Hi all,

It's my first post here, so be gentle alright?

So, my PC Skyrim DVD arrived this morning. I was pleased to see it land on my doorstep on release day as promised. However, my prior excitement had been somewhat tempered by the tales of woe I'd been reading here and on the technical forums. I was actually quite worried, will this game work for me, how will my FIRST Steam install since the horror that was Half-Life 2 proceed? Ok, not the usual delicious anticipation I'd expect for something as eagerly awaited as Skyrim.

To start off, I'll go through my Steam install experience, as that's where this all starts after all.

I'd previously installed the Steam client, kept it up to date and gotten a feel for it by downloading a couple of demos - Magicka and Orcs Must Die for reference. Here's my log of the process as it happened:

Please note: I’m doing this install on my Gateway PC first, rather than directly to my Gamer. This PC is an older Q6600 @ 2.4 with a 8800GT and 8gb ram running Windows 7 64 Ultimate – all patched up. I'm using the 280.26 WHQL nVidia drivers, not quite the latest, nor are they the new 285.79 "Skyrim" beta drivers.

• I launched Steam, selecting Online Mode – I’d previously been in offline mode. Just a quick pre-install check if you will.
  
• Next I inserted DVD into my drive.
  
• Moments later I was prompted to enter my key, I did so.
  
• Game started to install, from the DVD automatically. It did not default to downloading directly from Steam as it appears to do so for some. I assume it must be a settings thing?
  
• Game is currently installing from the DVD, estimated about 15 minutes…I'm just checking my mail and having a surf (on the same PC) while I wait.
  
• Install is 5,510mb in total, according to the installer, though I’m aware there is a “day 1” patch that Steam will need to download.
  
• Install took about 7 minutes in all, not too painful – on to the next step!
  
• I flipped to word to write this after the DVD install finished. Going back to Steam after typing point 7 and the update was already at 97% when I flipped back – doing around 425kB/s which is near the max of my connection.
  
• Well, it was another 5 minutes or so in all to download the update and apply it - all done automatically by Steam – game now listed as “Ready to Play”
  
• I asked Steam to pop an icon on my desktop for ease of launch, I then double-clicked it.
  
• I'm told Steam is performing a DirectX update…
  
• One this completes I'm then told Steam is doing VC Redist install…
  
• Ok, that was quick, only about 30 seconds for those things, maybe I was up to date already so it didn't have to do much?
  
• The Skyrim "Loader" launches, it is just doing it’s video checks now, so I’ll configure things and launch the game properly.
  
• Low settings has been selected by default – I will try with these then tweak further to see what my old system can actually cope with…
  
• Played the intro to the game, even on low settings it looks fine – pretty much comparable to the Console footage I’ve seen I’d say.
  
• I’ve exited the game, restarting Steam in Offline mode now…
  
• That worked fine. Nice.

So, ok. That went really rather smoothly. Up until reading the issues people are reporting here, Steam was my largest concern, guess I read too many horror stories.

Right then, on to the game...

During the starting sequence, which was familar to me, I popped into the menus as my first opportunity to check some settings. I ensured Xbox controller was OFF (I haven't got one), gave the mouse sensitivity a boost (to about 50%) and did my usual Y axis invert. Ok, all set.

Well, I'd say the mouse doesn't feel the most precise control in the world - compared to other games - but it's fine. I'm able to click instead of using the highlighted key wherever I've tried. The mouse wheel scrolls through menus just fine (I'm in the character gen sequence here) though there does appear to be a fraction of a seconds delay from selecting an item before the scroll wheel becomes active once again. I.e. Click, scroll = eh? Click, ... scroll = working. It's this that makes the control feel a little sluggish but, if I wait that fraction of a second before scrolling, it just works.

So, I'm running around now cos "something" just happened after the intro bit - you likely know what it is but I ain't sayin' nothin'

Controls seem fine, movement ok, mouse to look around, nothing unexpected there. "e" to interact, "r" is context sensitive depending on if you're looting or not. Ok, all pretty clear so far. As I'd not played Skyrim before (obviously lol) it takes me a few minutes to get used to the controls. I play around with equipping stuff, favouriting (is that a word?) stuff, and assigning said favourites to number keys for quick swaping without needing to venture into the menu. The menu thing works just fine, bring it up (tab key), move the mouse in the appropriate direction, click, you're in. Ok, that's simple enough & seems to work.

Getting into the game, I'm a little rubbish to be fair, I'm missing with my Axe...must stand closer lol. Still, using favourites, I've hot-keyed several options in a fight, from 2-Handed, one handed plus spell and, of course, bow and arrow. Nice.

Ok, I've not played for much more than an hour or so, however that hour has been trouble-free. A slight learning curve for sure, as with any new game. However, for the most part, it's fairly intuitive so I've not had to check the manual yet.

So, the graphics...this is going to be in two parts, you'll see why.

On my old 8800GT Skyrim wanted to run at "Low" settings for my resolution of 1280x1024 - ok, fine by me, I'm not going to argue Playing at these settings, well the game doesn't look too different (to my eyes) than much of the footage I've seen from Xbox 360 gameplay. So, it's pretty enough, the world is still detailed even if certain objects are not so much - I hope you get what I mean there? One thing I will say though, at these "Low" settings my FPS is ... marvelous! Really, it's silky smooth to my (rather fussy) eye. I've not measured FPS but my estimate is near 50 FPS, it really does look that smooth. Additionally, I've not experienced any slow-down that I've noticed. I'd say I've most certainly got some room to turn the settings up a bit, though I don't know by how much...still, that's not quite relevant to me, as I'll explain.

Right, time to move this to my Gaming PC! For the record it's a nice, but not crazy, machine - at it's heart is a 2500k @ 4.6, it's close buddies with a Pair of (miss-matched) GTX 570's in SLI running at stock clocks. Telling these guys what to do is Windows 7 64bit ultimate, residing on a Samsung Spin-point 1td HDD, with 8gb of 1600mhz DDR3 to run around in. On this rig I'm using the latest 285.79 "Skyrim" beta drivers and my Skyrim profile is automatically set to utilise both GPUs. Nice, well I think so, there are plenty more powerful systems out there but this one is mine

Using Steam's backup options (need to set the Client to Online mode if not already else they're greyed out) I back up my Patched Skyrim install and migrate it (restore) to my Gamer. The gamer already has the updated Steam Client installed & tested with the demos I'd originally downloaded.

Firing up Skyrim (once all the boring re-authentication etc. is done) sees it suggest "high" options for me. Forget that, I want "ULTRA" lol. So, that's what I select. I'd previously ensured SLI mode was enabled so it really shouldn't be a problem.

Into the game! Nothing to comment on regarding controls etc. - we've covered that - I use pretty much the same controller settings, though my gaming mouse is a fair bit more sensitive. It's all good.

So, graphics! Markedly better than on my 8800GT system certainly, plus I'm at 1920x1200 on this rig. Once again, despite the improvements of "ultra" mode, the most impressive thing is how the graphics represent the world. I can look at individual textures and say "I've seen better" for sure, but the world as a whole...well, that really is done rather well. To get technical for a moment: the core geometry of the various models seems the same, or at least very close, to the "Low" settings. So I would expect CPU load to not be overly impacted. However the textures seem sharper, view-depth and the like are improved, the usual draw-distance stuff really. So, yes, Ultra looks a fair bit better to me and it will be the setting I use on this rig. However "low" really does to a fair job of representing the world, I'd need to make some more direct comparisons of the two installs to pick out the details. Likely some more play-time will make them obvious, who knows. For the record, once again and as you'd expect, my gamers FPS is silky-smooth, so 50+ I'd say though I've not measured it. This makes the game a joy to play. I'm happy.

So, there you are, my first post and my first experience with Steam (in a long while at least) and, of course, Skyrim Possibly more time will see me encounter some of the issues other have experienced but, for the time being, I'd say this has gone well

Going forward: high-res texture packs? Yes please, the more eye candy the better! I'd hope that BGS would be able to provide some official content, I'm sure they have original textures in-house that are an improvement. However, if they don't, doubtless the modders will have something to contribute

So, Bethesda, thank you. My experiences of Skyrim so far are pretty much all positive - don't got letting me down later on, that'd make me sad...

Hope this was and interesting read.

Cheers,

Scoob.

You didn't have any difficulty in the mouse precision at all?

Hi,

Well, other than the odd slight delay, like in scrollable lists, it's generally been fine.

Right at this moment (my gamer is next to this PC) I'm testing the mouse in menus to confirm - it really does seem to be working just fine now.

I think the real tell is that, other than posting here, I'm just getting on with the game without tretting about the controls...suggests it's working well.

However, do remember that I've only played for about two hours now and a lot of that was duplicate play over my two machines.

Cheers,

Scoob.

Well, I've been playing for several hours now, no issues to mention, no crashes / freezes or whatever. I'm still pretty pleased with how things are going. The controls can take a bit of getting used to, but everything works well enough.

Currently Level 8, managed to take down two giants at level 6 through a combination of sneaking and careful positioning...they can still one-shot me if I'm not careful through.

Scoob.