't play SC2 and never will have the urge to play star craft because for me Company of Hero's FTW! and the games that I play are all extremely playable mostly @ 60fps locked LOL.

 

[stereopsis]

Ihave a 6870 and am having no issues at all. In the last 20hrs of gameplay the game crashed to the desktop 3 times. That's not so bad. And the game is awesome

 

[stereopsis]

Its about gameplay, immersion, atmosphere, that's where the game really shines.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Headspin_69[/nom]I don't play SC2 and never will have the urge to play star craft because for me Company of Hero's FTW! and the games that I play are all extremely playable mostly @ 60fps locked LOL.[/citation]

OK, but did you see the Skyrim CPU results? You must have... you commented on them. Even the 3.5 GHz Phenom II X4 struggled to get 29 FPS minimum/46 AVG, while the Sandy Bridge i5-2500K got 33/54 FPS at 3.0 GHz... that's 500 MHz slower. Surely you must recognize the significance of that when we're talking about CPU bottlenecks. We're not bouncing off 60 FPS here, the minimums are very important because that's where you see the slowdowns.

You also must realize that there are a number of games that the 955 is limited with, and that games are trending more CPU intensive in general.... the 955 is no longer the gaming beast it once was, but Sandy Bridge is very impressive.

 

[Headspin_69]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]OK, but did you see the Skyrim CPU results? You must have... you commented on them. Even the 3.5 GHz Phenom II X4 struggled to get 29 FPS minimum/46 AVG, while the Sandy Bridge i5-2500K got 33/54 FPS at 3.0 GHz... that's 500 MHz slower. Surely you must recognize the significance of that when we're talking about CPU bottlenecks. We're not bouncing off 60 FPS here, the minimums are very important because that's where you see the slowdowns.You also must realize that there are a number of games that the 955 is limited with, and that games are trending more CPU intensive in general.... the 955 is no longer the gaming beast it once was, but Sandy Bridge is very impressive.[/citation]
I am seeing in Skyrim with Ultra settings minus FXAA @ 1680x1050 35 to 60fps with the lowest framrates being when in towns of 25fps for a split second when looking in a certain direction however the game is very playable and in RPGs I do not mind playing @ under 60 fps and 95% of time I am hovering solidly in the 35 to 50 fps range. In the near future I will end up with i5 2500k when 2011 forces its price down some more.

 

[Headspin_69]

[citation][nom]Headspin_69[/nom]I am seeing in Skyrim with Ultra settings minus FXAA @ 1680x1050 35 to 60fps with the lowest framrates being when in towns of 25fps for a split second when looking in a certain direction however the game is very playable and in RPGs I do not mind playing @ under 60 fps and 95% of time I am hovering solidly in the 35 to 50 fps range. In the near future I will end up with i5 2500k when 2011 forces its price down some more.[/citation]
Oh ya I am OCed to 4.0ghz

 

[LongLiveRock1974]

[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Was vsync enabled or disabled for this test?I think Skyrim enables it by default and you have to either turn it off in an .ini file or force it off with the graphics driver.[/citation]

He said on page 1 or 2 they added a command line to the skyrim.ini file to disable the vsync.

 

[cleeve]

I am seeing in Skyrim with Ultra settings minus FXAA @ 1680x1050 35 to 60fps with the lowest framrates being when in towns of 25fps for a split second when looking in a certain direction however the game is very playable and in RPGs I do not mind playing @ under 60 fps and 95% of time I am hovering solidly in the 35 to 50 fps range. In the near future I will end up with i5 2500k when 2011 forces its price down some more.

Well, you're essentially validating what I've said in the first place, which is: that 25 minimum you're seeing on your oc'd 4 GHz Phenom II would be a 45 FPS minimum on a 4 GHz i5-2500K.

 

[psiboy]

Hi Don, Great article just one thing I must question... where is the Radeon 6950 1gb ... given Tom's recent article about it being the sweet spot (and as an owner) why the oversight?

 

[cleeve]

Hi Don, Great article just one thing I must question... where is the Radeon 6950 1gb ... given Tom's recent article about it being the sweet spot (and as an owner) why the oversight?

Not an oversight, simply didn't have time to bench all of the cards I'd have liked in the short time we had access to the game before launch.

The good news is, it's easy to extrapolate:
We've shown you 6850 and 6970 performance, the 6950 1GB will be between the two, closer to the 6970.

 

[THEfog101]

Everybody does know that if it uses anything like oblivion configuration file you can force the game to utilize more threads with a spread over more cores? Sure, its not native. Still better than nothing. Hopefully i can push my Core 2 Quad @ 3.5 On Ultra With a few tweaks. Bit of a shame that there was no GTX560Ti Benchmarking, although from the results it looks like an Overclocked 560Ti Shouldn't have to much of a problem at Ultra.

 

[Headspin_69]

[citation][nom]THEfog101[/nom]Everybody does know that if it uses anything like oblivion configuration file you can force the game to utilize more threads with a spread over more cores? Sure, its not native. Still better than nothing. Hopefully i can push my Core 2 Quad @ 3.5 On Ultra With a few tweaks. Bit of a shame that there was no GTX560Ti Benchmarking, although from the results it looks like an Overclocked 560Ti Shouldn't have to much of a problem at Ultra.[/citation]
GTX 275 on Ultra no problem

 

[Guest]

Ok either I am missing something here that the game does or the figures above....

So Here is my laptop's specs that I used to check this game out

Dell XPS 1640

Processor: Centrino C2D 2.4Ghz
RAM: 4GB DDR3
GPU: ATi Mobility Radeon 4670

While the game picks out High settings by default, I maxed everything out manually in the options menu from launchers except keeping Shadows at High (instead of Ultra) and AA at 4x (instead of 8x). ticked the FXAA option too.

So I run the game at Ultra with 1920x1080 with 16xAF, 4xAA/FXAA and the experience was SMOOTH, no choppiness whatsoever, implying that I am getting a good 30 FPS at least.

Now I dont know if the game changes settings automatically and ovverrides them manually but if not the results dont seem to agree with above analysis, clearly both my processor and GPU are inferior than those Desktop rigs tested above.

Can anybody explain?

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]bethrezan[/nom]Can anybody explain?[/citation]

That's easy! Isolate the variables:

1. You have not benchmarked it. 'Experience' and 'implications' aren't' valid data.

2. What area were you in? We try to benchmark the worst case scenario, where you will see the most slowdowns. Any graphics card can get 60+ FPS staring at a wall, but you want to know how it performs when things get hard because that's where you notice slowdowns. We took our benchmarks walking through the town of Riverwood.

3. You altered individual detail settings. To compare with our numbers,variables must be the same: use the Ultra setting with 16x AF, 4x AA, and FXAA. Don't customize the shadow setting, leave everything as it is when you select Ultra.

So, do this, benchmark a walk through Riverwood using FRAPS and we'll have some numbers we can compare!

 

[Headspin_69]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]That's easy! Isolate the variables:1. You have not benchmarked it. 'Experience' and 'implications' aren't' valid data.2. What area were you in? We try to benchmark the worst case scenario, where you will see the most slowdowns. Any graphics card can get 60+ FPS staring at a wall, but you want to know how it performs when things get hard because that's where you notice slowdowns. We took our benchmarks walking through the town of Riverwood.3. You altered individual detail settings. To compare with our numbers,variables must be the same: use the Ultra setting with 16x AF, 4x AA, and FXAA. Don't customize the shadow setting, leave everything as it is when you select Ultra.So, do this, benchmark a walk through Riverwood using FRAPS and we'll have some numbers we can compare![/citation]
My friend whom runs a GTX 570 and Phenom 9750 2.5ghz Fail CPU gets unplayable performance on ultra 1080p whereas my rig with GTX 275 and Phenom II 955 3.8ghz I am seeing very playable over 30fps gameplay on Ultra @ 1680x1050

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Headspin_69[/nom]My friend whom runs a GTX 570 and Phenom 9750 2.5ghz Fail CPU gets unplayable performance on ultra 1080p whereas my rig with GTX 275 and Phenom II 955 3.8ghz I am seeing very playable over 30fps gameplay on Ultra @ 1680x1050[/citation]

Interesting!

What does that have to do with my quote?

 

[Headspin_69]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Interesting! What does that have to do with my quote?[/citation]
It has everything to do with this whole article this game seems heavily CPU dependent which would be why a GTX 570 gets less performance out of Skyrim than a rig with far less powerful GPU but far more powerful CPU and I think the guy with the laptop is confused as to what most people accept as playable framreates LOL.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Headspin_69[/nom]It has everything to do with this whole article this game seems heavily CPU dependent which would be why a GTX 570 gets less performance out of Skyrim than a rig with far less powerful GPU but far more powerful CPU and I think the guy with the laptop is confused as to what most people accept as playable framreates LOL.[/citation]

Ah, I gotcha. Just didn't see the connection in that particular reply.

 

[Guest]

Oh no, it feels like playing Oblivion again! Good thing i havent played it! Newbies get their perks.

 

[Guest]

Well, now I now what a two generation ago card will do.... great.

 

[kjsfnkwl]

That's exactly what the goal of Dragon Age 2 should have been: to take a great game, and make it better. I wanted to feel like I was playing a game just like Origins, but better. There isn't a think about Skyrim that disappoints me. Bethesda really delivered.

 

[The Halo Don]

Cant wait to test it out on my rig

 

[spp85]

Wow AMD Radeon HD 5770 still rocks and the newer Geforce GTX 550Ti Sucks

 

[Headspin_69]

[citation][nom]spp85[/nom]Wow AMD Radeon HD 5770 still rocks and the newer Geforce GTX 550Ti Sucks[/citation]
Ya the Radeon 5 series where really great cards Nvida 580 is the only good card and its over priced but the only one that pushed ahead the performance bar while Radeon HD 5870 is still trading blows with the Nvidia GTX 570 however the GTX 570 to its credit lowered the buy in price to high performance graphics.