Skyrim graphics compatibility, could someone review these specs??

camaro253

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Nov 22, 2013
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10,510
I have constant CTD in Skyrim and used to get BSOD. I've made hardware changes and now It will not let me play the game on med, high, or ultra settings. If I play the game on low graphics, it crashes less. I was having a problem with the computer suddenly powering off in the middle of playing, but I resolved that issue by replacing the 8-yr-old power supply (overheating). I've upgraded almost everything to be able to play Skyrim, so it would seem to be a software issue instead of a hardware problem. Any advice appreciated.

I have already done the following:

System Cleanup
System Defrag
Reinstalled Skyrim on newer 1TB HDD
Temperatures monitored by AISuite, nothing unusual
Tested HDD with HDTune
Replaced Case for better airflow
Replaced CPU
Replaced Mobo
Added fans, case has seven 120-140mm fans inside
Tested GPUs with Heaven DX11
Replaced 8 year old power supply
Consair memory only 1 year old
Removed one GPU, did not change
Unsubscribed from all mods, started new game, CTD
Updated Nvidia Drivers to 331.82


New specs:

Corsair Carbide Series Air 540 High Airflow Cube Case
CORSAIR AX860 860W 80 Plus Platinum Certified Full Modular Power Supply
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 125W Quad-Core Processor
Two Galaxy GeForce GTX460 Fermi GPUs (SLI)
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 Desktop Memory
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU Heatsink
Four GELID Solutions 120mm case coolers
Three Corsair 140mm case coolers
Saitek Eclipse
Razer Diamondback
Logitech 5.1
Windows 7 32-bit


HDTune results:

#1 HD Tune: WDC WD1500AHFD-00RAR Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 41.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 83.8 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 73.0 MB/sec
Access Time : 9.0 ms
Burst Rate : 110.8 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 2.7%

#2 HD Tune: ST31000524AS Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 61.1 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 127.6 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 98.9 MB/sec
Access Time : 15.7 ms
Burst Rate : 108.1 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 3.2%

Also, when I scanned the newer 1TB HDD, it showed a few damaged blocks. Is it worth worrying about?

HD Tune: ST31000524AS Error Scan

Scanned data : 953488 MB
Damaged Blocks : 0.1 %
Elapsed Time : 177:30



I started looking into Windows 32 bit and came across the Can You Run It app.


Everything checks out on my PC except two things:

Recommended RAM: 4GB

You have: 3.1GB

I have 16GB in the PC, but I'm running the wrong version of Windows to recognize it, right??


And:


Dedicated video RAM: 768MB

Recommended: 1MB

You have: 768MB


I have a question about this one. I'm running 2 GeForce 460 cards in SLI. The app doesn't recognize that. Does the RAM combine?? I'll pick up a different version of Windows, but I really don't want to have to replace both these cards.
 

stormworm

Distinguished
Jan 3, 2012
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18,810
What code is BSOD? Did you perform a clean install of Windows after hardware change? Do you have crash with other applications or games? You should upgrade to 64 bit Windows.
A 32-bit OS without Physical Address Extension has a maximum address range of 4GB of physical memory. With an integrated graphics card, some of the RAM is used by the GPU. With an external graphics card, some of the address space is used for hardware mappings into the VRAM, but it is not as large as the amount of memory on the card. Typically, a discrete GPU needs about 256MB of mapped space regardless of how much memory is on the card. Other hardware mappings typically need around 256MB in total. Usually a 4GB machine with a 32-bit OS without PAE and a discrete graphics card will have 3.2GB to 3.5GB of usable RAM.

I'd check the SMART data for the drive using a utility such as HD Sentinel.

Ram doesn't combine, you still have 1GB.

On what resolution are you playing? I still play Skyrim with my old gtx 550 on 1920x1080 and it's 30+ on ultra with aa x2 (with high res textures packs).
 

shodouban

Honorable
Jun 13, 2012
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10,510
Your GPU setup is more than enough for Skyrim which is heavily CPU dependant. Speaking of which ; your CPU rocks so that isn't the issue either.
You mentioned reinstalling Skyrim onto a different HD ...
So , I have to ask ; had you modded out the game prior to this?
Reinstalling Skyrim can cause some issues ; particularly if you have/had certain mods that may have left files in some odd places.
There are literally tens of thousands of mods so I cannot list all the "this one might have done it" ...
If none of this applies to you , skip my post good luck.

continuing on ;
check your skyrim.ini and skyrimprefs.ini located in documents/games/skyrim not in the main directory and restore to default.
DO NOT use any of RCRN's so called ini.tweaks such as iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=4000000000 which is supposed to increase RAM availability... what a crock.
I digress ... moving right along...
Did you use Nexus mod manager?
Did you copy paste your skyrim game to the new HD?
If you answered yes to any of these then you are barking up the right tree I'm sure.

I love this game and have helped many people with it. I've modded mine to 86 Gigs and slapped it onto an SSD. ( which is how I obtained the experience with your similar issue :p.

If you need more help shoot me a PM and I'll pass along my teamspeak info to you.
Good luck .


Note to moderators ; I'm pretty sure posting TS info here would be a bad idea and I hope I'm not violating a rule by offering it in a PM. If I am , please edit me or let me know I need to do it.
 

camaro253

Honorable
Nov 22, 2013
8
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10,510
BSOD: Blue screen of death

I don't have crashes with any other games or programs. I'm playing on 1920x1080.

Yes Skyrim was modded prior to reinstallation. And I didn't use Nexus. How did you mod to 86?

OK, so I'm planning to get an OEM Win7 64 bit, format both HDDs, Install Win7 into my WD Raptor X HDD, everything else on to the Barracuda, reinstall Steam into it's own folder,

And my GTX460 768mb SLi setup should pull Skyrim on Ultra??