OFFICIAL Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim (Discussion)

[ViperXTR]

oh yeah, forgot about that hehe. It takes a toll on my older 9600GT tho XD
Quarl's hi res texture pack was more than enough for me that time, plus some decent magic effects (magic effects are really pathetic looking in oblivion lol), stealth mods, , martigen's monster mod, no psychic guard mods and several dozens of mods (i think i was running around/at least a hundred at that time D: )

 

[Darkleoco]

Can anyone in here who has been doing heavy texture modding give me their avg fps? I am curious what other people are getting who have done extensive modding since I can't seem to get a 100% constant 60 fps yet.

 

[pantherx12]

Can anyone in here who has been doing heavy texture modding give me their avg fps? I am curious what other people are getting who have done extensive modding since I can't seem to get a 100% constant 60 fps yet.

That's probably due to CPU bottle neck not because of textures.

In some places I get 120 + fps.

In other areas I only get 30.

 

[Velvet Wafer]

its a tree from the flora overhaul pack, looks amazing in my opinion, much better than vanilla

 

[Darkleoco]

I highly doubt a 2600K at 4.4 Ghz is going to be bottlenecking anything, my lowest fps is around 37-40 and I have v-sync enabled as well so I wouldn't exceed 60 anyway, I get 60 fps very often I am just looking to never drop below it for any reason.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

yes it does bottleneck,

i dont care what you think the 2600k at 4.4 will do the games limited in alot of ways,

460 sli only as fast as a 6850 single etc common denominator in every system is cpu,

I have a 2500k at 4.4ghz its not enough, its not maxing the cpu because of coding bottlenecks within the game engine itself,

If your CPU was enough then FPS wouldnt increase in a linear line with CPU speed, cores dont matter. on clock speed and even at 5ghz it wont be enough in some cases. depending on the mod or tweaks.

 

[Darkleoco]

yes it does bottleneck,

i dont care what you think the 2600k at 4.4 will do the games limited in alot of ways,

460 sli only as fast as a 6850 single etc common denominator in every system is cpu,

I have a 2500k at 4.4ghz its not enough, its not maxing the cpu because of coding bottlenecks within the game engine itself,

If your CPU was enough then FPS wouldnt increase in a linear line with CPU speed, cores dont matter. on clock speed and even at 5ghz it wont be enough in some cases. depending on the mod or tweaks.

http://static.techspot.com/articles-info/467/bench/CPU_1.png

Would I be better off saying forget the extra heat/voltage and try to stabilize my CPU at something higher then? I get good FPS everywhere this is just one of those things that starts to nag after awhile

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

its all cpu for the performance drops

if you want a free 20% grab Sandybridge E

Apparently memory bandwidth of Sandybridge E helps as well

 

[Darkleoco]

its all cpu for the performance drops

if you want a free 20% grab Sandybridge E

Apparently memory bandwidth of Sandybridge E helps as well
http://static.techspot.com/articles-info/467/bench/CPU_2.png

You seem to be using the term free very loosely right their

And sorry to ask a stupid question but is their any hope of them improving some of the coding within the game engine or are we simply SOL in that department?

 

[jonathan1107]

I feel you Darkleoco, I've been trying everything with my rig to get a solid 60 FPS... But to be honnest, I think the only way to achieve this right now, is to lower shadow settings to almost nothing... maybe even turn it off...

That will give you your 60fps pretty sure... But yeah, I'm a perfectionnist too, and I hate when I can't get a solid 60 FPS or at least a very solid 50FPS for that matter...

 

[Darkleoco]

I feel you Darkleoco, I've been trying everything with my rig to get a solid 60 FPS... But to be honnest, I think the only way to achieve this right now, is to lower shadow settings to almost nothing... maybe even turn it off...

That will give you your 60fps pretty sure... But yeah, I'm a perfectionnist too, and I hate when I can't get a solid 60 FPS or at least a very solid 50FPS for that matter...

Yeah it is a pain especially when it does it out of the blue even though it is not often, are you doing any texture modding? If you aren't then you should be able to get a solid 50 FPS with your setup without any trouble.

Edit: On a side note did you notice a significant increase when unlocking your shaders and did you manage it without much trouble? Looking to do mine soon in the quest for more performance X D

 

[jonathan1107]

Yes I've been modding quite a bit... I've got a few retextures (water, landscapes, flora ...) 3d map and some more...

And I have solid 55-60FPS most of the time, but there are just those dang areas where it will drop down to 37fps or even lower (especially inside dungeons where there is water, and I have tried deleting my water mod, and that was not the culprit...)

You say I should be getting a solid 50FPS, but in theory, that is impossible... Everyone has situations "in-game" where the CPU is bottlenecking the performance (Especially if you have every setting maxed, and I mean "maxed" ... even further .ini tweaks with ugridstoload and so fourth...) Or at least, if you wanna prove your point, post a video of your game in whiterun, with everything maxed and walk around, I wanna see that solid 50FPS of yours... I have a very hard time believing it's even possible... also post a copy of your .ini files if possible, so I can compare your settings with mine...

To answer you question about "unlocking/shaders unlocking"... There is a VERY small increase in performance for me with shaders unlocked... I'd say you'll get about ~3 fps increase when maxed in games... You'll feel that performance increase when there's stuff like tessellation, bloom, ssao, LOD and the likes being performed in-game...

As for flashing with the 6970 bios onto the 6950 card... I've had both my cards flashed to "become" 6970s, and everything was stable for the 4 weeks that I've had this setup... And there a good perf. gain from the higher clocks, and believe it or not, from the diff vram timings (6970 bios) It feels like the faster speed (in the 6970 bios) helps the main clock speed (~950mhz for me) being stable and output stuff better... But after reading all the posting about how they're 2 diff. cards and how it's possible to fry the Vram when flashing the 6970 bios onto the 6950, I've decided to revert to "shaders unlock only"...

 

[1Kurgan1]

To answer you question about "unlocking/shaders unlocking"... There is a VERY small increase in performance for me with shaders unlocked... I'd say you'll get about ~3 fps increase when maxed in games... You'll feel that performance increase when there's stuff like tessellation, bloom, ssao, LOD and the likes being performed in-game...

As for flashing with the 6970 bios onto the 6950 card... I've had both my cards flashed to "become" 6970s, and everything was stable for the 4 weeks that I've had this setup... And there a good perf. gain from the higher clocks, and believe it or not, from the diff vram timings (6970 bios) It feels like the faster speed (in the 6970 bios) helps the main clock speed (~950mhz for me) being stable and output stuff better... But after reading all the posting about how they're 2 diff. cards and how it's possible to fry the Vram when flashing the 6970 bios onto the 6950, I've decided to revert to "shaders unlock only"...

6970 bios vs unlocking isn't going to be any different. Sounds like you are saying you got better performance with a 6970 bios than you did vs a 6950 just unlocked. I have my default 6950 bios then just unlocked the shaders and OC'd it, I have been running my card at 951/1451 24/7 for over a month now without a problem. Either way you only mentioned your GPU OC, not your RAM, the 6970 voltage difference on RAM won't effect your GPU clocks, or OC, it will only effect your RAM, and honestly I don't see a ton of people breaking 1500mhz, at least not for everyday use.

But, like people have said, your graphics card isn't going to be the limiting factor when pushing Skyrim, you just aren't going to see a fps gain here.

 

[jonathan1107]

yeah, I was not talking about skyrim... merely answering that guy's question about my card's OC...

And yes, there is a difference between the two bios in terms of VRAM... a very small one tho... Because not only is the VRAM mhz different, but the VRAM timings are different too, making the card a bit more efficient...

kind of like the same difference between a 1600mhz ram kit with these timings 9 10 9 27 and the same kit with these timings: 7 7 7 18...

 

[catnipkiller]

Does anyone have a bench mark for this game yet?

 

[WhiteNoise]

So I installed my first mod tonight. The one some of you were posting about earlier today. Serious HD re-texture landscape mod.

Anyway It looks decent. Not as good as the screens the author posted but better all the same. I'm thinking about installing the Skyrim enhanced shaders mod next.

Before:

After:

 

[1Kurgan1]

Those rocks look nice, wonder how they compare to the other popular texture pack, that one everyones linking has just shown up in the last week.

yeah, I was not talking about skyrim... merely answering that guy's question about my card's OC...

And yes, there is a difference between the two bios in terms of VRAM... a very small one tho... Because not only is the VRAM mhz different, but the VRAM timings are different too, making the card a bit more efficient...

kind of like the same difference between a 1600mhz ram kit with these timings 9 10 9 27 and the same kit with these timings: 7 7 7 18...

Right, but I seen you mention the GPU OC, which will be over all, and you mentioned the RAM voltage, but didn't mention your RAM clocks, and the RAM voltage isn't going to effect the GPU clocks in any way. I believe you meant not only is the RAM voltage different, the mhz don't matter if you are OCing, because you won't be at factory speeds. I haven't heard about different RAM timings, but I suppose it's possible, but the performance gain from even 100mhz on RAM compared to 50 mhz on the GPU is very small, so if you are able to run your RAM at the same speed as someone with a 6970, that timing difference probably wouldn't even be 1 fps, so it really doesn't matter. All I'm saying is that, with my original bios with only unlocked shaders I am running 951/1451, I haven't tried any higher on the RAM 24/7 use, but most 6970's I see running 24/7 don't see much faster speeds on RAM. So your performance with an unlocked 6950 bios vs a flashed 6970 bios should honestly be identical.

 

[Black Panther]

Bah, figured it out. With vsync enablled, I get the same thing as the rest of you in terms of CPU usage. What caused the high CPU usage was adding the "iPresentInterval=0" in the wrong skyrimprefs.ini file.

This is very interesting though. Whatever you did, you managed to get the game run fully on four cores.

Did you get any performance increase doing so?

__________________________

On a separate topic, have you heard what Ahlam in Whiterun comments when you're near her?

Searching for my husband Nazeem? Check the Jarl's backside.. that's where he stuffs himself these days."

Never fails to crack me up!

__________________________


@ WhiteNoise

Which utility are you using to show card usage and temperatures ingame?

 

[digibucc]

Those rocks look nice, wonder how they compare to the other popular texture pack, that one everyones linking has just shown up in the last week.

i'm pretty sure it's better, i had the original retexture , and i like this new one better

 

[jonathan1107]

Those rocks look nice, wonder how they compare to the other popular texture pack, that one everyones linking has just shown up in the last week.



Right, but I seen you mention the GPU OC, which will be over all, and you mentioned the RAM voltage, but didn't mention your RAM clocks, and the RAM voltage isn't going to effect the GPU clocks in any way. I believe you meant not only is the RAM voltage different, the mhz don't matter if you are OCing, because you won't be at factory speeds. I haven't heard about different RAM timings, but I suppose it's possible, but the performance gain from even 100mhz on RAM compared to 50 mhz on the GPU is very small, so if you are able to run your RAM at the same speed as someone with a 6970, that timing difference probably wouldn't even be 1 fps, so it really doesn't matter. All I'm saying is that, with my original bios with only unlocked shaders I am running 951/1451, I haven't tried any higher on the RAM 24/7 use, but most 6970's I see running 24/7 don't see much faster speeds on RAM. So your performance with an unlocked 6950 bios vs a flashed 6970 bios should honestly be identical.

No it won't be identical (the performance) Have you seen 6950 unlocks benchmarks? Have you ever tested and seen the difference between RAM kits (or VRAMs) when the timings are tighter, you'd be surprised how much FPS you can gain (depending on how much stress the game is putting on the GPU)... In skyrim's case, the Game is CPU bound, but when a game is GPU bound, there's often a mix of things being rendered by the GPU in combination with the CPU, and the tighter timings on the 6970 bios (which you have clearly not seen, use RBE if you'd like the exact numbers...) result in a better relationship between the GPU and the CPU...

But yeah, it all depends on what rig you have... because a lot of people can't even unlock their cards to the 6970 bios... But whatever I say or "said"... don't go flashing the 6970 bios onto the 6950 card, because there is a lot more chances you'll fry the VRAM or damage it... since the timings aren't the same...

 

[WhiteNoise]

@ WhiteNoise

Which utility are you using to show card usage and temperatures ingame?

That would be MSI Afterburner. You can select a lot more to show on screen but I keep it simple. It's quite a nice little program.

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

 

[Black Panther]

OK I've got a problem here.

I'm only using half of my card in the game...

I tried it running the exe directly from Steam's menu, without the 4GB fix, just to make sure.

I get one GPU at 99% and the other GPU at 0%.

I'm running 11.11c on 5970


Ummm, halp?!?

I just cross-tested with Unigine Heaven to make sure nothing's wrong with my card. And sure enough in Unigine I get 100% on both GPU's and both GPU's are at 735/1010.

What gives here?

 

[1Kurgan1]

No it won't be identical (the performance) Have you seen 6950 unlocks benchmarks? Have you ever tested and seen the difference between RAM kits (or VRAMs) when the timings are tighter, you'd be surprised how much FPS you can gain (depending on how much stress the game is putting on the GPU)... In skyrim's case, the Game is CPU bound, but when a game is GPU bound, there's often a mix of things being rendered by the GPU in combination with the CPU, and the tighter timings on the 6970 bios (which you have clearly not seen, use RBE if you'd like the exact numbers...) result in a better relationship between the GPU and the CPU...

But yeah, it all depends on what rig you have... because a lot of people can't even unlock their cards to the 6970 bios... But whatever I say or "said"... don't go flashing the 6970 bios onto the 6950 card, because there is a lot more chances you'll fry the VRAM or damage it... since the timings aren't the same...

From everything I have seen a 6950 unlocked + OC'd to same levels as a 6950 with 6970 bios, the difference in almost all games is 1fps, or less, which is what I had said. I didn't say no gains, just extremely marginal.

But yeah I had heard of people frying the RAM going to 6970 bios, it's why I didn't do it.

 

[Ahhzz]

That would be MSI Afterburner. You can select a lot more to show on screen but I keep it simple. It's quite a nice little program.

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

Is that the one that keeps expiring after a few weeks?

 

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

OK I've got a problem here.

I'm only using half of my card in the game...

I tried it running the exe directly from Steam's menu, without the 4GB fix, just to make sure.

I get one GPU at 99% and the other GPU at 0%.

I'm running 11.11c on 5970


Ummm, halp?!?



http://img.techpowerup.org/111206/TESV_2011_12_06_18_12_04_060.jpg


I just cross-tested with Unigine Heaven to make sure nothing's wrong with my card. And sure enough in Unigine I get 100% on both GPU's and both GPU's are at 735/1010.

What gives here?

Most probly crossfire profile / driver issues. Try installing previous drivers and see which one works best? One of the reasons why I wont bother going multi gpu again, and went single but strong GPU onwards