Elder Scrolls : Skyrim

[Shaboba]

It really makes me sad that there aren't more Khajiit in the game. I was looking forward to marrying a kitty cat.

[captmorgan72]

So is the ps3's problems with Skyrim confirmation that the Xbox 360 is a better machine?

[Previsionary]

No, because you can't use one game that has PROBLEMS across the board, including freezing on xbox, to gauge a machine's strength. That's kind of ridiculous.

It does make me wonder, however, why only the ps3's issues are being widely publicized while the PC and xbox issues are being mostly downplayed. The truth of the matter is that the game is buggy and needed more testing. Period.

[captmorgan72]

Then there must be a conspiracy. Every Xbox player I asked both in school and on forums, are telling me that the game runs silky smooth on their boxes.

[Previsionary]

That is interesting. And yet, if one were to do a search on skyrim issues, you'd see quite a bit of complaining from all the systems involved, including some stuff about the latest 1.3 patch. *shrugs*

[captmorgan72]

Found this researching the hardware on both consoles. Interesting stuff.

PS3 has split memory architecture, which is generally used within PCs and Macs as they have split memory for GPU and CPU also. Where as Xbox 360 has a first ever odd case of unified pipelines GPU with unified memory. Here's the thing about that, Xbox 360 and PS3 both have 512MB of memory total obviously. Xbox 360 has 512MB DDR3 running at 700MHZ for the whole system. PS3 has 256MB XDR running at 3.2GHZ for the CPU, and 256MB DDR3 running at 700MHZ for GPU. GPU can also access CPU memory on the PS3, therefore reach the same level of memory the Xbox 360 can for graphics. The difference is the PS3 CPU memory can be accessed by the GPU also, which means, the memory runs extremely fast at 3.2GHZ and therefore, more pixel shaders, more pixel pipelines, and vertex shaders, and everything can be pushed out of the PS3 at a much faster speed, therefore creating more detailed graphics with more pixels on a character than an Xbox 360.

[Mr. Hamrick]

That is interesting. And yet, if one were to do a search on skyrim issues, you'd see quite a bit of complaining from all the systems involved, including some stuff about the latest 1.3 patch. *shrugs*

Then there must be a conspiracy. Every Xbox player I asked both in school and on forums, are telling me that the game runs silky smooth on their boxes.

Actually, I've heard more complaints about the 1.2 patch than the 1.3 on the Xbox.   There have been some issues on the Xbox but nowhere near as bad as what I have heard about on the PS3 and PC.

[lugaru]

PC has been seamless for me, probably runs better than some older games with worse graphics.

My friend Tom had some problems crashing out after a while but that was his video card drivers.

I dunno, I dont want to speak for the whole PC community but man this game looks purty with everything maxed and it runs surprisingly smooth, maybe better than oblivion would if I re-installed it. My machine is not a beast either... more a bucket of 1 year old parts in the body of a 4 year old machine (with some old parts still in there).

[captmorgan72]

What kind of a setup do you have lugaru? PC is always the better choice if your computer can handle it. My computer is old and weak.
                       AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+
                       ATI Radeon 3850 512mb
                       SB X-fi
                       3 GB Ram

I would imagine my ps3, even with the problems Skyrim gives it, would perform better than my old pc.

[lugaru]

I think our computers are pretty much identical... I'm not at home but I do remember that I have a 512mb ATI card, 4gb ram (the game only handles 2) and a similar quad core processor. Any computer with those specs can handle most games, a better video card or more ram is usually negligible. Processor and hardrive speed is mostly for load times, I think.

Honestly the only times I have serious problems with games is when they are poorly coded or really ambitious (such as Freedom Force in giant rumble room battles).

[captmorgan72]

Don't get my hopes up lugaru! My processor is a double core though, not a quad. Not very powerful. But now you have me thinking, "maybe my old comp CAN run Skyrim."

[JeyNyce]

Don't get my hopes up lugaru! My processor is a double core though, not a quad. Not very powerful. But now you have me thinking, "maybe my old comp CAN run Skyrim."

It probably could but not at high settings.

[captmorgan72]

I'm wondering what pc setting would be comparable to the ps3/xbox default setting.

[JeyNyce]

I'm wondering what pc setting would be comparable to the ps3/xbox default setting.

Mid settings

[Reepicheep]

I don't live in the same place as my customised PC, which still has an older, double core processor in. I actually didn't think it would work well with Skyrim. I saw it yesterday and it actually looks pretty spectacular. Apparently it slows down slightly during larger (dragon?) battles, but seemed to perform pretty well and smoothly.

[captmorgan72]

Stop it guys your killing me! Problem is, if I do pick it up for the pc and my old timer rig can't run it well, I'm out of $50. What I am looking for is the same performance as the 360. I mean graphics wise and frame rate wise. Not very confident my rig could do that. My old double core processor is the bottleneck in the whole system.

[JeyNyce]

The following are the official minimum requirements:

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

And the recommended requirements:

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; ATI Radeon 4890 or higher).
DirectX compatible sound card
Internet access for Steam activation

[captmorgan72]

Well the verdict is in. The ps3 is more powerful than my pc. My buddy dropped by and installed his copy of Skyrim on my pc just to see. The game automatically put the settings on medium. Graphically it looked about the same as it does on my ps3. However, only 10 minutes into it, I was experiencing massive frame rate drops. Oh well, at least now I know.

[steamteck]

PC version has been wonderful for me and the reason I haven't been around. I did upgrade. I always upgrade  to a new PC for the current Elder Scrolls game.  I just wish the creation kit would come out.  Even without it  TES nexus has over 3000 mods already.