As far as sound cards go - all that 3d positional surround sound has to be processed somewhere - do you want that load dumped on your main CPU, or do you want is handled on a purpose-built add-on board?

It might make a difference and it might not - some engines are GPU-bottle necked, and some are CPU-bottle necked. We won't know about Skyrim until it comes out.

I have played Oblivion on powerful computers and on weak computers. On weak computers, not having a sound card was a major issue - there are popular, much-DL'd mods that make footstep sound effects simpler or remove them for that reason.

For my part, at least in my mind, anything you can effectively hand off to a dedicated board is freeing up more cycles and memory to deal with other tasks, and if a $100 card can contribute, and you have an open slot, then why not?

The only upgrading I'm considering for the near future is possibly my OS.

I was in a similar position with my computer, I built it before going to university. I researched and got all the best parts I could because I knew I wasn't going to have money for more upgrades for a while. But I sorta maxed out what you can reasonably do with an AGP-based motherboard and no interest in messing with voltage levels and timing settings. With an AGP board, IDE hard drives, a 3ghz single core processor, I had no clear upgrade path. So after working for a year and finishing my degree as a part time student (last three courses over two semesters, annoying) I just went out and bought a new system.

I have never felt that laptops were the way to go for gaming, but that may just be because all the lappys I've owned/used have been sluggish ordeals suitable only for course work and playing NES/SNES ROMs. But I have heard of people with 'gaming laptops' playing a wide range of games, OTOH, those laptops are expensive things like the Alienware MX.

I feel that the modular upgradability and DIY-ability of a full PC is the preferred way to go, but if you're going to school that can take up a great deal of space.

I hope HP refreshes the Envy 15 laptop at some point during 2011, which has been discontinued, in which case I would probably buy a new one.

Otherwise, I will stick with the one I bought a year ago. (Unless some other laptop manufacturer builds something in a slim package that can handle games well at 1920x1080, max detail settings, without looking like a giant lego block or a tacky alien spaceship.)

That is why I'm still debatinng whether to get a sound card or not. I had a soundblaster with the front cover piece that you put into the computer with all the hook ups on the front. I gave that one to my brother for his build. I might just go with a simple sound blaster this time OR use the onboard audio. I'm still debating and most likely will until I get ready to build it.

For me, why break tradition? Well tradition is sort of broken now that Skyrim is for the 360 and not the next generation xbox. I bougtht Xbox just for Morrowind. I bought the 360 just for Oblivion. So it feels wierd not buying anything for Skyrim. Got nice HDTV, got ok, stereo system. So no upgrades for me to play, unless my 360 croaks, then I need a new one, or I just get it for the PS 3 then which I already have and not use.

I think one of the best upgrades you can get for a game of this type is a solid-state drive. That is if your Rig is already half-way decent. The speed you get from SSD will make loading the open world ALOT faster. Obviously I haven't tested this on Skyrim but i fail to see how it couldn't. My current rig is bottlenecked by my Hard Drive and it shows in New Vegas. So if you haven't guessed I plan on getting a SSD drive

If Oblivion and Morrowind are any indication, I believe they heavily used Windows Swap File (virtual/ extended memory), which means a lot of small scale read/ writes to your storage device, and AFAIK frequent, small scale read/ writes to an SSD drive can drastically shorten its life span. SSD drives (Flash ROM types) are good for writing large blocks of data at a time. That can be remedied by an SSD that makes heavy use of caching (built in with the drive) with Flash ROM storage, but that last time I checked, cache memory is NOT cheap. So if Skyrim like its predecessors makes heavy use of the Windows Swap File feature, a cheap SSD drive may not be the best option.

Edit: Then again, newer operating systems may make better use of SSD drives.

I pray Ysmir I don't have to upgrade my PC, because he knows I can't afford it!

I technically upgraded from my fail mono-core processor and AGP slot graphics card (and all supporting bottlenecks) for... wait for it... [PROTOTYPE], so I voted > $500 before release.

I'm sort of worried that my hex-core @ 3.2 GHz, GeForce GTX 465, 8 GB RAM, etc, etc won't be able to handle it. :rolleyes:

I'll wait to see the system requirements

Wait for the price of 1366 socket hardware (mobo,cpu,ram) to drop after the release of more 1155 and 1365, hopefully an entirely new build.

I definitely don't need to upgrade my PC. There's no way it won't run Skyrim.

Never played many games on the PC. ( Apart from Morrowind )

Got a cracking deal on a new PC last year. Thought about buying Oblivion to see how it well it would run.

Intel i5 - 3.20ghz

6.00 GB's of RAM

Geforce GTS240


Any PC whizz kids have a rough idea how well it would do?

Right now I have

Intel Q8400 2.66GHz
NVidia 9800GT
2GB RAM

I'm thinking of upgrading to 4GB of ram and POSSIBLY a slightly better graphics card by the time ESV comes out.

Just like Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3, I'm going to use Skyrim as an excuse to build a new computer. I'm thinking Sandy Bridge I5, or maybe I7 and a good bang-for-the-buck video card.

Currently I have this:

Phenom 2x2 555 @ 3.2 ghz
4gb ddr3 ram @ 1333mhz
ati hd 4850

I'm planning on buying a new PC this year that I'm going to use as a media playback/gaming rig,and I will save money from now.

I'm thinging of something like this:

Bulldozer 8core at speed with more than 3ghz
8gb ddr3 ram @ 1866 (that goes with 64 bit OS)
ati hd 7970 (not out yet,comes out q2 2011)
OCZ vertex 3 ssd.
hd - 3d tv with hdmi 1.4a

There is no way my comp will run it and I am still a kid I have no job or money so I guess ps3 :yucky:

This is true. Load times dropped to almost nothing for a number of games after purchasing a new laptop with dual Intel SSDs in Raid0 last year.

For vanilla Oblivion, the game loads in a few seconds, and new areas load almost instantly, but after installing a gazillion mods, this has slowed down to around 30-40 seconds. Do others have a similar slow down with traditional hard drive after installing lots of mods? Maybe this is because some of the mods are installed as OMODs with some sort of compression.

Also I'm hoping I won't need to install so many "overhaul" type mods for Skyrim, and that it will make better use of hyperthreading and RAM in excess of 4GB.

Good to know, i'll look into that. Might pay to wait and see how Skyrim handles before i purchase. It never hurts to wait a little longer when buying tech.



Not to sure about that I haven't noticed any mods that add significant load times bar ones that actually add alot of new content to the world. Anyone else?

my only suggestion is get the card last. test out the on board with some sound heavy games like oblivion and a few war games. if it sounds good to you then you may not need to spend the extra money on a card.
i personally turn music low or off completely depending on the situation. thats probably why i never get much of a sound issue in my games.


which is the reason why if i do get one it will be under 32 gigs and use it as a boot drive.


your joking right :touched:


i dont know alot about intell or nvidia but from what i can see you have a quad core processor at 3.2ghz 6gb ram(ddr3?) and a mid ranged card that has a higher memory clock but lower core clock and stream processors than my Radeon HD 5770 1gb ddr5. but i dont know how much vram it has, is it 512mb or 1gb?
but yeah, from what i see you have a decent machine that should run it.

When getting a new machine for Oblivion, apparently I went way overkill (100's of mods and it typically only uses a small fraction of the GPUs' processing ability.) So I'll just try Skyrim straight up.
Although there is a possibility I may consider upgrading away from Windows XP and getting more RAM, depending on how the game tests out. It'll also depend on whether or not the game comes across as fun enough to warrant any further investment.

going to buy a alienware desktop $32 a week for a year or two but its worth it alienwares computers are the best you can buy

Probably gonna get it for the PC. I think my laptop should be able to handle it alright.

I'm going to see if I can buy myself a ~$950 PC in the summer, I already know all the parts I want and that's how much I estimate it'll go down to in total by that time (only ~$100).