Skyrim running slow in ultra settings.

[Vendor]

I have an hd 6850 1gb gd5 Power Edition of MSi (factory overclocked), the problem is that i can play every other game in ultra setting but this game runs too slow on my card at ultra setting but playable in high settings in 1080p, i think this card is supposed to run the game in full settings, correct me please if i am wrong here.

 

[Black Panther]

Try removing AA and AF from the game settings, and force both of them through Catalyst Control Centre instead.

Also, try using the least AA possible. AA kills graphic vram.

 

[kn00tcn]

just use FXAA, you could be running out of vram especially with texture mods or that hq textures update they put out

 

[erocker]

i think this card is supposed to run the game in full settings, correct me please if i am wrong here.

No, not really. Play with the graphics settings until you find a nice balance of image quality and performance.

 

[Aquinus]

Try upgrading from Windows XP. My 6870 before I went with crossfire got pretty decent frame rates on Skyrim on Ultra, I can't imagine the 6850 is that much slower. DX 10 and DX 11 have optimizations that DX 9 doesn't. There are also improvements to the CPU scheduler which might improve performance if Skyrim is fairly multithreaded. I'm convinced that your platform could be running faster just by running Windows 7.

 

[Kreij]

@ Aquinus : Are your 6870s 2GB cards? I think that may be the issue here.

Skyrim ran nice on my 6970 on ultra, but it too is a 2GB card.
Runs even better with a pair of them.

 

[Aquinus]

@ Aquinus : Are your 6870s 2GB cards? I think that may be the issue here.

Skyrim ran nice on my 6970 on ultra, but it too is a 2GB card.
Runs even better with a pair of them.

No, they're 1Gb each, but I'm talking about before I got my i7 and second 6870. It actually ran really well with one 6870 and a Phenom II 940, it runs like a dream on what I have now though, that's for sure.

 

[Iceni]

The 6850 is probably having difficulties with shadows.

AA/anio will also play there part but shadows is the big hitter. Even my 6950 with the shaders tweaked and the clocks up struggles if i have the shadows on full.

this thread has a lot of information regarding tweaking the game (sorry for linking to another forum but the thread is pretty specific for skyrim).

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/52479/t1697369-skyrim-pc-tweak-guide/

Skyrim is also a killer game in terms of graphics. It's why it's used as a benchmark by some sites as it will push hardware to it's limits if you let it.

this is tomshardware's review of the graphic's performance.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074.html

your card while surviving at high detail 8xAF FxAA 1080p (71.0 fps)
Struggles on ultra settings 16xAF 4xAA 1080p (48.0 fps)

You need to find the sweet spot. Note that on the ultra test the Hd6970 is only just getting over 65fps!