I always hoped Skyrim would look like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Re377ol0g
The shadows are a bit too dark... but it still looks incredibly awesome. The first scene feels almost photo-realistic.



Yup. I totally agree with you. A few games do work with bad graphics though... like Mario or Braid.
But a game like TES. The graphics should be awesome there. It's that kind of game, like most others.

No you can't, at least not in Witcher 1. Geralt can't even jump over 1 foot tall fences. The video looks impressive though, I mean the level of detail in the characters, the hair, the nature, it's just beautiful.

subtle compared to what graphics engines that don't support DX11 can already pull off, and on consoles, no less.

yeah tessellation is neat. i like the idea of seeing smooth curves in a game, rather than blocky edges. i'm slightly more impressed by contact shadows than tessellation, but i've always been a bigger fan of lighting than anything else. but i really don't think Skyrim is going to suffer without DX11 support.

also, to the thread as a whole: even if the game doesn't look any better on PC than it does in the trailer - why are you getting it on PC in the first place? mods, right?

compare Morrowind's graphics at launch to Morrowind's graphics after MGE. compare Oblivion's graphics at launch to Oblivion's graphics after OBGE.

do you really think they won't be able to do the same thing with Skyrim?

also comparing this issue to SILENT HILL IN 8BIT is [censored] stupid

The essential argument here is that it is entirely possible for a Bethesda game (every aspect of it) to be rendered and processed on the CryEngine in a 32bit runtime. Correct?

If so, then no it can't. 32bit doesn't have enough resources and never will.

Really over-exaggerated, too, to show off their nifty graphics features. Like the spots where they incredibly overdo the depth-of-field, as if you were looking through a 35mm camera. And especially the rock pathway - it honestly screams "I'm fake!!!!!" because looking at it, I know people would be breaking an ankle every three steps. And impaling themselves when they fell down.

Sure it does, 2GB is a lot of space. Crysis has more detailed environments than a TES title, so scale that down a little, add the NPCs, and start streaming the local area instead of loading entire large areas, and suddenly you even have RAM to spare. Speaking purely graphically, CE2|3's renderer could do skyrim, how you load and manage the data don't got nothing to do with drawing it. Having fancy shaders and higher resolution textures doesn't suddenly make a pot take up more RAM, we have plenty of VRAM.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind Oblivions graphics with a few upgrades.
And getting more than that is enough for me.

I need a certian amount of graphics in a game, dwarf fortress can be trying at times, but just enough to make the world believable.

That's kind of the point, though, it's a graphical benchmark and demo to show off the features by exagerating them. Proper use of these features would be more subtle and less in-your-face. There's still a lot that tessellation, depth of field, ambient occlusion, global illumation, and other such effects can add to the atmosphere of a world/scene when wielded correctly.

Yeah like I said I have been playing PC games and building PC's since the late early 90's well whenever Arena came out at any rate! I built many for friends some had problems some didn't but when they did have problems most of them were doozies! Mostly all my builds were successful, but my last one was what put me off, not entirely my builds fault it was mainly my suppliers! Long story, but I bought a Gigabyte X48 motherboard, my E8500, 4 Gig of Ram and a GTX285. First attempt at posting was a failure, moved the Ram around checked components, failed again, couldn't get far enough to get a Memtest done so I took one stick of Ram out, didn't help. Took the other stick out and replaced the other back in, and whalla it booted! So I had a faulty stick of Dominator Ram... no biggy went and got it replaced. It was when I noticed a capacitor sitting in the bottom of my X48's motherboard bag I was worried, I took the motherboard out of my box, took it back to my store, they said they had to send it away to be checked, I showed them the missing capacitor and they refused to replace it on the spot! 2 weeks passed without any PC gaming ( I didn't have my PS3 at this stage) the store called only to tell me that the motherboard still works fine! Incredulously I asked 'What'? So they put extra capacitors on the motherboard for no reason? They refused to replace it and I had to go out and buy a X58 instead, put this motherboard in along with everything else, it posted yay! Eagerly after windows and everything else was loaded I put in my FO3 disk to check it out, it worked fine for 3 mins then hard locked. Strange.... had to reboot, tried Call of Juarz, same thing after 4 mins, tried Crysis, 4 mins in hard-lock!

I did a Memtest it failed on test 3 then hard-locked my PC again... weeks and weeks of troubleshooting ensued, my stress levels were going through the roof, the wife was complaining I wasn't spending time with her and wasted all our money on a lemon... you have no idea...I replaced the Ram with Kingston 1066 Ram (motherboard manual and shop ensured me the X58 supported it) the same thing happened! More weeks of troubleshooting, no gaming and stress.. then one rainy day I decided to fiddle in the Bios and slowed the Ram down to DDR2 800, then ran a Memtest! Miraculously it made it through 5 complete passes without 1 error! So my motherboard DOESN'T support DDR1066 Ram.. fantastic... after all of this FO3 and Oblivion still crashed but everything else worked fine, Crysis, Crysis Warhead all ran like a dream.

So yeah I had a bad experience that almost cost me a divorce, my Missus cracked the wably's whenever I spent money on the PC saying I spent more on it than her (probably very true!) so when I got my PS3 free in a promotion from Sony with my 52 Inch FullHD screen I thaught why not give it a try? Pleasantly surprised was I, and my mate who was also a hardcoe PC gamer, he went and bought one not long after Still use my PC occasionly but it is just a reminder of stressfull days, maybe I will go out and buy a Gaming Laptop instead when I have money again one day?

Btw games cost less here on the PS3 than PC games do, infact I can trade my old played PS3 games in and get a new one for free or discounted, so no PC gaming is not cheaper in any way for me! The way I see it, PS3 costs around 500 dollars AU atm, Gaming PC upwards of 1000 dollars IF you want to turn all the bells and whistles on and if you want to play in 1920X1080 for example. My PC is now mid range and no time soon can I afford to change this. Now you say the games might not look as good, well I disagree considering I have to turn things down on my PC for decent framerates, and if you have a decent TV it certainly looks pretty damn good still, I was surprised how great FO3 GOTY looked! Haven't had one PS3 issue in 3 years, I did replace my 40 gig HD however with a WD Blue 320 but that was because I needed more room! Look at it this way, hardcoe PC gamer, playing PS3 on a 52 inch screen with surround sound, if it looked like @^^@& I would say so but it doesn't! Easy to judge I am afraid but in practice I was quite surprised.

This! Modern PCs can do a LOT more than consoles simply because they have far more processing power, memory, and storage. Graphics can be better, but that is aside the point. The real issue is that gameplay can also be better. You can do a lot more with the added power, especially the added memory, that is simply not possible on current gen consoles. You don't even need super high end graphics. The average PC with an average video card will smoke a console, but developers don't take advantage of this.

That said, the game looks good. The real test will be in the gameplay department.

Edit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjiqnARbld0&feature=related

Here's another vid to show the difference between PC and consoles.

They raised expectations when they said that Skyrim will look "next gen". The actual graphics are fine, but a little disappointment with the next-gen assumption, even more so for PC-gamers.

What bugged me the most besides low res textures and low polygon models (tessellation please?) was the lighting.
Some objects didn't cast any shadows, some shadows were too dark, others to bright - it seemed all over the place. While the game is still in development, I think Beth could improve the overall graphics a lot by working on the lighting.

We really need to see a tech demo of their new engine, or even better screenshots and gameplay of the PC version. Untill then, PC gamers won't stop bringing up this topic.

Dear op.. those are egnines used for action games, not for rpgs.. there is no way they could be able to say use cryengine 3 for a rpg game.

Technically, they could. But it would require heavy modification, probably even more so than what BioWare did with UE3 in Mass Effect.

That's a rather bold statement. I think it'd be very difficult to determine that without developing something using any of the engines in question.

But even if you're right, there's no reason the same rendering techniques can't be employed in a suitable open-world RPG game engine. A renderer does not care if the game is an open- or closed-world RPG, FPS, RTS, platformer, or whatever.

Well at any rate I think the graphics from the trailer look fantastic and that was rendered on the Xbox, if we use Oblivion for example, which played better on the PS3 than it did on the Xbox, I don't think I will be too unhappy at all ! So basically you guys can bla bla about PC hardware and what looks better because it has little relevance to Skyrim since we have no idea how it is going to be released or what the requirements will be or what textures Bethesda are going to use! PS3 first for me, I will be playing Skyrim in 52 inchs with surround sound, then when the GOTY arrives for the PC and the good Mods arrive, I will get it for my Middle ranged PC and hope it runs...

Unless someone wants to lend me 750 dollars AUS for a 500 range video card then I will go and plug my PC into my 52 inch screen and get the best of both worlds hehe (that is if it doesn't crash constantly like Oblivion and FO3 do on my PC)

I doubt it will, you may notice that the landscapes in that game are a lot less open and traversible than Skyrim, which is an easy way to pump up the graphics in the narrower world around you. I'm not bashing that game at all, it looks kickass, but not as open-world as Skyrim.

:facepalm:

I invite you to discuss if you think I said anything wrong. Please let me know how I'm incorrect.

I imagine what he's going for is.... in a game like, say, Mass Effect 2, all the "areas" are self-contained paths. It's not "open world". Anything that's out of your line-of-sight isn't modeled or rendered. Since the geometry can be so strictly controlled by the programmers (as they don't need to worry about you walking around the back side of anything), they can shove alot more detail & other shiny fancy crap into a scene, without over-burdening your GPU/CPU/RAM/etc.

Open world game, can't do that. Everything's got to be modeled, and at any moment you could go any direction. Plus, sightlines tend to be longer. Needless to say, you can't jam as much "pretty" into that engine/renderer/etc, if you want to run it at anything approaching a decent speed.

Figure if Dragon Age 2 can release a special texture pack update for PCs after the initial launch, I do not see why Beth couldn't do the same or include them in the original release.

Yeah.
Crysis 2 is coming with DX 9. But Crytek said that they would add in DX 11 later after the release.

Having a "graphics" DLC would surely be very popular for PCs

That would be worse than horse armor! the original game should include everything that can be done to use the PC at its potential.

Eh why?
Sometimes there's not enough time.
Sometimes companies want to earn more money.

To say that "the original game should include everything that can be done to use the PC at its potential" is like saying there should be no DLCs at all, since they could be added in the game from the start as well.

It's about money. It's about making things better or making new and more things.

I see no reason why having a "graphics" DLC wouldn't fit that criteria

Graphics mods have always been really really popular. We all love that. So why not a DLC out of it?

However, Crysis has just as high view distances as TESIV as well as being just as (More? No load screens between buildings!) open within the level. (That a singular level is smaller than the world of TESIV is immaterial, as an open world like that would never, ever all be loaded at once).

It's more than possible - perhaps not on console where you have to legitimately worry about things like that, but we're talking about modern machines with more than enough power, even at the lowish end.

The person you are quoting is correct. Clearly, Cryengine 2/3 can render wide open spaces. The type of game does not matter, other than added tools and function may need to be added to the engine to support gameplay specifics. Mass Effect 2 on max settings barely makes a PC hiccup. It's consoles that struggle my friend.