The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

[Merad]

Has anybody finished the quest "Unfathomable Depths" yet? It involves Avanchnzel.

Spoiler

There's a section of the Avanchnzel boilery that I can't get into. It's blocked off by metal bars, and I can't find a switch/button/lever to open it. There's an enemy inside that I can't reach either. I've looked everywhere for a button.

Spoiler

Was it under the floor? Think I remember the same thing, it looked like a bug.

I don't know much about game development but it seems like it would be rather easy just to make the hit box and the texture the same right? Why bother with 2 separate layers when you could just make them the same?

Game engines often duplicate data in separate areas so that things like threading are easier. Also for performance reasons the model used by the physics engine typically needs to be much simpler than the actual display model. So the physics engine is only looking at an approximation of what you see. And in this case I'll bet that the physics bounding box isn't aligned correctly with the display model.

 

[coldmeat]

Spoiler

Was it under the floor? Think I remember the same thing, it looked like a bug.

Spoiler

Ya that's the spot. The whole floor is a grate so you can see through. It's definitely a separate path of some sort, but I just can't get past the bars that are blocking it.

 

[Locut0s]

Game engines often duplicate data in separate areas so that things like threading are easier. Also for performance reasons the model used by the physics engine typically needs to be much simpler than the actual display model. So the physics engine is only looking at an approximation of what you see. And in this case I'll bet that the physics bounding box isn't aligned correctly with the display model.

Yeah this is what I thought.

 

[Mem]

Did not see this posted in the Skyrim thread but there is Nvidia Tweak guide for Skyrim here http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide?sf2686171=1 .

 

[homercles337]

Just a guess but I imagine that all the geometry you see has a separate bounding box around it used for hit detection that is less complex than the geometry. Probably in some places this "hit box" is out of alignment with the geometry.

We still have hit boxes? What happened to the per-poly hits in engines that i read about 5 years ago? I know Gamebryo/Creation/Whatever sucks, but come on.

Oddly i have even seen this arrow behaviour with "gaps" between environmental objects (like a wall and a pillar). Try to put an arrow through the gap...it hits the invisible wall?

 

[coldmeat]

*crickets*

 

[zokudu]

I bought and tricked out the house in Solitude last night. As much as I love my house in Whiterun Solitude is just so much nicer. Plus the house is gigantic and sweet once I bought all the stuff for it. Well worth the 30kg. Moved Ysolda and most of my stuff over. I sold a lot of my dragon items to make some extra gold but I don't plan on making dragonplate anytime soon anyway.

 

[coldmeat]

I bought and tricked out the house in Solitude last night. As much as I love my house in Whiterun Solitude is just so much nicer. Plus the house is gigantic and sweet once I bought all the stuff for it. Well worth the 30kg. Moved Ysolda and most of my stuff over. I sold a lot of my dragon items to make some extra gold but I don't plan on making dragonplate anytime soon anyway.

I have them both but I still use the Whiterun house. I find it has more character. The house in Solitude is kind of bland and boring. It's also a lot further from a fast travel point.

 

[disappoint]

I have them both but I still use the Whiterun house. I find it has more character. The house in Solitude is kind of bland and boring. It's also a lot further from a fast travel point.

If you're using fast travel don't you get there instantly no matter how far it is?

 

[coldmeat]

If you're using fast travel don't you get there instantly no matter how far it is?

No you can only fast travel to either the city gate or the castle. The house in solitude is a decent walk from either of them, while the Whiterun house is kind of close to the main gate.

 

[zokudu]

If you're using fast travel don't you get there instantly no matter how far it is?

The Whiterun home is like 4 steps inside whiterun when you Fast Travel. The Solitude home is halfway between the two points of the door to Solitude and the Blue Palace. I use the palace travel point for my Home though.

 

[coldmeat]

Spoiler

Wow the ebony mail is awesome. Too bad it's heavy armor and my character only wears light. I love the enchantment and the effects, too bad they weren't on my nightingale armor instead.

Does anybody know any mods that would let you disenchant unique armor and add your own enchantments? I like the look of the armor I have now but the enchantments that it came with are kind of useless to me.

 

[Joemonkey]

man anyone else getting more and more CTD's after patches? I NEVER got a CTD until after they added the DRM patch to force Steam to run before you could play... normally I'm mashing F5 like crazy, but today I was doing one of the stormcloak "help them rush this stronghold" quests and got down to 5% left then BAM i'm looking at my desktop background...

 

[disappoint]

man anyone else getting more and more CTD's after patches? I NEVER got a CTD until after they added the DRM patch to force Steam to run before you could play... normally I'm mashing F5 like crazy, but today I was doing one of the stormcloak "help them rush this stronghold" quests and got down to 5% left then BAM i'm looking at my desktop background...

I've been playing the steam version since release and after 71 hours of playtime have only had 1 CTD. Strange how some people have so many crashes.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

man anyone else getting more and more CTD's after patches? I NEVER got a CTD until after they added the DRM patch to force Steam to run before you could play... normally I'm mashing F5 like crazy, but today I was doing one of the stormcloak "help them rush this stronghold" quests and got down to 5% left then BAM i'm looking at my desktop background...

Are you using the 4gb mod? If not that will solve 98% of your crashes.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1013

 

[HydroSqueegee]

i havent had any CTD's yet, but ive had 2 instances where .net freaked out and locked the game. Both times it happened while talking to a merchant.

 

[austin316]

Jeez. Is the PC version REALLY the version to get? I'm reading through this thread and about 1/2 the posts are usability issues and crashes to the desktop. Thinking X360 is the way to go. (or is that a mistake?)

 

[Red Storm]

Jeez. Is the PC version REALLY the version to get? I'm reading through this thread and about 1/2 the posts are usability issues and crashes to the desktop. Thinking X360 is the way to go. (or is that a mistake?)

PC version gives you access to mods, which trump any advantage the console versions have (do they have any?).

 

[Claudius-07]

Since I put the 1.3 patch nothing but CTD. I can't even play longer than 5 minutes now. I've tried everything. Now, is there a way to go back to 1.2 or 1.1 or can I just re-install the game and not update, and I still can continue from where I left off or am I destined to start the game over?
I also installed the mods some suggested, with the higher res textures. Why is it that at times I go into a house or zone into an area after fast travel and everything is blue?

 

[s1njin]

PC version gives you access to mods, which trump any advantage the console versions have (do they have any?).

Well, they don't crash to dashboard for one ...

 

[terry107]

Since I put the 1.3 patch nothing but CTD. I can't even play longer than 5 minutes now. I've tried everything. Now, is there a way to go back to 1.2 or 1.1 or can I just re-install the game and not update, and I still can continue from where I left off or am I destined to start the game over?
I also installed the mods some suggested, with the higher res textures. Why is it that at times I go into a house or zone into an area after fast travel and everything is blue?

When you installed the high texture mods did you also install the LAA fix? If not, this could be the cause of your crashes. Also, depending on which LAA fix you installed, you may need to install it again as the Skyrim exe was updated with the patch.

 

[homercles337]

Jeez. Is the PC version REALLY the version to get? I'm reading through this thread and about 1/2 the posts are usability issues and crashes to the desktop. Thinking X360 is the way to go. (or is that a mistake?)

I have seen both the xbox and ps3 versions on good HD TVs and, quite frankly, they look like azz. Plus, the load times on both are about 10x longer than my i7 920 with 460s x2 in SLI. Also, as others have said, mods, tweaks, and the command line make a huge difference. PLus, just wait for the community to really get going once the CK is released. There is really no comparison between the console and windows versions.

 

[homercles337]

Since I put the 1.3 patch nothing but CTD. I can't even play longer than 5 minutes now. I've tried everything. Now, is there a way to go back to 1.2 or 1.1 or can I just re-install the game and not update, and I still can continue from where I left off or am I destined to start the game over?
I also installed the mods some suggested, with the higher res textures. Why is it that at times I go into a house or zone into an area after fast travel and everything is blue?

In this thread are comments by me on how to roll back an update. Im playing with 1.1. I suggesting going there, 1.2 was a disaster.

 

[s1njin]

I'm hoping the next Skyrim patch w/ their own 4GB .exe will do the trick. I'd really REALLY like to see them use more than 2 cores too.

 

[Locut0s]

I'm hoping the next Skyrim patch w/ their own 4GB .exe will do the trick. I'd really REALLY like to see them use more than 2 cores too.

Yeah don't wait up for a multithreaded patch. It would take them a huge amount of work and they don't consider it worth it with consoles still being their main target. Frankly we are lucky to even get the LAA patch and that is very very easy to implement.