Can I get average(or maybe even minimum) 120fps in Skyrim?

Specs of future build:

Gigabyte R9 280x 3GB

AMD FX 8350

8GB(2x4) Corsair Vengeance ram

Etc.

I would try to hit around 120fps playing at 1080p maxed out(could reduce some less important settings). Is it possible with these specs?

Why does it matter? I rather have max eye candy and a rock solid 60fps then lower graphics and 120fps.

Yeah, if you think you really notice a difference at anything higher I will almost guarantee it's mostly a placebo-like situation.

Shadows on the highest setting will kill performance. That work is all done cpu side for some reason, unless they fixed that.

On a single 7950 overclocked to 1.1ghz, I would be in the 90s in cities. But, if you can hit those high frame rates, why not use ENB at 60fps?

Running Skyrim at higher than 60FPS will introduce bugs, as far as I know. I wouldn't recommend it.

I dont think its even possible for the human eye to discern that many frames per second is it? I think you'd just be wasting your time.

Even with that said, Skyrim's highest settings don't look that much different from the next-to-highest settings. And that goes for practically any game.

Skyrim has some problem areas with performance, too. Markarth comes to mind. All those water effects and NPC's walking around can make framerates drop. Also, the more mods you put in the game, the more impact it will have on performance. How much each mod affects performance depends on the mod in question - Open Cities is going to hurt a lot more than Rich Merchants, for instance. And microstuttering can be an issue for some machines, though there are fixes for this.

I'm not saying that it isn't possible, just that you're probably going to come across some issues along the way. You probably wouldn't notice much of a difference between 120 and 60 in a game like Skyrim, anyway. Those kinds of framerate differences usually only matter in extremely fast paced games like Counter Strike or Quake 3, and then only when you're playing with other people who try to get insanely high framerates. Or when using an Oculus Rift.

Skyrim isn't really the kind of game that demands 120fps, I'm assuming you have a 120hz monitor here because otherwise what exactly is the point. In either case it should be possible in theory although AMD have always had a bigger performance hit when stacked up against the equivalent Nvidia card in that title. The game isn't exactly graphically intensive, it's more CPU intensive than most titles however and it's not exactly a forward thinking engine (it really doesn't use more than 2 core effectively so it scales better with Intels higher IPC).

Provided you keep MSAA to a minimum you should probably be fine as really that's the only thing that game has that demands anything of a modern GPU (hell a GTX 560 ti can hold 60 in that game maxed as long as you stick to shader based AA).

60fps???

Carmack is unimpressed.

I seriously would like to know why you want to run 120fps. 3D? Input lag? Benchmarking?

@pocky4th3win said:

You have to see a 120hz/144hz monitor to understand. It's so much smoother.

Skyrim requires a godly cpu to average that frame rate for some reason. Like the shadows are reliant on the cpu more than the gpu? I don't know but my video card was never fully being used.

I only play at 1080fps.

@demoskinos: you can see that easily, actually. Anything over 60 is just icing on the cake unless you are playing Quake or something.

No, point of fact it isn't. Anything above 60 is fine, technically if you want to argue semantics humans can "theoretically" see around 1000 or so but I am a serious AV whack job and I can only see a slight difference between 60 and 80.... anything above 80 all looks the same to me. Or the difference is so minimal it just doesn't matter.

Also before the nut job enthusiasts come in and start flaming, yes I am aware the eye does not see in FPS. I am aware you can "theoretically" see a 1/220th or so of a second image. I am also fully aware that image has to be in stark contrast to the other 219 frames in that second or you won't see it at all. My point is just that to me I don't see a point and that in the 80 or so range the image is already smooth enough that I can't see much difference beyond that.

@audiobusting said:

Yeah, I had to use a frame limiter. Things get real stupid at anything over 75fps.

@korwin: yea im gona be using a 120hz monitor(w lightboost) and want to use its full potential

120fps Skyrim, for all your twitch m1 spam needs.

FPS and HZ only matter together when you use VSYNC, which you shouldn't. Ever.

Why stop at 120 FPS when you could easily go up to 5000 FPS? Quake 3 mofos.

@canteu said:

I continue to find this train of thought mystifying.

If one is looking for the game to look as visually good as possible, you can have all the frames per second and particle effects in the world, but if the image is constantly misaligned it still looks like garbage. I'd like a hearing with the PC Master Race council, to determine who decided that everybody should pop a huge boner for frames per second but just completely not care that there's screen tearing all over the place.

It's from back when graphics cards had performance issues with triple buffering, and before adaptive vsync was a thing - so they had to use vsync without it, which caused a good amount of input lag. TB makes the input lag negligible.

Some people haven't gotten over it, apparently.

It should still be turned off for things like online shooters, unless the tearing is very noticeable.

only 120fps?

Rather run at 60fps and have every graphics tweak and mod on the game making it look far more impressive. I have tried 120hz, wasn't worth it for me over solid 60 with better graphics.

Everyone doubting 120 fps should really try to view one of those monitors in person.
You'll notice the difference in flow just by moving an explorer window across the desktop.

Skyrim might not be the game for it though, if it glitches with high framerates.

i'm sure you'd probably get around 90-100 but why not roll some ENB and texture mods if you've got that hardware instead of pushing for over 60fps numbers? I can get a solid 60 on max settings with my setup and the default High Res Texture pack that bethesda put out.

phenom II 965 Black @ 3.4 ghz

12 GB DDR3

2 HD7770's in crossfire.

@oldmanlight: I dont know I thought that 60fps on a 120hz monitor would be kind of a waste but ill consider it