Elder Scrolls PC

Stotek

Honorable
Jan 5, 2014
8
0
10,510
I am looking for some insightful people to help me out with a few options as to what I should get to put together a computer allowing me to play The Elder Scrolls on. Now by this I mean every single game even ESO. I would like to run the computer with windows 7 and then partition the HD with xp so I can play the other game respectively with out have to tamper with a million settings. I am looking to spend from $500 - $1000 on this machine and be able to play ESO on High settings +.


Thank you
Stotek
 
Solution
Alright, there are some things to consider.

First - Daggerfall, Arena, the really old TES games will run only in DOSbox. It's a nice free DOS emulation program.

Second - Morrowind and Oblivion will run fine on Windows 7, I know that from experience. Just run everything as an admin, and there shouldn't be a need to get more complicated than that (except in rare cases, which aren't needed for most people).

Third - Every single TES game uses very few cores. Oblivion and older only use 1 CPU core, while Skyrim and TESO use mostly 2 cores. This makes an Intel CPU by far the best option at every price point, and in fact it means an i3's performance will roughly match that of a non-overclocked mid-range i5 in these particular games, for...
Alright, there are some things to consider.

First - Daggerfall, Arena, the really old TES games will run only in DOSbox. It's a nice free DOS emulation program.

Second - Morrowind and Oblivion will run fine on Windows 7, I know that from experience. Just run everything as an admin, and there shouldn't be a need to get more complicated than that (except in rare cases, which aren't needed for most people).

Third - Every single TES game uses very few cores. Oblivion and older only use 1 CPU core, while Skyrim and TESO use mostly 2 cores. This makes an Intel CPU by far the best option at every price point, and in fact it means an i3's performance will roughly match that of a non-overclocked mid-range i5 in these particular games, for less money.

Fourth - The newer TES games (Skyrim, Morrowind, Oblivion, everything on the Creation or Gamebryo Engine) benefit more from raw bandwidth and brute force, meaning AMD cards will hold up better for the price.

Fifth - All Elder Scrolls games rely on load screens heavily, meaning they're the rare games where an SSD will improve immersion enough to be worthwhile outside of boot purposes.



This is the ultimate The Elder Scrolls build between the prices you listed.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4350 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($139.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($81.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($75.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($87.99 @ Best Buy)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280 3GB Dual-X Video Card ($189.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 350D Window MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($97.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($70.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer ($21.74 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($84.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $903.60
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-19 22:28 EDT-0400



At reduced cost and performance, this would still meet your requirements and would run most Elder Scrolls games on ultra at 60 fps. The exception would be TESO, which should run ultra at 45+ fps or high at 60+ fps. (MMOs always perform somewhat poorly)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($111.29 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($81.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($75.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 270X 2GB TWIN FROZR Video Card ($169.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill FBM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($27.00 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($70.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer ($21.74 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($84.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $695.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-19 22:37 EDT-0400
 
Solution


The i3-4150 is actually cheaper than the i3-4130 as long as the promo code lasts.
 

Stotek

Honorable
Jan 5, 2014
8
0
10,510


Excellent thank you very much I will be using this. Thank you for your time and your wisdom!
 

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