I just killed the first dragon and noticed some weird video effects and decided to ASK here instead of trying random things in the
video settings: first noticed a red polygon shape surrounding a white headstone shape coming out of a fireplace (not the fire itself,
just a weird maybe shadow) in the Whiterun armorers shop. Next was several of the same things at the West Watch Tower while
fighting the dragon, and afterwards too. Possibly the biggest clue was that the dragon itself was a white headstone shape rather
than an animation of some kind.

I just bought the system earlier today and the game runs fine otherwise: Intel core i5 and Radeon HD6450. Install assigned my
video to High quality and all other settings are default from then. I suspect I need to lower the setting or tweak something - but
no idea where to start. Suggestions, please?

I'd include screenshots if I could figure out how to upload the two I have

Since you say that this is a new system, make sure that you have up to date video card drivers and DirectX.

Huh, well that got me new drivers but didnd't solve the problem. I did find out that the headstone shape is in fact a white
exclamation "!" with the point underground (using TCL in the console to try and locate the dragon corpse that never appeared).

oh yeah, it's a Win7 64bit system. Some help please?

edit: BINGO! Another thread I was reading suggested installing from disk using "C:\Program Files (86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -install E:"
and I tested and found that only prompted Steam to verify my files, which then found one corrupted file. It queued up the bad file for
download and I can now see (and loot) the previously missing dragon carcass.