Can I max Skyrim?

yes you can, but i highly doubt that it will be hard to "max out" seeing as how it is developed for consoles and is in DX9

Everyone said that Crysis 2 was going to bring top-notch machines to it's knees, when it actually ran noticeably better than the first Crysis.

The visuals in skyrim are absolutely jaw-dropping. I would imagine it will be very taxing on enthusiast GPU's, but nowhere to the level of Crysis, Metro 2033, STALKER, and the ilk.

If I can run Crysis (still the ultimate nemesis of video cards) on all very high spec on 1920x1080 (with the exception of anti-aliasing) and get a very playable 30-50 fps with my two HD 5870's, then skyrim shouldn't be an issue.

The next-generation hardware (HD 7xxx and GTX 6xx) will butcher ALL PC games currently on the market, even Crysis.

Here is an example of Skyrim's eyegasmic graphics.

I understand that's pretty decent looking, but dx9 water with paper thin foliage and large pixels... Not jaw dropping in the least, but that's not the reason I will be buying it

Dont worry guys even though it will be a console port, the modders out there will make the game look 100x better, just look at the new graphics mod releaased for GTA IV in the last month...just amazing 

Long live the Modding community 

Yeah, that was until it became apparent that was going to be released as a DX9 game. The first game engine also was not as well optimized as CryEngine 3. On top of that, Crytek decided to set the game in an urban setting rather than in the jungle like Crysis because the more geometrical shapes in a city is less stressful than a jungle setting for consoles.

I have a feeling that having 2GB+ of GPU memory might help due to all of the detailed textures being on the screen at once.

Maybe, but probably not. It should not be too hard to run since it is just a DX9 game.

Hopefully, it's better than Oblivion. I got bored of that game and didn't bother to finish it. I'm one of those people who preferred Morrowind to Oblivion.

Not necessarily, unless you are running more than one monitor or higher than 1920x1080 resolution. The 2gb ram on cards is kind of a marketing ploy.

^ Yup, I agree with this. 2GB is in no way "necessary" unless you're running mulitple monitors or high resolutions (or playing Flight Simulator   )

Either way, it uses the same development platform (DX 9) as Oblivion did, with a few DX11 sparkles sprinkled in for us lucky PC gamers   It shouldn't be terribad - in fact I don't personally see it being any particularly surprising challenge in terms of requirements to be honest.

-Nih

There are a few games which benefit from 2GB cards. Like the PC port of GTA 4, flight simulator X, Crysis 2 with the new DX11/high resolution graphics mod installed, and Metro 2033 on high res with AA, tesselation, and DoF enabled.

I have a single 1920x1080 27" monitor, so 1GB of GPU memory is sufficient in most cases.

3GB of RAM on a single card is overkill. Unless you're trying to run a game at 2560x1600 and/or on multiple monitors. There are a few versions of the GTX 580 which have 3GB of video memory.

^ @3GB cards: Yup I've seen and tested some of them. My good friend is as into PC gaming as I am so we often pool resources to test components/help each other out  

Back on topic: Yes, OP, you will most certainly be able to play with a decent FPS.

-Nih

If my rig can play Crysis almost completely maxed out (with the exception of anti-aliasing) and get 30-50 fps, the Skyrim shouldn't be a seat.

The CryEngine 2 is still the most complex and advanced video game engine ever made.

Hai! So do you think that this build: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-cpu-ssd,3... can max out Skyrim? I know that it probably can't max out BF3 completely though.

Would my machine even be able to run the game in low?

-Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT GPU

-4GB RAM

-IntelCore 2 Duo CPU (x2)

Thanks for any reply's

yep. it should play ok on that setup. i dont think the game is any more demanding than fallout 3, it seems to be the same engine.

Seriously? Fallout 3 doesnt look nearly as complex as Skyrim, well you have 30 years of experiance so im not going to argue   Thanks HEXiT