Multiplatform = nerfed PC port. I fully expect this.

You make a sound arguement, yet I still believe wholeheartedly, Todd was right and a new console generation is not worth waiting for as it will add only a performance and modest visual boost. In the coming years we will see who is correct in this arguement, DX 9 is outdated, yet not ineffective. DX 11 is impressive but superfluous. I believe we will be waiting a while for a new generation, and if we dont I beleive that the new generation will not be truely an improvement worth the investment. Once theres talk of Elder Scrolls 6 though I suppose we'll find out

And I know how to build a nuclear weapon. And how to end hunger in the world. And how to achieve Godhood.

Don't believe me? Neither I believe you. And you don't give the slightest clue of the opposite.

Pretty sure we all do. At least, us PC folk. Not even going to bother with a pre-order on this one.

Oh, we agree on the choice to release on current hardware. No disagreement there. However, I disagree with Todd's rationale for why new hardware isn't needed. It's a totally bogus argument, akin to frame rate arguments. "You can't tell the difference between 30 and 60 FPS!" However, when FPS dips below 30, it looks FAR worse than when it dips below 60 (which it inevitably always does!) Thus 60 FPS is always better. His argument hinges within the same type of faulty logic.

Still, I understand why he would say such things. First, he is supporting one of his partners, Microsoft, and easing the social tension that might occur if he were to slander the current hardware. His response was political in nature. Because, similarly to the FPS argument, some people will sit closer to their TVs and notice the lower detail. Also, some people have better eye sight than others and will notice lower graphical fidelity from a distance. The premise of his argument has merit, but his explanation of how they went about handling sitting close and far is totally bogus (and mildly idiotic).

Given how memory works, where immediate stimulus (recency effect) replace older memories, his argument also has some scientific merit. People don't realize the differences until they compare them directly, and when compared, most will opt for higher frame rates and higher resolution textures/graphics. It's the issue Blu-ray is facing. It looks far superior, but most people can't perceive the difference because they remember the DVD counterpart looking just as good in their own mind. That is, until you show them the difference, and then you would expect people to mention that they did not remember it looking so fuzzy by comparison to Blu-rays very clear, enhanced picture quality.

;P

Well, I expect it, too, and the only reason I don't preorder Skyrim is because I still don't know which version/language I'll finally grab.

This game (plus Mass Effect 3) are so sacred, I don't care they do them in 8-bit graphics

Again, Steam statistics are slanted towards the hard core gamer, and they are not the largest segment of the game market. That's like going into a Ford dealership and asking people there what brand of car they drive.

If they're not the largest PC segment (being the enourmous amount they are), even nore reason to keep PC users happy.

And it has been announced that Skyrim will include the DX11 performance features for the PC, just not the graphics improvements. So I don't see what your issue is. There's also been mention of higher res graphics for that platform. So it's hardly going to be the case that PC users are going to end up being completely short changed. They'll also have the ability to add mods to their game to bring it up to the levels that their systems can handle.

Sorry, but I completely fail to see the logic of your statement.

Scepticism

Mods should never be required to make the game what it should have been out of the box. And all those DX11 features not going to be included? Modding them in will be no small feat.

What about NVIDIA:s "The Way It's Meant To Be Played", assuming Bethesda isn't gonna do anything more graphics-wise for Skyrim (which would be pretty disappointing, imo)?
http://in.nzone.com/object/nzone_twimtbp_gameslist_in.html

"What is TWIMTBP?

The Ultimate "Install and Play" Experience: With NVIDIA? hardware powering your PC, you can unleash stunning cinematic graphics and lifelike characters at blazing speeds. So, look for the "NVIDIA?: The way it's meant to be played" seal on games and PC hardware for the ultimate "install-and-play" experience.
The Hottest Games Developed and Optimized on NVIDIA: The performance, compatibility, and reliability of NVIDIA GPUs make them the platform of choice for PC gamers worldwide. That's why today's hottest games are developed on NVIDIA, to be played on NVIDIA."

Basically, NVIDIA let a bunch of their programmers work on the graphics/performance etc of a game and in return, the game developers have to have the NVIDIA seal on the software product and I think when the game credits and such start when you begin the game. Seems good to me.

But, one thing to consider: http://www.ngohq.com/news/16519-amd-senior-manager-critizies-nvidias-twimtbp-program.html
Seems NVIDIA has previously made things harder for ATI graphics cards then, like making them not being able to use AA through the original game and therefore have to force AA (which works as well though). If NVIDIA would do things like that for Skyrim, that would be very unfair. But then again... it's business and basically a war between NVIDIA and ATI.

Will it even be possible? If so, it would take so many people I'd imagine just to do displacement mapping for tessellating textures.

Theoretically, yes, but it'd probably take years to get the proper DX11 shaders written and in place for use by the modding community. Which is why I was rather disappointed to hear that it was shipping with only the DX9 shaders.

Steam stats represent the biggest portion of the PC gamer market. That's what you need to take away from that. They are out selling retail, by a HUGE margin. Most PC gamers are switching to digital distro. Steam has over 3 million users, from which almost 50% of them use Win 7 64-bit, almost 60% have DX 10 capable hardware, etc. Ignoring this segment will result in fewer sales. That's my point. Crysis 2 is a great example. It had console all over it, and as such has sold poorly on PC.

The PC market, is the enthusiast market. They are not the casual market. If you want to sell games, you need to add features that appeal to enthusiasts. Console menus, screens that say "Press the start button to begin" and over all a lack of PC esq features, results in bad press, lower sales, and over all a more jaded PC market. Mainstream and Casual gamers will play their games on consoles. And casual PC gamers simply aren't playing high budget games like Skyrim.

That's the lesson modern developers need to learn. It might even take some time to convert us back given the last 5 years of ridiculously bad ports. Some of the best selling PC games don't even use DRM. That's an entirely different conversation though. bliviongate:

So you're saying that the PC version should only be available to those people who can afford to buy the latest and greatest gizmo's? That's just as bad as complaining about the game being so focused on the consoles. That's nothing less than an elitist attitude.

Between you and me (and having in mind that I'm not any company really devoted fan...even more, maybe even a future owner of a Bulldozer + Radeon HD 7xxx), I've always considered AMD/ATi to be a bit...bland, in many aspects. They should develop better hardware and marketing instead of just complaining. People isn't going to give you any gifts, and the competition even less.

Couldn't you be able to crank down the settings? Like turn off tessellation, turn down the shaders, and whatever else there is?

Once upon a time, any half way decent PC game was scalable. And seeing as how they're already making the DX9 shaders for use with the consoles, all that would be required is to include those with the PC version. Then you can use either one, depending on what your system can handle. There's nothing elitist about that.

In fact, that's about as open and accepting as you can get. Let everyone play on the level their rig can handle.

Lessee.... DX-11 features.

Tesselation: runtime generating of visible polygons on low poly models, making it possible to create very high res rendering figures and structures with very low actual -polygon loading source models. As well as making higher detail normal maps more effective. Combine this with sm4 water shader code, and you get a water surface that exceeds anything currently out there, in both detail and motion.

Multi-threaded rendering: Suddenly the GPU can take advantage of multiple cores, speeding rendering of the same Direct3D surface. Considerably.

Shader model 1.1 through model 5. Two shader models above the current console capability. Nuff said.

Directcompute: Expanded parallel processing, for enhanced aid in physx calculations. Should also allow unused GPU processing power to be diverted to use both for graphic or non-graphic processing.


Any one of those features warrants upgrading. Combining them with the proper supported hardware will yield far more than 'minimal' improvements. Just the tesselation would allow double or triple the characters on screen, with minimal impact on memory footprint. DirectCompute would allow for some AI or physics processing to be offloaded onto the GPU. Multithread support suddenly makes all those cores we have more useful. And shader model 5 supports tesselating quads, tris, and isolines. Ask a mesh monkey what effect =that= would have on game content quality, and the creation thereof. You might just hear the word 'Zbrush' mentioned, as the hardware tesselation would be doing exactly what Catmull-Clark does in software.

The DX-11 SDK has been available from MS since June of 2010. Almost a year now. And the base functions are all included in DX 9. So this isn't something that has been tossed out in the last week. There has been a decent amount of time to work with the SDK. Maybe we'll find ourselves lucky, and have a surprise or three in the finished game......


And making a nuke is easy peasy. Getting the fissionables of proper grade is a bear, but the actual device is pretty simple, until you start talking implosion devices and fusion range yields.

He's a console player. He surely hasn't heard in his life that graphics options can be heavily tweaked on PC.



Just a quick fix And glad to hear someone else realized there's a SM5 included with DX11. People seems to believe the top is still the Model 4.

Prove it, show me the numbers.



Which is an extremely small segment of the total market. There are 100's of millions of people who play game worldwide.

No, it's the reality.

And just so you know, the PC version is always SCALABLE. You know... settings! Those who can play on very high can do that and those who can't can play on very low. If they own so ancient computers that can't even play on very low, then maybe they should consider playing the game on consoles, because there it's just one hardware that it works on always. Otherwise they would hinder the natural development that is happening and that has been happening for decades.

It's like with TVs. In my country, we passed on to a new TV system a few years ago, which literally forced everyone to buy a new piece of TV technology for their TV to continue working. The technology is developing and will continue to do so, and if you aren't there with it, it's your own fault, not the technology's.

That's 3 million average concurrent users, not total. I can't find any hard figures, but according to Wikipedia there are "Over 30 million active user accounts" - what, precisely, counts as active, and how accurate that "over" is, I do not know.

Still, it's a sizable chunk of the market and likely to be quite representative, as steam stocks all kinds of games, from peggle to portal.