See The Differences Between Skyrim’s PC Graphics Settings

38 responses to “See The Differences Between Skyrim’s PC Graphics Settings”

1. 

   Alister

   November 11, 2011 at 10:55 am

   Is it just me or is there seemingly no big difference between the settings here? :s

   Reply
   1. 

      Bird Evil

      November 11, 2011 at 10:59 am

      yeah I cant tell the difference either :S

      Reply
   2. 

      sam

      November 11, 2011 at 11:07 am

      if you look at it full screen there is a difference between low and ultra. the jagged edges, textures etc. It would be more noticeable in motion too.

      Having said that it looks pretty nice

      Reply
   3. 

      InformedGamer

      November 11, 2011 at 11:31 am

      Open the Low and Ultra, like the full sized image.

      Now switch between the two and notice the texture detail and more importantly all the shadow details. Shadows are what stress most graphics cards.

      Reply
   4. 

      Andy

      November 11, 2011 at 1:23 pm

      two easy places to notice the difference is the light reflecting off the water and also the posts hold up the bridge in the water. on low they have no ropes but Ultra they do.

      Reply
   5. 

      Bangers

      November 11, 2011 at 3:43 pm

      Yeah viewing them full size, there is quite a difference, particularly in texture quality, AA, and depth of field effects.

      Reply
2. 

   LegendaryLvl1

   November 11, 2011 at 11:01 am

   there is … No difference? Ok….

   Reply
3. 

   [Razor]

   November 11, 2011 at 11:02 am

   On the lowest settings, they found the areas so graphically unidentifiable that they had to put the name of the area in the upper corner. That’s good thinking.

   Reply
4. 

   Chuloopa

   November 11, 2011 at 11:03 am

   … i honestly can’t see a difference… :s

   Reply
   1. 

      Chuloopa

      November 11, 2011 at 11:04 am

      OHHH I SEE IT NOW!!1

      OPEN THE LOW RES AND THE ULTRA RES ONE IN SEPERATE WINDOWS!!

      THEN FLICK BETWEEN THE TWO!!!

      IT’S ACTUALLY QUITE A LOT SMOOTHER AND MORE DETAILED IN ULTRA, OBVIOUSLY!!

      DUHH!!!

      CAPS!!!!

      Reply
5. 

   Fenix

   November 11, 2011 at 11:04 am

   Troll?

   Reply
6. 

   mike

   November 11, 2011 at 11:14 am

   Maybe a slight increase in detail quality on the trees?
   I don’t know, Cant really see much difference either

   Reply
7. 

   DougA

   November 11, 2011 at 11:16 am

   The water is different. Easy. I will just stay away from water 😀

   Reply
   1. 

      DougA

      November 11, 2011 at 11:22 am

      Most likely I am just seeing the water not in exactly the same state. So I am also a NO DIFFERENCE! poster.

      Reply
   2. 

      Pioneer

      November 11, 2011 at 12:58 pm

      You make Skyrim sad by not witnessing it in Ultra glory. You don’t want to make Skyrim sad, do you?

      Reply
8. 

   Stevorooni

   November 11, 2011 at 11:19 am

   deleted

   Reply
   1. 

      Nic

      November 11, 2011 at 11:54 am

      See, on pc you get to “play” with the settings. You get a whole extra game in your game! Bam! Value!

      Reply
      1. 

         Jay

         November 12, 2011 at 1:10 am

         lol u mad bro?

         Reply
9. 

   Scott

   November 11, 2011 at 11:24 am

   From messing about under the hood, I’ve noticed the higher settings look best while in motion. But yeah, could have picked a better spot to show off.

   Reply
10. 

    Ezkaton

    November 11, 2011 at 11:24 am

    For the people that claim they’re seeing no difference.

    Stop being lazy and open each picture in different tabs and click each one in sequence, you will most definitely notice a difference in each shot.

    THINK MCFLY, THINK!

    Reply
11. 

    Erebus

    November 11, 2011 at 11:27 am

    Look at the tree’s trunk and leaves, and the ground around the tree specifically between Low and Ultra. The textures are just better on Ultra. Also how objects look in the distance are different.

    Reply
12. 

    Scott

    November 11, 2011 at 11:27 am

    Oh, and to disable VSync in Skyrim, add iPresentInterval=0 to the bottom of the [Display] section of the Skyrim.ini file in the \Users\[Username]\My Documents\My Games\Skyrim directory.
    Thank god for TweakGuides!

    Reply
13. 

    El Phantasmogoro

    November 11, 2011 at 11:28 am

    The difference between low and ultra are like night and day. Look at the texturing, shadows and jagginess on the wheelhouse, the rocks and path in the background to the right of the house, the complete lack of stuff on the right hanbd side of the screen, the mountains in the background, the thatch on the house, the clothing on the protagonist…

    I’m usually no graphics whore, but holy shit does the low shot look positively atrocious by comparison.

    Reply
14. 

    NegativeZero

    November 11, 2011 at 11:49 am

    Does it have DX11 stuff as well? This still looks DX9…

    Reply
    1. 

       Warren Carroll

       November 11, 2011 at 12:52 pm

       Nah, theres no DX11, its DX9 only 🙁

       Reply
15. 

    SunSkorpion

    November 11, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    Maybe a slight difference around the logs and the mist by the mill. other than that, there’s not much to talk about.

    Reply
16. 

    daf22

    November 11, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    I actually think high looks better than ultra. If you compare the 2, ultra seems to blur the textures slightly. High looks sharper.

    No doubt there will be a setting to turn it off, whatever it is. Unless this is like a lot of ports lately & get limited options for video settings.

    Reply
    1. 

       Pioneer

       November 11, 2011 at 1:00 pm

       Could either be anisotropic filtering turned down or the pictures could be mixed by human error but I agree, high does look a little crisper.

       Reply
    2. 

       thxultra

       November 11, 2011 at 1:26 pm

       Its a scaler engine. No ports (except for tweaks on specific platforms).

       Reply
17. 

    Korwin

    November 11, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    Looks like low disables ambient occlusion and soft shadowing, also drops the texture resolution by a fair margin. Also looks like the Distance LOD is significantly reduced.

    I’d be interested in seeing the PC versions Low and Mediume settings vs the Console.

    Reply
18. 

    Awnshegh

    November 11, 2011 at 12:39 pm

    Bridge pylon textures, The water wheel goes from straight brown to grey and textured. These changes can be clearly seen even on the ‘thumbnail’ images.

    Reply
    1. 

       Awnshegh

       November 11, 2011 at 12:41 pm

       Regardless of differences in quality it does look tasty and can’t wait to take it off my shelf and finally play it. For now it will remain in my pile of shame.

       Reply
19. 

    ToastyFresh

    November 11, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    Big difference is shadows. Looks ten times better on ultra, although I’ll be looking for some SSAO and higher res textures.

    Reply
20. 

    Dave

    November 11, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    Wow, if you’re not seeing any difference between them, time to get your eyes checked.

    Reply
21. 

    thxultra

    November 11, 2011 at 1:35 pm

    I got to say, was a little dissapointed in the 360 versions texture detail, other than that though it looks great! I reckon that Assasins Creed games really have the most detailed textures on the current-gen systems. The latest games are looking great, though the age of the tech is starting to stand out like dogs balls! Im hopeing Bethesda will develop a version for Xbox720/PS4 and let us import our save files – that’d be great!

    Reply
22. 

    Mudze

    November 11, 2011 at 11:06 pm

    Your problem here is that it’s on a 360. No matter what setting it’s on, it looks subpar.

    Reply
23. 

    AerintheADEQUATE

    November 12, 2011 at 3:42 am

    Look at the side of the building as you flick between the tabs you opened of each image. The texture/shadow changes pretty obviously.

    Reply
24. 

    veradin

    November 13, 2011 at 10:16 am

    The pc textures still look pretty shoddy and dated close-up even on max detail. The character faces and clothing in particular seem to have suffered from upscaled textures that look spotty and under-detailed. The character models themselves look about 5 years old on the design spectrum and really don’t compete in any way with games like The Witcher 2.

    Reply