skyrim is it cpu or gpu intense ?

[Candymancan21]

question. My laptop is an AMD A6 quad, 4gb of ram aparently its only 1 stick tho so i need a 2nd for duel channle. 500gb 5400 rpm hdd. I relise this isnt the best gaming laptop but i was wondering is skyrim cpu or gpu intense.. my other computer my desktop which is an E8400 wolfdale at 4.4ghz ati 4890 and 4gb ddr2 runs skyrim maxed out and i mean maxed out at 1680x1050 with 4xAA 4xAF.. and i get 60 solid fps anywhere i go so never paid attention to the game if it were cpu or gpu intense


My laptop when i overclock my cpu in other games such as world of tank andf what not my fps doubles.. it goes from 30fps to like 50fps using no AA at medium details at 1600x900 resolution. But on skyrim i get 0 fps increase overclocking my cpu... If i downclock to 1000mhz then i notice my fps drops by about 5 or so and if i go to like 1200 i gain that 5fps back... But if i go back to stock at 1500mhz i gain nothing, if i overclock all the way up to 2400mhz i get 0 nothing... that doesnt make any sense... I thought this game was cpu limited like all bethesda games are ?

Ifi lower the resolution to 1280x900 from 1600x900 then i gain about 9 fps wouldnt that mean that its a cpu issue and not gpu if i lower the resolution and gain fps ? if so why am i not getting a fps increase overclocking the cpu over 1000mhz more. could it be because my ram is only 1 stick and not 2 for the duel channle ? I assume they still use duel channle on these newer cpu's right ?

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

You are absolutely wrong in that a change in resolution is a CPU bottleneck.

It is a GPU bottleneck. You are GPU bottlenecked in Skyrim.

 

[shortylickens]

I started the game with a 4890 and when I moved to a GTX460 I saw huge improvements.

 

[thedarkwolf]

I play it on my a8 laptop fine but has a dedicated 6750M. Never bothered to check my FPS and since I'm running a bunch of graphic mods it wouldn't be comparable anyway.

 

[upsdriver]

Overclocking cpu and your fps doubles? Bullshit.

If you're lowering your resolution, your video card has less pixels to render, which means higher fps.

 

[NoSoup4You]

If you lower your resolution and you gain fps, you have a gpu bottleneck. If you lower the resolution and there is zero difference, you are cpu bottlenecked.

Skyrim, like all of Bethesda's games before it, requires a strong gpu. Oblivion chewed gpu's up and spit them out back in 2006 when it was released, and I remember Fallout 3 required a couple of sliders to be dropped down on whatever my rig was back then (that was my old 8800GTS 640MB).

You're not wrong in that Bethesda games also need a good cpu, but around their initial release they've challenged the current batch of gpu's too.

 

[SZLiao214]

They also released an update that improved the performance in game by quite a bit. I think it had something to do with poorly optimized code that was hitting the cpu pretty hard.

 

[Candymancan21]

Overclocking cpu and your fps doubles? Bullshit.

If you're lowering your resolution, your video card has less pixels to render, which means higher fps.

nope in WORLD OF TANKS i get like 20fps at 1500mhz at 2500mhz i get around 40... if thats not double then i dunno what is.....

Im wondering tho do you guys think my fps would improve if i got another stick of memory for duel channle ? atm this laptop is using only 1 stick

 

[Candymancan21]

I started the game with a 4890 and when I moved to a GTX460 I saw huge improvements.

im not talkin about my 4890 my game runs 60fps anywhere maxed at 1680x1050 with my e8400 and 4890.. im talkin about my laptop

Do you ghuys think it would be worth it then if i were to return my laptop and wait for the trinity apu ? anyone have any idea how much those laptops will cosy or when they will be out ?

 

[PhoenixEnigma]

Im wondering tho do you guys think my fps would improve if i got another stick of memory for duel channle ? atm this laptop is using only 1 stick

At a guess, yes. Llano will take all the bandwidth you can give it, turn it into performance, and ask for more.

 

[Stuka87]

nope in WORLD OF TANKS i get like 20fps at 1500mhz at 2500mhz i get around 40... if thats not double then i dunno what is.....

Im wondering tho do you guys think my fps would improve if i got another stick of memory for duel channle ? atm this laptop is using only 1 stick

1: Are you trying to say you overclocked a 1.5GHz CPU to 2.5? Or are you just talking about the turbo boost?

2: 1.5 is way to slow to play that game, so in that case yes, that is a CPU bottleneck.

 

[Candymancan21]

1: Are you trying to say you overclocked a 1.5GHz CPU to 2.5? Or are you just talking about the turbo boost?

2: 1.5 is way to slow to play that game, so in that case yes, that is a CPU bottleneck.

yes i overclocked it to 2.5ghz, i can get much further then that but anything higher and the cpu gets too hot.

Guess ill grab a 2nd stick of ram and see what happens to the performance and if it doesnt help ill just return it and come payday use he money towards a better laptop

 

[Candymancan21]

Got the 2nd stick its a pny stick so they are mismached by brand.. wow it was deff the single channle that was the bottleneck. Duel channle my fps in skyrim has gone up 100% litterally.

I used to get 25fps on my savepoint with 1280x720 medium details no AA no AF and now im getting 48fps. I put the graphics up to high and my fps is 42, ultra high my fps is 37.

If i go to 1600x900 with medium my fps was 18, now its 31 which is a 75% fps improvement... on top of that overclocking the cpu now gives me another 5-10fps which before overclocking it did nothing..

So it was deff the memory bandwidth that was the huge bottleneck... Im so happy