Skyrim on an eight year old rig

[Farlo]

So I thought I'd give this a shot to help out my brother since he's been cursed with an ancient machine.  Last weekend I gutted the thing, cleaned it out (new thermal paste and all), and reformatted it. Here's the specs, and keep in mind that this is an attempt to get it "playable" without upgrading:

 

Intel Pentium D @ 2.8 Ghz

Nvidia 7900GS @ stock (256MB VRAM)

3GB DDR2 RAM @ 553 Mhz

 

So obviously it auto-configured to Low, everything bottomed out.  In just the cart -> creation bit I got ~20 fps without much major stuttering.  So I installed Unofficial Skyrim Patch, Vanilla Reduced Textures (512), Skyrim Performance Plus (Mains + Extreme Rift), and Mountains Performance Boost (512) through Mod Organizer.  He hasn't let me get to Whiterun yet but on the way to Riverwood it was holding steady at 20-25 fps except for a major stutter if I turned too quickly.  I'm also getting some weird shadow flickering but that'll be fixed with some clean INIs (I screwed with them too much at once without recording the changes).

 

Does anyone know of any other mods or tweaks that can help squeeze out a few more FPS?  This might go without saying, but he's been playing Minecraft since it was released so playable frame rates trump any kind of quality.

[gwoody79]

HiAlgoBoost FPS Performance Accelerator might help (cannot confirm, havent tried it but been tracking)

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15123

[Besidilo]

Try setting some performance flags in Nvidia Inspector (I assume the 7000 series cards are supported?).

 

Make sure to install the latest supported drivers. What OS are you running? Clearing up as much memory as possible could be beneficial.

 

Oh, and please post some screenshots. I'm very curious on how Skyrim looks like at super-low details.

 

Any chance you could overclock either the CPU or the GPU?

[skwareballz]

Just use shadow remover, the FPS boost is way better for the gameplay experience than having crappy shadows anyways.

 

There is also that really low res mod I found once, but I forget the name, makes Skyrim go back to PS one or N64 era graphics. I'm guessing the performance boost is unreal though.

[Farlo]

Great suggestions, I'll go through and see which ones work when I get a chance, and of course I'll take screenshots along the way :D  I'm running Win7 x64 with all the latest drivers and I've bumped the resolution down to 1024x768.  I also have Aero disabled and Admin enabled on TESV.exe as well as clear out the background processes as much as I can before running it.  

 

Unfortunately it's a Dell XPS 400 and back in the day they used more proprietary crap than they do now. I've tried just about every temperature monitor I can find but none of them can pick up on the CPU's temp. I can overclock the GPU and I'll see how high I can get it; is there any good software for monitoring GPU usage?  

 

I've noticed for VRAM usage that it's pegged at ~240MB, does this mean there's some setting allocating the rest somewhere else, and if so can I undo that?

[ath3nos]

I'm not sure about what mods will help because I'm rather new to this, but on my laptop I had a good performance boost just running it in windowed mode. Maybe it will help maybe it won't. Just a suggestion for you if you haven't tried already.

 

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2

[LeetMiniWheat]

I would be running windows XP or win7-32bit on that machine, with Aero/Desktop composition disabled to save VRAM on Win7. running a 64bit OS on only 3GB ram is pointless, and it adds additional overhead and memory requirements since everything runs through a kind of 32bit emulation layer.

 

Also consider manually tweaking running services, adjusting windows effects for max performance, and/or running Game Booster for some quick easy tweaks.

 

P.S. thread title fail. "eight your old"

[Farlo]

I would be running windows XP or win7-32bit on that machine, with Aero/Desktop composition disabled to save VRAM on Win7. running a 64bit OS on only 3GB ram is pointless, and it adds additional overhead and memory requirements since everything runs through a kind of 32bit emulation layer.

 

Also consider manually tweaking running services, adjusting windows effects for max performance, and/or running Game Booster for some quick easy tweaks.

 

P.S. thread title fail. "eight your old"

Lol, fixed the thread title :hurr:

 

Unfortunately the choice between XP and 7 was already made for me and I've disabled as much background crap as I can.  I'll have to look into Game Booster as well.

[Vypir]

Good advice in this thread. Agreed on turning shadows off completely. That should be huge.

 

Make sure Vsync is off and turn down pre-rendered frames in Nvidia Control Panel as low as it will go.

[gwoody79]

Keeps us informed on what your final mods/tweeks were to get an ancient system running Skyrim fairly smooth. I came across another mod just browsing today and thought of this thread so here is link-

TESV Reduced Texture Pack:

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/47

[Besidilo]

I would be running windows XP or win7-32bit on that machine, with Aero/Desktop composition disabled to save VRAM on Win7. running a 64bit OS on only 3GB ram is pointless, and it adds additional overhead and memory requirements since everything runs through a kind of 32bit emulation layer.

 

Also consider manually tweaking running services, adjusting windows effects for max performance, and/or running Game Booster for some quick easy tweaks.

 

P.S. thread title fail. "eight your old"

Lol, fixed the thread title :hurr:

 

Unfortunately the choice between XP and 7 was already made for me and I've disabled as much background crap as I can.  I'll have to look into Game Booster as well.

https://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-xp-x86-32-bit-service-pack-3-service-configurations/

 

Not using an anti-virus may also help.

 

Make sure that you've got the latest Service Pack and updates.

[Farlo]

https://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-xp-x86-32-bit-service-pack-3-service-configurations/

 

Not using an anti-virus may also help.

 

Make sure that you've got the latest Service Pack and updates.

I'm running Win7 and of course it's all updated and stuff. I'll add anti-virus to the list of tests.

[Besidilo]

https://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-xp-x86-32-bit-service-pack-3-service-configurations/

 

Not using an anti-virus may also help.

 

Make sure that you've got the latest Service Pack and updates.

I'm running Win7 and of course it's all updated and stuff. I'll add anti-virus to the list of tests.

https://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-7-service-pack-1-service-configurations/

 

Also disable UAC, features that you don't use under Programs and Features, tweak the visual effects (e.g. disable all unneeded ones), set up an appropriate page file and make sure to defrag the HDD regularly.

[Farlo]

https://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-7-service-pack-1-service-configurations/

 

Also disable UAC, features that you don't use under Programs and Features, tweak the visual effects (e.g. disable all unneeded ones), set up an appropriate page file and make sure to defrag the HDD regularly.

Done, done, and done; got most of the basics covered and it's just been reformatted so there's almost nothing on there.  Thanks for the appropriate link, will check it out.

[Besidilo]

https://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-7-service-pack-1-service-configurations/

 

Also disable UAC, features that you don't use under Programs and Features, tweak the visual effects (e.g. disable all unneeded ones), set up an appropriate page file and make sure to defrag the HDD regularly.

Done, done, and done; got most of the basics covered and it's just been reformatted so there's almost nothing on there.  Thanks for the appropriate link, will check it out.

Have a look here, I know it's mostly for fresh installs with SSDs, but some points might be of use for you as well.

 

https://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds#post_15523325