Intel Core i5 CPU

6GB RAM

ASUS HD 5450 Silent GPU Card

Can someone help me fix this? And please keep in mind that I have NO technical knowledge.

EDIT: Also my friend said something about a "Fishy Stick"?

I'm not really an expert with this kind of stuff, but I think your GPU is a bit weak for running Skyrim; it has a clock speed of 650 MHz (according to what I can tell from looking at its specifications).

I tried to run Skyrim on my old Geforce 9600 GT GPU, which appears to have the same clock speed as your GPU and experienced the same problem. I ended up having to buy a more powerful GPU to get a better FPS rate.

I'm sure somebody else that knows more than me about computer specs could probably give you more information and help you out more.

WHAT! The dude at the computer store said this was strong enough!

It's not the best card in the world but it absolutely should be able to run Skyrim on high, I wouldn't use any texture packs though, if you're using the Hi Res DLC use a mod manager and disable it.

http://www.mwmythicmods.com/fishystick.jpg

If that's your card, then you haven't done a good buy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56tTQUwd29g

This GPU is a 64 bit DDR3 Vram, and has a bandwith not more that 7.2GB/sec.

For playing skyrim fluently you should have at least a 128 bit DDR5 Vram card, with a bandwith of 40GB/sec and above.

Only see the numbers (in orange), and you will figure it out why your card is slow.

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What's you fps if you play the game, and at what resolution do you play ???

At least you have a good CPU. (so you get some extra fps)

I thing you should get 25-50 fps at 800x600 and at 1024x768 lower than that.

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Your http://skoomajunkies.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Fishy_stick.png

...and welcome to the forums.

Never take anything the hardware salesman says granted. They always try to BS the ignorant. When buying computer (especially for gaming) and you have no knowledge about hardware, always ask other people opinions before making any decisions.

The GPU is somewhat OK but as Mark41 stated above the VRAM will be a major issue. The thing is that Skyrim does not require much GPU power but VRAM usage can be massive. You need a decent graphic card with reasonbly fast VRAM. HD5450 should run Skyrim at low settings.

You get what you pay for in this world (cheap card). What happens when you turn down graphic settings? Turn down resolution and turn off AA and Anistropic.

No graphic/texture mods I hope. The salesman might have said the card was strong enough to run the game. However, that's not near enough information.

Getting the game to run and performance are two different things. Always do your own research before you buy.

...and put your shadows down too.

64/128 BIT RAM? The recommended system setup say's I need 1GB of VRAM why are you giveing me byte's and 128 DDR5 at that? Is VRAM different from regular RAM? My chipset use's DDR3 RAM cards.

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I am trying to play the game at 1600X900 resolution and even after dropping to the lowest graphical settings the FPS only climbs to 15.

VRAM (Video Ram): Vram is the amount of RAM found on your VIDEO card, known as GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). So the next time you see the word GPU, you will know it's related to your graphics card.

With easy words the CPU sends info to your graphics card to process it. Now the graphics card process it and simply sends it back WHEN IT IS FINISHED. !!!!

That's a GPU without the fan. And the orange ones are your VRAM. http://oi57.tinypic.com/xblv5.jpg

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RAM: Ram is your main system memory, the memory available to your installed programs, and it's attached to your Motherboard.

Many programs making use of your system Ram to write on it, and getting data from it. Even your CPU writes on it. Your operating system uses Ram too.

Ram modules looking like that: http://img.misco.eu/Resources/images/Modules/InformationBlocks/1210/IGG/IGG-1/173693-Integral-PC3-10600-DDR3-2GB-RAM-gallery-01.jpg

A GPU can be present on a video card, or it can be on the motherboard or in certain CPU's, inside the CPU chip.

Finally: YOUR GPU'S RAM IS VRAM. !!!!

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FIRST:

One of the main things you need to consider when selecting a GPU is the memory bandwidth of the VRAM. Memory bandwidth is basically the speed of the VRAM. It's measured in gigabytes per second (GB/s).

The more memory bandwidth you have, the better. A video card with higher memory bandwidth can "draw" faster and make higher quality images.

So the higher the memory bandwidth the faster the GPU.

Short Version: The speed at which the card can access memory.

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The memory bandwidth is determined by the memory clock, the memory type, and the memory width.

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SECOND:

The companies designing the GPU's to support a certain memory width. The memory width is matched to the needs of the GPU. Unfortunately, some video cards (cheaper models), using cheaper VRAM

which only uses half of the width available on the GPU. That cuts the memory bandwidth in half and almost always seriously harms the video card's performance.

Those GPU models usually spend lots of time with the GPU doing nothing while waiting for the slow video RAM to respond. !!!

Those half-width cards are usually a very bad idea, if you care at all, about performance. !!!

I TRIED TO EXPLAIN THE EASY WAY. !!!!

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> I am trying to play the game at 1600X900 resolution <

A resolution of 1600 x 900 it's to high for your GPU. !!!!

OK so at 1600x900 what card do you recommend?

What your budget actually ???

I would prefer not to give out that information.

For your i5 processor i would recommend a Nvidia GTX 660 or an Ati R9 270X.

Something like that:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125508&cm_re=GTX_660-_-14-125-508-_-Product (You get Watch Dogs for free !!!)

OR

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127761&cm_re=R9_270X-_-14-127-761-_-Product

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I would ask you about your Power supply. Like this one: http://content.hwigroup.net/images/products/xl/063250/sweex_power_supply_350w_dual_fan.jpg

As you see that's from Sweex. What's your Power supply ???

I will need some informations from you. There is a sticker on each Power supply. Something like this: http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/17-182-032-15.jpg

I want some, of those informations, if you decide to pick one of those two. I can go cheaper if you want too. !!!!