I am using Realistic Lighting with Customisation, Skyrim HD 2K FULL, Realistic Water, and a manner of all other HD mods which change the landscapes ground textures, characters, ambient audio, weather system etc... it looks just as good as Crysis 2 and better than BF3/Witcher 2.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/3455973-1330632299.jpg
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/3455973-1326322016.jpg
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/3455973-1326835260.jpg
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/3455973-1330632214.jpg
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/3455973-1330632400.jpg
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/3455973-1326322348.jpg

When enough time is spent on the game to improve the rush job caused by consolisation, the games engine is capable of a heck of a lot. And the game will just get better looking when all mods are eventually upgraded to 8K textures. Most of these screenshots are using just 2K quality textures. I should really go back and retake them using the updated version of these mods, the tree mod for instance is quite old (v1.0, now v1.3) and the Skyrim HD 2K mod didn't even apply to the landscape screenshots I took... nor the city screenshots because at the time of screen capture it was an old one (v1.2 - Whiterun only)

Yeah... no. Morrowind and Oblivion were ground breaking in their visuals, I think Morrowind was one of the first games to use T&L (very impressive at it's time) and Oblivion blew everyone away. I also think on release Arena and Daggerfall were good looking games.

I think Skyrim on the PC with maxed out graphics using the official HD DLC, ini tweaks, lighting adjustments and driver tweaks... is the best looking game out currently. I don't know a game where you can see so much beautiful terrain and scenery. I know I said you have to tweak to get those visuals, but you can get them with just using the game engine, official content and no mods. Other games may offer higher resolution textures, meshes or improved shading but their design don't look as impressive to me.

I own Witcher 2 and it does not blow me away.

Was reading this thread, and now feel compelled to get a gaming rig.

My question for the more technically knowledgeable people on here is, any of the rigs they have deals on at http://www.ibuypower.com/
good for maxing out the settings on this game? I'm a svcker for photo realism in my games.

Would be planning on playing Skyrim, BF3, and probably a sim racer like GTR or something (would be buying a logitech g27 wheel )

I read on a youtube comment for one of those skyrim texture mods that someone built that rig to max it out for less than $650 not including the monitor obviously. But IBUYPOWER is offering a free 27" full HD monitor, or I use my 42" Vizio.

Are you just hijacking every thread about graphics now?

You're the only console player I've heard complaining about this.

And they literally designed the game to be as much as the 360 could possibly handle. Please don't talk about how they didn't try to "impress" you.

Skyrim looks good, but it's no Far Cry 2. Every single blade of grass in that game moved individually. And the fire looked incredible... Skyrim fire is PS2 at best.

That and the indie market, Alan Wake also proves that PC gaming is not dead.

While we're comparing games from totally different genres with completely different world sizes and designs, I'd like to compare Skyrim to Pokemon. I feel like I don't have nearly as much freedom to catch them all GOTTA CATCH THEM ALL in Skyrim as I do in Pokemon. I mean, Skryim is ok if catching them is your real test, but if training them is your cause, it doesn't hold a candle to Pokemon.

When I'm walking through a heavily wooded area in Skyrim I am always impressed. I've been gaming for many years now and I never thought I would see something like this. It's honestly amazing and i can't believe some of you are so calloused that you shrug it off. Considering the size and scope of the world of Skyrim the graphics are nothing short of incredible. We are only a few years past the blocky shapes of Half Life and now we have fully realized worlds full of moving trees and plants, animals, even insects, leaves blowing around, water flowing, mists in the air, clouds moving overhead, shadows on the ground, beautiful lighting, massive mountains, weather changes, night and day cycles, and dozens and dozens of areas to explore in every direction. I walk through Skyrim and I am amazed. I don't understand the people that blow it off like it's nothing. It's one of the most wonderful game worlds I've had the pleasure of experiencing.

It is kinda funny really. Due to the solar storms we were supposed to get some nice Northern Lights the other night. Well I live too far South to see them, but playing my game last night I left a cave at night and sky was all lit up with the aurora borealis. I just stood there watching the lights move around in the sky until they finally faded away. All I could think of afterwards as "Thank you Skyrim".

lmfao

If it was gameplay that was being compared, then your joke might have had some intelligence and irony behind it.

You compared graphics on a linear, map-to-map, FPS to graphics on an open-world RPG. I felt to compelled to compare two other things that should never be compared. But as Mark Twain once said, "Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: you understand it better, but the frog dies in the process."

My computer can only run skyrim without stutter on the lowest settings. Makes me wish they made cities bigger and the world more populated instead of focusing on good graphics.

You know that both of those things would still cause stutter, right?

Alienware, have a peek.

Build your own... more cost effective.

I know your reasons for this, and i can't disagree however the M11x is a nice peice of kit and you have the whole support service thrown in.

Build your own is only good if you know what you are doing. If you don't it can be a total disaster. Some people are better off just buying one built by someone who knows what they're doing. And please don't say it's easy just because it seems easy to you. I've seen people that can barely figure out how to operate their TV. What chance do they have at building a proper computer?

Oh, and don't get too far away either...

i think someone here should do the right thing and post the best and most cost effective parts list to run this game and others at mid to high settings. Because, well, I'm flipping lazy.

:-)

The putting together of the machine, and set up i can do, or have a friend do. But they aren't well versed in what parts are the best and least costly.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1350063-unofficial-will-my-pc-run-skyrim-thread-58-w-hardware-guide/

But I have to point out that if your friends don't know know what parts are best/cheapest, then I wouldn't be so confident in their ability to assemble the machine.

All game devs strive to get the best graphics they can and it's a lie they don't. Bethesda just didn't update their engine and even if they added deferred lighting, it would have made Skyrim look much better. Also it's simply not true that TES games have never been about graphics, that's just an excuse for people to defend their old engine tech.

i play on ps3, I don't think the graphics are amazing but I'm not really complaining about the level of detail and effects. FPS svcks ass sometimes but at this point its just what we're stuck with, Beth don't care about making it better.

I think if you are looking only for bleeding edge graphics then TES is probably not the way for you. We haven';t even mentined the piss-poor character animations yet. There are lots of 'bad' aspects to the graphics in this game.

That said, I'm playing on what was is the equivalent of a decent PC from 7 years ago, so I'm not going to complain if the visuals are not light years ahead of OB or FO3. Thats not what I play for anyway.