Muncywolverine
Member
You Are Not Alone.
Many Skyrim gamers have plopsty PC's lurking just at or even below the required system specs. Do our crappy pc's stop us from playing? Hell no, but man is it painful walking through that dungeon at 2.5 fps. I intend this thread to be the light at the end of the tunnel for all those crappy PC skyrim gamers out there, or maybe it'll crash and burn we will see.
(DISCLAIMER: I am by no means an expert. Don't rage if something is inaccurate)
So heres a few tips i've learned to make playing more bareable. Please add any you know!
1. RESOLUTION! If you've got a widescreen monitor or laptop that sucks, your gonna want it at a lower resolution. Like 800x600 (sides of your screen will be black). You could even play skyrim in windowed mode, it helps fps a lot.
2. LOW, AND NO! Turn everything off and everything low as it'll go. No antialazing, no FXAA, nothing. MAYBE leave the "actor fade" option alone. If you set that too low you won't be able to see people in the distance. This can make the game unplayable because you'll be getting shot and not see the enemy. But otherwise put everything low as it'll go or uncheck it.
3. SHADOWS N' FOG! Type "Skyrimprefs" into the search option in your start menu. You should find a text document. Change these numbers to turn off shadows and turn down spell effects.
[Display]
fShadowDistance=0.0000
fInteriorShadowDistance=0.0000
fShadowLODStartFade=0.0000
This (should) turn off shadows. It doesn't seem to turn off interior shadows for me though... anyone knows a way to do that i'd appreciate it.
Next it's time to turn down spell effects. Still in the Skyrimprefs file, change this line.
[Particles]
iMaxDesired=0 <--- This will be like 500-750. Either make it a lower number or make it 0.
So that (should) turn off fog/fire and all those particle heavy effects. Heat haze is still there, i don't know how to turn that off or if that would help. If anyone knows i'd appreciate it.
4. TLL! - Oddly enough theres no "veiw distance" option to change. Which sucks, because that would probably help us crappy pc games!
What there is however is the console command "TLL". Open the console and type in TLL it will turn veiw distance down drastically. This doesn't effect close range veiw distance, but what it DOES do it gets rid of mountains and stuff in the background. Every little bit helps.
5. This Mod - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=5695
This mod i found on nexus and i'm frankly not sure if it works or not. I USE it, and i think it helps but it may just be my mind messing with me.
Basically you run this application in the background and it's suppose to increase FPS by letting your cpu max out. For us crappy PC gamers, we don't have much CPU to max out, but every little bit helps! You might get a few fps out of it, why not?
6. Misc - Those were all the big ones i could think of. These Console commands might help the crappy PC gamer though.
"Unlock" - Tired of low FPS making lockpicking a nightmare? Click the door and unlock it. Lol.
"Kill" - Tired of low FPS making random battles a nightmare? Click the npc and kill it. Lol.
Will add more if ya'll can think of any, i'm tapped out for tonight.
Many Skyrim gamers have plopsty PC's lurking just at or even below the required system specs. Do our crappy pc's stop us from playing? Hell no, but man is it painful walking through that dungeon at 2.5 fps. I intend this thread to be the light at the end of the tunnel for all those crappy PC skyrim gamers out there, or maybe it'll crash and burn we will see.
(DISCLAIMER: I am by no means an expert. Don't rage if something is inaccurate)
So heres a few tips i've learned to make playing more bareable. Please add any you know!
1. RESOLUTION! If you've got a widescreen monitor or laptop that sucks, your gonna want it at a lower resolution. Like 800x600 (sides of your screen will be black). You could even play skyrim in windowed mode, it helps fps a lot.
2. LOW, AND NO! Turn everything off and everything low as it'll go. No antialazing, no FXAA, nothing. MAYBE leave the "actor fade" option alone. If you set that too low you won't be able to see people in the distance. This can make the game unplayable because you'll be getting shot and not see the enemy. But otherwise put everything low as it'll go or uncheck it.
3. SHADOWS N' FOG! Type "Skyrimprefs" into the search option in your start menu. You should find a text document. Change these numbers to turn off shadows and turn down spell effects.
[Display]
fShadowDistance=0.0000
fInteriorShadowDistance=0.0000
fShadowLODStartFade=0.0000
This (should) turn off shadows. It doesn't seem to turn off interior shadows for me though... anyone knows a way to do that i'd appreciate it.
Next it's time to turn down spell effects. Still in the Skyrimprefs file, change this line.
[Particles]
iMaxDesired=0 <--- This will be like 500-750. Either make it a lower number or make it 0.
So that (should) turn off fog/fire and all those particle heavy effects. Heat haze is still there, i don't know how to turn that off or if that would help. If anyone knows i'd appreciate it.
4. TLL! - Oddly enough theres no "veiw distance" option to change. Which sucks, because that would probably help us crappy pc games!
What there is however is the console command "TLL". Open the console and type in TLL it will turn veiw distance down drastically. This doesn't effect close range veiw distance, but what it DOES do it gets rid of mountains and stuff in the background. Every little bit helps.
5. This Mod - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=5695
This mod i found on nexus and i'm frankly not sure if it works or not. I USE it, and i think it helps but it may just be my mind messing with me.
Basically you run this application in the background and it's suppose to increase FPS by letting your cpu max out. For us crappy PC gamers, we don't have much CPU to max out, but every little bit helps! You might get a few fps out of it, why not?
6. Misc - Those were all the big ones i could think of. These Console commands might help the crappy PC gamer though.
"Unlock" - Tired of low FPS making lockpicking a nightmare? Click the door and unlock it. Lol.
"Kill" - Tired of low FPS making random battles a nightmare? Click the npc and kill it. Lol.
Will add more if ya'll can think of any, i'm tapped out for tonight.
