PC Skyrim PC Requirements List

[Anthrax]

What are listed here to everyone is by Bethesda's consensus and remains an "opinion".

Minimum Requirements. (Bethesda's opinion)

• Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
• Processor: Intel Dual Core 2.0GHz or equivalent processor (AMD Sempron @ 2.4 GHz)
• 2GB System RAM
• 6GB free HDD space
• Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512 MB of RAM
• DirectX compatible sound card

Recommended Requirements.(Betheda's Opinion)

• Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
• Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU processor
• 4GB System RAM
• 6GB free HDD (Hard disk drive) space
• DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with 1GB of RAM: Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 or higher; ATI Radeon HD 4890 or higher
• DirectX compatible sound card

_______________________________

In my opinion ...

Skyrim's quality is all at play here. Which is simple enough, the better the hardware the better the quality of game play.
Now days we have long tossed out the old rubbish consisting of Pentiums and inferior graphics components and changed with new HD cards and put more cores in the CPUs, so essentially Skyrim will run on anything in this regard. But quality wise is dependent on what.

FAULTS

Rendering issues and any graphical faults in Skyrim are simply resulted to performance settings set by you the user or the PC (i.e. default). If
settings have been raised higher than what your hardware can run, issues will be present. From resolution to minor settings such as AA, AF etc, needs to be switched off and set until graphical issues are resolved.

Important in posting for help regarding faults in the help discussion, is to provide your specifications in order for someone to troubleshoot them. They cannot know if you trying to run Skyrim on some alien technology or your grandmothers 586.

Keep in mind that Skyrim needs to be fully updated in order to make sure that any issues present in older versions don't create obstacles.

MODS

In most cases with graphical glitches are related to mods. Mods are not made to system spec for everyone and faulty code/settings etc will not work for everyone,
unless attention and testing was done. But modders are generally lazy. So if you experiencing glitches try reinstalling without adding mods whatsoever.

GRAPHICS

Any graphics card below 256MB in memory is going to be incompatible. Failure to initialize graphics in RAM won't be sufficient to launch the game.

Laptop users you will be able to play Skyrim provided the laptop has Intel HD 4000 any other on chip Intel graphics under that,
Skyrim performance will be choked and in some instances report an error failing to initialize,

Nearly most and if not all laptops that have Intel HD 4000 have an adequate processor for Skyrim, so nothing needs to be questioned about that other than quality. Important to
remember, you not going to get good quality out of a laptop unless it's a gaming one. Experience wise I would recommend Alienware laptops.

And from experience I've played Skyrim from an Alienware i7, i5 CPUs and my Phenom II black edition (a personal favourite) down to my faithful AMD Santiago core Athlon 4000+ (Single core) processor. Socket 939...
This debunks the fallacy that Skyrim needs a dual core. This single core CPU runs it just fine on high settings.

I have left out many other aspects but listing them all is impractical. This is just to give you some insight.

Below here listed "again" common opinions of cards and their qualities.

Very Low / Low
__________
ATI RADEON
HD4250 512MB
HD4350 512MB
HD3450 256MB
HD2600Pro 256MB
HD2400XT 256MB
HD2400Pro 256MB
X1650Pro 256MB
X1600XT 256MB
X1600Pro 256MB
X1550 AGP 512MB
X1300XGE 512MB
X1300XT 256MB
X850XTPE 256MB
X850XT 256MB
X850Pro 256MB
X800XT/PE 256MB
X800XL 256MB
X800GTO2 256MB
X800GTO 256MB
X800Pro 256MB
X800GTO 256MB
X800GT 256MB
X800 256MB
_____________
nVIDIA GeForce

GT 210 512MB
9400GT 512MB
8500GT 256MB
8400GS 256MB
7600GTS 256MB
7600GS 256MB
7300GT 256MB
6800Ultra/EE 256MB
6800GT 256MB
6800GS 256MB
6800GS AGP 256MB
6800 256MB
6800XT/LE 256MB
6600GT 256MB
6150SE nForce 430

_____________

Low / Medium
__________
ATI RADEON
HD6450 1GB
HD5570 1GB
HD5550 1GB
HD5450 512MB
HD4650 512MB
HD4550 512MB
HD3850 256MB
HD3650 256MB
HD2900GT 256MB
HD2600XT 256MB
X1950XTX 512MB
X1950XT 256MB
X1950GT 512MB
X1950Pro 512MB
X1950Pro 256MB
X1900XTX 512MB
X1900XT 512MB
X1900XT 256MB
X1900GT 256MB
X1900GT Rev2 256MB
X1800XT 512MB
X1800XT 256MB
X1800XL 256MB
X1800GTO 256MB
X1650XT 256MB
_____________
nVIDIA GeForce

GT 520 2GB
GTS 450 1GB
GT 440 1GB
GTS 250 1GB
GTS 250 512MB
GTS 240 512MB
GT 240 1GB
GT 240 512MB
9800GTX+ 512MB
9800GTX 512MB
9800GT 1GB
9800GT 512MB
9600GT 1GB
9600GT 512MB
9600GSO 768MB
9600GSO 512MB (G94)
9600GSO 384MB
8800 Ultra 768MB
8800GTX 768MB
8800GTS 512MB (G92)
8800GT 1GB
8800GT 512MB
8800GTS 640MB (112SP)
8800GTS 640MB
8800GT 256MB
8800GTS 320MB
8800GS 384MB
NVS 3100M 512MB
___________________

High / Very High
__________
ATI RADEON
HD6790 1GB
HD6770 1GB
HD5830 1GB
HD5770 1GB
HD4890 2GB
HD4890 1GB
HD4870 1GB
HD4870 512MB
_____________
nVIDIA GeForce

GTX 550 Ti 1GB
GTX 460 SE 1GB
GTX 460 768MB
GTS 450 1.5GB
GT 440 2GB and 4GB
GTX 280 1GB
GTX 275 1792MB
GTX 275 896MB
GTX 260-Core 216 896MB
GTX 260 896MB
9800GX2 1GB

_____________

Very High / Extremely High
__________
ATI RADEON


HD7990 6GB
HD7970 6GB
HD7970 3GB
HD7950 3GB
HD7870 2GB
HD7850 2GB
HD7770 1GB
HD6990 4GB
HD6870X2 2GB
HD6970 2GB
HD6870 1GB
HD6950 2GB
HD6950 1GB
HD6850 1GB
HD5970 4GB
HD5970 2GB
HD5870X2 4GB
HD5870 2GB
HD5870 1GB
HD5850 1GB
HD4870X2 2GB
HD4850X2 2GB
HD4850X2 1GB

_____________
nVIDIA GeForce

GTX 690 4GB
GTX 680 2GB
GTX 670 2GB
GTX 590 3GB
Mars II Dual GTX 580 3GB
GTX 580 3GB
GTX 580 1536MB
GTX 570 1280MB
GTX 560 Ti 448 1GB
GTX 560 Ti 2GB
GTX 560 Ti 1GB
GTX 560 3GB
GTX 560 1GB
GTX 480 1536MB
GTX 470 1280MB
GTX 465 1GB
GTX 460 2Win 2GB
GTX 460 2GB
GTX 460 1GB
GTS 450 2GB
GTX 295 1792MB
GTX 285 2GB
GTX 285 1GB

 

[PelagiusIV]

Just the topic I was looking for. I recently bought a laptop and am wondering if it could run Skyrim. The only problem...I'm not sure if what I have is over or under the required/recommended specs.

My Specs:
Toshiba Satellite L840
Windows 8 (64 bit)
2n Gen Intel Core i3-2328M (2.2GHz)
8 GB Ram
320 GB Hard Drive
AMD Radeon HD 7670M


Not sure if thats all the info required to tell if it can run or not. I'm also not positive on that graphics card, I tried looking up the specs for my model, but I could only find it for the Toshiba Satellite L840/02H. Not sure if that's mine or not. I was able to find the other info on my laptop but I'm not sure where to find the graphic card. At the very least, do you think it would run Oblivion?

Oblivions Recommended System Req:
3 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent
1 GB Ram
ATI X800 Series, Nvidia GeForce 6800 series or higher

Basically I know my laptop will not be able to run it on the best settings, I just want to know if it will be playable though. I just started looking into building my own gaming PC today. I'm not buying everything at once but spreading it out and hoping to have it all finished in 6-10 months (just bought a house so funds are kinda tight at the moment). I just want to see if I can get Skyrim started on the PC now though so I can still play it while waiting for my CPU to be finished. Currently I play on the 360, but seeing all the amazing mods has finally gotten to me and I need to get the PC version. Thanks for any advice.

 

[Anthrax]

My Specs:
Toshiba Satellite L840
Windows 8 (64 bit)
2n Gen Intel Core i3-2328M (2.2GHz)
8 GB Ram
320 GB Hard Drive
AMD Radeon HD 7670M

I was able to find the other info on my laptop but I'm not sure where to find the graphic card. At the very least, do you think it would run Oblivion?

Those specs will definitely play Oblivion.

For Skyrim though, medium without the lag. Possibly high.

That mobile i3 dual core doesn't have the capacity to push it higher.

AMD Radeon HD 7670M is nice.

For me, if this machine had an i5 it would give Skyrim a kick.

Oblivions Recommended System Req:

3 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent
1 GB Ram
ATI X800 Series, Nvidia GeForce 6800 series or higher

Basically I know my laptop will not be able to run it on the best settings, I just want to know if it will be playable though.

On those specs you lucky if Minesweeper runs without lags.

Solitaire maybe on lowest.

I just started looking into building my own gaming PC today.

AMD Phenoms and FX for CPUs. The FX Bulldozer is very good.

Any GTX series generation cards. Preferably any HD7990 6GB or above or an HD4890 if things are tight.

8 to 16 gigs of Kingston ram.

Start off first getting a nice motherboard. And make sure that mother has enough juice to feed all that stuff. Don't get a cheap motherboard. Invest in one designed for gaming.

Excellent graphics components and ram, etc is virtually plops without a good MB.

 

[PelagiusIV]

Thanks for the advice! I just downloaded Oblivion today, kinda using it as a test run to see how Skyrim will do. And to think that I was considering getting the i5, but at the time all I thought of was work and not gaming, didn't think it was a necessary added expense.

 

[Petron]

Thank you for your detailed review, Anthrax. Very useful table!
Though i dont see 7900GT / 7950GT Nvidia cards here. You may add them into Low/Medium section

 

[Sota]

Gentlemen,
I'm new to the forum here. I was wondering if my system would handle Skyrim. My system is:
Hp dv5t
win 7 64 bit
500gb hd
video is intel mobile(r) 4 series chipset appx total memory 1695
4gb ram

 

[Dagmar]

video is intel mobile(r) 4 series chipset

With a weak integrated graphics chipset like that (also known as the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD) the only way you'll be able to get the game to run is by running it on low resolution with all the graphics settings seriously dumbed down by customizing your skyrimprefs file.

Even the this is the kind of gaming experience you can expect:

The game wasn't made to run on such a weak computer so if you decide to get it you're rolling the dice regarding whether the game will be playable and/or enjoyable for you.