That second link doesn't work hlvr.... And the first, is that with a beauty mod or something? I don't remember the ground looking that good in Crysis!

EDIT: and I googled it; DX11 max texture size has indeed been increased from 4K to 16K, so the Dragon Age 2 textures must be bigger than 4K.

Not supporting DirectX 11 is extremely disappointing.

So, "We'll support DX11" possibly, probably means that they're going to have a few guys from Nvidia come in. Software engineers that will spruce up a few things with "Dx11!" features in exchange for Bethesda putting "The way it's mean to be played" or whatever on the box and as an extra 5 second intro movie. Why Nvidia? Because they're pushing this program much more than ATI right now, you can see it's handywork in the likes of Just Cause 2, Dragon Age 2, and etc.

Point is, the pc version will probably be a getting an extra shiny feature or three relatively on the cheap (for Bethesda) thanks to this. Which brings up the question of: when they come in, what do you want them to do?

Well, I created several categories, with examples down below, and a poll up above. So vote for whatever you'd most like to see, and then secondary choice, based off the examples below.

First off, we'll cover what you might want but don't need to vote for. A is, "Make it run faster" they always do this, so no need for a choice there. B is settings Bethesda really should just put in themselves, stuff that will take maybe a week of attention from one guy. Examples are: Having most lights cast shadows, which depending on a few things may be as simple as ticking a checkbox on a light in the editor that says "casts shadows". B, higher "Level of detail". As you should now, the more distant something is the less detailed it will be in a modern game. A few settings in the configuration file and suddenly more distant things will have better quality models and textures, done. C, Higher res shadows/More cascades. What does this mean? Well the higher res they are, the less blocky they look. Second, you know shadow draw in, how a shadow will suddenly appear as you get closer to something? Well that's an easy thing to change on the pc, a few settings, make sure they work right, and shadows could be cast on everything, to everything.

Categories:

"Global Illumination": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-_pnqXLIg4 not actually that expensive, obviously it's the light bouncing off the colored tapestries and onto nearby surfaces. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYoGJP5z_U4&feature=related another cheap and common technique that makes corners dark and objects seem more "attached" to the world.
Overall this would improve how the game looks pretty much no matter where you were.

"Tessellation": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdvZPIQpsQo a great new way to get games to look far more detailed than before. The basics of it is that the hardware takes a normal model, adds however many polygons you want too it, then moves those polygons around (ideally) based on a texture or "displacement map". This is great since you can add polygons exactly where you want too (they're far more noticeable on edges and etc.) and textures take up a lot less memory than a model with a lot of polygons. So tessellation could add a lot of detail, either through making distant objects and land more detailed for cheap and eliminating "pop-in" and/or through just making nearby things a lot more detailed (the normal maps already created for in game models can be converted to displacement maps, and used by tessellation hardware).

Materials: Different materials in the world obviously reflect light differently, like skin, metal, mirrors, etc. Screenspace subsurface scattering is a relatively new, cheap way to make skin (and a few other materials) look more natural and not so hard edged. http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/520/screenshot0209c.jpg , http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/6825/screenshot0208w.jpg obviously the face is brightly lit to highlight the difference, http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/9995/screenshot0204.jpg For other materials such as metal and etc. pretty much all games use a model called "Blinn-Phong" which is cheap, and relatively bad and plastic looking (why so many games look like plastic) a new "BDRF" or Bi Directional Reflectance Function such as http://jbit.net/~sparky/academic/mm_brdf.pdf could make the entirety of Skyrim look more real and less plastic, http://www.physicallybasedrendering.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/materials.jpg

"Direct" Lighting: Obviously you need light to see :confused: which would include things like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKHABmrTIn8 (the beams of light coming in through the trees), Cloud shadows (the clouds casting shadows, I don't think a visual example is needed :biggrin: ) http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~ritschel/Papers/TemporalGlare.avi and better shadow filtering (edges, softness) in the form of http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/3/34023/1728980-percentage_closer_soft_shadows_super.png which is probably the best looking and "most correct" way to make soft shadows at the moment.

and finally... Water! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLu8DyzoVMs, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ou65tURHw&feature=player_embedded (http://www.gamedev.net/blog/715/entry-2249487-ocean-rendering/), and of course some actual reflections would be nice :goodjob: (notice they aren't there in any screenshot so far)

Its such a shame that the pc is getting shafted so badly. Graphics are one of the biggest advantages we get(mods being another) and the developer basically says 'we want the graphics to look the same as consoles despite the fact that the game could look twice as good on many typical gaming computers'. This is one of those things that would drive some people to piracy.

You forget not everyone has a typical gaming computer. Many of us have simple everyday middle class systems. I certainly don't need a game that'll only run on some 560GTX card. And why would this drive anyone to piracy?

I couldn't care less if it has DX11 support. I hope it'll run at all on my 2 year old notebook.
That said, games can look great even with DX9 (look at The Witcher 2).

While it's nice that there are newer, fancier, shinier graphics - that doesn't make well-designed games from before suddenly "look bad".

Oblivion, still looks great, even today. And the Skyrim shots we've seen so far (all from XBox, and therefore not as good as the PC ones will be - more AA, etc) look even better.

So I honestly have trouble with people saying things like "I'm not even sure if I'll be buying Skyrim when it comes out now."

That level of hyperbole (well, or if it's really true, that level of jaded superficialness) is silly.

Skyrim does support DX11.

You forget not everyone has a typical gaming computer. Many of us have simple everyday middle class systems. I certainly don't need a game that'll only run on some 560GTX card. And why would this drive anyone to piracy?

I couldn't care less if it has DX11 support. I hope it'll run at all on my 2 year old notebook.
That said, games can look great even with DX9 (look at The Witcher 2).

From the mouth of Todd Howard

The question remains, what DO we gain from DX11 if the big features aren't in?

First of all, you shouldn't expect to be able to play it with even good graphical quality on a two-year old notebook given it's coming out in 2011, a game that is supposed to push your graphics to the limit.

Second of all, that's what settings are for, so you can make it playable without the rest of us (who don't mind spending a couple hundred dollars on a good graphics card) suffering with what is subpar graphics.

Don't make any conclusions on my notebook if you have no friggin idea what it's components are. So far I've been able to play about everything on high or at least medium..

The word notebook is usually synonmous with 'not good for gaming at all' regardless of what components are in it really. Especially when you say 2 year old one. So it's not so much of a jump.

it drives people to piracy because they feel a sense of injustice with being delivered a game that wasn't really tailored to their platform. I'll be buying a hard copy day 1 but i can see people pirating for that reason.

Having support for dx11 features doesn't necessarily mean it won't run on a below average specced computer. I mean look at crysis, i finished that on a radeon x1300, played hours of oblivion on the same card too without many problems.

Sorry, but that is bull. Notebooks have been capable of proper gaming for quite some time now. Of course being able to play mobile comes at a price but heat/power issues have long been taken care of. You know Alienware? If those are not gaming machines then I'm a Dwemer.

The word notebook is usually synonmous with 'not good for gaming at all' regardless of what components are in it really. Especially when you say 2 year old one. So it's not so much of a jump.

People with 5770s don't expect to be able to max all games, why should you?

Sorry, but that is bull. Notebooks have been capable of proper gaming for quite some time now. Of course being able to play mobile comes at a price but heat/power issues have long been taken care of. You know Alienware? If those are not gaming machines then I'm a Dwemer.

They don't?

The Morrowind Overhaul has waves allmost like that for water. The same kind of shader. And SSAO, and DOF. So it looks better than Oblivion. Just the NPC models still look like crap.

2 years ago the best notebook gpu was equivalent to a 5770. People with 5770s don't expect to be able to max all games, why should you?

...personally, I think it's a bit odd, but not because of horsepower; but because - who wants to play a game on a rickety little laptop, when they could have a real keyboard & monitor? And a tower they can fill with more stuff?

It just doesn't make sense that he doesn't want the game to have advanced graphics because then he won't be able to max it with his notebook. Maybe the world should stop all technological progress until he feels he's ready to move on?

Btw good graphics and gameplay are not mutually exclusive, it is possible to have both.

Sorry? Jeez.... I was just trying to point out why he might think that. I would still say most notebooks wouldn't be suitable for gaming but when you say alienware that's another thing I guess.

I have the overhaul here, and i must say, it looks pretty awesome.