While we have not finished this game yet, and cannot comment on other areas of this game, we do have some striking initial impressions. Our initial impression is that this game runs better on, and has a better gameplay experience with, the GeForce GTX 580 and GeForce GTX 580 SLI. We had no mouse lag, smooth performance, faster performance, no bugs in sight as of yet. We were also able to use SLI thanks to NVIDIA releasing a Beta driver one day before Skyrim launched with full SLI support in the game.
We have harped over this before, but this game shows once again that AMD's driver support is biting it in the butt on a new game release. With not even an ETA on a new CAP for Skyrim to support CrossFireX, and no performance driver in sight, it is rather depressing for AMD GPU owners. We keep seeing this with new game launches these past few months. Rage, Deus Ex: Missing Link, even Battlefield 3 had better and working performance and SLI drivers from NVIDIA on game day launch, while AMD support was lacking.
With CrossFireX and SLI being based on profile support AMD cannot afford to lag this far behind on new game launches. NVIDIA simply has more support out of the gate for SLI in new games it seems. Gamers don't like to wait. When a new big title like this is released and unlocked at a certain time on a certain date, gamers are lined up waiting to play it right then and there. It matters that performance and Dual-GPU acceleration is supported when the game launches, and not days after.
First impressions are everything, and with this game, first impressions tell us that GTX 580 gameplay experience is just better. We look forward to testing Skyrim more and finding out how performance and mainstream video cards compare as well as an in-depth look at image quality. Hopefully with some new AMD drivers as well. Stay tuned.