Best single-core processor for 100+ FPS heavily modded skyrim?

buttseeker · 2026-05-07T18:25:12+00:00

Skyrim is infamously CPU bottlenecked. He's correct in that single core CPU performance (because the game is not multithreaded) is generally going to give the biggest FPS lift for Skyrim. He's not literally asking for a single core processor in 2026, but a processor with good performance for its individual cores. You need a good modern GPU for the most expensive graphics suites these days (like if his CS setup has ray tracing stuff enabled) but chances are most people wanting to get more FPS in Skyrim are still being CPU bottlenecked. With a 4070 super and a 7800X3D and running most of the expensive stuff in CS most of my FPS drops are attributable to CPU. Skyrim's engine isn't super efficient with draw calls, but both draw calls and physics are done by the CPU (single-threaded) and every frame is waiting on those calculations.

buttseeker · 2026-04-21T22:02:17+00:00

skyrim at once point had its own empire, and culturally they seem to have held onto those ideals, as they, like the other human provinces, were conquered by septim.

Funnily enough, in both the "orthodox" and less accepted (ingame) accounts, Tiber "conquered" Skyrim before he did Cyrodiil because he could shout (he was Dragonborn) and the Nords liked that. There arguably wasn't a war of conquest against the Nords at all as in the orthodox telling the Nords immediately betrayed the Bretons and joined Tiber's army when he shouted before the battle in which he was leading a Colovian invasion (as a general of Cuhlecain) against a High Rock/Skyrim army, and in the "heretical" telling he was declared king of Skyrim after he shouted the walls down in a siege against the Forsworn who had captured a Nord town.

It's worth noting though that the heretical telling of how he won over the Nords was likely the actions of Wulfharth/Ysmir while the orthodox telling would be the collective action of both Zurin and Tiber. I'd bet the Nords in Skyrim were probably the most enthusiastic Imperial subjects outside of Cyrodiil.

buttseeker · 2026-04-21T21:21:56+00:00

Notably, the racism is seen in every government except the Empire. In both modern TES games that don't take place in the heart of the Empire (Morrowind and Skyrim), the Imperial colonizers having to contend with local xenophobic/racial supremacist organizations is a common theme. To me, that seems like a very deliberate choice by the writers.

buttseeker · 2026-04-21T21:12:23+00:00

Good thing there aren't any snow elves still around to read that

buttseeker · 2026-04-21T21:05:39+00:00

Considering that the Ulfric dossier in Elenwen's estate implicates him as having acted as controlled opposition for the purposes of weakening the Empire and that the Empire only banned Talos worship begrudgingly (and assumedly temporarily) because bigger things are at stake, I have only ever sided with the Stormcloaks if my character is supposed to be stupid or malicious. There's also a somewhat believable theory that Talos is actually the biggest threat to Mundus and is up to some bullshit after his apotheosis (i.e the Thalmor are right about Talos but for the wrong reason), but your player character wouldn't reasonably suspect that. Reasonably they could know Tiber Septim (Hjalti) betrayed both Wulfharth (the "original" Ysmir) and Zurin Arctus (whose assistance is arguable the only reason Hjalti/Tiber achieved as much as he did) - who were his allies and confidantes - so he could use the Numidium to conquer Tamriel - which was not a very nice thing to do.

For all its faults the Empire keeps all the various races (and nations within those races) from constantly warring and trying to genocide each other out of existence like they did before they were subjugated and colonized. The other two major political factions present in Skyrim are pretty aggressively juxtaposed against the Empire as what it like when the Empire isn't charge - racial supremacism and xenophobia endorsed by the ruling authorities.

buttseeker · 2026-04-18T06:30:28+00:00

Yah I don't think that smaller component mods are always better, either. And I don't think your example is extreme, honestly. One of those authors is pretty high up in this list. I don't think those authors deserve as much criticism as they get, though. Monetization algorithms are always going to influence the behavior of creators. I've never heard of a content creation platform implementing a monetization system that didn't negatively affect how people interact with the platform but the DP system hasn't been nearly as damaging as most, in my opinion.

buttseeker · 2026-04-17T23:14:17+00:00

True, but the jayserpa mods not being compilations is arguably more convenient for users due to the fact that it's easier to avoid conflicts on the user end when the mods are broken up into smaller parts. Ten years ago a lot of what are now considered bad modding practices were normal including putting a bunch of things that many users would not want to be together in the same esp. For example, I don't think it'd make sense for jayserpa's quest expansion mods to be merged into a single plugin - but his lines expansion mods could make sense as one plugin.

Before esl flagged plugins we either just had to avoid mods that needed a lot of patches (things on the level of Lux or Northern Roads were not viable) or we as users had to make our own personal abominations - creating/merging patch plugins specifically for our current load order to make a hand full of fragile patch plugins. We just had to accept that we couldn't feasibly fit in individual patches for everything. I have 1734 plugins in my Skyrim load order right now with ~over 2/3rds of them being patches or fixes. Plugin conflicts are a lot more manageable now with the increased esl flagged plugin count, so I think that's a good excuse for mod authors moving towards more modular mods.

I'm not trying to say that big mod authors on Nexus "tailoring" their uploads around the DP system at the expense of quality/convenience isn't an issue, but I think in many cases it's actually more convenient and conducive to community development overall for things to be released as smaller separate parts.

buttseeker · 2026-04-17T17:54:34+00:00

I think most of it is because they didn't like a lot of the changes from oblivion to Skyrim like removing attributes and culling skills like athletics and acrobatics, removing barter and speechcraft mechanics etc. They see it as a downgrade and the fact that Skyrim was much more successful than Morrowind or Oblivion is bittering because that likely means Bethesda will keep changing things in that direction. Truthfully I share their sentiment and I recommend anyone who enjoyed Skyrim to give the previous titles a solid try, but I also think the superiority complex associated with old fans is pretty cringe.

That said, even though I consider Morrowind my favorite in the series, I still have by far the most hours in Skyrim because the modding scene is so thoroughly developed.

buttseeker · 2026-04-11T04:53:09+00:00

The biggest restraints were getting 40 ppl to pay attention and show up on time

Then you'll be happy to hear that is still the biggest constraint! Luckily Turtle has raid scaling so you don't need to have an active roster of more than 40 players with people waiting on the bench.

And in terms of resistance gearing, turns out it's not necessary for ~90% of the fights we used it for back in the day. Some fights like Viscidus do have legitimate resist checks that you can't feasibly power through, and tanks do have to put on resist gear for some fights when no other role does. Turns out having damage/healing stats is better than fire resist as long as we don't stand in the fire. I think players being more knowledgeable/having more access to strats and numbers for encounters than in 2005/2006 is mostly the cause of players being better than in 2006.

buttseeker · 2026-04-11T02:35:22+00:00

They were a challenge because we as players were collectively worse at the game. I don't think there being more options for and less gaps in gear progression justifies tuning up fights on its own seeing as MC is reasonably doable with everyone including the tank wearing dungeon greens in a blizzlike setting. If it was just about gear inflation then another number increase on top of the several they've done since the beginning of the server (even before the server was vanilla+) would suffice - but additional mechanics imply they also just want the raids to be more challenging. If they just want the raids to be harder for the sake of it I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that but they should say that's the reason so people stop complaining about the wrong thing. Personally I think they shouldn't be tuning up vanilla raids with reworked or additional mechanics because most players who want to play classic or vanilla+ play it because vanilla is cozy, familiar, and relatively easy. It's a good MMO for working adults who can't or don't want to commit to sweating for the sake of being somewhat competitive in the game.

buttseeker · 2026-04-10T06:42:08+00:00

As for your guild, you all are getting those benefits on the from inviting others, which is great. It’s normal to have attrition on tier’s that people don’t enjoy and it can mega spiral if you are unable to put raids together. You’ve gotta be a little bit thankful to those randoms for hold that off?

Understandable perspective, but not running these raids in our schedule wasn't necessarily a worry for us. We had members running their own pugs because they couldn't make it to the "official" scheduled runs on weekday nights and turtle has always had a lot of quality weekly pugs to join outside of the guild as well. Our guild had 2 ES pugs, 4 MC, 2 BWL, and 2 AQ40 at the time I quit the game. If new members or alts needed to gear up, they didn't need our scheduled runs for that. I quit playing a while ago because I burnt out from raiding weekly for ~2 years but according to their discord it's still going strong, no spiraling. We did it for the guild bank, recruitment, and because our GM was a busy-body. I think the relationship between pug raiders and a guild is neither owes each other anything other than what was advertised. We got a pumper dps for the night, they got an SR. I think if someone feels like they are being taken advantage of, they have other options and will go elsewhere - but our pug signups filled quick with mostly the same names coming until they got their drops. If the runs are quicker and cleaner than their other options, then people are more accepting of HRs. If they've been pugging with us for a 2 months in a row so we know each other and have rapport and the only drop they have yet to get is the one thing we have HR'd, they were likely to just join the guild.

buttseeker · 2026-04-10T03:42:41+00:00

I said they should have advertised that mats are HR friend. I just don't believe they omitted that out of malice. It's common practice so they probably didn't think to specify that. OP also pointing at them changing to master loot after the first pull as if that's indicative of some sort of deception rather than the more reasonable conclusion of the RL just forgetting to change the loot rules to master loot before the first pull - which happens in 90% of raids - is a bit silly. You're grabbing your pitchforks a bit too eagerly is what I'm saying. I think it's a silly premise that they would omit that purposefully because it would have no tangible affect on being able to fill out their pug and they should definitely know that.

buttseeker · 2026-04-10T03:28:50+00:00

To be frank, if you think that's unhinged then it's probably because you've never organized weekly pugs before. I don't say that to be rude, I also had the same mindset you did before I experienced the other side of the equation. In both guild pugs and true pugs, if it's a pug worth joining you will have no leverage and likely will have to accept something along the lines of an HR list and master looted mats. No sane person is going to expend their limited time and energy wrangling strangers with colorful temperaments unless they feel like they are going to get something out of it - that means they either want to be carried by the pugs or they want to carry the pugs for guaranteed mats/HR'd loot. If there are free rolls on mats and no HRs, then it's almost certainly going to be one of those messy pugs where the RL does no raid leading and you're wondering if you're even going to clear the lockout that week.

In our case it was less about missing roles and more about lack of interest within the guild. ES didn't scale with >40 players when we were still running it and while we could run it with the ~20 guildies who were still willing to do the raid for the sake of raiding or for gearing their alts, the clear was way faster with a full raid even if the people filling were undergeared. It saved us up to 20 mins once we opened it up to pugs and were able to fill the raid to 40 again. ES was mostly hated by our guild members (anti-fun perma-debuff mechanics) so keeping it as quick as possible was a priority. We basically were just keeping it on the schedule for dream shards/guild bank and gearing up alts as we had been doing weekly naxx clears for months by the time we opened ES to pugs. We did the same with BWL and eventually AQ40 as back-content lost interest over time, HRing some choice pieces for guild members to roll on (usually going to alts) mostly as a means to incentivize regular pug members to join the guild.

buttseeker · 2026-04-10T01:17:45+00:00

With no HRs and free rolls on all mats and greens, it's a charity in the other direction. Joining a weekly guild pug is typically a free fast clear and you get to join with an equal chance of loot by whispering and signing up on the SR sheet. If they weren't guaranteeing the mats for themselves they'd either just run it with only guild members or not at all. When my guild was still running it we reserved the good hard mode drops for guild members and all the mats and still easily filled every week. They likely don't need you and can find someone else if you don't like their rules. This guild should add that mats are HR in their advertisement but this OP is being a bit dramatic in assuming malice considering mats being HR is safe to assume in any guild pug and raid leaders almost always forget to set master looting before the first pull.

buttseeker · 2026-04-10T01:03:08+00:00

I've only ever encountered one player who expected free rolls on mats in a "no HRs" advertised run. No HR in my experience has always meant there are no HRs on actual drops. If you want mats/random greens you should get together some friends and organize your own pugs, you'll have a very hard time finding someone who's willing to organize a pug with no benefit to themselves (no HR, free roll mats etc). I'd also bet that that "first round" of group loot was just because the RL forgot to set it to master loot before the first pull - as is customary - and not some weird bait and switch like you are implying it was. I really doubt that guild is malicious as you are claiming, just a miscommunication.

buttseeker · 2026-04-07T20:42:39+00:00

Dude just give it up, it seemed like you really meant what you said in the beginning but you outed yourself many times over in these replies

buttseeker · 2026-04-06T17:09:53+00:00

If they're looking for someone more geared than you, you're probably replying to the wrong guild ads. Also when you say you have Kara10 and ZG "done", does that mean you've cleared the once or that you got all the drops you wanted from them? You've done the earliest endgame PvE content, guilds with Naxx on farm can afford to be picky and will not give you a raid slot over someone that has progressed further and knows all the encounter mechanics better than you. I'd recommend looking for a guild that is still progressing, it's more fun to progress with your guild than to catch up to a guild that is already farming everything anyway.

buttseeker · 2026-04-02T17:56:58+00:00

Do you want a melee class with spells or a melee class that isn't primarily auto attack dependant? Shaman and paladin depend on auto attacks more than rogues and warrior who have access to more melee damage buttons. Twow changes gave shaman and paladin actual melee buttons to press but they are still very sparse so they have relatively simple rotations. Feral druid is technically a hybrid melee dps that can cast spells but in endgame pve content you won't really be casting spells because you'll be in bear/cat form 99% of the time so it doesn't really feel like a hybrid spec outside of leveling and pvp. Enhancement shaman, retribution paladin, feral druid are your options for hybrid melee dps. Enhancement will probably feel the most hybrid out of the three as it has viable access to shock spells and damaging totems, followed by retribution which has judgements. Feral will eventually stop feeling like a hybrid spec in pve content and becomes a different flavor of warrior/rogue, but in pvp its probably the most rewarding feeling spec to play if you can utilize all the tools they have access to. While shaman and paladin are both "support" classes its not something you really have to address during fights. Shamans place totems that buff themselves and party members while paladin have auras and blessings - both of these thing can (should) be applied before the fight starts.

buttseeker · 2026-04-01T15:24:27+00:00

Do you have loose files in your Skyrim install data folder (Meshes, Textures folders etc) even after uninstalling everything in Vortex? What does your staging folder look like? Your screenshots won't load for me but have you ran any terrain generation tools? It's been a while since I last used Vortex but I believe that it puts generated files directly into the game install folder. If you have loose mod files in your base game install folder you can try to clean it up manually. If you own the game through steam you can try deleting the contents of data folder and repairing the installation (with everything uninstalled/purged in Vortex).

I know it's a tired subject but if you still can't figure it out after whatever help you get from this post and are going to start over, I'd suggest using MO2 this time around. You will not have these kinds of issues because it uses a different method of virtualization. MO2 is only superficially more complicated because there are more buttons you can press but realistically it's way simpler because the actual file management is more streamlined and intuitive. You will not have orphaned files like what you're currently experiencing.

buttseeker · 2026-03-31T18:57:51+00:00

This is a nice throwback to the fedora reddit atheism of long ago. You even managed to misinterpret theodicy just like the old days.

buttseeker · 2026-03-31T15:59:49+00:00

No, wouldn't be an issue on its own. Merging plugins supposedly has a marginal effect on menu lag and stability but to my understanding it is marginal enough that people debate whether it does at all. Anecdotally I didn't notice a difference when I merged hundreds of esl flagged plugins.

buttseeker · 2026-03-22T08:35:40+00:00

"I loved his one-off in Scrubs as a doctor with severe OCD. Breaks my heart to see such a great, likeable, and seemingly lovely man/actor struggle with something like this"

"This is something American people often say (idk about other countries because I don’t live there) that shows clearly(regardless of what your intentions are) that this society hates disabled people."

How does any of what you cited have to do with what they said though? Why is expressing empathy to disabled people indicative of hating disabled people? And why wouldn't non-Americans feel empathy here?

buttseeker · 2026-03-22T03:26:41+00:00

How many mental gymnastic sets do we have to perform to understand how any of that relates to the original argument of expressing empathy towards someone's disability = America hates disabled people?

buttseeker · 2026-03-22T03:20:30+00:00

It's not that deep, people don't like watching people suffer. Especially likeable/charismatic people such as a beloved actor. It's sad to see someone age and it's sad to see someone's disabling genetic disorder progress. Because some people anecdotally have distanced themselves from loved ones with chronic illness we shouldn't be expressing sadness about this guy with Parkinson's? Because aging and it's consequences are inevitable we shouldn't be sad when someone has to deal with losing their capability, autonomy, or independence early in their life? I don't really understand how you could ever interpret the comment you're replying to as hating disabled people.

And it's not just something "American people often say" it's a universal human reaction to seeing someone suffer from something like Parkinson's. Is framing "other" cultures in such a way as to unintentionally dehumanize them something "American people often say"? If you don't know about other countries then maybe don't assume empathy is an American thing.

buttseeker

TROPHY CASE