To start things out.. I started to play Skyrim about 2 months ago on PS3, love every bit of it. About 2 weeks ago, got Legendary Skyrim for the PC ---AWESOME improvement ! Also, very very impressed by the mods / user content, on how good most of it is , such as Falskaar, improved texture mods and all...

One thing was consuming me though, my desktop was only about 18 months old, was a decent one when I bought it, at least I thought...After playing Skyrim a bit and using a few mods..mostly to just improve graphics and such (which is amazing...like the Water 2 mod, incredible). But... my PC had a AMD integrated graphics card...when I played Skyrim: outdoors my fps would range from like 10-15 fps, and indoors never above 25 fps on medium settings.. Through investigation, I learned my PC is actually a good one...quad core and all, just the AMD integrated graphics card thingy is horrible for games like Skyrim. I went out today and got a Radeon 260 graphics card (and of course had to get a 500w power supply unit...old one was only 300w ). Now I play Skyrim on ultra settings with 35-40 fps outdoors and 55-60 fps inside...

The card I got isn't by far that expensive of a graphics card, or near top notch, but it makes Skyrim PC shine even more !!! Till today, I've never personally done any PC hardware installation work myself, but after watching a couple videos on the internet, found out how easy it really is, and it is !!

Skyrim is such an amazing game, and to be honest, I've loved other games a lot, but no other game in 30 years of gaming has made me want to go through all this trouble I did today, but was worth it. Just goes to show how much Skyrim makes us want to explore and expand ourselves !

Yep, totally agree. It is Addictive.... prepare for another life!

On the mod front, have you installed the " unofficial patches" ?

This is the only mod I use so far. No need for anything else, too much to do in game!

Yes , I have all the unofficial patches reg and for DLC.. and the High Res DLC and Unofficial patch for that.

Myself I love the mods that make the graphics even better, probably main reason I needed to upgrade my graphics card lol

The SMIS mod, Climates of Tamriel, Glowing Ore Veins, and my favorite of all so far Realistic Water Two ..really add a lot of visuals, but don't after basic gameplay, the seem to just increase the immersion for me , cause of how much better game looks..

Basically I'm just in awe, to be honest...I grew up with video games, starting with Pong.. I never would've dreamed I would ever be playing a game this graphically awesome in my lifetime, back when I was 16 years old !

It really is a lot about the video card when it comes to performance in gaming. It's actually not that expensive at all to upgrade now and again either, since as soon as the "next big thing" in cards comes out the previous ones drop quite a bit in price, while being of course very far from obsolete. I'm due for a new one myself (well, two actually, SLI), just waiting for my tax refund.

Mods make all the difference in Bethesda games, imo. My favorites are the ones that add Finishing Moves (a divisive topic I know but I ADORE them), and one called Immersive Armor. They add so much. And of course some of the graphic mods.

Honestly I haven't bothered with the Unofficial patches though, believe it or not, as my game seems to run without a hitch. Mind you now that I say that I'll shortly find the game's corrupted beyond repair or some such, but so far I've been very lucky I suppose.

Make sure you use BOSS for load orders!

I jumped from the PS3 to the PC just for the modding and yes... WOW a completely new game.

Falskaar is awesome too.

I know people recommend using BOSS, SKSE and a couple other things. I haven't used any of those in the past 2 years with likely over 100 mods installed without really any issues. But I would recommend at least SKSE. some of the best mods require or have a huge improvement with it.

I get about that when I play on low. Strangely, I get the exact same FPS on ultra. There is practically no difference if I keep the AA on 2 samples and the ani...whatchamacallit off.

If you run into any mod related crashes or compatibility issues TES5Edit is your best friend.

I've had that happen with World of Tanks I actually had more fps on Ultra then I did on lowest.

I hope to one day be able to fully ascend to PC Skyrim. My laptop runs Skyrim on Low so my PS3 pretty much has a better framerate.

At least I have the Anthology.

I still need to get that, even if purley for the maps and Daggerfall and Arena cd's.