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Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim


lazygecko
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Some of the content streaming gets pretty obvious and I'm playing on Ultra settings. The waterfalls are the worst, they're just a static blocky model and will often stay that way for about 15 seconds. It's clear they had to compromise a lot to fit all these visuals on consoles, but did they really have to keep it that way on PC?

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Some of the content streaming gets pretty obvious and I'm playing on Ultra settings. The waterfalls are the worst, they're just a static blocky model and will often stay that way for about 15 seconds. It's clear they had to compromise a lot to fit all these visuals on consoles, but did they really have to keep it that way on PC?

Check the advanced settings, don't just hit ultra. Ultra doesn't actually turn some stuff on.

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Some of the content streaming gets pretty obvious and I'm playing on Ultra settings. The waterfalls are the worst, they're just a static blocky model and will often stay that way for about 15 seconds. It's clear they had to compromise a lot to fit all these visuals on consoles, but did they really have to keep it that way on PC?

Now, I don't work for Bethesda, so this is conjecture.

But if I did, and I knew the modding scene was going to re-do all my work anyway, whereas I needed to knuckle down and get this thing out the door...

Yeah, I'd slack a bit on the high-end models.

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There is also unfortunately a lot of confusion, which hopefully will help clear up. The bottom line is that at present the game can definitely be made to look nicer, but some things like texture quality can't be improved much more regardless of tweaking. Some people have misinterpreted the answers extracted from this old interview with Bethesda to mean that a high-res texture pack will be released. That's not what they said: "The PC version also gets higher res textures, larger render modes, and a bunch of other effects you can scale up if your machine is a beast." They were talking about the features of the game prior to its release, so these are already incorporated into Skyrim on PC.

In terms of performance, there are a wide range of tradeoffs, tips and recommendations, but let's be clear: Skyrim is a CPU-limited game, which is why there are slowdowns in certain areas.

Performance articles show it, but let me demonstrate it on my own i7 920/GTX 580 system. To save time I'll spell out the result: at all three resolutions, FPS fluctuates around 28-30. In fact if I go from 8x MSAA to no MSAA, the result is still the same. This is a classic example of a CPU bottleneck. And even with the relatively poor textures and shadows, I've also seen my Video RAM usage rise to in excess of 1GB after only a few minutes of gameplay at Ultra settings, not including any extra tweaks. The fact that it performs much more smoothly than previous Bethesda games tends to indicate that the setting tradeoffs built into the PC version of the Creation Engine are not so bad despite the game's console-based heritage.

Update: For people still not clear on what this all means - Skyrim only runs on the equivalent of 2 CPU cores; it cannot use more than 2 threads, so performance is CPU-limited. Also a heads-up that places like PC Gamer have widely misreported the VSync tweak I posted earlier. To disable VSync you must add iPresentInterval=0 under [Display] in Skyrim.ini, not SkyrimPrefs.ini, otherwise it won't work. Alternatively you can enable Triple Buffering, but that uses more VRAM, which is why disabling VSync is the easiest solution. Either way, it is a necessary step as VSync actually reduces overall FPS, not just caps it.

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2 cores? So my 6-core won't do jack for me?

Now hold on.. in recommended specs, they recommend a 4-core CPU. Why?

It's because if you have more than two cores, the computer can essentially completely dedicate two cores to the game and use the rest for anything else running on the computer, including the OS. If you only have two cores, then some of at least one core will be taken up by those processes, leaving less for the game to use.

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I hate how overpowered some of the unimportant enemies are. I watched a snow bear and a dragon fight 1 on 1 and the snow bear won. I named him Snovahkiin. Then I got utterly slaughtered for a while by Drougr Deathlords and Chourus Reapers. Makes no sense. Dragons should not be like the easiest thing to kill compared to other things.

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I hate how overpowered some of the unimportant enemies are. I watched a snow bear and a dragon fight 1 on 1 and the snow bear won. I named him Snovahkiin. Then I got utterly slaughtered for a while by Drougr Deathlords and Chourus Reapers. Makes no sense. Dragons should not be like the easiest thing to kill compared to other things.

It took maybe 5 minutes for my first two Dragon kills yet I spent a solid 20 min. killing the final draugr deathlord(Shoot, Shout, Run) in the wolfskull, skullwolf cave whatever quest from Solitude.

The balance isn't perfect but it never stops being fun. Try not to think too much :smile: Such as when an npc gives me a task he expects me to die on yet he gives me an item and says "Now don't lose this!"

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I've found dragons to be pretty trick to handle by myself so far (Only lv 18 ). They're no problem at all if they've got 2 or 3 other people around to help. Especially if they attack you in some flat plain where there's nothing to hide behind.

Even if they are easier then I thought they would be, I can still only describe dragon battles as 'epic'.

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The bastards keep running away from me. They fly around way beyond my bow's range, then when they finally get close enough, they just ignore more of my hits.

I finally got one to land, got it down to half health, then it took off, flew straight up, and despawned. I've only gotten two dragons down so far. It's really really annoying.

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I haven't had that much time to play yet, and I'm only a few hours into the game. Two nights ago, I made it to Whiterun, went into the alchemist's shop, and cleared out every last one of her ingredients while she was in the shop. I then made them all into potions and sold them back to her.

Then, last night, I got jumped by three thugs in Riverwood. Took me a few tries to kill them, but when I did, one of them had a contract on him from the Whiterun alchemist asking them to teach me a lesson.

GOTY.

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Even if they are easier then I thought they would be, I can still only describe dragon battles as 'epic'.

I was punching this woman who was calling me her fiance (well, a hargraven to be precise) then I nearly $%!T myself when i heard a dragon scream. As fire was spewing all around me my instinct was to run to the closest town and get some help. So two guards myself and a bear all ended up taking down this POS that interrupted my attempt at marriage counseling! Kerplaaah!

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I was punching this woman who was calling me her fiance (well, a hargraven to be precise) then I nearly $%!T myself when i heard a dragon scream. As fire was spewing all around me my instinct was to run to the closest town and get some help. So two guards myself and a bear all ended up taking down this POS that interrupted my attempt at marriage counseling! Kerplaaah!

Bahahahahhaa. That's awesome.

I started playing Skyrim last night, and after a couple of hours, I have to admit that I'm hooked. It's a tragedy that I pretty much have to study nonstop until Friday :[ I don't know how I've managed to get through school with video games in my life.

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