Is building a pc worth it for skyrim?

Hello everyone, I am completely new here. Forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this. Anyways I have some questions. I've put literally hundreds and hundreds of hours into skyrim on the 360. My 360 is broke now so I'm looking at a building a pc. I've watched how to videos and I believe I can handle it. Is it true skyrim on pc is a completely different game than Vanilla? Or would this just be a waste of money? I love this game to death. But I'm stumped on pc version. The mods look so awesome/fun, however is it really worth it? Thanks guys!!

Maybe? You can lose hundereds of hours into Skyrim mods with new ways to play the game, new content and just modding itself.

How often to you play other games? Because that's where I find building one is worth more.

Of course it is. Skyrim and all other games are much better on PC.

Yes it is completely worth it! Now with things such as Steam's workshop modding games has never been easier. Although you do get watered down versions of the mods from Steam's workshop feature it is a great stepping off point for people who are new to PC gaming & modding. I highly suggest you get Skyrim through Steam for that feature. Although the site nexusmods has a client which makes mod installation much easier. if you somehow end up with a non Steam copy of Skyrim. Also with the latest gen of video cards having already been released you can find a great GPU that will run Skyrim at max settings all modded up for a pretty good price now!

The best advice I can give you is too really think about what type of gaming you will use your PC for & build it to that standard. It could mean the difference between a $700 PC that runs everything you want to play at max settings on normal resolutions or a $1,500 PC that maxs out the newest games at higher resolutions. Also you can always upgrade further down the road if your needs change, it's all in what you plan to do with the PC right now. There is no point building a monster gaming rig if you do not plan on playing the newest, most demanding games on it.

For one game? No.

I've spend around 500 hours playing Skyrim and probably half that modding it. I've said to myself that I wont play it again until I get a better PC, because mine is pretty old and it can barely handle Skyrim in low at decent fps. And I want to fully experience visually modded Skyrim, which is way better than 360 without mods. Trust me on that. Since I can't build new PC right now I'm planning to upgrade my current one and its partly because of Skyrim. So yeah, I would say its worth it!

About the build, tell us your budget or games you play other than Skyrim (or games that you would like to play) so we can build you one. Skyrim itself is not a heavy game, so you don't need that good GPU. Modded Skyrim is whole other stoty, though. I've heard it can surpass 4GB of VRAM, but that's very extreme visual modding. You should be fine with 3 or even 2GB of VRAM if you're on budget. I'm personally going with 2GB, but I would have gone with 3GB if I wasn't on a budget.

Building a PC is almost always worth it for gaming. Outside of maybe my 3DS I'd say that my PC is my most played platform at this point.

@xzahn: Okay my budget is probably between 600 and 800 just for now anyways. Here is what I'm looking at building wise. I'm going to be using a 360 controller so I'm just going to get a cheap keyboard and mouse. And I'm not getting a monitor yet, I will use my HDTV for now.

FX-8320 CPU

MSI 760GMA-P34

Crucial Ballistix 8gb (4x2)

Hitachi 1TB Hard Drive

Asus 24x DVD-RW

Sapphire R9 270X

Cougar Spike Pc Case

EVGA 600W Bronze PSU

^^You don't put 8320 on the cheapest mobo, I mean you can do it, but it's not the way to go. Look for Asus boards with 6 or 8 phase VRM, like M5A97 Pro or Evo, and also get an aftermarket CPU cooler (that one's not a must but it's definitely worth it). Other than that it's a well balanced build.

I mean the game itself is awful, but if you want to kill time by installing a bunch of mods, then it may be a worthwhile investment.

Sure why not, you'll end up playing a lot more other games for sure. When I first got a Computer it was mainly due to age of empires at that time :P

I generally think that Skyrim is a terrible game, but it has one of the best modding communities out there so you can make the game exactly how you like.

I would say that PC is the only platform that Skyrim is worth it on.

@PfizersaurusRex: Hey thanks for the heads up! Okay so instead of going with the MSI 760GMA-P34, I should go with the ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard to pair up with the 8320?

yeah but don't get a NVidia 900 series graphic card. Too many problems by too many people. Get 2 whats below it.

For one game? Hard to say, but Requiem (Skyrim mod) is one of the best wide open world ARPGs to come out in this last decade.

@owlblood: I would say No, Mainly because if its for that one game, it not all that worth I, its an amazing game, but not fully, now if you did thought it would open up the chance for you to look into getting a bunch of other Great games. If you do build it, build it well. Good Luck!

That board can handle 8 cores, up to 4 GHz at least. With 270X you don't need to push CPU any more than that. Back to the original topic, I don't think PC is worth it just for 1 game, but once you see the difference you won't go back to consoles! Although PC hardware is more expensive, games are cheaper and they look better than on consoles.

Man, these glitches...

What other options are you considering? I think a PC is worth it, plus you can do a lot more with a pc than a console.
The mods are a big reason to go with a pc.

What would you do if you didn't go with a pc?

@owlblood: if you build it strong enough to run the most demanding Skyrim mods at good resolutions then you'll have a system to run pretty much anything at very nice settings for a little while to come.

if you are planning on going mod crazy with Skyrim, i recommend keeping multiple labeled save game backups. many save files will only load correctly when the right mod files are installed. learned the hard\lazy way with Morrowind and Oblivion that it's easy to lose a lot of hours of gameplay.

Not for one game.

But Requiem Skyrim with a full ENB preset and another hundred or so mods is truly a sight to behold.

I don't think anyone else can tell you what something is worth to you. I suspect if you think you can get 100's of more hours out of a modded Skyrim, and it's something you really want to do - go for it.

Skyrim is literally a completely different game when you play it on PC with the right mods installed.... but its also very challenging and time consuming to get all the mods working together and the game stable with them all. I'm in the process of starting a new Skyrim playthrough so i been testing out tons of mods to see which ones to try out for my next game. You can spend months testing these out... its fun and a bit overwhelming also.

The most important mod you must download first is Mod Organizer or Nexus Mod Manager aka NMM. I recommend Mod Organizer since i find it the best one... it basically lets you enable and disable mods instantly without having to worry about copying them into your skyrim data folder and messing up anything (it basically makes a virtual Data folder that doesn't overwrite anything in your actual data folder)... Also it tells if about which conflicts you may have, making the whole mod process extremely fun and easy to switch from one mod to another. It keeps the whole modding process clean and if you are going to install more than a few mods, it is essential.

If you run a script heavy mod, remember you may be better off leaving it enabled for your entire game rather than disabling it and possibly screwing up your save. There are some mods that can help remove dead scripts from save games but are not 100% for all mods to take them out properly.

So ya, its worth building a PC to play Skyrim, its amazing. But get a very good pc, when Skyrim is modded, it will bring it your pc to its knees. Once your running mods and ENB graphic presets, your fps will be cut in half. On my 970gtx, unmodded Skyrim at 1080p, i can get over 100-140fps. Modded skyrim with ENB enabled, my fps range from 45-80fps. 45 fps in large areas. gpu usuage is maxed at this point at 100%... its crazy.

The best sites for mods, http://www.nexusmods.com and http://www.loverslab.com/

(as for Bethesda games) Building a PC for these two below I would recommend! but not for Skyrim or Oblivion - since they're not an interesting or deep games.

- The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

@owlblood: Don't get that motherboard, I've had overheating issues with the same board and processor i had to get a better one which didn't cost much more

why would it be for only game though?

Not for one game but when you look at how cheap PC games are, you'll not want to leave.

You can get Witcher 3 for £12 at the moment, Batman Arkham Knight for £6. I pre-ordered MGS5 and Fallout 4 collectively for £50.

If you've already invested hundreds of hours into Skyrim, then no I would say it is not worth it. Not just for Skyrim. While mods and enhancements are amazing in Skyrim, the real deal is the base game and if you have played the hell out of it, I'd say its not worth it for just one game you've already played.

But, with Fallout 4 (in addition to countless other games) coming to PC, I'd argue building a PC is entirely worthwhile.

Hope to see you on the PC forums in the future, with stories to share and questions to ask about PC gaming :D

@ras2009: Okay thanks for the heads up! What motherboard did you get to replace the MSI? And how is it working? Thanks!

You could build a computer that will run Skyrim beautifully for less than $400. Its not a very demanding game.

With mods it is.

I was able to mod skyrim so much that even with 2 970s I was dipping down to 45fps at 1440p.

@owlblood: Only for Skyrim? You're better off building a PC for the Witcher 3 which is 100x better than Skyrim.

I'm going to say no. I had more fun modding Skyrim than playing it and I cba to actually finish it either.