Alright i got Skyrim today and i have a question, if i start the game with TesV.exe instead of steam do i have to keep steam active? Because i saw that it automatically loads when i start my computer. If i do not play the game through steam then i do not need to have it start automatically. Can i just deactivate it from auto starting and then only start steam manually when it is needed for an update or something?

Good question, I think steam needs to be activated, but you can play in offline mode? Not sure why you would wanna keep steam shut down though?

The answer to the question you ask is yes. Just go into Steam's options.

However, you have a false assumption. You can't run Skyrim without Steam. If you start the game with TesV, then that's either 1) going to fail or going to launch Steam first. Can't remember which they do nowadays.

Back in the day, we had to enter random words from the manual to "prove" we paid for the game. It was far more annoying than current methods of DRM.

I prevent Steam from auto-starting on Windows startup, and Skyrim seems to run OK from the exe. I believe though that you need to have Steam start Skrim at least once.

Back in the day, all I had to do was put a disk in the computer and play. It was called disk check, and I didn't find it annoying at all. I would like to deactivate Steam as well, annoying and full of features I don't want. I would pay extra to have the game without it.

I changed my steam icon to the Skyrim Icon, Looks nicer.

Yes you can disable steam from auto starting on windows start up

Also you can disable the steam community pop-up when Skyrim launches (looks nicer), although i think this gets rid of the option to take screenshots with F12, can someone confirm this?

Does anyone remember those quizzes with the red screens? You'd have to hold the red screen over the red jumble to see the text to enter the answer to play the game.

Man,

There is a Skyrim and Steam sticky right above your post. Please pay attention.

I find the steam game advertising annoying, I'd like to at least not have to sit through that. I think I hit ok when some thing was checked that said it would show me games or something and now I can't turn it off again.

No, that was far less annoying than being totally unable to play, even if you bought the physical copy. Having no internet connetion to the floor with my gaming PC, I've either got to dismantle everything and haul it down two flights of stairs, then set it up in the livingroom to connect via dial-up, wait 8-20 hours for it do d/l all of the necessary updates and additional files, and then drag it back up the stairs again. As if that's not bad enough, playing offline will only work for about 2 weeks, give or take, until Steam decides that it needs to re-verify the installation, and requires you do go through the whole circus all over again. Compared to that, looking up a couple of code words in a booklet, or just inserting the disc into the drive, was almost enjoyable.

Steam = NO SALE.

Just hit prt scr and take a screenshot using the game mechanism.

Oh ok, ty

You can find it in your ...\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim folder

From a long time Steam user, it is a good thing to have as long as you have a credit card because their Store is pretty fantastic and the KEY there is to WAIT FOR SALE'S! Every game goes on sale at some point, remember that when you are browsing the store because sure as Skyrim is a great game, some day you will see it for sale on Steam at half the price it is now.

Also Steam keeps your game up to date with patches you never have to worry about that. Also if suddenly your PC fries and you loose everything as long as you have Steam all of your games will be there when you get a new PC, no codes to find, nothing more then downloading them and starting over again. I know if you have the physical copy you have the same thing but DVD's get scratched, manuals get lost, codes get lost, etc. The ONLY downside I can possibly see with Steam is say 70 years from now your grand child wants to make a trip to the Antiques Road Show, well he/or She won't be taking your physical copy of Skyrim to see if its worth anything, other then that Steam IS the way to go....period.

Yeah, just like any other "start on bootup" program, you can disable the automatic start.

(I have Steam off by default. I only run it when I want to play one of my Steam things, or to do the periodic check for sales)



Having played computer games since 1979, and lived through all the various codewheels, manual checks, disc checks, and now all this online stuff?

I'd much rather be hunting down words in a manual, than have this obnoxious online dependency for everything. Especially games that are 100% offline and single player.

That is the beauty about Steam, you can use it how you want to use it, once you have run Skyrim once in online mode to activate the game you can set Steam to run in offline mode and play Skyrim no problems at all. Personally I just leave Steam running all the time I have never really had a problem. The only time I ever had any problem was once when my internet connection was down I could not set Steam to run in offline mode unless I was connected to the internet so I had to go to a friends house with my PC set Steam to run in offline mode then I could run all my Steam games until the cable guy came to fix my internet.

Well from the posts here i get mixed results. Some say that it can be played without and others say it needs to be running. Due to the posts here i now also get the feeling that as far performance wise there is no difference(Or very little.) in playing Skyrim with Steam or the exe. Guess i will stick with steam then and just dive into it's options.


With my track record of being here on these forums for MW and OB you would expect from me that i would have seen/checked that, sorry about that.