Not only that but Tod has said many times already - when commenting on modding - that their largest potion of their audience is on the consoles. This means the largest portion also won't have access to the DX11 features the PC can have. It's unwise for Bethesda to go and waste money on adding support for something only a small portion will be able to share. Besides, alienating the grand majority of their consumer/fans is just plain ridiculous as otherwise they would feel 'left-out' from all these cool features it would otherwise have.

You (all) have to remember that gaming is a business as much as any other.

There needs to be balance. Sure you can have a game with amazing game-play, however if the Aesthetics and the Graphics don't match the game would feel very, very poor. Could you imagine Crysis with any less detail than what it has now? What about the old NES mario games, but instead all the colours are swapped around. The game needs to match the graphics and the aesthetics. I think for Skyrim, they are going for that medieval, realistic sort of touch but yet they want to develop the game on a 6 year old system when in countless of interviews Todd Howard stated that they were going to make the game for next generation consoles.

Personally, if they want to see what their game looked like for 'next generation consoles' they can push their graphical capabilities to the next level for PC. You can say that PC would be the test dummy for something like this. They make the game full DX11 compatible for PC, when next generation consoles come out have a downloadable patch which allows consoles to use DX11 as well (obviously you charge for the DX11 patch - this isn't crysis 2 where DX11 was promised). I honestly think that if they don't take advantage of DX11 then they are really letting this game down graphically wise - as they earlier stated that they were going to make this game for next generation consoles.

One they are both two different departments.

Two:

Shogun 2 total war
Witcher 2
Arma 3
ect ect
Are all games with amazing graphics developed by much much smaller developers with super smalle budgets; but why did the gfx look so good, well because it's simple and two machines (pc's) can easily run it.

Let's see...

Witcher 2 -> Windows PC only
Arma 3 -> Windows Vista & 7 only
Shogun 2 -> PC only

I'm seeing a pattern here.


Those games where created EXCLUSIVELY with current-gen PC specs in mind. Bethesda's target audience for this game is the console, not the PC so they have to create the game to be 5-year-old-computer friendly.
And besides is not like any of the features on DX11 are ESSENTIAL for Skyrim to be an amazing game.
As far as i know DX11 does not fix the problems everyone has been so nitpicky about found on the demo. Fixing the game and making the gameplay exceptional, I think, should take priority.

As far as I'm concerned they can release DX11 features with the obvious expansion pack coming in 2012. But until they game is released and has an opportunity to be enjoyed fully by console players and/or modded by PC players, just let it be.

Well, until Bethesda creates a lighting engine on DX9 that doesn't look like bilge I'm gonna continue to sit in my corner and pout!

*crosses arms and frownie-faces*

Pretty sure they will not..
For one Crytek is known to be a graphics dev Beth isn't and also Crytek was PC exclusive dev until Crysis 2 beth been a multiplatform dev and building engines based on a Xbox since it came out pretty much.


But I have no doubt in my mind some of the texture enhancers packs will be a HUGE improvement vs vanilla graphics maybe not as drastic as Morrowind vanilla vs modded but getting up there pretty far.

It could go a long ways to fixing the lighting, which I and others have complained about. It'd also greatly improve the shadows in the game.

We don't expect them to "revolve" around us. Why is it wrong to want to push/move things forward?
We want the wow factor when playing top quality games like Skyrim.We want it to blow us away with how pretty it can look. Nothing wrong with that imo.

We spend alot of money on our systems because we are passionate about gaming. Every now and then it's nice to know devolpers also have this passion and care for there game enough to want to make it as pretty as it could be using the latest hardware. Not just cator for the masses to earn big bucks.... Where is the love for the game?

.Dice are really going at the DX11 thing hammer and tongs.It will look realistic and fantastic (and NO! none of us want Skyrim to look like BF3..thats not the point) Even if Dice don't sell as many copie's for the PC version. It will become the new benchmark and it will be the game people are talking about. This will be very good for the future of Dice games. Word of Mouth. Graphics are VERY important ...just like gameplay.

The fact is ..in today's world we could have both.

Please Betheasda ,give us some Dx11 sweetness

Thank you for that last statement. Because you point up the issue with bolting on things after the fact, instead of designing it in from the get-go.

And I could care less about how clumsily the shooter coders are going about DX-11 implementation. The lighting model, shader model, and geometry manipulation capabilities with DX-11 are far superior to DX-9's. Fact. Natively implementing them would not only speed up the pipeline, but add considerable options to be exploited. You throw high poly mesh at a tesselator, and you usually get bad results, as things like winding order, tris or quads, enter into the equation.

And you know something? You =SHOULDN'T= notice the technical trick, if it is done well. If you think "Look at how that displacement map worked on that tesselated terrain!" then the game designers failed, or you are anolyzing the scene trying to add to your own gamemaking skills or knowledge. If the gamer goes "Look at the ditch that bloody flying lizard dug with his face! I can stand in the bottom and not see the ground! Coooooool...." then they did the job right. And you have one example of exactly what tesselation could do to improve the Skyrim gaming experience. This does not even touch things like using it to shift the detail load to displacement mapping, freeing more system memory of the polygon load. Or the fact that 'godrays' used as a magical effect from a point lightsource is incredible. Or a few dozen other optimizations and tricks that could enhance the gameplay experience....

They've already said they are releasing a high-res texture pack, Doubt it will be anything spectacular but atleast were getting something... I just hope the graphics are good enough, i know oblivion looks aweful on the console and this day in age doesnt look great on PC either. Heres to hoping Skyrim is a real step up from oblivion graphical wise.

Consoles are such a bottleneck on the gaming industry, Sooner they release the new consoles the better. Hopefully they will have some really advanced hardware close to beasty PCs these days then we can start to see some truly amazing games being released since developers have moved away from PC gaming to cater for console users... Which is saddening but not surprising. If the next gen consoles arent technically advanced i'll be very upset because then we'll see another generation of poor dumbed down games.

Witcher 2 had amazing graphics? Where?

I'v got a pretty beast system and witcher 2 has pretty POO graphics if you ask me.

The next wave of consoles will be (nearly ) on parr with the latest PC tech. For 6 months atleast ...then it's ,here we go again . They should just find away to make a game as good as it can be for each platform and keep every one happy.

Hopefully with this "Cloud" thing games will be immense, but todays high end PCs are amazing anyway if the new consoles can match them then i can imagine we'll start to see some beautifull games being released.

HOLD UP. What. You just said the Witcher 2 had "poo" visuals? I'm sorry, but something is very wrong with that. Its a beautiful game...

Its a good game, but the graphics dont amaze me.

We want DX11!! We want DX11!! We want DX11!!


Sing it with me brothers!!!!!!

We want DX11!! We want DX11!! We want DX11!!

Not some shabby useless DX11 that doesn't even have better textures and lighting that crumby console.

No it's not a real screenshot.

http://www.phombo.com/nature/forests-national-parks/8478/full/

Just out of curiosity, how is adding any kind of support for PC (whether DX11 or not) "alienating the grand majority of their consumer/fans"? Adding something on PC doesn't change the console game in anyway. You are still getting the exact same game regardless of what they do to the PC version.

Because of the 'If they have something, we want it too. If we can't have it, then no one can' attitude you always see on console forums complaining about PC versions of games being superior.

Well then they just need to be Educated! Pff!

And that's the real problem - inflated expectations.


Just because newer games can have "better" graphics, that doesn't make a game that had "Amazing" graphics three years ago suddenly becomes ugly. It's still amazing. It's just that new games can be more amazing. (I'm honestly surprised that Witcher 2 is getting graphics hate, considering that the "Why doesn't Skyrim look better" threads two months ago had graphics snobs holding up W2 as an example of how Skyrim could improve.)

For example.... I still think that vanilla Oblivion looks really great. Yeah, newer games look better, but Oblivion's still damn good.

And then there's the issue of art style vs. technical perfection. A great art style is more important than "more polygons". World of Warcraft, even with a "primitive" or "aging" graphics engine, still looks great. Because it's got a really well developed art style.

World of Warcrafts aesthetics are actually hurt by its terrible graphics in my opinion. The game is an eyesore.

I'd love to see full Dx11 features. I like it when my PC strains under pressure. It makes me use the hardware I bought. I for one am fine in I can't play the game on full right away, that's what graphics settings are for. If games are just made 'to run on most computers' then why not have three settings like crysis 2 (please no).

I don't want the modders to do the work that the dev team should. I don't like it, but I would be happy with a patch after the fact to add in some features.

I would be Tickled Pink if they added full DX11 support. This would be great news! Like the post above says,i want it to cripple my system...push it to the max with eye candy . I go on alittle about the graphics(Sorry) becuase i think every thing else will be amazing.

In my strong opinion all devs should just follow DICE even before BF3 they made one hell of a breakthrough with Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2 MC. Make the engine entirly based on the mos up to date PC parts and only the PC version first then cut/scale/break down however much to work on the current gen 6 months to a year later.

This way PC gets full support every feature such as full usage of the current DX (or open GL which is making somewhat of a come back) and optimization with it and console players get a less game but better optimization due to them working on 2 platforms instead of 3 when its in development. When next gen comes out they make full game that the PC was using however many years ago with that engine then start again.

That way devs can use the same engine 3 times (if not more) that actually has somewhat innovative game play and graphics instead of making a entirely new engine just to try to touch the PC. Its kinda like Cryengine 2 when it first came out it needed a beast of a rig now it needs a decent rig to max it future proofing seems a lot more efficient.

Of course until such happens devs will just create one engine use it for 6 years and release a brand spankin "new" game with one difference which is pretty banners and new colors because either the dev or publisher(mostly pub) that the dev is owned by doesn't care about innovation or better games just money.