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

[Red Hawk]

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.

There was Rage, and Batman: Arkham City will probably need some driver work.

The level of CPU bottlenecking makes me think that the game would really have benefitted from DirectX 11 DirectCompute or OpenCL as well as more thorough multithreading.

 

[Leyawiin]

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.

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.

I was going to try to overclock my GTX 460 some more, but it doesn't sound like its where the weak link is. I checked Afterburner and its running about 40-60% usage. I just ran with what the game suggested, which is High. The opening tutorial is as laggy as everyone says - once I got out of there into the country my FPS shot up and the game smoothed out, so I'm might tinker with Ultra settings.

Wish I had a Sandy Bridge CPU.

 

[exar333]

There was Rage, and Batman: Arkham City will probably need some driver work.

The level of CPU bottlenecking makes me think that the game would really have benefitted from DirectX 11 DirectCompute or OpenCL as well as more thorough multithreading.

Probably not going to be a good title for BD...

 

[exar333]

Running my current rig and it looks great on Ultra.

 

[cmdrdredd]

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.

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.

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.

See above...35 FPS? I'm above that

As for rage and crossfire support do you really need it? That game looks like crap in anything but outdoor scenes in the distance and it has never dropped below 60fps for me ever at 1920x1200. Now I know I'm not at 2k+ resolutions either...

 

[Silverforce11]

Wow that's some hardcore CPU limitation going on there.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Wow that's some hardcore CPU limitation going on there.

Yes, the game needs clock speed not Multicore.

That said, there is zero gameplay difference in this game between 40fps and 50fps.

 

[Leyawiin]

Yes, the game needs clock speed not Multicore.

That said, there is zero gameplay difference in this game between 40fps and 50fps.

I'm also not seeing a great deal of difference between Ultra and High, so my little GTX 460 will be more than adequate (and that was my concern these past few months).

 

[soccerballtux]

Wow that's some hardcore CPU limitation going on there.

See this sort of benchmark result is what makes me think there's something shady going on under the table with Intel CPUs vs. AMD cpus.
In this benchmark, it would appear that both architectures are, clock for clock, identical. VERY surprising to see the Ph2 945 beating the Core2Quad 9550.

 

[Bryf50]

See this sort of benchmark result is what makes me think there's something shady going on under the table with Intel CPUs vs. AMD cpus.
In this benchmark, it would appear that both architectures are, clock for clock, identical. VERY surprising to see the Ph2 945 beating the Core2Quad 9550.

What two architectures are you talking about? It's well known that Ph2 is a Core2 competitor. And its obvious from that benchmark that Ph2 is behind nehalem and way behind sandy bridge. Shadiness not found.

 

[Bryf50]

double post

 

[zerocool84]

All the in-game screenshots I've seen people posting make the game look like a slightly updated Oblivion/Fallout. Doesn't look good at all.

 

[Puppies04]

All the in-game screenshots I've seen people posting make the game look like a slightly updated Oblivion/Fallout. Doesn't look good at all.

I could have told you it was going to look like a slightly updated Oblivion/fallout 12 months ago if you had asked

 

[Leyawiin]

It does look good given the Creation Engine is just a massaged Gamebryo engine. Textures a a bit sharper, details are a bit better. The character models are a definite step up from the last two Fallout games, but nothing revolutionary. I wasn't expecting it to be (and no one with any experience with the last three Bethesda games should be). Cutting edge graphics have never been part of Bethesda games anyway. They're generally good enough to not ruin the experience and other aspects of an open world game are what suck people in.

 

[cmdrdredd]

All the in-game screenshots I've seen people posting make the game look like a slightly updated Oblivion/Fallout. Doesn't look good at all.

OK...well it looks good enough. In fact it's quite pretty. Yeah it's no battlefield 3 but we all knew that. It's not bad looking. I can't believe how spoiled people sound...my god.

And after almost 20 hours in, I don't care about the graphics.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

It looks slightly better than Oblivion with Qarl's Texture Pack.

 

[Leyawiin]

It looks slightly better than Oblivion with Qarl's Texture Pack.

Pretty good assessment.

 

[Silverforce11]

Well, new catalyst driver apparently fixed all the issues with skyrim for AMD cards.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1651227

Thats fast.

 

[Red Hawk]

Just saw the game played on my friend's laptop. Looked good at 1366x768 with most stuff set to High and with FXAA rather than MSAA. Ran surprisingly well considering the laptop's specs (AMD A8-3500m and Radeon HD 6620G).

Also, this:

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 ?

is just plain false. My friend was using his mouse all over the place.

 

[TheNewGuy]

Hey folks...

I'm currently running Skyrim at 2560x1600 on my i5-2500k and my gtx260. I'm looking to upgrade my videocard, and at the resolution (I play that for most of my games), am at I better going sli 570s or a 580gtx? Also, are my concerns over microstutters overblown or is it a real issue with sli setups?

Thanks...

Dave

 

[3DVagabond]

For that res, if I were buying nVidia, I'd get 2 of these. Plenty of power and VRAM for 2560*1600. The limited VRAM of the 570, coupled with it's less than stellar reputation for durability, stops me from recommending it. The 580, except for pricing, is a great card. It would be able to max out most games at your res, but not all. 2x 560 ti 2GB should have no issues though.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Well, new catalyst driver apparently fixed all the issues with skyrim for AMD cards.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1651227

Thats fast.

Seems like it killed performance for some and i don't trust anything that is not confirmed to come from AMD.

I've seen about 10 different drivers with this version of that, that version of this, that .dll here, that .dll from that version there. It's crazy. People are mish mashing driver versions together and say "hey this fixed that game! download it!" and then it breaks everything else because nothing was made to work together.

 

[Fallengod]

Just wondering. Anyone with skyrim on nvidia drivers have any issues? I am getting random blue screens making me restart windows every so often and also a bit of stuttering every so often.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Just wondering. Anyone with skyrim on nvidia drivers have any issues? I am getting random blue screens making me restart windows every so often and also a bit of stuttering every so often.

the bsod driver related? it should say in the crashlog

 

[dennilfloss]

Well, I'm playing on high 1920x1200, nothing overclocked and all is smooth as butter. Still the original driver on my 1GB 4870.