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Skyrim: New(er) Screenshots and Previews

The game is not the sharpest thing out there. No two ways about it. I've seen lackluster textures, occasionally fugly shadows, and stuff like the NPC running up the stairs in the leaked intro look kind of silly.

However, when you're just playing the game, it is gorgeous in motion. Things like the weather, the draw distance, the clouds swirling around high mountains, the lighting at night in villages, how detailed the dungeons and interior environments are, the trees and the general foliage are all impressive, IMO.

Though I don't doubt that the first thing some people will do in game is walk up to the nearest wall or object, huddle up to their television, see a mediocre texture while staring at it in first person, and exclaim how terrible the visuals are.
 
Fjordson said:
The game is not the sharpest thing out there. No two ways about it. I've seen lackluster textures, occasionally fugly shadows, and stuff like the NPC running up the stairs in the leaked intro look kind of silly.

However, when you're just playing the game, it is gorgeous in motion. Things like the weather, the draw distance, the clouds swirling around high mountains, the lighting at night in villages, how detailed the dungeons and interior environments are, the trees and the general foliage are all impressive, IMO.

Though I don't doubt that the first thing some people will do in game is walk up to the nearest wall or object, huddle up to their television, see a mediocre texture while staring at it in first person, and exclaim how terrible the visuals are.
Click to expand...

Haven't watched any of the streams or leaked footage. Any other technical hiccups like freezing, screen-tearing, slowdown or pop in?
 
Lakitu said:
Haven't watched any of the streams or leaked footage. Any other technical hiccups like freezing, screen-tearing, slowdown or pop in?
Click to expand...
Zero crashes, haven't seen any slowdown or framerate issues.

You'll see pop in when you're in vast open spaces. Like the big tundra, you'll see some grass and sometimes a tree pop in far away.

As for screen tearing, I think I'm the wrong guy to ask. I see people talk about Assassin's Creed suffering from that on consoles, yet I played through all three games and had no clue why people were complaining. I didn't see any here, but that might not mean shit.
 
Fjordson said:
Zero crashes, haven't seen any slowdown or framerate issues.

You'll see pop in when you're in vast open spaces. Like the big tundra, you'll see some grass and sometimes a tree pop in far away.

As for screen tearing, I think I'm the wrong guy to ask. I see people talk about Assassin's Creed suffering from that on consoles, yet I played through all three games and had no clue why people were complaining. I didn't see any here, but that might not mean shit.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Sounds great to me. Screen tearing is a non-issue for me, as is pop in. I'm just relieved all these impressions have been free of freezing and bugs.
 
Fjordson said:
The game is not the sharpest thing out there. No two ways about it. I've seen lackluster textures, occasionally fugly shadows, and stuff like the NPC running up the stairs in the leaked intro look kind of silly.

However, when you're just playing the game, it is gorgeous in motion. Things like the weather, the draw distance, the clouds swirling around high mountains, the lighting at night in villages, how detailed the dungeons and interior environments are, the trees and the general foliage are all impressive, IMO.

Though I don't doubt that the first thing some people will do in game is walk up to the nearest wall or object, huddle up to their television, see a mediocre texture while staring at it in first person, and exclaim how terrible the visuals are.
Click to expand...
Sounds like it's similar to Rage in some ways. You have to look at it as a whole rather than individual parts.
Judging by the small install size, it seems that they might have decided to take a hit on textures in order to use ram for other things.
 
Mastperf said:
Sounds like it's similar to Rage in some ways. You have to look at it as a whole rather than individual parts.
Judging by the small install size, it seems that they might have decided to take a hit on textures in order to use ram for other things.
Click to expand...
Probably. Like I said before, I'd be lying if I said all the textures look great. They don't. But with a game like this, you don't really notice it. Especially when you're just exploring outside. It's more when you're in a town and a random book on the table will look blurry or a wall will look sort of messy.

Edit: I should say, all of this is from watching the 360 version. A lot of this probably won't even occur for you PC folk.
 
I'm about 4hrs in and while I was initially underwhelmed with the visuals, I've notice that lots of little things have been impressing me. From the dynamic snow and excellent viewing distances to the water effects and gorgeous particle effects on display in the dungeons. The fire looks really nice too.

The animations outside of the player character are awful, but it could be worse. The foliage in general is nice and the architecture is more impressive than Oblivion. Combat is meaty with some really cool finishers like those in Fallout 3. Enemy AI is as, but that's to be expected I guess.

Textures are meh, but there hasn't been a hint of slowdown or screentearing so far. Occasionally the quick menu takes a second or two to load, but that's about it. Loads are quick and infrequent too. So far so good. The only thing that irks me slightly is how quickly magika and health replenish. I would have liked more of a challenge. After playing Dark Souls for a couple of weeks, this seems a tad to easy... though there's plenty of the game left yet I guess...
 
Mike Works said:
Does anyone know if it'll be possible to beat this game without once using magic or healing spells? Anyone do it with Oblivion?
Click to expand...
Definitely. Though I did use potions. Will probably be doable here.

supersaw said:
As in Red Dead Redemption?
Click to expand...
It's the engine The Witcher 2 uses.
 
nelsonroyale said:
Hopefully there will be a hi res pack for the PC version... The game looks pretty nice already, but I wish it was running on the RED engine
Click to expand...
There'll be a hi-res texture mod not too long after release. The Elder Scrolls modding community are pretty quick off the mark.
I have never been under any illusion as to the quality of the textures. This a console game firstly and as such the PC side suffers. I would have liked Bethesda to have made the textures hi-res for the PC but that obviously wasn't their plan. Still, as I had no problem with either Fallout 3 or New Vegas on PC, I'll have no problem with this.
 
Majik said:
I'm about 4hrs in and while I was initially underwhelmed with the visuals, I've notice that lots of little things have been impressing me. From the dynamic snow and excellent viewing distances to the water effects and gorgeous particle effects on display in the dungeons. The fire looks really nice too.

The animations outside of the player character are awful, but it could be worse. The foliage in general is nice and the architecture is more impressive than Oblivion. Combat is meaty with some really cool finishers like those in Fallout 3. Enemy AI is as, but that's to be expected I guess.

Textures are meh, but there hasn't been a hint of slowdown or screentearing so far. Occasionally the quick menu takes a second or two to load, but that's about it. Loads are quick and infrequent too. So far so good. The only thing that irks me slightly is how quickly magika and health replenish. I would have liked more of a challenge. After playing Dark Souls for a couple of weeks, this seems a tad to easy... though there's plenty of the game left yet I guess...
Click to expand...
I noticed that it was tearing pretty frequently on the old video when they entered Bleak Falls Barrow hunting for the
golden claw.
Did you do that quest and it now has little to no tearing?
Have you thought about upping the difficulty for a better challenge?
 
Hawkian said:
yeah... worst textures this gen.... hahahah
Click to expand...

I also hate the new thing "ps2 level" i guess some people had super ps2s its a stupid fucking thing to say. Hell even unloaded fucking ue3 engine textures look better than ps2 level for christ sake.
 
zmoney said:
What was the timeline between Morrowind and Oblivion? Umbra was the same sword that was outside Suran right?
Click to expand...
I remember getting that sword way, way earlier than you're supposed to be able to.

Jumped up on a rock and the Umbra character couldn't reach me, just kept running towards the rock while I slowly, slowly chipped away at him with arrows. Must have taken an hour, and many hundreds of arrows.
But it was so worth it, stuck with that amazing sword pretty much the entire game.

God I hope we can do stuff like that in Skyrim..
 
Mike Works said:
Does anyone know if it'll be possible to beat this game without once using magic or healing spells? Anyone do it with Oblivion?
Click to expand...

I certainly hope so. My Barbarian does not plan to use any of that witchcraft nonsense when he is battling dragons. (NOTE: Dragon Shouts are excluded from this. That is not magic, it is his birthright.)
 
Xdrive05 said:
Anyone know if this game will use Steam Cloud (for saves)?
Click to expand...


There are no official info about it, BUT since pretty much all Bethesda games on STEAM got STEAM Cloud support during last Quakecon, we can assume Skyrim will include it too.
 
Mike Works said:
Does anyone know if it'll be possible to beat this game without once using magic or healing spells? Anyone do it with Oblivion?
Click to expand...
Considering this game has regenerating health outside combat (or you can just sleep/rest), yeah, probably. Potions are advisable IMO. Probably going to be pretty difficult without them at least.
 
FuKuy said:
There are no official info about it, BUT since pretty much all Bethesda games on STEAM got STEAM Cloud support during last Quakecon, we can assume Skyrim will include it too.
Click to expand...
Didn't they cut support for at least Fallout: New Vegas after a while?

OT's coming guys, just a bit longer.
 
Yeah, but I think it was because of some specific issue. Obsidian disabled it or whatever and it never came back. Could be wrong, but I remember hearing something like that.

And I'm more than excited for the OT.
 
Fjordson said:
I smell hyperbole.

All the HD streams I've seen have looked fantastic.
Click to expand...

It's not hyperbole, the textures are atrocious. Not all of them, and the rest of the graphics (effects, draw distance) look amazing. The animation is pretty much standard Bethesda fare, but the textures are incredibly low-res. It's especially appalling considering the time of release. I sincerely hope the PC version will have high res textures.
 
FuKuy said:
There are no official info about it, BUT since pretty much all Bethesda games on STEAM got STEAM Cloud support during last Quakecon, we can assume Skyrim will include it too.
Click to expand...
Awesome, thanks. Beats my juggling of my 200mb Oblivion saves folder ... reinstall the game and have to track it down, etc. Great news. :-)
 
GeoramA said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzQJ8E9vF3Q

Here's the preview from this month's Qore. Some new stuff shown, but not much.

Blacked out buttons as well, so I guess it's not the PS3 version...smh
Click to expand...

Hopefully someone gets the PS3 version early and can tell us what it's like.

Majik said:
I'm about 4hrs in and while I was initially underwhelmed with the visuals, I've notice that lots of little things have been impressing me. From the dynamic snow and excellent viewing distances to the water effects and gorgeous particle effects on display in the dungeons. The fire looks really nice too.

The animations outside of the player character are awful, but it could be worse. The foliage in general is nice and the architecture is more impressive than Oblivion. Combat is meaty with some really cool finishers like those in Fallout 3. Enemy AI is as, but that's to be expected I guess.

Textures are meh, but there hasn't been a hint of slowdown or screentearing so far. Occasionally the quick menu takes a second or two to load, but that's about it. Loads are quick and infrequent too. So far so good. The only thing that irks me slightly is how quickly magika and health replenish. I would have liked more of a challenge. After playing Dark Souls for a couple of weeks, this seems a tad to easy... though there's plenty of the game left yet I guess...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the impressions.

Hopefully it's not too easy. Have you encountered any
Frost Trolls yet?
 
Ledsen said:
It's not hyperbole, the textures are atrocious. Not all of them, and the rest of the graphics (effects, draw distance) look amazing. The animation is pretty much standard Bethesda fare, but the textures are incredibly low-res. It's especially appalling considering the time of release. I sincerely hope the PC version will have high res textures.
Click to expand...
I don't know, on the whole I think they look fine. Especially given how detailed and big the world is.

Though I'm speaking within the spectrum of the consoles. I won't argue that the PC version deserves to look better.
 
madmackem said:
I also hate the new thing "ps2 level" i guess some people had super ps2s its a stupid fucking thing to say. Hell even unloaded fucking ue3 engine textures look better than ps2 level for christ sake.
Click to expand...

This popped up a lot in the Dark Souls threads on some sites, some people obviously remember the PS2 through some rose colored glasses.

If at any point you are a reasonable person and think a game this gen has PS2 textures, go back and look at them, and then remember that a lot of them, you can't zoom in for, and ones where you can see textures close to you, like King's Field, they look dreadful compared to any half-decent looking game this gen.
 
Lakitu said:
Hopefully someone gets the PS3 version early and can tell us what it's like.
Click to expand...
I hope we find out soon. If it's sub-HD or has some other major issue, I'm canceling my pre-order and getting the MGS Collection instead.
 
1 week away
177725d1278089561-im-sorry-but-homer-drool.gif
 
Ugh, I can't decide if I want the PS3 or PC version of this game. I have a feeling that the PS3 version will be less-than-stellar. New Vegas was a totally different game on the PC, graphically at least.
 
PhoReal said:
Ugh, I can't decide if I want the PS3 or PC version of this game. I have a feeling that the PS3 version will be less-than-stellar. New Vegas was a totally different game on the PC, graphically at least.
Click to expand...
... just go get a wireless 360 controller and comfy couch that shit, best of both worlds.
 
Mastperf said:
I noticed that it was tearing pretty frequently on the old video when they entered Bleak Falls Barrow hunting for the
golden claw.
Did you do that quest and it now has little to no tearing?
Have you thought about upping the difficulty for a better challenge?
Click to expand...

That quest is the first one you're tasked with proper.
I'm playing on 360 and haven't noticed any tearing at all.

Also, I was playing on expert. Guess I should have just upped it to master... hahaha..

Lakitu said:
Have you encountered any
Frost Trolls
yet?
Click to expand...

No, but I have been looking. Saw them on the loading screen... they look badass.
 
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