Skyrim with much lower fps than predicted...

[Guinibee]

I was reading tom's article about Skyrim and I'm getting much lower fps than I figured.

My specs:
GTX 570
6GB DDR2 ram
Q8400 Intel at 2.7ghz

When just looking around the outside world on ultra settings with everything maxed it's like high 20s low 30s for fps. If I drop it to "high" settings default I get around 40s for looking around outside world. Toms had measured 40s for minimum running on ultra and 60s for average.

I also just got the newest nvidia beta driver so that can't be the issue either....

Now the big thing is that toms had a 2500k whereas I'm using my couple years old Q8400 with DDR2 ram. Is this game that heavy on cpu? I mean my cpu is old but not crazy old...I can run BF3 on ultra everything for around 30-50 fps.

Let me know what you guys think. I was planning on upgrading around Black Friday if some sales come out, otherwise I was going to upgrade anyway, but I want to know if maybe I'm doing something wrong ahead of time. I don't mind playing on high for the time being but I want to be sure I'm not missing things.

Thank You

 

[crewton]

The i5 2500k stock is 3.3 with a 3.7 turbo. Your cores are running 1Ghz behind it so that could easily be the difference in the performance. The game does seem to be more cpu dependent than graphics.

 

[AntiZig]

^ +1. when reading the article do pay attention to what their hardware is and what the reviewer says about the differences. Having a beast GPU is not key for this game, it's optimized for dual core and is very heavily dependent on CPU rather than GPU.

 

[Guinibee]

Best answer selected by Guinibee.

 

[Guinibee]

yeah I figured as much...I just wanted to put my doubts to rest

well I guess I'll be playing on high for the time being...still looks great on high...

quick question though what specific settings can I put down to gain a lot of fps? I'd like to go mostly high-ultra if possible...

 

[tjosborne]

lower draw distance a little, shadows at high and lower AA by 1 it should run alot better

 

[Guinibee]

lower draw distance a little, shadows at high and lower AA by 1 it should run alot better

as in draw distance which of those settings specifically? I heard the grass detail helps but any other specific ones or just a little of all of them?

 

[johndud]

im having trouble playing this game on all medium settings, playing on a nvidia gtx 550 ti 1 gb, can anyone give me some advice on overclocking my processor to play this game better?? thank u in advance!

hp amd phenom six core processor 1045 t
nvidia gtx 550 ti 1 gb
corsair gs 600 watt pwr supply

 

[tjosborne]

@Guinibee
lower them all a little
@johndud
read overclocking forums here, do a little research