I see why Skyrim Remastered is free

I no longer trust anything with the label "Remastered" (even if it's free).

Well, most of us on PC have solid computers that aren't crap. ;)

How so?

Its running on a more stable engine, at a higher resolution, with uncompressed textures, added lighting and atmospheric effects, higher density of details compared to old gen releases and new water effects.

Thats what a remaster actually is. Mostly a retoutching of whats already there with better performance, not a complete overhaul of major assets.

These enhancements are more noticeable on consoles, thats why its free on PC despite the new engine and creation kit. Still the PC crowd bitches...

Good thing this game doesnt have it then......

I think it's called The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim We Added Some Godrays Edition

.....

.....

....it was free.

You didn't pay anything for it. It was free.

....

Free.

Meh, great for consoles. Still making fun of the PC "remaster". They should have just taken the most popular "lore friendly" mods on PC and incorporated them into the game. I'm sure the artists would have given them permission had they asked, but you know, good ideas aren't Bethesda's strong suit. Hell, Obsidian did it with Fallout: New Vegas.

I'm still laughing at how incredibly awful the game looks compared to mods that have been out for 4 years. :P

The increased clarity of the far away vistas of the original PC release actually make the game seem smaller.

The thick layer of atmosphere and lighting of the new release actually do a better job of creating scale and depth

Why should they pay/make a deal to incorporate PC fan mods, when PC gamers can dowload it for free anyway?! I dont get it

Still unimpressive...

@Thunderdrone said:

They wouldn't have to pay. All they would have to do is credit their names. That's all that mod owners usually ask for.

And no, you can't download it yet. They need to make the old mods compatible with the new 64 bit.exe. As of right now, barely any mods have been converted.

The game just got out. The mod community is constantly changing shit and will no doubt have a bunch of shit ready for this engine in no time.

Bethesda spending money on converting fan mods to disc would be a waste of time. They released the best version possible of their internally made game. thats all you could ask for.

That and some people actually dont WANT any sort of mod f**kery on their base Skyrim game.

Welp, none of what you listed says that I can't make fun of this remaster for looking like shit.

The game looked like shit on its original release, and I made fun of it then, too.

2 thumbs up for lazy Bethesda devs.

So you're bitching about something that was free? Really?

Good grief, It's Free, its a "remaster" not a remake. The Engine has been updated to DX11 64bit, Stop complaining and whining about the game didn't massively improve. New mods will allow better graphics and lighting that wasn't possible in old version using DX9. Give it some time.

Ok, so here you have it folks. I took a bullet for you and reinstalled TWO versions of my least favorite TES, just for you :-P

A quick note about my procedure: 100% vanilla OG Skyrim and 100% vanilla SE Skyrim, running on a GTX970 at 1080p all settings Ultra, no tweaks. I installed my old OG version and copied the saves over to SE, loaded the saves on both versions, and took a screenshot using Afterburner. Literally didn't touch the mouse or movt keys before taking a screenshot.

Without further ado...

A few observations:

1) what's with the awful default zoom / FOV in the SE? Way more appropriate in the OG game

2) what's with a few of the missing/low quality textures in SE? Possibly problem with using the old saves?

3) for the most part they look ridiculously similar - there are a few marked differences in SE's favor when outdoors, but I wouldn't pay extra for the remaster on PC if you aren't already getting it free folks.

Compared to Enderal the Special edition does look rather laughable

And for sanity's sake, here are two comparisons with FOV manually set to 75 in both versions of the game. Note there is still a zoom difference - but the SE definitely first and foremost suffers from a crap default FOV

@xantufrog said:

And for sanity's sake, here are two comparisons with FOV manually set to 75 in both versions of the game. Note there is still a zoom difference - but the SE definitely first and foremost suffers from a crap default FOV

Yea, im going to have to change that to 85.

I thought it looked console-like when i tested it this morning.

Oh, P.S., @DragonfireXZ95 wasn't jerking your chains - here's the SE scene from my own game

@xantufrog said:

Oh, P.S., @DragonfireXZ95 wasn't jerking your chains - here's the SE scene from my own game

TXAA is terrible, makes the image so blurry.

Why no MSAA options?

It's no GTA 5 remaster though is it? They could have at least added a VR option to boot.

I really think they should have remastered the original TES or something. Many people have never played a TES game before Marrowind

It looks horrendous compared to my mods.

Is it me or did they rework the tree assets? I know you have denser ground foliage, but the trees seem to look better.

SE has volumetric lighting too right? The way the light now bounces of the thicker atmosphere looks awesome.

I've heard people complain about the softer look or saying they prefer to look at the sharp textures of super distant assets in the original game..... These people are insane :P

PC gamers would bitch about anything even free stuff.

Remasters really only make games prettier. Graphical performance wasn't my issue with Skyrim, rather it was the game's lack of substantive quests. You can polish a turd but it's still a turd. They could make this game run at 4K/60fps and I wouldn't give a damn.

They should have focused on the shit gameplay and dull combat. Graphics really weren't Skyrim's biggest weakness.

Agreed with you on this. Well, the combat can be fixed with mods, but at least make the story/quests more enjoyable.

But yeah, the vanilla combat is so terrible.

Bullshit! The remaster's supposed to make Skyrim look like Witcher 3 and for free too.

IM ENTITLED DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did people seriously think a free update to a five year old game was going to make it look like a modern release? There's optimism and then there's stupidity.

@demi0227_basic: it' the 64 bit engine thats the big bonus, with the 32 bit engine you where restricted to 4-5Gb for moddin, with the 64 bit engine the ram limit is actually 16 billion GB's, basically unlimited.

Thanks for all the screenshots and comparisons, those that posted.

It does seem like there aren't any big tweaks in the graphics...just little, tiny things. I was wanting to replay, but it looks so similar to release (and, of course, worse than mods can make it years ago) I have no interest in replaying. I played the hell out of this game too...I'm just a little disappointed it doesn't look much better at all. I was expecting it to be a lot better with how they've hyped the graphical features they put in the game.

I'm sure when mods are out it'll be nice looking again. By the time that happens, I'll probably have lost interest in another play through.

How about another entry to the series, Bethesda?

All this agreed. People getting this game for free on PC and complain...lmao

Seems like PS4 version has considerably better sound than PC or X1 due to Sony's proprietary format.

The visuals are not even the worst part.

The worst parts are:

-no Steam Workshop support, have to use crappy Bethesda one which is highly regulated and lame
-so SDK included at with release
-even MORE bugs than in the original release, AND NO BUG FIXES
-mods disable achievements, even if they're just visual ones. Lame. I mean it's a singleplayer game, who cares?
-crappy Fallout 4 antialiasing, can't use the good original one modded one.
-included visual changes are not as dramatic as advertised
-FOV set at 65 and....no way to change it?

So here is the WORST worst part. On PC the mosts might be free, we can still get it from various websites or from Bethesda I think for free. But through various fine print stuff Bethesda has some how made it that any mod someone makes on PC that goes to a console needs to go through them and they can, if they so choose, decide to charge for it! That is so bogus! These are mods! It's not DLC!!!! MODS! NOT DLC!!!! COMMUNITY! NOT CONTENT!

Anyway this is all quite upsetting to me because I was kind of stoked. I was expecting not really a whole lot, good or bad, to tell you the truth. Really just a 64-bit executable and some nice visual tricks for modders to play with. Nothing to really cost Bethesda anything, just sort of a "Here you go, guys, have some treats, we had this stuff lying around the house anyway".

Instead what we got is a situation where we are actually worse off than we were before in some respects because now our community is split; some modders might give this new version a try and abandon original Skyrim.

It's Gamespot in System Wars. Bethesda could give out free 100 dollar bills, and people would complain how they were folded.

I was hoping the 360 version would be BC, but Bethesda got greedy.

I might even stick with the original skyrim, if we can't get any enbs working for the special edition.

But before I play skyrim again, I gotta play my own remastered oblivion first.

It looks better.

The extra foliage, new lighting and the added depth of field along makes the game look better, its not better than mods but hey those mods would bring consoles to their knee's.

Sadly its a a still a shitty game with terrible combat, horrible writing and choices that don't effect the world.

It's Bethesda charging for DLC version 2.0

Also the sound quality seems to be worse in this ahum *REMASTER* than in the original game :/

Who would've thought that this super lazy remaster turned out to be super lazy after all :O

@mrbojangles25: you can still change FOV via command line, as I did for my screens above. But yeah, the default FOV is bad news bears in the SE

Even Gearbox cleaned up there act with Bordlerand 2 and The Prequel when it comes to pc, regardless of it selling substantially more on consoles.

Bethesda seemed to have gotten progressively worse, especially jarring as they, like many started out as a pc developer.

Yea, when i first booted it up i thought maybe i sat on the remote and set the TV aspect to "zoom" lol.

It was terrible, thank goodness for the PC version.

I tested the best view for me and set it permanently in the ini file.

@R4gn4r0k: ZeniMax Media, Bethesda's parent company, are the smartest-dumbest laziest bastards on the planets :P lol. They've been cashing in on the same crap for a while now, but I think people are finally on to them. First Fallout 4, now this....yeah....gigs up.

Obviously I am joking they make some great games, but what they are doing at the moment with Bethesda is questionable at best. At least TESO is free, right?

*it's an interesting company, btw; did you know that a Trump (not the Trump, mind you) is part of it? And Jerry Bruckheimer? And the great Cal Ripken, Jr?! Pretty interesting roster of people.

Yeah, by-and-large it's pretty unimpressive. Especially given the years of stellar mods made available for the game, it would have been nice for them to put in some effort into the visuals. I wonder if older mods will have to be updated to work with the Special Edition.

Not everyone gets the game for free on the PC and this thread really isn't complaining so much as pointing out that the new edition looks almost exactly the same as the old version, so if you were thinking about purchasing it, you might as well stick with what you already have. The people claiming this is some sort of sign of entitlement are especially funny. As if Bethesda is entitled to our money.

I've just started to download and install the first available graphics mods for my Skyrim SE and they are a big improvement over the current textures. The game has only been out a few days and already people are converting their texture mods from the vanilla Skyrim to the SE version.

This game is 64 bit which means the game is no longer restricted to 4GB of memory. The new graphics mods will surpass the original. Give it time.

Yeah is free (is not anymore). But the improvements are not substantial and brings quite a few cons.

Also it's looking more likely that Bethesda will implement a mod store.