I just wanna make something very clear here:
Hi-res textures doesn't change how the game look itself. It doesn't change the graphics itself. It only changes the textures, not how textures work, or how lighting behave, or anything like that.

What modders can do is pretty much only textures and shaders. And shaders come really late, because it's very hard to write them, and most of all, to implement them.

So don't expect modders to do wonders. How lighting behave, which I think is one of the most important things, will most likely never be able to be changed by modders. I also doubt that Bethesda will release something that improves lighting or something like that after the game is released for PC. I very much doubt that. The game is at its latest development steps right now. As much as I want the PC version to look better, Todd said before that they would look pretty "even" or "alike" in a podcast. He only mentioned hi-res textures and anti-alising.

Oblivion used the latest good stuff when it came out. It feels as if Skyrim is barely using half of what is available. Global illumination? Indirect lighting? Tessellation? Properly done HDR?
Right now I think that Skyrim is "failing" at depth of textures (tessellation or parallax occlusion mapping) and at lighting. Things that most likely won't change for the PC. I hope though, but I also doubt.
Looking at the lighting of some scenes, I can't help but to say it looks very wrong:
http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/520246-1298584608.jpg
http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/screenshot_247856.jpg
http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/screenshot_247729.jpg
http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/screenshot_247723.jpg

Certainly, they can't turn water into wine, but I remember the staggering difference between vanilla Oblivion and retextured Oblivion with new draw distances. It got to the point that playing vanilla Oblivion was an eyesore. It does make a difference.

And no, Skyrim certainly is NOT using cutting edge graphics tech. If they intend to use any of what you mentioned for release, they sure didn't show it in the trailer.

But dare I say; it looks 'good enough'. The game will be fun. It will be fun to play. That's more important than cutting edge graphics. Crysis was cutting edge when it came out, but it was boring, boring, boring, boring. It's a case of priorities, I think. For me, texture packs will be enough. I really hate blotchy textures in my games, and I saw them in the trailer. :tongue:

Yeah sure, textures make a difference, but they can't do magic. Definitely not. How textures work and how lighting work is something we can pretty much forget about.
Which is sad, because, in my opinion, they're much more important than the textures themselves. Textures is very easy to mod, compared to that.

Skyrim will be a great game. I've never thought it's going to be a bad game. But this thread is about graphics ONLY. And if we ONLY compare graphics with other games, it gives me a sad face

Before I saw any Skyrim pics, I also imagined to be this really huge, open, game, with great majestic mountains and valleys, with countless things to do, with really stunning environments and graphics that blew your mind out.
Now, we know that the map is very small (Only the size of oblivion), and the graphics are below average for today's standards. Sure, there are some really cool other stuff in Skyrim, but it will never make up for the "loss" of graphics in this case. And this saddens me, because I think of how Skyrim could have been like, when looking at other newly released games, then look back at Skyrim's trailer. It's saddening in terms of graphics, I think. :confused:

Edit: But at the same time, if we look from a wider perspective, and not just graphics, it saddens you when you look at other games' "shallowness" compared with the depth of the TES storyline and the countless possibilites in gameplay. Skyrim win hands down on those regards, I think. Being this really free game with great stories and depth is amazing too. But one just can't help think how much better it would have been with graphics at that amazing level as well.

You don't even know what are you talking about, aren't you?

First of all, you really must not like FPS if you find Crysis boring. I'be been playing that type of games non-stop since Doom 2, and Crysis has surprised me a lot in that matter, even more having in mind that I didn't expected to be so fun, and to have such half-decent story. If you find Crysis boring, then maybe FPS are not your genre then.

Second, texture packs alone, while they look good, they don't make miracles by far. If you've a nice texure, but a bad bump map, displacement map, alpha channel, etc, that texture WILL look BAD. And recreate all of that is a ton of work which is not guaranteed that any modder is going to take on his shoulders.

Since when is a game world the size of Oblivion considered small? Now I am confused..... name some other games that have a big open world this size? The graphics do look good and so many other things have been improved that you can't compare it to Oblivion IMO. If you are comparing Skyrim to smaller world equivalents, run and gun coridoor types of games then no wonder you feel let down, you see the developers of these games don't have to worry about half the things Bethesda do in making a TES game, tbh it is amazing that it only takes Bethesda 5-6 years, Duke Nukem Forever anyone... hehe

Concerning the world size of Skyrim which is approximately as small as Oblivion (~41 square kilometers):

http://i.imgur.com/uBWCz.jpg

Now add Red Dead Redemption on that list as well, being almost twice as big as Skyrim.
Surprisingly for me, is that a shooter like Far Cry 2 is almost twice as big as Skyrim as well. Shooters don't have to be that big imo. But when we're talking about open-world RPGs like TES, where you can do so many things and exploring is a huge part of the game, I'd say that the map size is very important.

41 square kilometers was pretty big for a game 5 years ago, but not now. Just as our perspective what looks nice in terms of graphics, our perspetive on what's big changes as well as the years go by.

Enough about map size, this thread isn't really about that. I was just making a comparison.

Hasn't your wife told you that size does not matter :hubbahubba:

You can't compare it to even Red Dead Redemption, totally different styles of games still, RDD was a great game don't get me wrong I still play it even though I am finished, but there is no where near the complexity of quests or environments that Skyrim will have, half of the environment is just to be looked at as you ride by on your horse! When you bring Radiant AI, a multitude of dungeons, different factions, different races, different classes etc etc into the equation 44 sq miles actually seems pretty damn large ! Far Cry 2 is the same, so much pretty landscape but you don't have anything to do for most of it you just ride on by! Whats to stop developers making 1000 mile sq games and filling it with generic random landscapes?

Its what you do with it that counts Hey if I can churn 300+ hours into Oblivion what will I be able to do with Skyrim? Oh yeah RDD didn't take me 300 hours to complete btw and I did all the sidequests

What's that, daggerfall? You're still the single largest gameworld ever produced?

That said, I'm fine with Oblivion's size, it's what's actually in the world that makes it feel big. For example, Just Cause 2 has a ridiculously large gameworld, but a combination of spread out content and the sheer speed at which you can move makes it feel not really all that much larger than Oblivion. Daggerfall is stupidly large, but being generated there aren't really that many unique things about it.

It's 41 square kilometers, not 44 square miles... 44 square miles is 112 square kilometers...
Anywya.
Size actually does matter
It really does. Here's why:

1) Long journeys actually feel like long journeys, rather than a trip you can do in like 3 min.
2) You can have these really great majestic mountains and valleys. You'll never be able to have that with 41 square kilometers.
3) All mountains and valleys and environment will be scaled down to ridiculous sizes, sadly. It may look big at first, but once you start running you'll realize how small it is. This is Oblivion in a nutshell.
4) An open-world game like all TES series have great depth and lots of things to do. Freedom is the main theme of all TES games. You can do whatever you want, go wherever you want, etc...
To combine that freedom of doing things, with the freedom of a really huge landscape, is awesome I think.
5) It eliminate the risk of the world feeling cramped up. 120 dungeons in 41 square kilometers, along with 20 towns and 5 big cities, is A LOT. A game feeling cramped up is a really really bad feeling you definitely want to avoid.

You make a very good point that there are much much more things to do in TES games than any other. More places to visit, more quests, etc. But this doesn't really stop the world from being bigger.
Here's why:

1) A bigger world could only mean that the scale of the world is changing. What's in the world could be the same. There could be the same amount of dungeons, towns, cities, etc. They'd just be more far from each other, hence the world wouldn't feel cramped up, which was a very big problem in Oblivion in my opinion.

2) For making environments that look good, while also going really fast, you can have what I call "random handcrafting". Look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8qa-naczjg&feature=player_detailpage#t=62s
The placement of the trees is randomly handplaced. Having a few of these "random handcrafting" modes for different types of trees, and it would go much much faster to create a landscape than handplacing every single tree and bush. And it still wouldn't look the same everywhere, since you're in control of it. I'm not sure if Creation Kit already has this, but I'm guessing it doesn't. The map should have been bigger than 41 square kilometers then, I'd say.

If I were Bethesda, I'd try and aim to make the world 80-100 square kilometers, rather than ~41. Enough to give you a vast feeling, enough for unique and majestic landscapes, and enough for the amount of work required to accomplish it, I'd say.

Exactly! Randomly generated landscapes probably seemed a good idea at the time, after all hardware was very different back then, but there is no way that Bethesda or a team of 100 from any company that I am aware of, would be able to make a game 80-100 kilometers square with non-randomly generated countryside without seriously sacrificing either gameplay or TES gameplay elements! (btw I was a little annoyed at the time Daggerfall was released that Bethesda didn't add 3d card support, from memory I had some sort of useless TNT card at the time and not much used it!) Unless we would like them increase their TES game cycle to 10 years?

I forget someone actually walked from one end of the map in Oblivion to the other by foot and timed it, walking btw not by horse, it took him over 2 hours Real time, if Skyrim is at least as big as that I can accept that especially considering that is only a direct northern line and this doesn't include east to west or anything inbetween! There was a time not long ago that TES games set the bar for creating huge open-worlds I don't think that much has changed, in this genre no-one else can even start to compare to the TES series.

All this chat about my PC problems I had with my current upgrade, I just went and turned it on to play Crysis Warhead and it powered up for 3 seconds, harddisks turned, fans spun then 'Poof' my 3 year old top of the range 1000W 72A Seasonic powersupply popped and now there is no more powering up, and also a funny electric smell That is the final straw people, no more desktop gaming for me EVER! Despite the hassles of having a computer desk, the box weighs a ton anyhow, if I am going to PC game it will be on a 2000 dollar gaming laptop from now on! I can't believe how much bad luck I can have with one desktop.... nothing is made to last anymore! Not even going to bother getting it fixed that will be another 150 dollars plus labor... forget it ! :flamethrower: :brokencomputer: :banghead:

All this chat about my PS3 made it jelous obviously and it decided to blow up as punishment

I hope you don't have an X-Box 360 too, else you might be seeing the famous red ring soon too... a properly built Computer won't generally fail without good cause, one good one for killing Power Supplies is power surges... Then again, I have had a troublesome desktop before, but it didn't put me off, the one I am on now I have had almost no problems with so far, more pleasant surprises usually. It should still be remembered, any machine can die/fail. As for saying things aren't built to last... actually I'd say some components these days survive much better then components 5 years ago...

Did you buy a cheap PSU? Computer components don't do luck, they're governed by the cold, hard laws of physics - and if you buy cheap PSUs that's exactly what you're going to get.
Seeing as modern day consoles basically are computers, and they're built with low quality parts to keep the cost down, a modern PC is far more durable than a console - but only if you don't skimp on the important bits too.

No I don't do cheap parts, I always bought quality, and my PSU like I said was a Seasonic quite a reputable brand and was recommended by a good source at a big store with a good reputation too! I bought it at the same time I bought my GTX285 as it needed more juice, my Seasonic was 1000W and had 72A on the 12V rails, now people that are in the know know that is an overkill for my card but I was thinking about SLI before all my problems started. So no it wasn't cheap it cost 250 dollars AU and all my other parts were from reputable companies, a Gigabyte X58 Motherboard intel chipset, Asus GTX285, Corsair Dominator Ram.

To work on your theory I have had my PS3 3 years and not one issue, my PC didn't even last 6 months on a fresh build from Motherboard up before things started to go pear shaped, and I worked in a PC store for 2 years so it was professionally installed using static mats etc, but I have been upgrading my own since the 90's, bad luck you say? Well my friend had some too, he had to fork out for a new Mboard. Yes you can get dud Consoles just like PC components but I haven't had one yet, while I have spent 1000's fixing up my PC's over the years. My Asus F5RL laptop I am typing on atm is 4 years old and hasn't had one breakdown or issue, like I said I will more than likely go and buy a fast gaming laptop (which are getting quite fast from what I have seen in terms of benchmarks) takes up less room and in my experience anyhow seem more stable.

You say you're experienced, but how you can consider laptop gaming a superior alternative I do not see. Cheaper components squashed into a smaller space with worse heat dispersion? How, exactly, is this "a better way"?
PC gaming grants you a lot of freedoms - one of these is the freedom to fail. Unfortunately, this (as with all electronics) can happen at random, but statistics do not lie - high quality components have a significantly lower failure rate than cheap components, or consoles.

Lets see, I don't need a computer desk I can carry it to any room I am in at the time, compact, I use a Thermaltake laptop cooler, never had any heat issues.. expensive this may be but it would kick my desktops rear

http://www.bestgaminglaptop.net/news/alienware-m17x-r3-sandy-bridge-hd-6870m-now-available/

Infact it does I benchmarked around 16000 3dmark06 points on my broken desktop this laptop does 22000+ and it is a laptop! $3,400 is a bit steep though don't think the missus will go for that... and yes this would create heat although Alienware are well known to have good cooling solutions. Laptops are PC's too lol I don't want to have to sit at a desk anymore and I don't get the time to do this as I am looking after my 1 and a half year old girl Monday to Friday, at least this way I can keep one eye on Crysis, Skyrim, etc etc while the other is on her Maybe I won't be able to run Skyrim in 1920X1080 on it but I am pretty sure it will run fantastic in 1680X1050 which is what I am used to looking at on my Desktop...

Heard Asus are releasing some fast Laptops soon, all use I7's and 2GB dedicated graphics.

Each to their own, my family all have laptops for the same reason, even my Bro who is a BIGTIME PC gaming junky. Hey if it breaks at least it is lighter to lug into the shop, last time I tried to move my Desktop (thermaltake soprano case) I almost literally did my back

Oh, there are certainly advantages, and while desktops can be more powerful, for gaming you don't need it. A gaming laptop is far from the idiots choice it once was - but going there for greater stability seems inadvisable.

Yeah I guess I can only go by my experiences maybe I have just been lucky with my Asus Laptop? Ya know I haven't been nice with it either, 4 years of lugging it into work and back on a train and not once has it broken! Your right you don't need a really powerful desktop anymore, so a gaming laptop should be more than sufficient hopefully with the advantages of mobility. Yes my desktop has finally broken my spirit, anyone want some spare parts?

Yeah, in my experience Asus laptops are pretty solid. I'm on a G73JW-A1 and it's built like a tank with high-quality materials. The cooling in this bad boy is also amazing, good enough to OC.

Yeah that is what I have found very very durable and reliable! Was thinking about upgrading to this new badboy tell me what you think,especially for Skyrim!

ASUS G73SW-FHD-TZ016V-B3

Official Asus Page

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=KeYVsP7c4mgNmh2B

Store Prices Where I Live

http://www.scorptec.com.au/computer/40418-g73sw-fhd-tz016v-b3

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=49876

Interesting one store has it over a hundred+ dollars cheaper but it looks fantastic, also interesting they say the new Processor and Video give it the power equivalent to desktops... GTX460M 1.5 Gb, I7 2630QM, 8 gig of DDR3 1333 Ram, 1TB Hybrid HD, Blu-Ray Writer, 17.3 inch FULL-HD Screen.... omg :drool: Might even be able to play some games in full-hd can you imagine Skyrim...

I think this bad boy will last awhile, and with that speed no need to upgrade any time for the next few years, think I will sell off my desktops components and be done with it!

Any thaughts? Click on the specs...