Will Skyrim be fully playable on a HD 4850?

[MrTeal]

Nope, he gave no such link. Visit and then comment. And there was no 512 mb card in his links. And all of them were with at least a core i5 which itself doubles the performance as my link clearly points out

The version of the GT240 used in that test is 512MB GDDR5. It's also a much slower card than the 4850. The min and average are right around 30FPS.

The CPU scaling test was at Ultra, 16x AF, 4xAA with a GTX570. With a 4850 you'll be much more limited by the GPU so scaling will be less severe. Also, the 2500k@4GHz is 60% faster than the 3.0GHz PII in that test, so even in that situation it wouldn't double his 3.2GHz 955.

Visit and comment.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

The average FPS is 60% more, but the minimum FPS is nearly double.

And in such a modern game, the GTS 240 will be like 10-20% slower than 4850 assuming both have just 512mb VRAM.

Also, average 30 FPS is far from playable.

Anything below average FPS 50 and minimum FPS 35-40 is unplayable.

And you are still negating your own points.

That guy got 30 FPS with a GT240, with this guys CPU I guarantee it would be at the very most 20-22 or max 23-24. I don't get average FPS < 30 is even remotely playable. IMO an average of 35-40 isn't playable either. Minimum of 40 might do it for him, but not average.

He is looking towards an average FPS of around 20-22 and minimum around 10-15.

He needs a card which is 3 times as powerful to cut it. And that is basically 6900 or 560 Ti range.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Honestly, I try to make sure that my games get a minimum FPS of 60+ and worst case high 40s or mid 50s, that is the worst case. And I am talking of minimum FPS. Average FPS should ideally by 20-50% higher than minimum FPS.

 

[MrTeal]

That guy got 30 FPS with a GT240, with this guys CPU I guarantee it would be at the very most 20-22 or max 23-24. I don't get average FPS < 30 is even remotely playable. IMO an average of 35-40 isn't playable either. Minimum of 40 might do it for him, but not average.

So, with a GTX570 there is a 60% increase in average framerate from a 3.0GHz X4 to a 4GHz 2500k, but with a GT240 you say that the 2500k will get 66% higher average than a 3.2GHz X4? The worse your GPU the more dramatic the effect of CPU scaling?

He needs a card which is 3 times as powerful to cut it. And that is basically 6900 or 560 Ti range.

Bullcrap. Skyrim does not require a 69xx to run fine, especially at 1080p. Not playable at Ultra/16xAF/4xAA doesn't mean not playable at all. If going from Ultra to High is the difference between enjoying the game and not, it's not a very good game to begin with.

 

[peonyu]

Was going to pickup a copy for my brother as a gift, his rig is this:

Phenom II 955 3.2ghz
Asus mobo
8gb ram
Sapphire HD 4850 512mb
Samsung 21" 1080p LED planel


Will he be able to play at medium at 1080p?

Overclock your 4850 as much as you can, they clock well and they are beastly cards with how tolerant they are to pretty much anything [minus running it over with a truck]. High volts, temps etc are np for them. Keep it under 100c at load overclocked and it will be fine.

 

[Concillian]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-9.html

And I don't want your shit unless it is backed by links from a reputable website.

How about the same site you linked to, but instead of ancient benchmarks from before the patch that fixed the CPU issues with the game, they're actually relevant and valid benchmarks from the way Skyrim will actually play for anyone buying the game now:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-4100-core-i3-2100-gaming-benchmark,3136-7.html

An FX4100 running ultra at 40 FPS minimum and significantly higher in every other test.
An FX4100! The red headed stepchild of CPU family where the whole family is considered red headed stepchildren... worst of the worst. The patch in January completely and dramatically changed the CPU dependency of the game, and now virtually any CPU will be at a 100% GPU bottleneck. Skyrim CPU related performance dips are a thing of the past.

If you actually played the game in the last couple months you'd know this. It was quite a significant event, as you can tell from that last set of benchmarks.
It's pretty obvious that any assumptions you have made about Skyrim performance are based on old and irrelevant benchmarks, and thus any arguments you have made are totally invalid.

The OP asked if it would play okay @1080p with ~medium settings... and, like most people have been saying... it will. It will likely play okay on significantly higher than medium settings. I do not say this from looking at benchmarks on the web and making assumptions. I say this from actually playing the game with a similar config to the OP (5770 & i3-530) @ 1920x1200.

I find it amazing that this thread actually has several posts going back and forth about these completely invalid benchmarks that were posted. It took over a day for someone to snap people into reality that these benchmarks are completely useless.
This should be a wake up call for some people that gaming is more than just benchmarks on websites, and it's not necessarily he who posts the best link wins. People who give opinions from similar hardware configurations are as valid or more so than assumptions from 4+ month old benchmark charts. All of the early posts in the thread coming from people who has actually played the game recently, but didn't have benchmarks to back that up were right! Meanwhile, the dude with a benchmark link from a well respected site was the one who was dead wrong.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Medium he will probably be okay, he was talking of max settings.

 

[Concillian]

Medium he will probably be okay, he was talking of max settings.

Read the OP again.

Also, I guarantee he will be fine at higher than medium settings.

No, I don't have a link to back that up, because as I mentioned in my last post, there was a major patch that invalidated almost all of the Skyrim benchmarks that are out there on the web. I can only offer my personal experience with a similar hardware configuration.

 

[hawtdawg]

the game runs fine with most everything cranked @ 1080p on a single 4870 mobility if that tells you anything

 

[chronochime]

Bull! My 4870 yields a very nice playing experince at 1920x1200 high settings, 497h of play. Gonna upgrade it sometimes just to get more VRAM before I install the HD package.

What are you upgrading to? I have the same card and am mulling over what to get.

 

[Lyfer]

Thank you all for the great responses. Plays smoothly at high with AA turned off. Game looks fantastic!

 

[Avalon]

I was running at 1680x1050 max settings on a 4850 a while back and it was generally pretty playable. I'd imagine it'll run at 1080p at medium.

 

[dennilfloss]

What are you upgrading to? I have the same card and am mulling over what to get.

Waiting for the nVidia middle lineup, then will choose between their offering or a Radeon 7850/7870, depending on: Skyrim performance, VRAM, and (importantly in my case) card length (I'm looking for something about 250mm). My last nVidia card was a Diamond Viper 770.^_^

Moneywise I don't feel like doing a full system upgrade at the moment even though I have a buyer ready to purchase my current computer when I'll make the full switch.

 

[dennilfloss]

Thank you all for the great responses. Plays smoothly at high with AA turned off. Game looks fantastic!

 

[chronochime]

Waiting for the nVidia middle lineup, then will choose between their offering or a Radeon 7850/7870, depending on: Skyrim performance, VRAM, and (importantly in my case) card length (I'm looking for something about 250mm). My last nVidia card was a Diamond Viper 770.^_^

Moneywise I don't feel like doing a full system upgrade at the moment even though I have a buyer ready to purchase my current computer when I'll make the full switch.

Thanks for the reply! I'm just itching to switch to a (much) better card to finally play Diablo 3. Got that pre-ordered and I really don't think my old loud 4870 is going to cut it. Come on Nvidia I want to retire my card(and the rest of my system)

 

[pauldun170]

I normally play on a q9550 with a gtx570 (maxed out settings runs fine) but with steam also installed on the HTPC it played ok with a couple of setting rolled back on a i3-2100 paired with a HD4830 512 card.

To answer original poster question...if it plays on the 4830, it will on the 4850.