The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

[Red Storm]

How would I go about getting something like a detect life ring? I miss detect life from my Oblivion assassin/thief. I haven't come across even a detect life spell in Skyrim yet.

Would I be able to enchant a ring with detect life? I have an enchantment and alteration skill of ~17.

I dunno about enchanting it, but I can tell you that it is in the game.

I can't decide if I prefer Skyrim's implementation or Oblivion's.

Edit: The problem with enchanting is that you have to first "learn" the effect, and knowing the spell doesn't count. As far as I know there aren't any items in the game that grant detect life, so I don't know if it would be possible to make one yourself. Looks like we'll have to wait for mods.

 

[thespyder]

I loved Fallouts 3 and NV but I'm not a huge fan of the whole knights and dragons stuff, mostly because MMORPGs ruined such images for me.

Would I still like this game? I'm on the fringe of buying it.

so need some more information here. what about Fallout did you enjoy? And would you enjoy the same/similar things "IF" there were dragons and wizards around?

Skyrim is very much a sandbox game. Most players here comment that they go completely off book and just wander around doing good (or evil) as they pleased and explored the world. If you like a type of game that will allow you to... Just wander freely and explore, encounter hundreds of quests and story lines, Buy a house, become really powerful, turn into a vampire, become filthy rich, explore every reach of the unknown, or any of the hundreds of other things that there are to do... only you have Dragons and knights there, they Skyrim will probably not disapoint.

But if you are expecting a post apocalypse wasteland with mutants and Modified Plasma rifles, this isn't that game. Also, Fallout 3 is "Slightly" more goal/quest oriented than Skyrim (so far as I have seen). it does try to keep you relatively on quest but is very forgiving if you wander. Skyrim, the "Main Quest" is little more than a "Suggested Path" and a reason for the world to exist rather than railroading you down it's tracks.

 

[coldmeat]

I dunno about enchanting it, but I can tell you that it is in the game.

I can't decide if I prefer Skyrim's implementation or Oblivion's.

Edit: The problem with enchanting is that you have to first "learn" the effect, and knowing the spell doesn't count. As far as I know there aren't any items in the game that grant detect life, so I don't know if it would be possible to make one yourself. Looks like we'll have to wait for mods.

Ya I read that you need to find an item already enchanted, and disenchant it. Oh well, I'll just need to use spells I guess. I'll need to find one fist though.

 

[coldmeat]

Does anybody else run into dragons at the worst times? I'm not talking about one dropping into the middle of a fight, but they always come around when I have a full inventory, and can't carry the bones or scales.

 

[Red Storm]

Does anybody else run into dragons at the worst times? I'm not talking about one dropping into the middle of a fight, but they always come around when I have a full inventory, and can't carry the bones or scales.

That's what a fortify stamina potion/item/spell is for.

(increased stamina = increased carry weight)

Or you could use telekinesis to throw items ahead of you, and rinse & repeat.

 

[Demo24]

You can also give them to your companion if you happen to have one with you at the time.

 

[sigurros81]

Does anybody else run into dragons at the worst times? I'm not talking about one dropping into the middle of a fight, but they always come around when I have a full inventory, and can't carry the bones or scales.

LoL yep. I've made an effort to constantly unload my shit at my WhiteRun house every time I get done with an area. I really wish there is a vendor that carry at least 5k gold. God bless fast travel.

 

[Red Storm]

LoL yep. I've made an effort to constantly unload my shit at my WhiteRun house every time I get done with an area. I really wish there is a vendor that carry at least 5k gold. God bless fast travel.

I have a love/hate relationship with fast travel. On one hand, I love being able to eliminate a lot of backtracking with it. On the other hand, I remember the Morrowind days where I (in real life, not in game) would open the game map and figure out where I needed to go, and then it would be a real journey to actually get there...

I've grown lazy. :awe:

 

[RavenSEAL]

How does it run in cities? For example, Whiterun always seems to drop below 30 fps for me, depending on where I'm at in the city. Tested it out on my brothers X4, and it did the same thing. Doubting that an X6 would really improve it.

What graphics card do you have?

 

[thespyder]

Does anybody else run into dragons at the worst times? I'm not talking about one dropping into the middle of a fight, but they always come around when I have a full inventory, and can't carry the bones or scales.

LOL. I think it is interesting in that "Worst" doesn't equal death. it equals inability to carry yet more loot back to town.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Out of sheer, morbid curiosity; has anyone tried playing this on an 8800GT?

I need to upgrade...

That GPU is pretty close to what they have in consoles, so I wouldn't be surprised if it ran Skyrim just fine.

How does it run in cities? For example, Whiterun always seems to drop below 30 fps for me, depending on where I'm at in the city. Tested it out on my brothers X4, and it did the same thing. Doubting that an X6 would really improve it.

I did not run FRAPS so I can't give you an accurate figure on framerates, but I didn't really notice any slowdowns inside or outside cities.

 

[dennilfloss]

OK. That was disrespectful.

I was way up a high vertical cliff, moving sideways until I could find a pass or something to get over that mountain ridge. That's something I've done so often in Oblivion and it's good for having the high ground when you pass enemies down below. So here I was, moving slowly as heck, facing the cliff, making sure I don't slip or slide down too much, when I hear a dragon roar. I swear that roar still scares the living pants out of me even though I've survived four dragon encounters so far at level 16.

So here I was, saying to myself:"please, please, please don't see me". No such luck. I soon saw a great shadow on the rock and heard the mighty flapping of wings behind me. Soon was too come sweet death from a fiery or frosty breath. I prepared myself mentally for the inevitable.

Didn't happen.

That asshole dragon just nudged/shoved me off the cliff face and I fell a few hundred feet to my death. I didn't even manage to lob one fireball towards it like Hans Gruber firing his pistols in Die Hard.

I wasn't even worth a breath.

 

[you2]

On another track sven will join me; is there a negative to letting him do so ? is there a penalty if he dies on our adventure ?

 

[Merad]

No downside. Let him tag along and see how you like it... you can always tell him to go home.

 

[waggy]

heh i had a great/sad moment.

i was high on a cliff fighting when used the shout push thing and sent them flying off the cliff. then noticed the little white triangle above its head.

 

[Locut0s]

Does anyone mind if I use this thread to post a bunch of benchmark shots and info? I'd like to see what different settings get me visually and performance wise. It will also kelp me keep a running log. Others may be interested too. Anyway to start (I'll stop if people complain) I'm going to be using this spot in whiterun to benchmark. I haven't gotten very far in the game yet so this is, so far, one of the better spots in terms of the amount of stuff on screen.

Here's the game on default high settings. I seem to be getting an average of 29-31FPS according to FRAPS at this location.

Here is the game at high setting but with AA and AF completely turned off. This boosts average FPS up to about 39-40FPS here.

AF is much more important that AA IMO.

 

[Locut0s]

Hmm it DOES seem that the trick of ALT TABing out of the game and back in does seem to improve frame rates a lot. Why?

 

[coldmeat]

^ those can't be the default draw distances. Standing in that exact spot (is you fov at 65? That's what I had to set mine at to get the same view. I usually have mine set to 80, I find it a lot better) I don't see the little dragon on the roof peak on the right unless I take a couple steps further towards it, and I increased all of my draw distances a little bit.

I get a fps of ~24 there btw, that's the lowest I've seen it. Q6600, GTX460 1gb, high settings with a few things turned up.

 

[Locut0s]

Okay so a little quick bench marking shows that it's Skyrim's AA that is causing the problem. With Skyrim's AA on I get IMPROVED performace after ALT-TABing out of and back into the game. But with Skyrim's AA off I get WORSE performance after ALT-TABing out and back in.

 

[Locut0s]

^ those can't be the default draw distances. Standing in that exact spot (is you fov at 65? That's what I had to set mine at to get the same view. I usually have mine set to 80, I find it a lot better) I don't see the little dragon on the roof peak on the right unless I take a couple steps further towards it, and I increased all of my draw distances a little bit.

I get a fps of ~24 there btw, that's the lowest I've seen it. Q6600, GTX460 1gb, high settings with a few things turned up.

I haven't changed anything. These are whatever the game is giving me for default High settings.

 

[OCNewbie]

I started over, still going with 1h + shield with a mix of archery, smithing, and sneaking thrown in. Maybe just a wee bit of a magic. I went with a Breton this time (for 25% magic resist) over my old Argonian.

I decided to put the difficulty all the way to master, and boy is it challenging now. I am only lvl 11 though, and most of the levels have been had via having an enemy raise my block skill over and over, and by raising non-combat skills. I've only done a few quests. It has been fun having fights actually be challenging, and I feel at this difficulty level I will be able to better see my rise in power/strength based on how I fare against the various enemies in the game. At this point, 3 bandits trying to kill me requires me to really be on my toes, and retreat and heal here and there. Kinda fun though, and makes sense that I might be a little weak at first.

 

[NoSoup4You]

Ran into a Blood Dragon finally, it ate me.

And I accidentally disenchanted my helm w/a restoration enchantment... argh! And of course my most recent save still with the helm is ages ago... noooooooo.

 

[Locut0s]

LOL forcing 8xAA and 8xAF in AMDs CCC and turning Skyrim's implementation of AA and AF off gives me 0-1FPS!! WTF? Is their implementation THAT well optimized!?

 

[Locut0s]

So here is the affect of turning FXAA on.

Here's FXAA ON with regular AA turned OFF. As you can see it's still better than having no AA.

And here's FXAA ON and also regular AA at 8x:

As you can see FXAA smooths things out and blurs out some of the really fine details. However in doing so it also eliminates some of the worst of the really fine AA jaggies. The performance hit for FXAA seems to be in the 5fps range or so. I'm going to have to retest all the FPS measurements.

 

[Locut0s]

An example of the HUGE impact that ALT TABing in and out of the game can have. Note my system specs not all may be affected by this.

To exagerate the problem I have the game running on Ultra settings. Before Alt-Tabing out I get this, That's right 1FPS:

And here's AFTER ALT-TABing back into the game. 30FPS! It's now just about playable.:

From what I can tell it's still set at Ultra settings after coming back into the game. The shadow detail is still all there etc.

This improvement is only seen when you have AA turned ON.

UPDATE: I updated this example from the one I posted before.