GTX 1080 vs 4K max modded Skyrim At 2k Res

DeadlyTitan

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Oct 20, 2017
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Can a GTX 1080 run a max modded skyrim legendary edition (Not special edition) at 1440p @ 144hz?

I am planning to use a lot of 4k Textures and Heavy ENB and all the eye candy mods (Grass, trees, weathers, etc) and i'll be cranking up all the settings to the max. I always wanted to do this, play a heavily modded skyrim which just looks gorgeous but i was unable to cause all i had were low end GPU's and the best i can do with them is play vanilla skyrim, which is boring.

So, what sorta FPS can i expect? i heard heavily modded skyrim is pretty demanding to run even on 1080p. I tried looking everywhere but no one have benchmarks for a 4k heavily modded skyrim, so if any of you had any first hand experience i'd be glad to hear you out.
 

Head1985

Golden Member
Jul 8, 2014
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Nope...On my 1080Ti i barely holding 60fps at 1440p.With normal GTX1080 you can expect 45fps.
 

Elfear

Diamond Member
May 30, 2004
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If you choose your mods carefully, you can pick up some performance without affecting the visual fidelity much but you still won't get near 144Hz at 1440p. My 1500Mhz 980Ti dipped into the 20's and 30's at 4k as a point of reference.
 

Headfoot

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2008
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in my experience skyrim with mods gets limited by CPU single thread performance before GPU most of the time short of 4k
 

ZGR

Platinum Member
Oct 26, 2012
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Skyrim and Fallout 4 are heavily CPU bound past 60 fps, especially with mods. These are the kind of games that work best on a native 4k monitor.

That said, you just have to tweak your settings a bit, and you will be near max. ENB will kill your performance!
 

Flapdrol1337

Golden Member
May 21, 2014
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I've not played fallout4/revamped skyrim, but I remember the older games were locked to 60 and got buggy if you modded it to go higher. Did they change that in the new ones or is it still locked?
 

Excessi0n

Member
Jul 25, 2014
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I've not played fallout4/revamped skyrim, but I remember the older games were locked to 60 and got buggy if you modded it to go higher. Did they change that in the new ones or is it still locked?

The problem is that the physics and framerate are synchronized: one frame equals one physics step. That wouldn't be that bad on its own, but the engine also lacks any ability to alter the magnitude of the physics forces based on the framerate you're actually getting. Framerates higher than the target increase the forces experienced by objects, and lower framerates decrease them. By default the physics assume you get 60 FPS, but there is a set of (obscure) INI settings which you can use to tune the physics so that things don't go crazy at a given non-60 FPS framerate.
 

Guru

Senior member
May 5, 2017
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Skyrim is an old game which uses a dated engine, in fact the game is from 2011 and the engine they use is from 2009, so essentially a 8 year old engine. Its basically single threaded, its optimized to run best at architectures that were available in 2010/2011, so essentially it doesn't take any of the newer advantages of modern cards and use them.

Mods for it are also done by random people, if they set out to make a graphic mod that is what they focus on, optimizations and performance are not taken into account. I'm sure a lot of the graphic mods could run much better if the authors even slightly had performance in mind, but they don't at all.

So your GPU can absolutely run a max modded game like Skyrim, if Skyrim used a newer engine. Essentially your GPU will be CPU bottlenecked and even it won't be fully utilized(meaning certain advanced techniques). If I remember correctly the engine wasn't even built as a DX11 engine, but as a DX10 engine.
 

Excessi0n

Member
Jul 25, 2014
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Skyrim is an old game which uses a dated engine, in fact the game is from 2011 and the engine they use is from 2009, so essentially a 8 year old engine. Its basically single threaded, its optimized to run best at architectures that were available in 2010/2011, so essentially it doesn't take any of the newer advantages of modern cards and use them.

Mods for it are also done by random people, if they set out to make a graphic mod that is what they focus on, optimizations and performance are not taken into account. I'm sure a lot of the graphic mods could run much better if the authors even slightly had performance in mind, but they don't at all.

So your GPU can absolutely run a max modded game like Skyrim, if Skyrim used a newer engine. Essentially your GPU will be CPU bottlenecked and even it won't be fully utilized(meaning certain advanced techniques). If I remember correctly the engine wasn't even built as a DX11 engine, but as a DX10 engine.

You should probably try to avoid talking authoritatively about things that you don't know much about.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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Lot of misinformation here. If you're using the x64 client, it runs quite well on a 1080 (currently running 1080, 6700k, both moderately oc'd, 1440p). You can pretty solidly mod it with 2k/4k textures everywhere and retain great performance. As a note, by default the game does NOT run over 60fps, by virtue of the game engine (even the updated x64 engine), however, there are some ini tweaks that can be adjusted, followed by some hard-coding of vsync options which permit you to pull the FPS up to an arbitrary value without causing the game engine to lose its marbles. Plenty of guides can be found on how to do this online.

I currently have a fairly well modded (50+ mods, most graphical) x64 Skyrim installation which runs 1440p@>90FPS in most places. Most underground/indoor areas sit at 120FPS+, some of the busier areas or more extensive custom modded regions can dip lower, but that's pretty rare.

I'll note that I recommend the x64 client above all else. If you really want to delve into modded Skyrim, that's the way to go right now. With the x86 client (which you seem to state in your post) you'll be prone to crashing, be stuck at 60fps, and generally have a Bad Time. This, however, has far more to do with the engine than anything with your system.
 
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Head1985

Golden Member
Jul 8, 2014
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With heavy ENB/grass mods there is zero chance he will run 60fps with GTX1080.
here are few screenshots with 1080TI at 2560x1440.Yeah its bellow 60fps...(it is SE version, but they both run same.SE version runs better in cities)
skyrimse_2017_10_24_0pdo31.png

skyrimse_2017_10_24_0i1piw.png

skyrimse_2017_10_24_0ujrdg.png
 

USER8000

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Jun 23, 2012
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I play modded Fallout 4 with a GTX1080 at 2560X1440 and in large settlements,and in areas with lots of NPCs,I find I am CPU bottlenecked.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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With heavy ENB/grass mods there is zero chance he will run 60fps with GTX1080.
here are few screenshots with 1080TI at 2560x1440.Yeah its bellow 60fps...(it is SE version, but they both run same.SE version runs better in cities)
skyrimse_2017_10_24_0pdo31.png

skyrimse_2017_10_24_0i1piw.png

skyrimse_2017_10_24_0ujrdg.png
Ease up on those grass mods, and you'll be able to load up tons of mods and stay above 60, easily.

Can't pic link to imgur for some reason... anyhow, 1440p, mix of day/night shots, mid 60's, 70's. 1080gtx.
https://imgur.com/a/94sNZ
 

Head1985

Golden Member
Jul 8, 2014
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He said max out skyrim.
I am planning to use a lot of 4k Textures and Heavy ENB and all the eye candy mods (Grass, trees, weathers, etc) and i'll be cranking up all the settings to the max
So with GTX1080 nope...
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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He said max out skyrim.

So with GTX1080 nope...
Yes, mine is modded at maxed settings, lots of 4k textures, ENB, and tons of eye candy mods. I just don't intentionally get mods that do nothing but kill framerate. Super double-plus extreme grass mods fall into that category. If you can remove one mod and triple your FPS, something's wrong with the mod.

By the same logic you could say that no vid card could ever run a 'maxed out' Skyrim at 60fps since you could just keep developing mods with infinite view distance 8k grass.
 
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Head1985

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Jul 8, 2014
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Yes, mine is modded at maxed settings, lots of 4k textures, ENB, and tons of eye candy mods. I just don't intentionally get mods that do nothing but kill framerate. Super double-plus extreme grass mods fall into that category. If you can remove one mod and triple your FPS, something's wrong with the mod.

By the same logic you could say that no vid card could ever run a 'maxed out' Skyrim at 60fps since you could just keep developing mods with infinite view distance 8k grass.
Its normal grass mod and it is best grass mod on nexus.Not extreme at all.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/10543/?

Edit:what is killing performance is ENB and not grass mod.
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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Well, now that we've narrowed down your specific FPS issues.. to the OP, if you manage your mods properly, and don't get an individual mod (ENB or otherwise) that absolutely crushes your system, yes, you can run 1440p at >60fps (often in the triple digits) on a gtx1080, with extensive modding and all the pretties enabled. Just mind your infinite-view-distance grass and ENB settings.
 
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