???

Why would you want to wait until 2014 for Skyrim (which is the year generally being floated as when the so-called 'next generation' of console hardware starts apprearing? Assuming it appears even then)? Remember, =NONE= of the hardware makers are actually selling their rigs at a profit; not Sony, not MS, not Nintendo, none of them. Certainly not when released, and for several years afterwards. The games are where they compensated, and through number of units sold. And they extend the life of that hardware long beyond what they should. A simple, half the price of the system drop in proprietary video card upgrade would advance that hardware to the point where more robust games could be creatd. But they simply won't do that, as it violates their business model.

How -this- PC gamer feels is simple: bitter and frustated. For the past 3 years at least you have had 4+gigs of system ram standard. 64 bit addressing, standard. GPU's with double to quadruple the total ram in any console as standard and dedicated for video purposes. 7:1 sound. IR and bluetooth remotes for keyboard and mouse, ending the 'but I hate the cables!' bit. HMDI outputs or converters on all high end, most midrange, and even some budget video cards. I don't count those who own a 10 year old Dell, do email and very slow web surfing in that statement, as those who do are not gamers....except in the most casual of ways. And I'm not talking about bleeding edge power gamers. Those are the extremes; the former would do just as well with a smartphone or tablet, the latter wouldn't be happy if they didn't have -something- they had to nitrogen cool......

But unless a game studio is dedicated PC, then every game out there that is multiplatform is crippled to 5 year old, incomplete hardware. Because the levels have to run acceptably on the weakest hardware. So does the AI. Physics. Loading mechanisms. UI. All of it has to work in the weakest footprint. And you can't just have 'extras there for the big kids', as extra code for more robust systems can lead to an endless plethora of bugs and issues.

Then there is the devastation wrought by the console Borg. Ready the wayback machine, Sherman, and return us to the time when the PS2 was sixy, and the Xbox first came out. There were a couple of dozen PC game studios, at least. Some not so good. Others new....and with new ideas. My favorite example of that is Drakan; order of the Flame. No other game at that time let you ride a dragon. Fight other dragons either solo, or online. The beginnings of a decent story. Then they were snapped up by a holdng company, and shifted over to console. Solely. The next game was a flop; one because it was so truncated and watered down it wasn't any good, but more importantly, because they had ditched their PC fans, who were growing in number. A lot of those game makers were gobbled up and vanished forever as they were downsized, consolidated, and micro-managed by fools who had no clue about the gaming industry. Never mind any love for it. gamesas was actually one of the very few survivors of that massacre. A recent example of this behavior would be Sin. Finally out the door, actually building a fanbase, bought up and it looks like part 1 is all the parts we'll ever see.

It is not pleasant when nigh onto every game you see can be defined as crippleware. And yes, I know that due to development cycles it can take 18-36 months for a new generation of whatever to begin to take hold. We're past that on a lot of things.....but those things keep getting left off, as 'the consoles don't support it'.
It will not be easy in 2-3 years when the so called 'next generation' consoles come out, to keep from stomping on some console kiddie with ' Gee whiz. My system could do that 6 years ago. Twice as fast'.

Sigh.
Gaming used to be a frontier, where the Carmacks played and we all benefited. Now it's rapidly approaching lowest common denominator-ism. And it hasn't slammed into that pile of uncreative sludge yet........

Never heard of Morrowind Graphics Extender, have ya?
That was a new engine to the modders too. Took a few years, but trust me. The next TES game will not be around for a looong time.
And, being a dedicated MW player since '04, I've learned patience.

MGE was more simple if I understand things correctly, and easier to upgrade to DX9. OBGE was not so simple. It's actually first until now the OBGE modders have found out how to change shaders in the game. Check out the OBGE thread, Ethatron is making nice results

I've also heard that the changes in FO3 engine were so big that modders could no longer understand them. With a completely new engine with basically everything rewritten... seriously, don't expect another graphics extender. You'd most likely just be let down and wait year after year with nothing coming. Of course I can't be sure, but after talking to OBGE modders and seeing the development, that's my safest and best guess.

I tend to hear "I can run this on my lower end PC". "But Bukee, you can always scale down the graphic settings", yes I can, but it will make the game look worse then they would've designed it for lower end specs.

The only thing concentrating on the PC would add are things more memory would add. "But what about the DX11 features?". I've said it a few times before, but when I looked at Witcher 2, my reaction was: "This is the next gen? This is the same [censored] we had before? Where are the DX11 features, because I sure as hell don't see them".

of course. what else is new?

Well trust me, graphics hardly matter to me anyway. As long as my PC is on top of whatever the consoles can offer, I'm fine.

They've already said that the PC version will have higher resolution textures and stuff... What more do you want? Tons and tons of gamers play on consoles. If they shipped some crappy watered down version for the consoles, fans would be pissed. They've said they're totally comfortable and confident with the current consoles and they don't feel held back. At the end of the day, the number of players on console is getting bigger and bigger, and whether we like it or not, players on console are more than half of the reason Bethesda has had so much success.

:shakehead: :violin: :facepalm:

Todd Howard said in the first interview on Skyrim that the main development is happening on PC and graphical development is on the Xbox. The only thing changed is how the graphics will be handled, and PC will support higher resolutions anyways merely due to them scaling it up and down. I always have to shake my head at people who say Oblivion was to "consolified" when, in truth, it was just a victim of some bad design choices and all the money being poured into the visuals. You may say the visual thing was a console choice, but why would they not want the game to look as good as possible when they could finally multi-platform it?

No.

But then, I'm not a spec snob with an overpowered system to post in "Gee, can my system run it" brag threads.

Let's make the Wii the new standard, designing all games for it, then porting them to the Xbox 360 will very little changes or improvements, then see how you feel?

Wii has some beautiful games too.

Sure, but they pale in comparison of what can be done on the Xbox 360.

As I've said before, I've yet to see this giant gaping maw between console and pc quality.
People tend to show pictures from benchmarks and say "this is how future games should look like", except never, EVER were there any game that looked anything close to those benchmarks in the near future, even before the whole "consolisation".

:thumbsup:
Exactly! If the same old console can handle the new, beautiful Skyrim, then my 'old' PC, which handles Oblivion just fine, should be able to handle Skyrim as well.

That's because the witcher 2 isn't dx11, it's dx9. And for a dx9 game it looks awesome.

Yup. Just like Crysis 2 on dx9 looks awesome. DX11 doesn't immediately mean great visuals...
It depends more on how it is used.

So, all the players here who plan on playing Skyrim on old PCs, who support games being made for the Xbox and then ported to PCs, don't plan on upgrading their PCs this decade?

So when you do upgrade your PC, Skyrim will look just the same as on your old, outdated system. You're all shooting yourself in the foot, which is not the brightest thing to do (and it makes for a pretty lame argument).

My PC is 4 years old, with a 2009 graphics card, but I don't want games to be developed for my PC. My expectations are that PC games should be made to take advantage of top end PCs . . . but with options that allow the game to be played on lower end systems . . . which is a win-win for all PC gamers.

Not just PC gamers. Everyone. Everyone, including the console players, would get a game that pushes their systems to the limits.

Wait... isn't the main thing with it that it's optimized for PC, using DX11 features?

Netiher Portal 2, or Witcher 2 apparently used DX11, two games that are supposed to be made primarily on PC, so why would Skyrim?! It's been proved that you can do great things already without resorting to higher end specs.

Really, the only valid thing that might be caused by consoles are the closed cities, saying how the graphics will look old is just unrealistic...

Personally, I think were DX11 would excel is in the details. Those little things that that really enrich the world and bring it more to life. Shadows, lighting, uneven or bumpy surfaces that really are bumpy instead of flat with shadows (normal maps). And so forth.

As to why Skyrim should have it? Because people will be playing this game continuously from Nov 11 to the release of TES: 6. The shift to DX11 is already beginning. That means Skyrim will quickly be left behind for not taking advantage of it. edit: Skyrim will be STARTING behind the curve.

Not to mention that Skyrim is coming out some six months after The Witcher 2 at the same time as another game that does use DX11 and is a technically superior game (not to be confused with artistically superior).

I agree. But it depends on how much work they put into dx9 to make it look gorgeous. Also I think they used dx9 mainly because they plain on porting the game to consoles(witcher 2), and the others are already on consoles. Either way dx9 can and does look great with the right amount of effort put into it. I've already said skyrim looks beautiful, but it's when I'm playing it I'll make my final judgement.

Dx11 will look better than 9, but I suspect it will take a few more years to see it's true potential, much like 9. Games didn't look like these current dx9 games way back when.

Can't be bothered reading the whole thread. I will post first then read after.

All I can say is get over it. The PC version is not held back. If Bethesda wanted to optimize it for the PC they would have, don't blame the Xbox or PS for it. Place blame where it belongs. After all, Bethesda could have Skyrim console exclusive and not bother with the PC no more.

Also as someone else said. I don't see the PC version will be held back, I see it as I might be able to play this on my laptop and maybe not play it on the console.

Now of to real life and when I come back reading the rest of the posts.

DX9 and DX11 are just tools. Of course a "master dev" would create a game that looks more awesome on DX9 than the one a noob dev would do under DX11. But let's not forget that DX11 offers more ways a "master dev" could exploit to make awesome stuff.



Probably not true. Besides, you contradict yourself in that phrase.



And who is to blame, but the 512 mb of RAM consoles have, or the 6,8 gb's of 360' DVD's?

If there's another stuff cutdown due to console hardware reasons (like the city of Sutch), we'll see who or what people will blame.

True to some extent, if it's only true that consoles have caused more people to start playing than if only PC existed. We don't know that for sure, but it's very likely, since consoles are cheaper and easier to handle.

However, the technical aspect, which I think most people in this thread, including the OP, is referring to... is factual; and that is that consoles seriously hinder the possibilites of the PC if it's the developers goal to "force all platforms to be equal". That's pretty obvious, and that's what I think many PC players are unhappy about. I'm not talking about this forum only.
Read a lot of other forums and you'll notice how people react on it. It's because PC players then think "Oh... okay so all platforms are forced to be equal, but... what would the game be if it weren't like that? What other technical possibilites would be available for the PC?". When people do realize the technical possibilities that are lost because of this, they turn unhappy, and that is perfectly natural.