Fairly straightforward question I think. Will there be any sort of High-Definition Texture DLC for the PC release of Dawnguard? Dawnguard does add a few new assets/models to the game, so I figure there may be a possiblity of such a package, if it's not directly integrated into the DLC itself.

Would also save some people a bit of time making there own texture for the new worldspaces, outfits, and models.

I hope so. Watching Youtube videos a lot of the console assets are very dated, some of them are downright hideous. 2005 level even. I'd assume more proper textures will just be built into the download though. After all ... they sold out for a month ...

There is absolutely zero chance I'll be buying Dawnguard as anything except part of a GOTY edition on sale in a few years if it or 1.7 do not include some notable PC extras like SSAO, DX11 + tessellation, or maybe a 64-bit executable. Bethesda selling themselves and then doing zilch to make up for it would be past unacceptable.

I would love the HD texture pack to come to Skyrim

I would appreciate a hires DLC to the Dawnguard DLC.


Another question I have is can a DLC on steam be disabled? I don't want to play Dawnguard and then find that these vampire attacks are killing all the NPCs and be stuck with steam autodownloading the DLC for me when I want to remove it.

Needless to say all the bugs I'm hearing have turned me off to a day 1 purchase of Dawnguard; I'm going to wait and see how it develops. Though, I suppose a "no vamp attack" mod would be made in a hot minute if it is as bad as people are making it out to be.

Its DLC, just untick it in the launcher like all past TES games dlc on PC.

Right on. Forgive my ignorance, for I have not played any previous TES games so I am unaware of how they work with DLC and steam.

Bethesda DLC function as mods, so you can just disable it that way and not worry about any trouble.

I agree with the console assets looking very very dated (try playing without the current HD DLC again, ewwww), but what are you going on about? Sold out for a month?

Skyrim already supports 4 GB's of RAM, it doesn't need to have a 64-bit executable, which isn't going to happen as it needs to be developed as such from the start (I think?)... If you think that they are going to include a DX11 update with a ton of post processing features you're mistaken, this isn't Crytek.

I presume he is referring to the exclusivity for Xbox.

Idunno. I checked outside Falkreath with ugrids 5 and I was running at 3.2GB. It's starting to shave close. Ugrids 9 would be out of the question for stability and 7 would be questionable. Anyway, 64-bit can be done without a complete re-code. Crysis and Far Cry both got 64-bit post-launch.

And yes. Beth sold out. They delayed the DLC by a month because Microsoft paid them to. DX11 would go a long way towards rectifying that. And if you don't recall Bethesda confirmed Skyrim would run DX11 at launch, and never took the statement back until launch day. They also said we'd be getting CK on launch day, not January. Makes me wonder if Beth considered other offers from Microsoft ...

The dlc for xbox is 600mb. A good indication that higher resolution textures are employed would be a 1+ gb size.

No, they didn't. Most posts/releases I saw regarding DX11 and Skyrim said long before release that it would SUPPORT some of the more basic features of DX11. Mostly refering to better frame rates on systems that used it, but stuff like tesselation and the more specific dx11 features wouldn't be used. If you do have a source that contradicts me, by all means....


Again, no. They said they 'hoped to' have it ready for sometime near or after the release. Nothing was ever said about it being availiable on launch and they never confirmed the 'near release' statement either. , at least that I saw. Again, I'd be happy to be proven wrong if you have a source that says otherwise...

Besides, considering the early issues, better the CK was delayed rather than result in a lot of broken mods during the first couple of months.

Right. They said it would have DX11. Not that it might, but that it would. They said we "probably" wouldn't see advanced effects, but who's to say they wouldn't be modded in by now? We have SSAO, sun shafts, revamped lighting, updated shadows, and bokeh DoF from ENBSeries ...

Anyway, my memory is more fuzzy on CK. I just remember them saying they wanted it ready right away. Still, its delay wasn't so bad. Workshop more than makes up for it even though I use NMM myself (pesky launcher LOVES to reset my INIs randomly by redetecting my GPU).

You would have to be pretty naive to think that those features are ever going to come, let alone come in Dawnguard.

SSAO was in Game Jam ...

A lot of things were in game jam.

Right. Like the new underwater shader, crossbows, mounted combat, shadows applying to grass ...

Alright, this is getting a bit close to becoming a flame war, so lets tone it down a bit... Not to mention very off topic. I'm getting a strong sense of entitlement as well, which is never good.

I hope the flow-based water shader & SSAO makes it into the game.. Even though I can enable it myself through the Nvidia control panel, some official support/options would be nice. I don't see seasonal foliage making it though.

The problem I see is console hardware limitations, I'm not sure how resouce intensive SSAO is, but I'm confident that the 360 is pretty close to being "tapped out". Having SSAO would be nice, but don't expect ANYTHING when you're in the minority sales market (360 > PS3 > PC in sales #'s). Take what you're given, keep your expectations low, and be happy & surprised with content that is made available to you for free.. It beats the hell out of saying "If only" all day long.

Now, with that said, if you're running Ugrids .ini tweaks and treading close to the maximum ram threashold, then that's your own doing. 99% of Skyrim players don't even alter that setting, so I really have no sympathy for you there. You're just being greedy. Anything above ugrids=7 is considered highly unstable and will more than likely render your came corrupt after a period of time.

Anyways, by the time Bethesda is done making patches & DLC for Skyrim, IF they release a GOTY edition with all the DLC, and after another +8 months the price drops to under $40, I'm sure some other game will be released or your attention will be elsewhere. So I really think you should just man up, enjoy the game, buy the DLC, and get your money's worth while the interest is there... But that's just my opinion, it's your money and your time, so do what you will.

I hope the 2k HD mod will be back when the DLC arrives.

Besides Windhelm, I've not actually been very impressed by any of Skyrim HD's work.. It just look... "Off" to me. Personal taste I suppose.

I actually tried the HD DLC + Skyrim HD + Skyrim Realistic Overhaul and the results were... Meh. Some things looked great, others not so much.

That's only because they are not finished , which is pretty sad..

Honestly this.

Skyrim Realistic Overhaul is far better at fitting into Skyrim's aesthetic than Skyrim HD. HD has the occasional gem or lucky fit, but IMO just overall doesn't work very well. The HD DLC + SRO + WATER + SMIM should cover almost everything though. Don't forget the hi-res LODS to make distant land look better. And hey, maybe http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1389682-rel-skyrim-visual-enhancement-enb/




SSAO is very intensive. There is not even a slight chance it would make it to the console versions. Also, speculation on digigtal sales based off of the 300k concurrent players statistic on Steam says PC sales were equal to or slightly exceeded PS3 sales. Factor in that PC sales (especially via Steam) are worth far more money to Beth individually and things get interesting. However, we DID get the grass shadows, and those were apparently too intensive for consoles as well. Who knows, beth might be saving water flow and SSAO as some kind of "apology patch" to make PC gamers forget that they sold out to Microsoft.

I personally cannot stand 95% of the ENB mods out there. Almost every one of them completely destroys Skyrims color palette & lighting. I use RCRN and swear by it. Beautiful colors, lighting, and amazingly immersive weather. I also use the meshes from "High Quality LOD's", as RCRN has it's own included textures that overwrite the normal maps & textures from HQLoD's, I've manually tried both with RCRN, and I prefer RCRN's included textures.

I use HD DLC + Vurts Floral + WATER + SMIM + Enhanced distant terrain +RCRN. I like the high-definition vanilla look, with a few tweaks & improvements.

I am giong to try Serious HD - Landscape, and then SRO by themselves and see which I prefer, if any. I just have to make my own Zip files of them so that I can easily remove them if need be.

I assumed the userbase was something like 50% Xbox, 30% PS3, and 20% PC.. It would really suprise me if PC actually outsold the PS3 version... Though the PC version has far more long-term value than the console versions (mods).

Sales figures lately combined with developer statements have been pointing out that Steam accounts for roughly half of any given PC title's sales, and those aren't accounted for on retail tracking sites. There's also credible allegations that some of the more popular video game centric ones like VGCHartz take money from console makers to fabricate their numbers. VGChartz has 700K sales for Crysis despite EA themselves confirming well over 3M, closer to 4M. For Portal 2 they have like 600K versus 1.2-1.5M for the consoles despite Gabe saying PC Portal 2 outsold either console version. Even if SKyrim slightly undersold PS3 it would still make more money, since Beth gets a larger cut from every copy due to a lack of console licensing / royalties and (in Steam's case) packaging & shipping.

Really the industry loves to underplay PC sales because it allows devs to justify cutting corners. Skyrim probably sold even with or slightly outstripped the PS3 version when considering digital sales / VGChartz taking money from MS to deflate PC and maybe PS3 sales (they get PC numbers blatantly short almost as often as not). The only credible source these days is NPD, and even their numbers aren't perfect since Valve doesn't publish digital sales and retailers sometimes slip up.

So, as Dawnguard has arrived on PC now (sans hi-res textures), this could use a bump. Is there any chance of this happening?