For those getting a new card to play Skyrim, some relevant info.

[bryanW1995]

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1256595-consolidated-potential-fix-thread-co-authordesi/

Most important visual tweaks are

bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1

In your Skyrimprefs.ini under my documents/my games/skyrim

And adding the line fdefaultfov=80 under the [General] area of Skyrim.ini in the same location.

With aforementioned tweaks and TRSAA enabled, the game looks decent now that I am in outdoor areas.

Your rig at 2560x1600 + tri-sli gtx 480 is going to be much faster than mine at 1680x1050 with only one card. If I can get TRSAA to run smoothly with those additional changes then I'll be a happy panda. But first I need to play some more nwn2, that game is actually decent with TRSAA. I'm saving up the 400,000 gold for the Vorpal Falchion, it's much harder this way.

 

[Leyawiin]

Rather scathing condemnation of AMD drivers by HardOCP:

"We have harped over this before, but this game shows once again that AMD's driver support is biting it in the butt on a new game release. With not even an ETA on a new CAP for Skyrim to support CrossFireX, and no performance driver in sight, it is rather depressing for AMD GPU owners. We keep seeing this with new game launches these past few months. Rage, Deus Ex: Missing Link, even Battlefield 3 had better and working performance and SLI drivers from NVIDIA on game day launch, while AMD support was lacking."

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/11/elder_scrolls_v_skyrim_performance_iq_preview/3

 

[bryanW1995]

That carries a lot of weight coming from Kyle, he's typically very positive on AMD cards.

 

[Vesku]

My guess is driver team man hours have been diverted for working on GCN drivers. See the same thing when a next gen NVIDIA part is getting close to launch, slower current driver pace.

I agree with Kyle though, not a great idea to slow down the pace on current gen support during the holiday gaming season.

 

[bryanW1995]

Actually, if they are that close to release then GCN should get more attention. The only really big titles that needed work recently are bf3 and skyrim, weaker performance in those 2 will be easy to explain if GCN rocks, but if GCN flops then nobody will remember how great AMD cards were in a couple of "last year's" games.

 

[Betatest]

On my rig > Phenom II X4 940 OCed to 3.4, GTX 460 1GB, 4GB RAM the game runs somewhat fine, textures on high, rest is medium/low. I usually get 60 FPS which is great, FPS only drops when I enter a big city/new areas.

Just my experience with the game so far.

Edit: I am playing on 1680x1050.

 

[cmdrdredd]

On PC....where abouts?
Do use the NMC mod as Vegas really comes alive, I also added a lighting mod, and the improvement was dramatic.

It was about 2 hours in, right after you leave the first little town. Somewhere randomly in the wasteland it would freeze or CTD. I never got more than 10minutes in again before it would crash. Kind of strange...never could narrow it down.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Rather scathing condemnation of AMD drivers by HardOCP:

"We have harped over this before, but this game shows once again that AMD's driver support is biting it in the butt on a new game release. With not even an ETA on a new CAP for Skyrim to support CrossFireX, and no performance driver in sight, it is rather depressing for AMD GPU owners. We keep seeing this with new game launches these past few months. Rage, Deus Ex: Missing Link, even Battlefield 3 had better and working performance and SLI drivers from NVIDIA on game day launch, while AMD support was lacking."

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/11/elder_scrolls_v_skyrim_performance_iq_preview/3

Problem is...you do not need dual GPUs to run this game...at all. Not even close. So honestly complaining about not having 180fps is a little ridiculous.

BTW: on guru3d they have said Cat 11.11 is next week. I bet it's working by then.

 

[bryanW1995]

Yes, but if you want all the eye candy and want to implement the changes that groove mentioned earlier you probably need xfire working properly. And I specifically remember him complaining VERY LOUDLY, enough to get a vacation in fact, when nvidia was slow to implement sli support into Dragon Age II. Why should we give AMD a pass now on skyrim?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yes, but if you want all the eye candy and want to implement the changes that groove mentioned earlier you probably need xfire working properly. And I specifically remember him complaining VERY LOUDLY, enough to get a vacation in fact, when nvidia was slow to implement sli support into Dragon Age II. Why should we give AMD a pass now on skyrim?

I'm not, but you don't really need max fps for this title is all.

 

[blastingcap]

User reviews don't necessarily mean a lot. People sabotage ratings all the time, especially titles with DRM issues.

I go by Eurogamer reviews. They gave it 10/10, which is ultra-rare of them. That said, I'm too low on free time and cheap to buy this game right now, maybe in a year or two (GOTY Edition).

Russian, official review sites are pretty much worthless in review value. Those same sites gave MW3 glowing reviews, a terrible game. For the most part IGN, PC gamer and gamespy are paid shills and serve a purpose mostly as advertising not providing unbiased reviews.

Just look at Metacritic for a game like MW3 that got amazing reviews from official sites and look at its user score http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3 1.3 out of 10.

As far as RPG of the year, that is far and away Witcher 2.

I'm not saying the game is crap, as I said, I only played 15 minutes. Graphically it's a massive turd. It's looking to be another Dragon Age 2, terrible graphics and horrible performance. I want to see some AMD benchmarks, I know it makes use of the same DOF effects DA2 did, may be more nvidia driver issues.

It's really a terrible port. You can't even click any selections in the menu with your mouse, you have to use a combination of different keys on your keyboard to navigate the menus and inventory screens, etc. Really ? No mouse support ?

Very dissapointing.

 

[Leyawiin]

On my rig > Phenom II X4 940 OCed to 3.4, GTX 460 1GB, 4GB RAM the game runs somewhat fine, textures on high, rest is medium/low. I usually get 60 FPS which is great, FPS only drops when I enter a big city/new areas.

Just my experience with the game so far.

Edit: I am playing on 1680x1050.

Ouch. I was hoping for better than that with almost identical specs as yours. Like "high" across the board. Bummer. My copy will be here this afternoon - guess I'll find out.

Problem is...you do not need dual GPUs to run this game...at all. Not even close. So honestly complaining about not having 180fps is a little ridiculous.

BTW: on guru3d they have said Cat 11.11 is next week. I bet it's working by then.

I have zero experience with current AMD cards or drivers so I can't comment. I'm just surprised Kyle would so loudly slam AMD for its current driver development and release schedule. I don't remember a professional hardware review site doing that with either camp (short of Charlie Demerjian, but that's another story ) Kyle even seems disappointed with single card performance as well.

 

[Silverforce11]

Rather scathing condemnation of AMD drivers by HardOCP:

"We have harped over this before, but this game shows once again that AMD's driver support is biting it in the butt on a new game release. With not even an ETA on a new CAP for Skyrim to support CrossFireX, and no performance driver in sight, it is rather depressing for AMD GPU owners. We keep seeing this with new game launches these past few months. Rage, Deus Ex: Missing Link, even Battlefield 3 had better and working performance and SLI drivers from NVIDIA on game day launch, while AMD support was lacking."

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/11/elder_scrolls_v_skyrim_performance_iq_preview/3

Well deserved too. For AMD to miss the ball on such a huge AAA title that is on a lot of gamers expected list is a terrible screw up. The game is full of bugs on AMD hardware, its as if they didn't even have access to or bothered to test the game in alpha/beta stages and optimize drivers for it.

They are doing it now which just seems like a bad rush job.

 

[Leyawiin]

Complete opposite of Oblivion and Fallout 3 at launch too. ATI/AMD trounced Nvidia in those games initially.

 

[RussianSensation]

This game is massively CPU limited with a top-end card such as an HD6970/GTX570, even with 4xAA/FXAA cranked at 1080P:

Even with the more GPU intensive TrSAA/Adaptive AA, modern cards can still deliver around 60 fps, which means they'll be severely bottlenecked by slower CPUs (looks like Phenom II and likely Bulldozer are going to be giving up A LOT of performance in SKYRIM).

 

[bryanW1995]

Nice to see that TrSSAA is in my future. And also nice to know that I'm getting a 2500k or better in the next couple of weeks...

 

[Steelski]

I have a HD3870 playing it at between high and ultra settings on 1600x1200 with 2xAA and 8xAF. on a Phenom I. Its basically the same as Oblivion.

 

[Pacman4]

It was about 2 hours in, right after you leave the first little town. Somewhere randomly in the wasteland it would freeze or CTD. I never got more than 10minutes in again before it would crash. Kind of strange...never could narrow it down.

Don't know whether vanilla would benefit from it, but did you try the 4gig aware patch?....I'm not even sure if it would even work on vanilla though.

 

[Pacman4]

Anyone here have FONew Vegas with the NMC texture pack installed?
I was maxing that at 1080p on my 4850, so I hope Skyrim looks worthy in comparison if it's so intensive.

 

[Bryf50]

The graphics look like an xbox 360 game. There is no native MSAA, only FXAA. You can force MSAA via the control panel at a huge performance hit though.

Hmm...The first thing I see when I hit option on the launcher is a drop down box labeled Antialiasing. Seems to work fine. My rig in my sig has no problem at all with this game at 1080p, Ultra, 4xAA. It it just me or is there no Ultra setting for textures?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Played some and there is mouse support in the menus. I had to unplug my xbox360 controller to get it to work. The game looks fine yo my eyes, very nice with the tree and ground shadows enabled. Tweaked the water in the .ini to no difference though. Running 1920x1200 16x AF and 4x AA. Fxaa off and eveything maxed out. I turn off obiect distance fade as well. Average 45fps which for a game like this is not bad. i have mouse accel off and the presentinterval set to off. Still cqps at 60fps but it is a very smooth experience. I would never know it was dipping unless i stare at the fps counter lol.

Anyone notice AA on gives a weird boarder around objects like your sword?

 

[Mistwalker]

Rather scathing condemnation of AMD drivers by HardOCP:

"We have harped over this before, but this game shows once again that AMD's driver support is biting it in the butt on a new game release. With not even an ETA on a new CAP for Skyrim to support CrossFireX, and no performance driver in sight, it is rather depressing for AMD GPU owners. We keep seeing this with new game launches these past few months. Rage, Deus Ex: Missing Link, even Battlefield 3 had better and working performance and SLI drivers from NVIDIA on game day launch, while AMD support was lacking."

I completely agree. It may sound extreme, but Skyrim is the first title that I anticipated so much, seeing AMD with zero support and Nvidia with a beta driver and SLI already on the ground actually makes me reconsider going AMD in the future.

Didn't play Rage, Deus Ex had some Crossfire support right away, but as of now there isn't even an ETA for a Skyrim profile, and those who DID buy Rage are STILL waiting for that new driver. Ridiculous.

Problem is...you do not need dual GPUs to run this game...at all. Not even close. So honestly complaining about not having 180fps is a little ridiculous.

If you're willing to turn down settings or are fine with 30-35 fps (which is what I get outdoors on my unlocked, slightly overclocked 6950s, with NO AA--turn that on and it's 20% less) on hardware fully capable of a solid 60fps then sure. The inherent drawback to Crossfire vs. SLI once again rears its head and Nvidia gets the extra performance on day 1 while AMD users wait.

BTW: on guru3d they have said Cat 11.11 is next week. I bet it's working by then.

According to the twitter feed, 11.11 is pretty much Rage fixes, and their next beta after that will (finally) offer CF for Rage.

Now, I'm going to play the hell out of Skyrim anyway. And you know what? 35 fps outdoors, 50-60 fps indoors sure isn't bad. Doesn't stop me from being massively disappointed, this was my most anticipated title of the year and AMD support is behind. Hopefully just a little, but behind nonetheless.

 

[Grooveriding]

If you want to really bring your system to its knees

Skyrim.ini

[General]
sLanguage=ENGLISH
fdefaultfov=80
uExterior Cell Buffer=72
[Display]
fShadowLODMaxStartFade=10000.0
fSpecularLODMaxStartFade=10000.0
fLightLODMaxStartFade=10000.0
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
bAllowScreenshot=1
iPresentInterval=0
sD3DDevice="NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480"
[Audio]
fMusicDuckingSeconds=6.0
fMusicUnDuckingSeconds=8.0
fMenuModeFadeOutTime=3.0
fMenuModeFadeInTime=1.0
[Grass]
bAllowCreateGrass=1
bAllowLoadGrass=0
[GeneralWarnings]
SGeneralMasterMismatchWarning=One or more plugins could not find the correct versions of the master files they depend on. Errors may occur during load or game play. Check the "Warnings.txt" file for more information.
[Archive]
sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa
sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa
[Combat]
fMagnetismStrafeHeadingMult=0.0
fMagnetismLookingMult=0.0
[Papyrus]
fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0
bEnableLogging=0
bEnableTrace=0
bLoadDebugInformation=0
[Water]
bReflectLODObjects=1
bReflectLODLand=1
bReflectSky=1
bReflectLODTrees=1

Skyrimprefs.ini

[General]
fBrightLightColorB=1.0000
fBrightLightColorG=1.0000
fBrightLightColorR=1.0000
iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1
bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0
[Imagespace]
bDoDepthOfField=1
iRadialBlurLevel=2
[Display]
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3
fInteriorShadowDistance=6000.0000
fShadowDistance=8000.0000
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=2048
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
iShadowSplitCount=4
iMaxAnisotropy=16
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=100000000.0000
fGamma=1.0000
fDecalLOD2=5000.0000
fDecalLOD1=2500.0000
fSpecularLODStartFade=10000.0000
fShadowLODStartFade=1000.0000
fLightLODStartFade=10000.0000
iTexMipMapMinimum=0
iTexMipMapSkip=0
iWaterMultiSamples=4
iMultiSample=4
iShadowMode=3
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
bFull Screen=1
iSize H=1600
iSize W=2560
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=100000000.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=100000000.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=10000000.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=10000000.0000
iScreenShotIndex=2
bShadowMaskZPrepass=0
bMainZPrepass=0
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=25
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=100
bFloatPointRenderTarget=0
sD3DDevice="NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480"
bFXAAEnabled=0
iShadowMapResolution=4096
fShadowBiasScale=0.1500
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iAdapter=0
iPresentInterval=0
iShadowFilter=3
bTransparencyMultisampling=1
bDrawShadows=1
iActorShadowCountInt=8
iActorShadowCountExt=8
[Grass]
b30GrassVS=1
fGrassStartFadeDistance=15000.0000
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=15000.0000
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.0000
[MAIN]
bGamepadEnable=0
bCrosshairEnabled=1
fHUDOpacity=1.0000
bSaveOnPause=0
bSaveOnTravel=0
bSaveOnWait=0
bSaveOnRest=0
fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000.0000
[GamePlay]
bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1
bShowQuestMarkers=1
iDifficulty=4
[Interface]
bDialogueSubtitles=1
bGeneralSubtitles=1
bShowCompass=1
[Controls]
fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.0000
fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0125
bAlwaysRunByDefault=1
bInvertYValues=0
bGamePadRumble=1
bMouseAcceleration=0
[Particles]
iMaxDesired=5000
[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=60.0000
[AudioMenu]
fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000
fVal7=1.0000
uID7=0
fVal6=1.0000
uID6=0
fVal5=1.0000
uID5=0
fVal4=1.0000
uID4=0
fVal3=1.0000
uID3=94881
fVal2=0.4000
uID2=466532
fVal1=1.0000
uID1=554685
fVal0=0.8000
uID0=1007612
[Clouds]
fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000
fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000
fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000
fCloudNearFadeDistance=9000.0000
[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=75000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=70000.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=35000.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000
bShowLODInEditor=0
[NavMesh]
fObstacleAlpha=0.5000
fCoverSideHighAlpha=0.8000
fCoverSideLowAlpha=0.6500
fEdgeFullAlpha=1.0000
fEdgeHighAlpha=0.7500
fEdgeLowAlpha=0.5000
fTriangleFullAlpha=0.7000
fTriangleHighAlpha=0.3500
fTriangleLowAlpha=0.2000
fLedgeBoxHalfHeight=25.0000
fEdgeDistFromVert=10.0000
fEdgeThickness=10.0000
fPointSize=2.5000
[Trees]
bRenderSkinnedTrees=1
uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=250
[Decals]
uMaxDecals=1000
bDecals=1
bSkinnedDecals=1
uMaxSkinDecals=100
uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=60
[LOD]
fLODFadeOutMultObjects=100.0000
fLODFadeOutMultItems=100.0000
fLODFadeOutMultActors=100.0000
fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000
[Launcher]
bEnableFileSelection=1
bShowAllResolutions=1
uLastAspectRatio=4
[BlurShaderHDR]
bDoHighDynamicRange=1
[BlurShader]
bUseBlurShader=0
[Water]
iWaterReflectHeight=2048
iWaterReflectWidth=2048
bUseWaterDisplacements=1
bUseWaterRefractions=1
bUseWaterReflections=1
bUseWaterDepth=1

Just edit the resolution height & width settings for whatever you play at. Also change the sD3DDevice="NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480" lines to whatever card yours currently states.

Hopefully once nvidia gets SLI scaling fixed, this will be a bit more playable for me

 

[Puppies04]

Recommended Specs
•Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
•Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
•4GB System RAM
•6GB free HDD space
•DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with 1GB of RAM (Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 or higher (i.e GTX550Ti); ATI Radeon 4890 or higher).
•DirectX compatible sound card
•Internet access for Steam activation

Minimum Specs
•Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
•Processor: Dual Core 2.0GHz or equivalent processor
•2GB System RAM
•6GB free HDD Space
•Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512 MB of RAM
•DirectX compatible sound card
•Internet access for Steam activation


If a gtx4601gb dont max this game its a driver issue.

I mean really 1.5x the recommended specs?

Its allmost like Nvidia and AMD are paying software makers to make you buy a new card.

I think you need to learn a few things...

1. Recommended specs quite regularily fall short of what is actually required

2. Recommended specs are nowhere close to "maxing" the game.

3. Start messing around with code like some of the guys in this thread have been to improve the shadows/tree count etc, and a 460 1GB is going to get chewed to pieces.

 

[NoSoup4You]

I'm playing on Ultra on my GTX460 @1080p, however with only 4xAA instead of the Ultra default which is 8xAA. Didn't touch any other settings, I understand that even Ultra doesn't enable everything...etc.

I'm not sure why Bethesda made High and Ultra default to 8xAA, that's a luxury in most cases and provides only minimal visual improvements over 4xAA despite a significant cost to performance.

As for what kind of fps I'm getting, I haven't checked. It feels fine though so far, pleasantly surprised at how this GTX 460 has handled both BF3 and now Skyrim.