Just a question.. What kind of graphics card do people use to run the more heavier graphical mods on Skyrim?

Since I found myself in need of buying a new rig (due to some hardware failures in general) I was thinking I should go "big" instead of buying something new next year again.

I was thinking something along the lines of GeForce GTX 780 or something along those lines. Thoughts? It should work on other games as well is my thinking.

VRAM is most important when dealing with the Textures. 2 or 3GB is what you need. The GPU's even at the lower end of the range can handle most Texture files, but when the card's memory fills up and tries to use System RAM, crashage.

Note, ENBs will require more GPU horsepower, so keep that in mind.

Also, ATI cards do not seem to have some of the issues that the Nvidia's have with these games. But, that's probably more happenstance than anything else as I can remember some ATI driver packages that had issues with these games when the Nvidia's were just humming along.

ENB??

Graphic mods. Can dramatically alter the appearance of the game.

Yeah I searched the forums and noticed that there was some info about it.

How much VRAM would I need to run that stuff smoothly?

VRAM come more in to play with texture packs and such. ENB just beats up the processor pretty good.

It depends.

Due to a recent major mod release, I've been doing some testing.

My current game:

Total RAM (VRAM + Main Memory): 3.5 GB Avg, 4.6 GB Max

VRAM: 3GB Avg, 3.9 GB Max

This is with a huge number of high res textures installed. You can easily drop 1 - 1.5 GB by using 1024K textures. My current setup requires a GPU with 4GB of VRAM, obviously, or it would be unplayable due to stuttering.

ENB itself requires ~200 MB of VRAM. It's extremely configurable, but various settings like SSAO require a high-end GPU. Mid-range video cards can run it fine with reduced options or with certain features turned off. There's also another version of ENB called ENBoost, that only does bug fixes and splits memory into 2 threads, allowing you to pass the 3.1 GB "crash ceiling".

I guess we're talking about the GPU now?

So somewhere between 3 or 4 GB VRAM is recomended?

4GB+ for hugely modded graphics. 3GB+ for modded graphics with some restraint. 2GB if you're happy with the official high res texture pack and a few other texture mods.

Mods are often released in multiple versions with texture sizes of 1024K, 2048K, and/or 4096K. Many people think 4096 is overkill on a 1080p monitor. If you stick with mostly 1024K textures, 2GB of VRAM might be enough. If you go with 2048K or higher, you'll probably need 3GB of VRAM.

I think you could have a great looking game with 3GB of VRAM, but you'd have to be a little bit careful about installing textures.

The other issue is you have to spend some time to learn about modding if you want to use high res textures. You absolutely must have several helper mods correctly installed, or you'll get CTDs. Bare minimum you need ENB or ENBoost + http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50305/?.

Or you could keep it simple, and go with 2GB of VRAM and the official patch. I'm not trying to scare you off, but when you get into modding this way, you're going beyond what Skyrim was designed for.

3GB of VRAM is fine. It comes down to how fast the GPU can push the data through. If it's fast enough, you won't need as much VRAM.

Ok, thanks for the replies.

My main-idea was not to use so many mods for the "looks" of the world, I would rather use mods that changes the textures of my PC and the NPC's including armour/clothes/weapons, that kind of stuff.

And mods changing the behaviour of people like "when vampires attack" and similiar.