Skyrim on old pc

hi all,

I'm going to install Skyrim on my old pc:

- ASUS P4S8X motherboard
- Intel Pentium IV Northwood @2,53 GHz (I'm going to replace it today with another Northwood to reach the 3,0 GHz and maybe overclock it)
- 2GB DDR RAM
- Sapphire Radeon HD 3450 overclocked at 680/450 (512MB DDR2), AGP 8x with fast write
- Windows XP Professional 32bit SP3

will it work at a decent framerate at ultralow settings @800x600?
(games like Unreal Tournament 3 and Borderlands work at high settings @800x600 @40-50fps)

I ask because it will take like 2 hours to install and I don't want to waste hard disk space... I have only 40GB total Or should I install it on my mobile hard drive?

solarmystic said:

Hello Dorado,

It should run at Ultra Low @ 800x600, but you should expect only 20 - 30 fps, the minimum requirements are a dual core processor at 1.8 GHz, 2 GB RAM and a DX10 card with 512 MB onboard VRAM.

Thank you for the fast answer.

I reach the 2GB RAM and the DX10 card with 512 MB onboard VRAM, but my CPU has got only 1 core and no Intel HyperTreading technology... Maybe the "new" Northwood which i'm installing has got it, so I will have 2 threads and I will gain some extra performance...

Now I istall it, I'm curious to see if this pc can handle it :)

solarmystic said:

As for the performance, you can tweak it down even lower than the preset Ultra Low defaults to get more FPS by using the Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPref.ini files available at the My Documents\My Games\Skyrim folder

And how can I tweak Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPref.ini?

solarmystic said:

There're many tutorials on how to do so:-

Skyrim Tweak Guide – Graphics and Performance | SegmentNext

Skyrim Performance and Image Quality Tweaks – by Emil

How to Improve Skyrim with .ini File Tweaks | GameFront

Tweak guide - Skyrim - Elder Scrolls V - Wiki on Neoseeker

thank you very much. Rep added :)

solarmystic said:

You're welcome, I am curious to see how it will perform on your older system too.

The thing is, there isn't something like Oldblivion for Skyrim that would make it run even better on your computer:-

Oldblivion

what is Oldblivion?

solarmystic said:

Oldblivion is a software mod someone did for Oblivion (which was the previous game in the Elder Scrolls series) that allows Oblivion to run very well on very old hardware. It makes the game look terrible though.

Visit the website I linked to and read the FAQs for more information.

Wow, cool! I already play Skyrim on my main pc, which is a lot better than this, but I never founded a mod like this for Skyrim... It would solve a lot of problems I think!

I'm installing it... I'll post back if it works!