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Skyrim Revisited GPU


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I have installed Skyrim Revisited but my GTX 570 1280 MB GPU is struggling even with 1k textures so I'm going to buy a new graphics card. I wanted to ask you Neovalen for advice. I know that you are busy updating and working with Skyrim Revisited and understand if you don't have time for this question that I know have been discussed in several posts here on STEP. You seem to be well informed though (not implying others aren't) so I figured that I'd ask you for an advice, if you have the time.

 

I have been reading quite alot in the STEP forums and there seems to be many opinions about what to get and how much vram skyrim can use before it starts to ctd. My question is if you think Gigabyte GTX 670 4GB (https://www.gigabyte.eu/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4375#ov) is overkill. Is 4GB VRAM necessary? Should i get an amd 3GB card instead? From what I understand skyrim crashes before it reaches 3GB of VRAM use. If so maybe I should get the cheaper amd card? I have never had an amd card so i don't know what to expect from them and if there are any hassels or features missing that I'm used to have with NVIDIA cards.

 

I want to be able to install skyrim revisited with 2k textures and use ENB. 

 

Spec:

Resolution: 1920x1080 on 1 monitor, not planning to get any more

CPU i5-2500K, can be overclocked and stable at 4.2-4.4 GHz

8 GB RAM

windows 8

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I would stick with Nvidia myself because of the driver features/tools but that's just my personal experience. 3gb is probably about the limit for Sky rim but you never know down the line/other games.

 

Obviously I went with a 670 4gb (SLI) setup but depends on the prices out there ATM. I would definitely go 3gb+ and not 2gb.

 

The real killer for Skyrim CTD issues is RAM not Vram so much. I've gotten up over 3.2gb VRAM before without a crash but not much more.

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I would most likely recommend the GTX 660 3Gb version it is the best price/performance card out there atm. from nvidia. I dont get ATI cards since I generally do not like their drivers much, but that a personal thing not much hold in evidence etc.

I personally have the 2Gb version and I run it fine after doing the a heavy duty optimization of various outdoor textures... got no issues in cities or in dungeons/caves.

 

When I get a CTD it is mainly because the game uses up the full 3.5ish GB RAM for too long and then has to load in a complex cell. I found out that if I just save my game when I notice that I have run at that level and then quit to menu and reload the game. Then the game will remove everything from previous cells that it seems to keep and I can play on with no CTD. (Tested it and verifed that it works in my main quest run!)

We can hope that the "memory optimizations" that are coming in 1.9 will address this issue and make the game better at cleaning the stuff out it does not use anymore.

 

Also walkman I am a bit curious as to why you would go up in VRAM use by applying an ENB... since postprocessing should not require that more textures are loaded it only applies more operations on textures already loaded in (Which then only requires your GPU to do more operation pr sec. which leads to FPS drops if it is not fast enough). Even if there is some rise it should not be in the order of 200-300Mb Strange but I guess it is possible.

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ATI has better overall image quality but nvidia Has more horsepower

Funny, I'd think it's the other way around now, considering that you can toggle a lot more effects on Nvidia cards but AMD's cards excel at high resolution in most games.

 

But it would be nice to see something that proves me wrong, since I'm not always up to date on the computer hardware developments.

 

On another note, I fail to see how a GTX 670 4GB would be a better choice than an HD 7970 3GB. It's pretty much certain that you'll run into the RAM limit in Skyrim way before hitting the wall on VRAM, not to mention that at 1920x1080 it's a widely excessive amount of memory anyway. Perhaps once the new consoles start using some serious resolution textures, things will change, but I don't see any indication of that now.

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Hey Besidilo, youre definitely right to suppose that the image quality of nV card is superior to AMDs. I owned a 7970 (3gb) and gave it back to get a 670 (4gb), just because the image quality sucked on AMD, especially since there is no proper AO implementation.

Might be the complete opposite for other games, but is definitely the case for Skyrim imo.

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The only differences between AMD and Nvidia are AO et AF. You can't use AO on an AMD without an ENB and the AF quality via driver is beter on AMD.

The rest can be put on drivers issues, driver options, monitor parameters or the idiot between the chair and the keyboard :D

That is particulary true with gamma and color when going from AMD to Nvidia (or the other way), you have to recalibrate your monitor.

But I agree, for Skyrim stick to Nvidia.

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Also walkman I am a bit curious as to why you would go up in VRAM use by applying an ENB... since postprocessing should not require that more textures are loaded it only applies more operations on textures already loaded in (Which then only requires your GPU to do more operation pr sec. which leads to FPS drops if it is not fast enough). Even if there is some rise it should not be in the order of 200-300Mb Strange but I guess it is possible.

Ah, I mis-typed :) Meant that the optimizations afforded me the extra 200-300mb of VRAM. 

 

I am not very confident in understanding ENBs, especially trying to tailor them to my set up, unfortunately. I usually will just play them as-is and if the FPS hit is too much or I don't like the look I delete them.

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The only differences between AMD and Nvidia are AO et AF. You can't use AO on an AMD without an ENB and the AF quality via driver is beter on AMD.

The rest can be put on drivers issues, driver options, monitor parameters or the idiot between the chair and the keyboard :D

That is particulary true with gamma and color when going from AMD to Nvidia (or the other way), you have to recalibrate your monitor.

But I agree, for Skyrim stick to Nvidia.

Speaking of gamma and calibration, Nvidia drivers still don't allow users to force ICC/ICM profiles in games.

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/501853/nvidia-forever-ignoring-custom-color-profile-support-in-full-screen-games-collaboration-thread-on-t/

 

And on the subject of additional rendering effects, I don't think it's possible to force FXAA without an injector in AMD drivers (they have MLAA) or various forms of SuperSampling AntiAliasing (such as SGSSAA), which either don't exist in AMD's drivers or don't work with a number of games.

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Damn it I can't decide. Now I'm leaning towards a 3GB amd, maybe 7950. I have read a lot on various (swedish) overclocking forums. Mostly everyone states that that the Nvidia cards really can't use 4GB memory because of the 256-bit memory bus which is a bottle neck on the cards. They can actually only use just above 2GB. Some people states that this is not completly correct since they can have 4GB of textures in memory but only render 2GB of these textures thus a 4GB card could help reduce stuttering since they don't have to load textures from ram. I don't know how correct this is as I have no idea how a graphics card handles textures. Someone mentioned that skyrim with lots of high reolution texture mods probably is the only game that could make use of +2GB VRAM with a 256-bit memory bus.

The amd cards on the other hand has a 384-bit memory bus which lets them make full use of their 3GB memory. And are cheaper.

 

Does anyone know of any good performance tests which compares nvidia and amd cards on modded skyrim?

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The only differences between AMD and Nvidia are AO et AF. You can't use AO on an AMD without an ENB and the AF quality via driver is beter on AMD.

The rest can be put on drivers issues, driver options, monitor parameters or the idiot between the chair and the keyboard :D

That is particulary true with gamma and color when going from AMD to Nvidia (or the other way), you have to recalibrate your monitor.

But I agree, for Skyrim stick to Nvidia.

Speaking of gamma and calibration, Nvidia drivers still don't allow users to force ICC/ICM profiles in games.

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/501853/nvidia-forever-ignoring-custom-color-profile-support-in-full-screen-games-collaboration-thread-on-t/

 

And on the subject of additional rendering effects, I don't think it's possible to force FXAA without an injector in AMD drivers (they have MLAA) or various forms of SuperSampling AntiAliasing (such as SGSSAA), which either don't exist in AMD's drivers or don't work with a number of games.

Well AMD have their own version of FXAA. SSAA exist in AMD drivers and there are various form of AA in AMD that doesn't exist in Nvidia.

Contrary to popular belief AMD drivers are now very good and provide as much options as Nvidia's. Each constructor has their own proprietary technologies only available via their drivers and sometime in game if they had a partnership with the game developer.

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