Hi res textures are better than nothing, but they don't improve graphics by much when used with low poly models and locations, just look at DA2 with hi res texture pack - it still looks terribly outdated.

I personally think the issue is the lighting. That's what can make a game look like a cartoon, or like a stunning, realistic beauty. I think Crysis was a god of lighting: http://blog.juno3.com/wp-content/images/games/crysis_irl.jpg

Tessellation or parallax occlusion mapping could work great for Skyrim on some textures. If they could add it to mountains, rocks, stone-floors/walls and characters. It could look really really really nice.

If there are developers that really are going ahead and giving PC versions of cross-platform games better textures, etc., I say, more power to them. Maybe I don't buy enough new games any more, but I've (sadly) become accustomed to putting up with ****ty textures in my PC games, or downloading texture packs to fix the problem.

No one can ignore the elephant in the room any more. The 360 is 6 years old. As a "default" platform, it's pathetic, but there's no response from Microsoft (in the form of a next-gen box) quite yet.

If the demands for higher quality original content from the PCers are actually being met, then I'll have to admit that it's news to me.

Good news, at that.

Maybe within the last year or 2 this phenomenon has been evolving, but with in the last 6? No.

http://nerdtrek.com/skyrim-details/

Last 6 years?? Try last 9 years xD

From the GI Podcast Q&A which was transcribed by member Vamphaery :
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podcasts/archive/2011/02/03/toddhowardse.aspx

DX11 is technically supported but Todd has already said most of it's features will not be taken advantage of. Read: No tessellation.

It also depends on what you are accustomed to, and also what your eyes can tolerate. My eyes are uncomfortable with nearly every single ps3 game I play. Not simply because of the resolution, which in itself is taxing, but also because of the framerates.

Ever since I purchased my ps3 about a month ago now, for specific games that are not on the pc (uncharted, infamous, heavy rain, little big planet, red dead, and so on.) the games have literally given me headaches. And this is on a large 1080p television, and lcd monitor depending on the lounge room use. Red dead, for instance, besides being a fantastic game, runs at about 15-18fps in towns. And occasionally at it's target 30fps, furthermore it runs at 720p, or below. This is very hard for me to handle coming from a mid to low end pc, which often gives me 60fps or above. The overall scene is fussy, lacking texture detail at any distance past a few feet (due to a lack of anisotropic filtering) is blur. The edges all melt into eachother, and fuzz about in the distance. Switching between pc and ps3 is hard work. Since i have to adjust to the absolute insane difference each time. It's like if you are short sighted, which I am, putting on 10 year old contacts, vs brand new ones. The world changes. Nothing is as it was.

So, the question. Will the pc version be better. For me, personally, it will be the only alternative. Will it be better? Incalculably.

The crisp detail that multi-dwalves the alternatives, the framerate, the immersion because of these two factors. Draw distances, dx11 features, these things are not the features that make pc games better or worse than console games. Sure, we want them. But the simple fact that it's running on a pc at a high resolution, counts for 100-200 times all that. It always has. And if you are a visual person, then it's impossible to not see the two as almost an entire ocean apart.

kudos

I was also not advocating the move to make all three versions "comparable" I believe pc users, myself included, are being unjustly treated by having our version current-tech-disabled. I believe that proper implementation of tessellation and ambient occlusion would be a huge nod of deserved respect in our direction. It would also be the example or even catalyst of the reintroduction of justice in the pc games sector. That justice is being ignored once again.

That said. The pc version will likely run at an immersive framerate, and at a resolution that allows us to see the game-world with our normal, human, developed, eyes. This is something exclusive to the pc versions of most games (except for a few ports that have framerate caps). And something I value very highly, and respect more and more, every single time I boot up my ps3.

Remember, the consoles will be locked at 30fps. A beefed up PC can run Skyrim at 60+fps.

I hope it will but I doubt it, at least if we put any weight behind the "significant" part of this question, and I say that as someone who plays on all four major platforms. Higher-res textures and higher rendering resolutions (surely you'll just run at your display's native resolution either way?) I'd expect to be in, but frankly that isn't all that significant. Maybe the platform-specific tweaks that have been mentioned will end up amounting to more than just that if Beth has the time, but going by what's usually the case with multi-platform games, the whole "same on all platforms" thing, and the typical console-to-pc game sales ratio, I'm not hopeful for any significant pro's associated with the PC version.

Right now I just hope that the rumored Wii2 is something good that will force Sony and Microsoft to react -- console life cycles need to be shorter than this.

I'm wondering/worrying if us PC users will be able to turn on AA with all the shader effects I expect to see in the game.

For example, with the OBGE Liquid Water mod for Oblivion, you can't use AA. The water in that mod looks great, but losing AA is way too much of a downside.

There are many other great shader effects available for Oblivion, e.g. God Rays, but I need my AA.

So I'd love to see some clarification from Bethesda on this.

It's not clarification from Bethesda you need. DX11 supports all those fancy effects as well as AA. The only reason you can't have AA with the OBGE stuff is because they are just workarounds, and are different from DX11.

No offense man, but you're thinking of an almost 6 year old game with lots of bugs and issues. There is a way to force AA even with OBGE on, at least for NVIDIA users I know (No not the control panel), namely through NVIDIA Inspector Tool.
Google "NVIDIA Inspector Tool + OBGE" and I think you'll find it. I don't know how to force AA with other graphics cards, but it's possible as well.

We need to compare our possible Skyrim with games from this modern times in terms of technology and such, not a 6-year-old game, despite it being from the same developer.

The PC version will certainly look better. Bethesda just doesn't want to come right out and say that for a couple reasons:

1. Then they will have the console community screaming at them, demanding their version look just like the PC version. (happens every time a developer says one version looks better then the other... no matter what consoles/platforms your talking about).

2. Bethesda and Microsoft have a long history of being very close, and I'm pretty sure MS wouldn't like Bethesda telling people the best version of the game (visual wise at least) is the PC version... not the 360 version.

Good points. Thanks for the replies.

All modded up, Oblivion actually looks pretty spiffy for a 6-year old game. Amazing what the community has been able to do.

Imagine if next-gen consoles were out and Skyrim were launching on those.

1. I think console players are smart enough (like anybody else) to understand that consoles are now outdated and PCs way way superior. Therefore, the game will always be able to look better on PC. Consoles can't look any better. PCs can. Therefore, PCs have a much more valid reason to "scream/complain/whine" about the game not looking as good as it could. Still, we shouldn't seperate console players or PC players. They aren't different. What's different is the platforms, and that's what we should focus on discussing.

2. If Bethesda and Microsoft has such a close relationship, then it's more likely Bethesda is getting payed extra by Microsoft for focusing more on consoles (especially Xbox 360, or PS3 if Sony is pushing it). It's obvious there are a lot of deals like this between companies. This is one of the reasons why certain games are released on only one platform (like PS3 or Xbox 360). They are getting money by either Sony or Microsoft for doing it, so that more people would be eager to buy their console-platform.

IT will look slightly better on release. (higher rez, higher aa/af, much higher fps)

Extremely better a few months after gfx modding.


Not every developer can be DICE and make the PC version scale properly with current hardware.

Hopefully they will release an "official" hi res texture pack as Bioware has done for DA2.

thats the first thing i thought of when i read that bioware had done that. i hope that it catches one............i wouldnt even mind paying a couple of bucks for it because it would be worth it to me to not have to wait for a modder to make them which takes months for texture replacers.

I would rather have an official patch that brings the game up to what it should be, with full dx11 support, but I'm sure that's not going to happen.

I would rather have a graphics DLC
Those who got the PCs strong enough to be able to install the DLC most likely have spent quite some money on the PC. Most likely they wouldn't then have much against paying some cash for making the game look much much better, while Betehsda at the same time earns extra money for the work.

I would buy a graphics DLC without a doubt, if it would take us of a lot of new graphical features.

1) You're expecting way too much "rationality" from large random groups of gamers.

2) Technically, console games *do* look better, as the years go by. As programmers learn their way around the hardware & software, they manage to get better and better performance (and find crazy tricks) out of the same stuff. The games that come out 5 years after a console has been out look lightyears better than the ones that come out the first year. (Meanwhile, in the "there's no set hardware" universe of PC's, programmers manage to make stuff better by... brute force. Throwing more processing power, memory, etc at the problem. Instead of learning how to be efficient - after all, why bother? People can just upgrade! Also, can't figure out any crazy tricks that depend entirely on the hardware config, since every PC is different.)

--------



I'm not sure they have any real motivation to make a DLC for a fraction of one subset of their players (i.e, just part of the users of one platform.)

Guys, I'm a console gamer, and even I'm irritated at the idea of a PC graphics nerf to make equalize the releases. If the equipment is capable of better visuals, then better visuals should be supported. Hell, I want a gaming PC for exactly these reasons this gen of consoles were left in the dust long ago. Great games are still being made for consoles as well as PCs, mind you, but they're not as great, at least visually, as they could be.

Things are starting to get stagnate.

I don't think I should be forced to pay extra for what I think should have been included out of the box.