You can never match Crytek's visuals with the crapcake that is Creation Engine, aka Gamebryo 2.0. Well, maybe you can, but you'll need a supercomputer to play it afterwards. Gamebryo is one of the worst-written engines in the history of gaming.

You really think that vanilla Oblivion and vanilla Skyrim look the same? Considering that it was built for the exact same hardware, the fact that it looks better at all should be impressive.


Creature comparison:
http://www.rpgfan.com/pics/elderscrolls4/ss-014.jpg
http://images.wikia.com/elderscrolls/images/1/18/Combat_TrollFireSword.jpg

Forest comparison:
http://images.wikia.com/elderscrolls/images/d/d5/Obliv01B.jpg
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2011/02/Skryim-Trailer-anolysis-4-Forest-Statue-Head.jpg

wow. Some of you guys really over react at some really minor stuff. If that's your game breaker, that's fine. I can accept that. But the game was not "ugly" in vanilla (in most peoples' opinions). I agree it needs a lot of improvement, but it's aesthetics to me. Cosmetic fluff. Completely unecessary, but ultimately helpful to a better game experience. Maybe I'm old school, but I think they spent far too long woking on how the game looks and not enough on adding distinct content. There's a ton there, but too much shoehorning.

This. As long as the graphics aren't horrid (like if Skyrim still looked EXACTLY like Oblivion, I would be pissed), I will take gameplay over fantastic graphics any day.

You know, when I played through Skyrim I didn't even notice how "vomit" inducing the textures were. It always baffles me, it's like people must have hyper senstive eyes or something.

Yup I agree here. The graphics aren't amazing. There are games that have FAR better graphics in all ways possible. BUT, considering the extent and really fun and nice gameplay that this game has, it's visuals are more than acceptable.

We can't get everything. Things have to be prioritized. Bethesda choose gameplay. I think it's the right choice.

And this just about made me shed a tear.

No, I don't think they look the same. I do, however, think Skyrim should look a lot better. It should look it does with ENB enabled right out of the box. If individuals or small teams can make Skyrim look 5x better in less than 2 months after release, what's there to say about the "professionals" working for Bethesda?

You forgot "without the advantage of development tools that the company usually releases"

That's not 5x better. That's maybe 5% better. A different color palette isn't better, it's different...

There were plenty of preview videos of the game available online, if you didn't like the graphics, why'd you buy it? lol

Honestly, it does look 5x better, and the FPS improvements when using things like TESVAL and SkyBoost are insane, sometimes up to 30-40% from vanilla Skyrim. I bought the game because I know the people in this community will make Skyrim a far better game.. but they shouldn't have to. It should already look and feel a lot better than it does.

That's a strawman.

First of all, the game doesn't have to render thousands of individual items at any given time; same with the NPCs. So the fiedlity per item has no excuse to be low on Ultra settings.

Secondly, however much content the game has means nothing when most of that content draws from the same pool of art assets to render it. The art is done completely separate from the creation/design of the interiors/exteriors. Saying "But it has tons of interiors!" doesn't really mean much in regards to the fidelity of the graphics. Artists almost always create their assets at high resolutions and scale them down for size or engine limitations. The difference would be whether or not those high res assets would be shipped, too.

So, really, none of what you posted precludes the game from having a higher IQ by necessity.

^I'm still waiting for more than just the landscape from OB to be ported to Cryengine. Why is that do you suppose?

That they are awesome beyond compare for giving the CE more horsepower than it needs for a multi-platform release and no words could possibly express my graditude towards them for giving us permission, and more importantly the modularity and file structure necessary to mod the hell out of their game.

So many ingrates in this community taking it for granted and bashing the company that made it all possible.

Some outlandish claims in this thread.

Morrowind modded is great for screenshots. Still plays like a decade old game that is an exercise in patience to even navigate. You see those somewhat neat looking landscapes then watch the worst animations when a creature or your character attacks. And the plot of going from one NPC whose job it is to walk from point a to point b constantly in their little hovel ... to yet another NPC who does the same thing repeatedly.

All the lack of game AI, combat mechanisms, sounds (even modded) ... and the glitzy textures lose their gloss and you see quickly that the packaging on it doesn't match the product inside.

I'm with those who assert that gameplay over graphics is what matters.

Because recreating a game inside another engine is a metric crapton of work? Porting art assets isn't as difficult as recreating everything else (AI, quests, etc.) That doesn't mean CryEngine can't support it, but that expecting modders to, in essence, recreate the entire game is expecting a bit much. How long did it take people just to get Morrowind's landmass done inside Oblivion? Exactly.

Criticism != lack of gratitude or "bashing" Bethesda. Please refrain from incorrectly framing it as such.

You mean the CK? That has little to do with what the game looks like... Editing textures, models, or sound files have nothing to do with that.

Guys most of what makes it look better are new textures, and those are crappy because consoles are limited... Don't get mad because you can make something for PC, that they had to reduce for console.

Even though I am a fervent supporter of extreme graphics, and pushing these limits, I 100% agree that gameplay matters more than just graphics. But for a game that's been in development so long, and all they had as an engine was this stupid GameBryo engine, I'm a bit disappointed with the visuals. I mean, they might as well have used Cryengine or UDK for that matter, seeing how it's not even their engine anyways.

Cryengine is great for rendering pretty scenery, I'll give it that, and it beats the crap out of the ancient technology beth is STILL using since friggin' morrowind..... it doesn't have the capabilities to run all the assorted parts of oblivion or skyrim though. Granted, my guess would be that it could be added in....

It would be nice if Beth would update their crappy rendering engine. Simply NOT rendering EVERYTHING in line of sight, whether you can see it or not..... would be a vast improvement.

I agree. Those distant mountains that are barely rendered are getting on my nerves.

That's why Battlefield 3's textures look so bad on PC, right?

See, while I understand that companies have to target the lowest common denominator the game will be running on, that really doesn't explain why the high quality art assets they use to create the compressed, smaller assets for consoles are not included on PC. There are several PC games that also ran on consoles that didn't have to sacrifice the bells and whistles just for the sake of running on older hardware. So to be frank, I don't see that as much of an excuse.

It would at least be nice if Bethesda was transparent about the reasons they chose to include more compressed, smaller textures. I'm sure they have valid concerns to do so, but at least say them.

There's a really easy way to fix this, and it would be to make the game as graphically impressive as possible, with all the most modern features, but with options to decrease the settings so that it would be playable on older PCs. That, combined with better optimization and resource usage would be a much better idea. That's why Crysis, while extremely graphically impressive, is still very much playable on older computers, albeit with lower settings.

It's 9 years old. The very fact that it looks good at all is a testament to the skill and talent of this community, but they're still not professionals being paid to create an amazing game. Why, even after all these years, the people at Bethesda still cannot release an optimized PC version is beyond me. The fact that they release their CK does not absolve them of the flaws in their games. They've been creating games like this for years, and they can see how much room there is for improvement by taking a glance at even a few of the mods being released.

Saying that the new engine is not an improvement at all over the previous one and that Bethesda are poor developers with their heads up their backside is not criticism. It's bashing, plain and simple.

Skyrim is rife with mod ideas from the previous games. Think about it - if you know Oblivion mods at all there are a lot in skyrim. But they are mostly gameplay mods.

People complain about textures and they have a right too - not to mention that the textures are hidden behind heavy tinting.

But ... to bring up morrowind and say that modded morrowind looks as good (it doesn't) or that it looks better the Chrysis - is just false. And that falsity is seen very very clearly when you do more with morrowind than take a scenic screenshot. You never seen you tube videos of epic fights or game engine feats with morrowind. There is a reason for it. Modded Morrowind is like a fabrege egg - pretty to look at, but don't play with it or it might break.

Everytime one of on the other side points out that it is thus - someone seems to always take this as bagging on modders. Not at all my intention ... because vanilla morrowind is much much worse. So to me it goes without saying that modders of morrowind did a great job.

It is unfortunate that XBox technology rules the market ... I wish it were not so, but it is. So in a years time Skyrim will look better - much better. Still there are limitations - it is not an fps.

If that's directed at me, then I'd be fascinated at how you got that out of anything I've said.