What amazes me most is how Skyrim seems to have so darn much content and stuff in the game, compared to other games, and still look decent. It definitely doesn't look amazing, but it looks decent I think. I'll be able to live with that without a doubt when I play Skyrim, because there will be so many things to do. But could Skyrim look a lot better, compared to other games? Yes.

I'm still hoping for Skyrim to look a bit better before release, since we all know Bethesda apparently does a lot graphics stuff pretty late (unless that was a lie to keep us "cool" ).

False.

This uses DX 9c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg_j2mrkFjo&NR=1

And DX 11 games still dont look this good.

Crysis 2 sux. From what I hear.

I know you're lying man... without even having played F: NV

I just want to make something very clear here about DX 11 and modders taking use of it:

I've spoken to one of the creators/contributors of OBGE (Oblivion Graphics Extender). He said that it will take years for a Skyrim Graphics Extender to come out. To implement DX features in a closed-source engine is VERY hard. You can't implement it normally. First, only very very very few people know how. Second, only even fewer people actually have the time and urge to spend so much time doing this. Third, modders are forced to "hack" DX features in. It's a whole lot harder for modders than for developers to implement DX features.

Do not expect a Skyrim Graphics Extender to come for a long long long time. Say, several years. Or don't expect a Skyrim Graphics Extender to come at all. Timeslip is the modder who is responsible for creating the foundations of both OBGE and MGE. I'm not sure what he/she is doing right now, but if it's someone who's good at creating these utilities, it's him/her. Shademe could also help, as he's been developing a lot of the OBGE.
Don't ever expect modders to add tessellation btw. Something like that would require immense amounts of works for a modder. It's not as easy as pressing on/off on a button.

In short: Don't expect modders to take use of DX 11 features. Most likely will never ever happen. And if it does happen, expect it to take many years.

I just want to make something very clear here about DX 11 and modders taking use of it:

I've spoken to one of the creators/contributors of OBGE (Oblivion Graphics Extender). He said that it will take years for a Skyrim Graphics Extender to come out. To implement DX features in a closed-source engine is VERY hard. You can't implement it normally. First, only very very very few people know how. Second, only even fewer people actually have the time and urge to spend so much time doing this. Third, modders are forced to "hack" DX features in. It's a whole lot harder for modders than for developers to implement DX features.

Do not expect a Skyrim Graphics Extender to come for a long long long time. Say, several years. Or don't expect a Skyrim Graphics Extender to come at all. Timeslip is the modder who is responsible for creating the foundations of both OBGE and MGE. I'm not sure what he/she is doing right now, but if it's someone who's good at creating these utilities, it's him/her. Shademe could also help, as he's been developing a lot of the OBGE.
Don't ever expect modders to add tessellation btw. Something like that would require immense amounts of works for a modder. It's not as easy as pressing on/off on a button.

In short: Don't expect modders to take use of DX 11 features. Most likely will never ever happen. And if it does happen, expect it to take many years.

What if the features and the ability to implement them were coded into the game engine but simply no assets were being used ingame.

What if the features and the ability to implement them were coded into the game engine but simply no assets were being used ingame.

The features and ability are not there. They said the game is using DX9 shaders. For modders to put things like tessellation into the game or other DX11 features, it would need a set of DX11 shaders. Modders would be forced to write those shaders themselves first.

“We get performance gains out of [DirectX 11], versus an older version, and there are specifics that [DirectX 11] does like tessellation and that kind of stuff; we aren’t taking advantage of that right now,” the Skyrim director told Ausgamers.

“But that doesn’t mean we won’t in the future, we just aren’t right now.”

This quote from Todd makes total sense when you consider it in the context of his other interviews.


I specifically asked whether Skyrim would have DX11, hi res textures, etc. for the Game Informer podcast interview and was lucky enough to have it selected.

Todd's response was that all of those things are evaluated at a later stage in the process.



Clearly, they have now reached that evaluation stage.

They have created a Skyrim build with DX11 and an older build without DX11 and "there are specifics that [the DX11 build] does..." that aren't being taken advantage of in the earlier build, and they are still evaluating whether to implement DX11 in the final release version.

This quote from Todd makes total sense when you consider it in the context of his other interviews.


I specifically asked whether Skyrim would have DX11, hi res textures, etc. for the Game Informer podcast interview and was lucky enough to have it selected.

Todd's response was that all of those things are evaluated at a later stage in the process.



Clearly, they have now reached that evaluation stage.

They have created a Skyrim build with DX11 and an older build without DX11 and "there are specifics that [the DX11 build] does..." that aren't being taken advantage of in the earlier build, and they are still evaluating whether to implement DX11 in the final release version.

Thanks for copying my poll answers hlvr after the mods took down my thread you brought it back up thanks for the favour.
Hell yes, is my answer incase you were wondering.

I think the question is, by "we just aren’t right now.” does he mean, SR or in later games? I dont think we'll ever know till SR is released.