It’s strange to think that it’s been over a decade since The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim came out.
Skyrim was the game that created my interest in modding and hardware in the first place. A modified version of the game was also the stress test for all new components that found their way into my computer in the first five years after launch.
The mod community is still thriving to this day.
I have completely lost track of what the mandatory modifications are, but a new program has meant that you don’t actually need to follow so much anymore.
I happen to have an RTX 4090 from Nvidia lying around, and thought it might be fun to see if the video card can handle all the craziness that the modders have found in recent years.
So what happens if we put the most powerful 2022 graphics card to a trial by fire in Skyrim?
Awaken the charm
Benchmarking in Skyrim has not been relevant for many years.
The video cards that have come out in recent years are too powerful, and the game is anyway locked to 60 frames per second if you don’t remove the lock with adjustments in the game’s files.
This is where the modifications come into the picture.
I once had close to 500 different graphics modifications which, by one miracle or another, ran relatively stable before I put the game on the shelf.
RTX 4090: This video card is currently the most powerful money can buy. Can it run Skyrim, right?
Mikkjell Lønning/Gamer.no
Modding has developed into something completely different than when I started. Now you can use a single tool, Wabbajack, to download a whole set of modifications at once. This is how you save dozens of hours of testing.
Fair enough, I think that was part of the charm. Downloading twenty mods at once, hoping nothing went wrong, and then having to turn off one by one to find the error when it crashed.
You spent more time testing than playing. There’s no escaping it.
Modding with one click
To do this properly, it is important to find a collection of well-optimized modifications. Anyone can download a grass mod, turn it up to eleven, and watch the frame rate skyrocket.
It doesn’t have much going for it.
The collections of modifications that we can download through Wabbajack mean that we can get hold of heaps of both demanding and optimized modifications.
The program does almost all the work of installing them, but it’s good to have a premium subscription to NexusMods. Without this, you can only download at three megabytes per second, and many of the lists can be hundreds of gigabytes.
The 60 kroner was therefore worth it for an impatient soul like me.
Not enough
I’ll try my hand at the collection first”11 years of skyrim ultimate graphics». This is around 89 gigabytes, and counts 290 modifications in total.
I’m actually just waiting for the game to crash, but it starts and lets me play. But the frame rate is 60. In 4K.
290 modifications are therefore not enough to challenge Nvidia’s flagship. The video card usage is at just under 35 percent, and does not increase even if I turn the resolution to 8K.
NORTHERN LIGHTS, OR? There are an endless number of sky modifications for Skyrim. I think this one was a bit lax on the northern lights, because this doesn’t look like the northern lights.
Mikkjell Lønning/Gamer.no
We have to work harder.
I download the biggest list I can find on Wabbajack. This list, Aldrnari, has around 2300 modifications. It can’t possibly work.
The author warns that it can take up to ten hours to install the whole thing, but for once Lyse delivers the speed they promise.
I can download everything in just under an hour, and after half an hour of installation, as well as some manual installations, everything is ready for use.
The unexpected
The Skyrim folder is 319 gigabytes after installation. The list probably has many tiny modifications that only change the textures of certain items, but also has major overhauls that change thousands of things.
I am greeted by what is practically a completely new game. Everything you know from Skyrim is there, but the visuals and game mechanics have been moved many years forward in time.
It’s been years since I’ve had the urge to start a new playthrough, but thanks to Aldrnari, it immediately shows up.
NEW ADVENTURES: Aldrnari adds a lot of new things, but builds on what Skyrim should be, just with a bit more fantasy.
Mikkjell Lønning/Gamer.no
The landscape overflows with vegetation, the figures are unrecognizable. The textures on everything and everyone are miles better than in the standard game.
On my way through Riverwood I am met by a lady from The Wheel of Time. A strange monster I have never seen before prowls through the green forests. There is so much new everywhere that I have no idea what will meet me around the next corner.
It’s refreshing.
But the frame rate is still at 60.
Last touch
Oh well.
This is the largest collection of modifications you can get hold of. I want to save myself the trouble of downloading something manually and risk conflict with files that are already there, because I really have no idea what is in Aldrnari.
The mod author has apparently designed the list to look good up close, but has a low level of detail in the distance to maintain the performance. I change this with some simple adjustments in the game’s settings files.
TASTE AND PLEASURE: Wabbajack lists are in practice one person’s vision for how the game should be and look. It is not certain that it will completely match the author’s taste, so it is necessary to try different variants.
Mikkjell Lønning/Gamer.no
Me still reaching 60.
The physics engine in the game does not tolerate higher frame rates, but it’s time to unlock the frame rate to see what we actually get. Then the frame rate climbs up to around 80 when I’m outside, and often well over 100 when inside houses and halls.
My figure steps up towards Bleak Falls Barrow. The first snowflakes start to appear – of course in a completely different quality than I’m used to – and I restart the game with a resolution of 6K.
The framerate dropped like a rock. The average is 37, and in 8K the frame rate is down to 25.
6K and around 2,300 modifications are therefore what is needed to make the RTX 4090 work up a sweat.
Eldergleam Sanctuary in a new guise, now with new figures and missions.
Some bandits, now with unique names and new voice lines, attack me in droves on the threshold of the ancient door of Bleak Falls Barrow. And the game crashes.
Our conclusion is that graphics cards are now actually powerful enough to handle Skyrim, no matter what game you’re after. No one is going to play this in 6K or 8K, so I give the RTX 4090 a pass for managing 80 FPS in 4K.
It is perhaps not very surprising that a video card from 2022 for over NOK 20,000 manages to max out a game from 2011, but with 2300 modifications in the mix, that is not a given.
