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Y2K didn't wreak the kind of havoc many people were worried about leading up to the new millennium (or simply the year 2000, if you want to get all technical about it), but we're not out of the woods yet, folks. This month alone has seen the release of Battlefield 3 and Batman: Arkham City, and in just over two weeks (November 11, 2011), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will wipe out any remaining semblance of productivity that still exists in the workforce. That is, if your PC is ready.
Kotaku got its hands on the minimum system specs to run Skyrim, and it looks like this:
That seems plenty manageable, however the recommended system spes are a little more demanding:
Apparently these are the recommended specs if you intend to run Skyrim on High quality settings; Ultra will require a bit more oomph.
Do you plan on picking up Skyrim next month? And if so, is your machine ready?
Comments are closed on this article
Stry8993
October 27, 2011 at 4:10am
8GB's Corsair Vengeance
Core i5 2500K
ASUS P67 Sabertooth
2 x nVidia GTX 560 ti 2GB - SLi
1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 64MB Cache SATA 3
...I think I might be able to play it on Medium. LMFAO!
*Still wish it utilized some DX11 features. But thanks to Modder's and people far more skilled than myself, it'll happen. :D. Look at Oblivion now. Gorgeous. Tons of enhancement mods.
newegg911
October 26, 2011 at 9:32pm
I5-750 and GTX 460 SLI here. I think I'm good to go.
I've noticed in the press builds of the game they were only using i5's and a single 470 and pretty much maxing out the game.
I'm a little disapointed in DX9 though. Some DX11 tessalation would really make those environments look real. I don't get the "we have to use DX9 because that's what the consoles use" because BFBC2, BF3, The Witcher 2,Crysis 2, and Deux Ex:HR used DX11 while the cosoles versions used 9. If you create for the PC at DX11 it's easy to backport to DX9 for the consoles.
joeyjr
October 27, 2011 at 2:35am
Skyrim was conceptualized shortly after the release of Oblivion in 2006.[27] To the team, it is considered a spiritual successor to their previous project Fallout 3, which was released in 2008, and Skyrim did not begin full production until after Fallout 3's release.[28] The team of sixty people who worked on Oblivion grew to about one-hundred people by the time Skyrim entered full production.[28] The game was directed by Todd Howard, who joined the studio in 1994 after the release of The Elder Scrolls: Arena, and who led the production of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3. When development for Skyrim commenced, the team wanted to start over and build their own technology for the game.[27] The resulting game engine was dubbed the Creation Engine, which was based on the Gamebryo engine used for Oblivion and Fallout 3,[17] and will be utilized in the production of at least one of Bethesda's projects beyond Skyrim.[29] After Fallout 3's release, the team devised numerous design objectives to meet for Skyrim, and as Howard described, the team "got all those done and kept going".[30] Had the team not been able to meet their design goals with current hardware, they would have waited for the next generation and released Skyrim then,[31] but, as Howard felt, the current technology did not hold the team back at all.[30] The Creation Engine allowed for numerous improvements in graphical fidelity over Bethesda's previous efforts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_V:_Skyrim
yhis is right from the above adress copy and read more.
games do take a long time to write.
Nimrod
October 27, 2011 at 4:04am
so your saying that because games take a few years to make they had to use an API that was replaced at the introduction of Windows Vista? You just quoted a sales pitch buddy, not a technical spec.
joeyjr
October 27, 2011 at 8:13am
The could be a number of reasons, I am just saying games take a long time to be created and that could have been a factor. I surely am not pitching selling anything. I don't know,unless you have something constructive to add. Why don't you go ask the developers there reason nimrod?
ahmed307731
October 26, 2011 at 3:00pm
Why is everyone so freaked out about these specs - just look at that game!
Friendly mention to all of you who are debating about whether your processors can cut it or not : It doesnt matter. When it mes to gaming its your GPU's which dictate whther or not your going to game happily ever after.
1GB only? Shame I wouldnt want to miss a single second of this game at anything below 40 fps at high settings. SELL your old GPU's and save up an extra u$ 150 or thereabout and you should be aiming to have at least 2GB (EVGA sell 2gb GTX 560 Superclocked @ 850MHZ for $250)
Sell of your old GPU's and you should be around $100 closer to achieving a better buy with a GPU that will leave you all stress free for quite sometime as most of the next gen games that are being released will have very similar spec requirements. Plus you get DX 11....for the budget conscious amongst us $150 shouldnt be too hard on our wallets and would def be worth it.
Im not a fanboy and I have had multiple rigs with both NVIDIA and AMD GPU's and suffice to say both are awesome . I lean towards Nvidia as the drivers seem to be more solid (still on stock GTX 590 drivers and gaming away happily with +80 FPS with all my games and not so much as a hiccup so far)
Please dont reply back or post further comments as I probably wont read them..this is just meant to be an eye opener to those of you who are considering buying this game for when its released for US60 or whatever. I sayselll , save , get the game from a friend and live happily ever after as you are now future proofed.
EVGA GeForce GTX 560 2048MB Superclocked @ $250
- -----------2048MB Memory---------
- PCI-E 2.0 16x
- ----------850Mhz GPU Clock Speed--------
- 4008Mhz Memory Clock Speed
- NVIDIA SLI ready
Cheers.
A Happy gamer
Nimrod
October 27, 2011 at 4:07am
wtf is a stock driver? if your using the driver that was on the CD that came with your card then no one will want to listen to you -_-
Drew7
October 26, 2011 at 12:01pm
Piece of cake: AMD 1055T Phenom X6, 16GB XMS3 Corsair RAM, 650GB/500GB HDDs, Diamond RadeonHD 6850 1GB DDR5. And a DVD drive... Can't do anything without that DVD drive! Lol!
joeyjr
October 26, 2011 at 11:23am
should be able to still play. 8G DDR 3 1600, E8500 (3.16 Dual Core LGA 775) Vista 64, 300G Rapter 10K for OS and 1Tb for games,XFi gamer sound card, Gigibyte mobo, PC P & C 750 PSU,Samsung 2333 (1920 x 1080), ATI 4890 1Gb DDR5. Wanted to get a faster quad core for these when I was building this system, but neeeded to buy my son a car. Waiting for the price to come down but they never did now the chips for 775 socket are getting harder to find. I built this system modled after the 800 budget build MPC did a few years ago but I tweeked it into a media PC and planed to build a gamer later on. Unfortunately, I have not been able to do so yet, but the system still holds it own. In the mean time catchin the game on sale and I got this game on my wish list for sure.
Planing a new build anyway for ivy bridge 22nm and gen 3 GPUs.
dilbert719
October 26, 2011 at 10:14am
I'd have been pissed if mine wasn't ready, because I built it specifically so I'd have something capable of running Skyrim. I'm set, though: Win7, i5 2500K, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, Radeon 6950 1GB... only thing I don't have is the sound card, since I'm not an audiophile and am completely comfortable with onboard audio.
Wervenyt
October 26, 2011 at 10:23am
I'll be able to run it on low settings, but I'll have to get it from a friend...
xs0u1x
October 26, 2011 at 9:50am
yes I am getting a copy and yes my system is ready.
win7 x64 core i7 950, 12gb ddr3, radeon hd 6850. should be good to go.
bling581
October 26, 2011 at 9:49am
Yes, I can't wait for Skyrim on my 30" 1920x1200 with ultra settings! It's a year old this month and it still yawns at anything I throw at it.
US_Ranger
October 26, 2011 at 11:48am
I agree. Why can't they have:
-Minimum
-Recommended
-Top End
It would make it a lot easier than having to guess at whether I'll be able to run it on high/ultra with a card like a 5850.
kixofmyg0t
October 26, 2011 at 9:34am
Nope, none of my current PC's are powerful enough to even think about playing this. But, just like Oblivion brought PC's to their knees.....my PS3 will play it just fine.
The only PC game I play is StarCraft 2 anyway. Do not care for PC gaming as a whole.
onisuriyuuu
October 26, 2011 at 12:13pm
What are you talking about, my computer takes on Oblivion on a 10 YEAR OLD COMPUTER. AMD XP+3200 2 GB ram 128MB DDR Graphics card, oh, and note that this is a "dual core" at 1.8 GHZ in reality... its pretty single core.
Im pretty sure i can Cripple Skyrim with my i5-2500k if that junk could run oblivion lol.
Note: Make a side by side comparison of PS3's Skyrim and PC's Skyrim.... Obviously The PC's Graphics is much more adequate on higher settings. Its like comparing GameBoy to a N64. lol. Go ahead if you have anything else to say or flame at me after this feel free.
kixofmyg0t
October 26, 2011 at 1:30pm
Note: Trying to over value a Direct X 9 PC game to its Direct X 9 Console version has little merit. Note: My Radeon HD3200 will laugh at me for even trying to play Skyrim, so Im gonna play it on PS3 instead. Note: How's the PC versions of RAGE and Battlefield 3 doin? Note: RAGE on PC is a broken mess and that was supposed to be the second coming of graphical jesus from the fanboys.....
Note: Battlefield 3 looks pretty damn good as Im playing it right now(Note that the game is paused as I type this...on my tablet), but I dont find it FUN TO PLAY. Note ITS BORING. Note that since it looks within spitting distance of the PC version(Note: Hi-Res texture pack for PS3 installed) and plays pretty well. Note that my point still stands that the only PC game I care to play is StarCraft 2.
Note that I dont care about that ur PC can play Skyrim. Note mine can't.
Nimrod
October 27, 2011 at 4:12am
ive got the setting for BF3 all set to low and it looks better than on consoles, gets better FPS and plays at a higher resolution on my 1080 display. BF3 runs at 700i on consoles, not 1080. You can obviously kid your self all day long but dont be so stupid as to think you can kid a hard core BF player. Dumfuk
Oh and enjoy your 14 players on console or what ever pathetic number it is.
joeyjr
October 26, 2011 at 2:45pm
what-ever floots your boat. I like my PC and using the controller of my choosing. I find playing shooters alot more fun when I am not using an xbox controller. As for Rage, its not PC ghamers fault/ our systems are ready to play but the video card driver are not. As for BF3 I know it will look good and fun to play on the PC. I am sorry your not having fun playing your version on a consold. LOL
kixofmyg0t
October 26, 2011 at 3:06pm
Its more of a "oh gawd YET ANOTHER first person shooter". Im kinda burnt out on FPS's honestly. BF3's AI doesnt help the experience either. I can use my squad as a human shield while I kill enemies......and just watched one of my teamates eat a granade without so much as a scratch. :/
I personally give BF3 a 7 out of 10. Its like Medal of Honor mixed with MW2(and a story rippped straight out of Black Ops).
I guess if I ate drank and slept FPS's Id be more of a PC gamer(cuz that's mostly what you have) but I like a different type of games.
joeyjr
October 26, 2011 at 3:56pm
it cool. hope you dint think I was puting down you or your rig. its just the pc verse consold crap is getting old to me. I usualy wait for the reviews and for a game to go on sale anyway. game on.
kixofmyg0t
October 26, 2011 at 4:10pm
My computer doesn't deserve the title of "rig" lol. It's a laptop....from 2009....a HP DV7 and I didn't pay a dime for it so it works for me.
AETAaAS
October 26, 2011 at 8:55am
Ditto with ceator3571; been waiting on Skyrim. :D
A little surprised at the somewhat mild recommened specs though. When ES4 came out, they practically wanted players to buy top teir gear...
Neufeldt2002
October 26, 2011 at 8:56am
It's still Direct X 9 because of the consoles and the large number of XP users. Until they upgrade the majority of games that are released will be Direct X 9 compatible.
ceator3571
October 26, 2011 at 8:47am
Yes I have to have Skyrim it looks great! My system is ready to go and so am I.
