Skyrim

Nvidia interview and tweak guide available for viewing

  • Comment
Yesterday I let you all know that I would be taking part in a livestream today with some folks from Nvidia and well-known author, Martigen. The livestream is over (it peaked at around 2,700 viewers, which is pretty cool!) but you can watch and listen to it all Twitch.tv.

I speak with the Nvidia folks for about 15 minutes, which starts about 4 minutes in to the video and then Martigen takes over before Nvidia take a look at some of their performance enhancing tweaks for the game later on. Let me apologise for how quiet I am and a few break-ups while I'm talking. I haven't got broadband setup in my new place yet so I'm on mobile 3G, so it went pretty well considering! I've given it a listen and it's not bad at all.

Nvidia ask me about the community, how it started and what it takes to run it. It might be interesting for some of you. It was an enjoyable experience and the Nvidia folks are very friendly. It's nice to see Nvidia doing this sort of stuff, and working to tweak their cards for Skyrim as much as possible, as it seems all we get from ATI/AMD at the moment are excuses. It's very annoying!

45 comments

  1. MysteriousMrBear
    MysteriousMrBear
    • premium
    • 38 kudos
    Just listened to this- Dark0ne you are such a legend, seriously XD
  2. LadyMilla
    LadyMilla
    • Global Moderator
    • 215 kudos
    With my Sapphire HD 7970 "preordered", and a smooth experience with previous ATI versions after a couple of defective nVidia cards, I must say in the nearest future I will stick to ATI. Before you get the wrong idea, I am no 'brand fan' (I've never understood why people defend a company as if they were part of the paid marketing staff. Positive experience is one thing, blind brand loyalty is something else). Right now I see no compelling reason to switch from ATI back to nVidia. My last hardware issue that I first attributed to my old ATI card, was caused by a bad motherboard-memory combo (in the end, I never figured out which of them was the culprit as they were both replaced, my Asus mobo with a new Gigabyte, and the old Corsair RAM with Geil, and from that point the old video card worked flawlessly). I never overclock as I value stability more than squeezing out the last bits of performance from a configuration (my spouse disagrees, of course ). Still, this does not mean that if nVidia starts offering products with a price/performance ratio that makes me forget those faulty cards then I will stubbornly refuse to buy an nVidia card again.

    And I do agree, nVidia's attitude and support for gaming communities is really commendable.
  3. XTR3M368
    XTR3M368
    • supporter
    • 92 kudos
    I have the 560Ti GTX superclocked version and it runs the game on Ultra even with all the HD texture packs and an FXAA or ENB mod running. I am only running a quad core AMD Phenom II but I do have Win7 64bit so I can use more than 4GB of RAM which probably helps as well. AMD/ATI's drivers and features have always been buggy for me and I HATE anything that isn't "install it and forget it" like the Nvidia drivers are.

    I had initially looked at the 6970 due to how it beat the 560 almost across the board. I ended up with the 560 because it uses WAY less power and produces no more heat than my old 8800 did. It was a much smaller card length wise and the drivers are effortless to deal with and update. My Nvidia control panel automatically tells me when and update is available...very cool. Basically, this is like sports, the most powerful team doesn't always win and this is definitely the case in the 6970 vs 560 for me.
  4. elalainus
    elalainus
    • member
    • 0 kudos
    My Skyrim now looks better than ever! Still I can't get out of Jorrvaskr properly without crashing to desktop or using the console command so hoping the next patch would fix this because I haven't finished majority of the quests of all my playthoughs...
  5. RubikNight
    RubikNight
    • BANNED
    • 3 kudos
    Just wondering whie using FXAA or a ENB Pofile along with benchmark in place with a i3 core and Radeon ATI graphics card (according to the internet the one I have my laptop can't run Skyrim on Ultra, but it runs smooth and fine with GBoost running in the background or without it) The only lag I get is after quicksaving (it pauses a bit) or when loading a new area. I guess loaders for pop-in mods can fix that. I'll check out the Twitch.tv. Nividia peeps are always awesome. Probably why there ads are better too.

    And that Nividia lady (the one who says Nividia when you start a game) is mighty sexy sounding...
  6. aschloch
    aschloch
    • member
    • 0 kudos
    I get Flickering(a little hard to notice, but it's there) when using any ENB profile AND Crossfire Enabled.
    Two ways to fix it, 1) Disable Crossfire or 2) Delete ENB
  7. mmorpgsux
    mmorpgsux
    • member
    • 0 kudos
    The guide and video mention that the iShadowMapResolution Secondary/Primary is changed in the Preferences ini file, but there is also a iShadowMapResolutionPrimary in the Skyrim ini file and no secondary. Should that also be changed because it does not match the resolution in the preferences ini file? For example, the primary resolution in the preferences ini file is 4096, but stays at 2048 in the skyrim ini file. Hope someone can answer my question and thanks in advance?
  8. jonasl2004
    jonasl2004
    • premium
    • 0 kudos
    Well my AMD Radeon card is great for me. I just put my new rig together like 2 months ago. maybe that is my edge, my rig is that new. But no issues at all. I like Nvidia for sure, but since I'm running the new AMD FX six-core, I wanted the same 1st party card to go with it. No issues and it freakin' smokes for me! I actually had to upgrade to a new high end CPU fan and add an extra 120mm puller/pusher fan. I burned out my out of box CPU fan!

    Though I will give Nvidia credit for getting deep into the gamer community. I really think that AMD will make the same move big time this year. I remember when AMD chips really hit the market. They pimped themselves as the gamer chip. The must have CPU if you ran games. They basically said that Intel is your business chip, we are the party chip, and it worked. I worked for Future Electronics Inc. at the time and they where the lead distributor of AMD chips for North America at the time. So I guess that is what started my love affair with AMD chips. I have always like the under dog in things.
  9. FoxZero
    FoxZero
    • supporter
    • 0 kudos
    I'll watch this when I get a chance. I've done some intense tweaks with Skyrim including Nvidia's previous guide.

    John Carmack stated that Nvidia has worked more closely with developers over the years to produce superior drivers. I've used ATI for years and still do in my XP rig, but the fact of the matter I've always had a smoother experience with Nvidia, back in my Geforce 2 days and my current GTX 480 destroys. At the time I was in the market for a $500 card, it was the only one that fit the bill. I care more about consistent performance than the whole FPS to Dollar ratio.

    Driver support for my favorite games has been great. BF3 has been troubling, can't get it to run full screen but only just recently has the game been able to run at all! Total glitchfest!
  10. kendubz09
    kendubz09
    • premium
    • 9 kudos
    Dark0ne: We do it right in England!

    Me: Yes we do it right and thanks for the video i loved it