I pretty much converted to a PC gamer a couple of years ago by investing in a beast of a machine to max out Crysis and to play Oblivion with all the amazing visual mods like QTP3. I've always thought that i'll buy a new PC when TES:V is released to take advantage of all the graphical boosts that the PC version will get over the console version, since my current PC will be 3 years old by that point and probably won't be able to make it look the best that it can.

But i've just been thinking... even though we assume that Bethesda prioritize the PC for their games... do they really? For example, shadows were removed from Oblivion because they slowed the game down on the 360 too much. But why weren't they left as an option in the PC version? Even as a toggleable effect in the options menu? Even if they were taxing on performance, PCs get better over time and by now they would have been easily usable. We saw them working in the E3 presentation of Oblivion, and subsequent developer walkthrough videos... so we know they were working. Why not keep them in? If they follow the same pattern for TES:V, then the game will be identical on the PC as it is on the 360. If it doesn't run on the 360, they'll make cuts to both systems. Since my computer is significantly more powerful than the 360, then that would indicate that I have no need to buy a new PC at all. And in fact... kinda negates the point of being a PC gamer if games aren't improved.

Obviously that's a little extreme. Many games do advance tech for PC, like Arkham Asylum and Mirror's Edge, and even if Bethesda won't advance TES:V for the PC, there are always mods like improved texture packs. But still, if Bethesda prioritized Oblivion on consoles that much, are they likely to do this again for Skyrim? Do you think that consoles being 4 years old now will bring them back to being PC-centric?

as much as id love to dream that they would. i doubt it. the game will be made console first and they might throw on a couple of eyecandy extras for pcs but overall the game will be a mere shell of its potential. bastardized physics. rudimentary AI, small loading areas, crappy shadow systems and tiny view distances. they will probably have the cities be in different cells again like in oblivion. bland tiny textures, pathetic water, etc. etc. etc.

thankfully mods can address some of these thing such as textures, but some of the other things like lighting and shadows and physics are very difficult or next to impossible to change. my hope grows dimmer and dimmer as time goes on. mass effect 2 was supposed to be a monumental achievement in console graphics but all i saw was small load areas (backgrounds were prerendered animations) and fugly textures.

red dead redemption doesnt look nearly as good as far cry 2 did 2 years ago.

Wait, what now?

On a more serious note, I agree, the PC version will suffer considerably because of the console versions. I was not aware that shadows were removed from Oblivion because of consoles, but if that's true then that was a horrible decision on Bethesda's part.

Honestly, I would have no problem with consoles if PC games didn't keep being held back by them.

It's easy to just say "computers will get more powerful. You may as well claim that Bethesda should have gave options for Morrowind to have it look as good as Oblivion from the beginning. People are going to have to accept that even Oblivion, the so-called eyecandy game of the series, is aging. If you honestly believe the game was "dumbed-down" for the then brand new 360 and non-existant PS3, then I don't know what to think. I've stated this before, but it obviously never means anything. In early 2006(over 4 years ago, which is the time difference between Morrowind and Oblivion, and you should be able to see a graphical difference there), who here had a computer that could handle more than a 360? Dynamic shadows would have made the game on most PC gamer's PCs lag too much. Radiant AI was removed for other reasons, but yes, it would have been too taxing. People are expecting far too much of a 4 year old game, especially when they fail to realize a simple truth. Bethesda can't optimize. I hope Bethesda keeps everything a secret about TES V until they know, for sure, that stuff will be in the final version of the game because these complaints from the future are just laughable. "Why doesn't this 4+ year old sandbox game designed by those who aren't known for their optimization look just like the best-looking games?" Well, why doesn't Morrowind look as good as Oblivion(4 year difference there)? Why doesn't Daggerfall look as good as Morrowind(6 years there, but very big technological difference there, as well)? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believed there really is no limit to how nice looking they can make a game and the only limiting factor is platforms being able to handle such a game or not, but by some people's beliefs on the matter, the game should just be made ridiculously nice and far too resource-intensive to run properly anyway because people in the future will be able to run it. Of course, it's easy to blame the consoles. They're time capsules, but PCs aren't, yet people treat them as if they were. Refer to my question about PCs in early 2006.

The fact that the 360 was new then means only that developers had not yet figured out how to optimally code for it. Whether or not it WAS held back by the consoles is debatable (graphically), but the fact of the matter is that it is very possible.

Ah yes, water would be another factor that PCs could benefit from, especially with DX11. Just Cause 2 was given DX10 water support for PCs, and that looked amazing. Let's hope Bethesda at least provide DX10 support for water and shadows in TES:V, and don't just stick with the conosle's DX9.


I never said 'Why doesn't Oblivion look as good as today's best games?', I said 'Why were certain techs like shadows which were already working in the game removed for the PC version as well as the 360 version?'

PCs are scalable with graphics options. When Crysis was released no-one could play it as intended, and it's only recently that people can hit 60+fps on DX10 mode in that game. That doesn't mean all those people who bought it couldn't play it. It means they scaled the graphics down from the main menu to look like a normal game, knowing that over time they would be able to make it look even better.

Oblivion was scaled down to suit the 360... and left scaled down. I just don't understand why. I'm not saying the textures, meshes, and post processing effects should be at a modern game standard. I'm saying that the PC version could have handled more, that it already had more to offer (shadows in this case) and they stripped them anyway. I'm worried they'll do it again. Now that PCs have significantly more processing power available than consoles, I'm wondering how likely it is that Bethesda will take advantage of that and offer an improved experience to us PC gamers. Based on Oblivion's outcome though, it doesn't look too likely. I'm hoping someone can bring up an example to show otherwise.

Please, show me a mod that brings back shadows for every single item.

So Bethesda didn't make the game for PCs of 2-3 years later. What's the problem? PCs in 2006 couldn't generally handle those shadows, but PC users have that construction set. Morrowind wasn't designed for PCs in 2004-2005. Was it dumbed-down for the Xbox? If the shadows were already in Oblivion, then Bethesda probably took them out because they were too resource-intensive, even for PCs. They probably couldn't figure out how to polish it enough while keeping the game run smoothly when not on their own super gaming PC. They don't just remove finished and working parts of the game and Oblivion, even on today's PCs, doesn't run smoothly, due to poor optimization.

crysis played fine on my 8800 GT card. the only time i had to turn the graphics down to medium was the fight on the aircraft carrier deck. which to say was one of the busiest gaming sessions in history. even on medium settings it still looked much better than oblivion on highest settings

crysis came out about 1 year after oblivion. and far cry 2 came out about a year after that. both of those games looked waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than oblivion. far more than one or two years would explain. hell half life 2 had better water than oblivion and full shadows as well. episode 2 had much better hdr lighting.

another thing you have to remember is that unlike crysis or far cry 2 which most people will play a couple times and then uninstall. many TES gamers play their games for years to come. there are still tons of morrowind gamers and that game is approaching 10 years now. if im going to play a game for years to come then im perfectly content to have to turn my current machine to medium settings. i know that a year or two down the road i will have upgraded my gpu and cpu and can then appreciate it in all its glory. ill play the game once through vanilla just to get their take on it then spend the rest of my time modding the hell out of the game making it into what i want to play. we probably wont get another TES game for at least 6 or 7 years after this so i want it to last as long as possible.

i dont want to be saying "wow, why doesnt skyrim look like this?" only a year after its release. cause that exactly what i did when i played crysis. "wow, why doesnt oblivion look like this?"

As long as it works well on my Radeon HD 5770 (which Oblivion does), I'm good.

They don't exist, and that's the point! We don't have the source code for the game, so mods like shadows and water overhauls are near impossible. The issue here is that the shadows were working, and they worked well. The proof is in the smooth gameplay videos from 2005. Perhaps they didn't play well with the 360 outdoors, but why remove them from the PC as well when they could easily be toggled off, reduced, or improved as needed?

PCs in 2006 couldn't generally handle those shadows

And PCs in 2007 generally couldn't handle Crysis. So gamers turned the settings down. Simple. Can't handle the shadows? Switch them off from the options menu. I don't see why they were removed, and I really hope this won't happen with future games. Optimization for consoles doesn't need to be carried over to PC versions of the game too.


Exactly. Half Life 2 is an example I'd forgotten about actually. Wasn't that released before Oblivion as well? And it still looked better? Crazy.


I'm sure it will still play on a 8800 GT. Not just because it's still a great card, but because PC games can have graphics scaled down. A 5770 is an amazing card, and I would be happy if the game couldn't be maxed out on that card or my GTX280, because although it would still look amazing on those cards, I'd know that when I get a better card in the future, I can make the game look even more amazing. That's why Crysis was so special imo.

That's the thing. They weren't working. A demo is not proof of anything. A demo is a demo, not a game. Todd didn't just wake up one morning and think to himself "let's cut out a working and finished part of the game".

Also, I don't know what Half Life 2 is, but Oblivion, being the open-world game it is, has to handle more than linear games.

half life 2 had some huge environments, especially in the citadel and yet still handled shadows, water, physics and lighting much better. and as i said earlier crysis only came out a year later and completely blew the doors off of oblivion. crysis is as open world as you get, so is far cry 2.

and what do you mean you dont know what half life 2 is..... :blink: go out and play it now. that is an order. one of the great fps games of all time. you will not be disappointed.

I don't think the hardware is at fault, far cry 2 has shown that you can have a huge world on the consoles with shadows, so maybe beth just needs to step their game up. I don't think it makes sense that beth scaled down the graphics for the consoles, the xbox is basically a PC, and it can obviously run better graphics than Oblivion shadows and all. So, to me, it would seem that beth removed shadows for reasons other than hardware.

Maybe it haves something to do with a big tower in the middle of the land, creating a huge shadow which would leave a sizable portion of the land in near night time status.

It was a playable demo, not a trailer, of the tutorial starter dungeon. That's proof that it worked perfectly on the 360 for interiors at least. No idea why you're trying to argue that shadows didn't work, it's a fact that they did I'm assuming they were dropped because it was too stressful in exteriors but... I don't understand the need to drop shadows for PCs as well.


Haha, that might just be it

They were developing Oblivion before the 360's specs had even been released though, meaning they were completely guessing the graphics the hardware could manage for most of the development time. I'm betting they overshot the shadows, and didn't have enough time to recalibrate them. Same story as Sutch basically, not enough time to implement effectively, so they got the boot.

On a side note, here's a video of a Crysis mod I just found that resembles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTuAw_i7ngI&feature=player_embedded. If Bethesda can produce today what Crytek could produce 3 years ago... well I'd definitely be content if Skyrim looked this gorgeous.

I think it was a combination of a lot of things, they made a lot of new stuff with the engine, they have this habit of reworking everything between games, it just means they can't build on top of something, because they make it from the ground up every time, they seem to have stopped that though given fallout was kind of af build apon the engine they used for oblivion.

anyways, I guess I think the condition of oblivion was a symptom of inexperience with the new system they'd made, and lack of time.

Hrnchamd's work
http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f386/vtastek/morrowind/Morrowind2009/shadows/

It works for half of the items, FPS hit is normal. Enabling all causes too many artifacts and FPS hit. This is because those shadows are rendered by CPU and Morrowind is harsh on CPU. Also this was a feature in Morrowind which was removed, FYI.

My stuff:
http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f386/vtastek/morrowind/Morrowind2010/shadows/

GPU's are powerful, maybe not xbox's gpu but a pc GPU can handle shadows pretty well. I don't have the knowledge to bring you dynamic shadows but I can bring you maybe cloud shadows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi3iZplFOTs

I suspect we can do Oblivion's fake tree canopy shadows easily. Also I believe we will have exterior sun shadows before Christmas. And even we can't get it to work, OpenMW will be there which if I live to see it, I promise there will be even global illumination.



I'm not sure but if it wasn't working for the console, making the decision to cut it from PC version isn't hard to make. Xbox has many [censored], they would bring down the internet.

Crysis is made by Crytek, idealistic people thinking about PC gaming. I mean they tried something and they were alone. If there was a competition, things would be different now. I can say PC's graphics power is beyond everything you see. Crysis is just a glimpse of it. Also Cevat is so discreet about cryengine 2 PC version, it is amusing. They will have indirect illumination for Crysis 2, only on PC. Nobody is talking about that. I love it.

And when next consoles hit the market, everything will be standardized hopefully so PC users can sneakily get better graphics from consoles. I don't think most of console gamers would notice the difference, which won't be night and day. Expect revolution in PC gaming when next gen arrives. I'm talking about CGI quality here.





Crysis is utilizing %30 of their maps. Farcry has huge loadings. Half-Life has no shadows.

Those games are not comparable. They are on different categories as seti18 noted. See this post, I'm explaining the differences:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1097412-best-in-game-graphics/page__view__findpost__p__16038200



That's a good example of what PC can do. I also love the localized weather effects. I have one project about that for Morrowind.

they had cloud shadows in Quake 3, and it looked realy good. Theres no reason why they cant do that in TES.

That's awesome, and I'd love to see something similar in Oblivion. I remember a modder (perhaps RPGBlackDragon?) trying to add fake shadows to Oblivion, but only managed it on certain objects like boxes and clutter. Buildings required shadows that were so large they ate computer performance like cookies.


I'm sure they wouldn't remove functionality from one system, just because the player base from another system might get rowdy. Especially when it's common knowledge that TES games look better on PC largely thanks to mods.

there already is a huge difference in how games look on pc vs console. take a look at metro 2033 on pc vs console. assuming that crytek keeps to its word and doesnt kneecap the pc version expect a big difference in that game as well. even far cry 2 had noticable differences. pretty much every console player except the die hard flat earthers knows that pcs are way more powerful. if i hear "OMG they havent even begun to tap the power of the xbox" one more time im gonna :yuck:

i remember the shadow mod for oblivion but just assumed it died since i havent heard from it in a while besides a mention in the obge thread.

i dont remember any loading times in far cry 2. cept for the bus trips. i drove up, down and sideways all over that map without a single hiccup. if your referring to the original far cry ...... i can barely remember that game. that was made back in the 1970s.

i forgot about stalker, although i wouldnt put the first stalker in that category since it did have distinct loading zones and fenced off of areas. call of pripyat on the other hand was very open. it had a huge central area that you could run from one end to the other. unfortunately the graphics are a bit subpar now that the xray engine is getting a bit dated. i cant wait for stalker 2, i just hope their new engine is a bit more optimized.

i could have sworn that half life 2 had shadows unless im thinking of episode 2 where they added a bunch of effects like HDR and stuff.

that nature video is really nice. there was another video of a mod being made for crysis that made it literally life like. im assuming its using HUGE textures and stuff but it looked really nice. i would love to see bethesda just modify cryengine 2 or 3 and use that. lest be honest as other people have pointed out engines are not a bethesda speciality.

Tell me about it.



Nah, I was just teasing. They are all OK. I was pointing the initial loading times. That is one time.


I don't think Stalker's graphics are outdated. Materials shaders can get a polishing. Shadows in that engine is amazing makes it very realistic. There is a GPU gems article, their programmers talk about adding global illumination. Another idealistic developer...


Their game is very static. Their shadows are one notch better than Oblivion's, very limited. Although source engine with L4D got pretty dynamic shadows from flashlights now. Oblivion needs dynamic sun shadows, because sun is dynamic. Half-Life doesn't.

i just installed the complete mod on stalker SoC and all i can say is wow. very nice looking mod. the stalker games dont look bad to me but little things nag at me that dont seem to make sense. CoP has grass that has a very very short draw distance. i literally appears about 30 yards or so in front of you and it leaves an ugly circle effect. i dont understand why they did that since i dont see any frame rate difference whether i turn vegetation on full or minimum. other than little stuff like that they do look good. i just hope the next stalker looks like metro 2033 did although with better snow and outdoor textures. those were a bit fugly.

If they make things all equal across systems then I would almost rather them wait for the next gen in 3-4 years. My next computer will have something like I7 overclocked at 4.0GHz, 6-12GB of ram, two intel or OCZ SSD's in raid 0, and the graphics card well I may just throw my old one in because companies are afraid to push PC further than the console. There would be no need for load times and I7 4cores/8 true threads would be at your disposal Beth. Put in all the crazy eye candy you want maybe I can't play it on full for a couple years I'm fine with that. Course I didn't purchase Morrowind in the store for 6 months because I thought the in game shots on the back had to be a fluke. Trust me I'm part console man and I have DIE HARD console fans friends,their egos can handle a little intimidation.

amen.

Oh god, not this topic again, it pisses me off just thinking about it. Im a PC gamer myself and this really does irk me.

I do have faith that tesV will look great, but I also dont think it will be much different for PC.

If only Crytek wasn't the only company to think this way... TES would really benefit from this style of design. Please future-proof your games Bethesda! Especially if we're going to be waiting 6 years between each release in a series from now on!

Also, SSD's are sixy. I'm hoping they'll be as large as a TB and slightly better priced when I get around to buying a new PC.