I've read a few negative things about the PC version on this forum, but I can't help but think it's all over the top. I've played 6 hours and I love it, it's met all expectations. It's infinitely better than Oblivion, and best of all the world is so atmospheric, so beautiful, so fun to explore. I haven't even touched the main quest. I love the combat. I'm playing a mage, and combining spells rocks. Some areas are easy, some are difficult (I'm playing on Expert). I went in to some random dungeon and cleared most of it out before making my way through some traps, only to encounter a Vampire mage who kicked my ass. Good fun!

The UI isn't perfect, but it's still very good IMO. I'm using a keyboard and mouse (Razor Mamba) and it works brilliantly. I simply press Q to and use the mouse wheel to select through my favourites, or press P or I to get to the Magic/Item menus, then use my mouse pointer to select, easy! There's an occasional bug which stops the cursor from highlighting an item, but it's rare in my experience.

Finally...how can anyone say this game looks bad? Check these out: (I'm running at the highest possible settings)

http://satanspetpenguin.com/Screenshot1.jpg
http://satanspetpenguin.com/Screenshot2.jpg
http://satanspetpenguin.com/Screenshot3.jpg
http://satanspetpenguin.com/Screenshot4.jpg
http://satanspetpenguin.com/Screenshot5.jpg
http://satanspetpenguin.com/Screenshot6.jpg
http://satanspetpenguin.com/Screenshot7.jpg

I agree. I too am running at the max settings =) I'm actually using a controller for the game as I don't mind them. The game is stunning, immersive, and tons of fun

The UI is pretty poor, but you get used to it. As for graphics, they seem fine to me - not exactly breathtaking, but still pretty good for an open-world game. Besides, mods will make the game look 10x better soon enough.

I bough the game yesterday. After long years playing and re-playing oblivion TODAY I hope to taste this all-new world of Skyrim.

I must admit I'm kinda scared with all you guys saying the game is absolutely buggy, but I've bought and downloaded it. It MUST worth the efforts! XD

I'm playing with absolutely everything cranked up and there are some really bad textures thrown in with the ok ones. The draw/LOD distances are pretty disappointing too. Cherry picking screenshots that don't show the games issues doesn't prove anything.

The game is great, but I am disappointed with the graphics. Doesn't tax my system at all, this along with other evidence points to only one conclusion.... Bethesda is a console company now. They sold out and us PC gamers are left with the scraps.

*edit*
I say this because they use to push the limits of the available technology, which they are obviously not doing...

If you go right up close to things and stare at textures then you will notice they are less than perfect. The question is, why on earth would anyone stare at textures for prolonged periods of time?

Don't get me wrong, it looks great. I guess I was expecting a leap, which was foolish considering it is built for the 360... and graphics arnt the only issue, the opening scene where you are riding in the cart. If you look at the cart in front of you it looks completely fake, the way the wheels move and interact with the ground... I dunno, I guess I expected too much. I'm still enjoying the game, just wish it was next-gen I guess.

The screenshots are nice. I haven't played the game yet but I am looking forward to it.


What's up with the lady on the left in the first screenshot? Her dress and foot are floating over that wooden stump.

What a lame post. It's not a matter of staring at things for no reason, this isn't a racing game or something with fast paced levels where its excusable. This is a game that you take all in, and crappy low-res textures EVERYWHERE are inexcusable. This isn't like Crysis 2 where the textures were great but some people were pissing about a pylon or tin can on the ground being low; Skyrim is mostly comprised of low-res textures and last-gen effects.

If all textures were high-res then you wouldn't be able to run it on a console without frequent loading of new areas. You don't understand the limitations of technology and the sacrifices that need to be made. If it was made for PC only then the graphics would be significantly better.

On a console, sure, but that doesn't excuse the PC "master" version from being hobbled.

Most games these days are better on PC than console, or do you not just understand this? This is a "PC impressions" thread, not a "limitations of console technology" talk. This is due to nothing but laziness on gamesas's part.

Just because graphics on a PC can be better doesn't mean the current graphics in Skyrim aren't good. Everything is taken to the extremes with you lot, everything is either great or terrible, there's no middle ground.

Two things really kill it for this game on PC:

1. The god awful UI

2. No DX11 textures


Agreed 100%

It's not an "extreme", the graphics on Skyrim, when compared to other games by 2011 standards are indeed quite poor.

Battlefield 3 has mindblowing visuals on huge maps with 64 players online at a time. Skyrim is a single player game with far less going on, it has no excuse for being so shoddy in comparison to its contemporaries; especially when you factor in the budget this game had.

Did you find the camera movements clunky at all? Mine feels clunky as heck.

Look at it this way: my laptop exceeds the minimum requirements. When the game autodetects my hardware, it selects "high" settings for me. High my ass. I run absolutely EVERYTHING set to lowest possible settings with lowest possible resolution, disable vsync and I get like 15 fps... HOW IS THAT [censored] OVER THE TOP.

Err... sorry for my little outburst there, but I'm just so [censored] angry right now. I mean really, the game is very poorly optimized.

My rig in case you're wondering

i5 dual core 2,4 ghz
8 gigs of ram
geforce 540m

Not the state of the art laptop but I can run Crysis maxed out, Crysis 2 on mid-high settings, DX:HR on high, etc.

Very disappointed in Bethesda. Such a sad waste. Here's my breakdown:

Story: A+
Atmosphere: A+
Art: A+
UI: F-
Animation: D
Textures: C-
Voice Acting: B-
Character dialogue/interraction with NPCs: D+

I can forgive a lot, even overlook the subpar graphics and animations for the chance to enjoy the story/atmosphere, except for the fact that the horrid console UI keeps jerking me out of my immersion.

I used to rank Bethesda up on same shelf with Bioware, but even with the let down of Dragon Age 2, I'd say Bioware is taking the top spot. Especially with SWTOR coming out and designed with absolutely NO consoles in mind.

Don't the textures on high look MUCH better than Oblivion's? Haven't played it yet (installing now), but the textures look much crisper to me.

Yeah, this all has to do with laziness on Beth's part.

I mean the game doesn't even support multi core CPUs (2 cores max I believe). This doesn't help because the game is very CPU intensive (for some reason) and it acts as a bottleneck.

Also I'm sure they barely touched multi GPU threading / optimization. Not that it matters, its not a GPU intensive game by any stretch.

For a game this poor looking, it SHOULD run amazingly on any set up.

Yeah, some. But the majority...not so much. It's quite jarring going from a modded Oblivion to this.

whats ur spec and fps... in and outside of towns

I've been quite satisfied with the PC version; it looks gorgeous and it's a hell of a lot of fun.

That said, the UI is not that great and feels very console-oriented, but that's not really something that bothers me, as mods will fix it.

My main complaints are a lack of dialogue options in some places (it seems like you have less response options when talking to a lot of characters) and the fact that NPC followers in this game are incredibly shallow.

Ok.... What the h*ll is a dx11 texture??!? Before you post, make sure you know what you are talking about.

Don't be glib, you knew he was referring to tessellation [on the textures]

tesselation only works on meshes,3d geometry not textures.

I guess he forgot to write a coma.

"dx,textures",with textures meaning the higher res promised.