This Is The Closest We’ll Ever Get To Next Gen Skyrim, Modders Show Off Their Amazing Skills

DSOGaming writes: "Last week, we shared a Skyrim mod that brought a lot of post-processing effects to the table. By using that mod, gamers can experience Skyrim like never before. Still, that didn't put off Skyrim modders who shared new screenshots from their custom configs and mods, showcasing visuals that will leave you speechless."

[LimeyGeeza]

Hard to believe that's Skyrim - crazy good

[GuyThatPlaysGames]

But don't forget what a crapfest Skyrim is once you get past the graphics.

[UltimateMaster]

I don't know why it should be the fans' job to improve the graphics and not the studio itself.

[Kingnichendrix]

The studio has done the work, pc gamers and modders are just perfecting and tweaking it

[SilentNegotiator]

Gee, you know, some people LIKE Skyrim.

[webeblazing]

lol the haters

[neogeo]

Your face is a crapfest you troll. Skyrim is one of the best games ever made. Pretty clear you either never played it or you only tried it on consoles back when it had ton's of bugs and I will admit it did have lots at first but a billion updated and bug fixes later along with the unofficial skyrim patch and thousands of mods. May put this game as the best ever mad in history.

[DragonKnight]

First, the title of this article has literally been used so many times.

Second, why is this top news?

Third, I agree with UltimateMaster. The mods done for Skyrim are far and above everything that Bethesda has put into the game themselves, and these are people doing the job for free. Makes you really wonder what actually goes into dev costs when people are outperforming Bethesda with less equipment, less man power, and for nothing.

[Mr Pumblechook]

I platinumed Skyrim but it's not a great game, it's a good game. What I like about it is that it is so easy to pick up and play and go anywhere. What is not good is that the main quest is too easy and can be completed early. Also there is not more of a cohesive story between quests and that there are no standout characters so you feel no emotional attachment to anything. Whatever you do has no influence on the world apart from that mission when you whether you are with or against the Stormcloaks. I enjoyed Oblivion more.

[H0RSE]

@OVOXO_Mike

They have mods for that as well.. everything from unofficial patches, to increased AI intelligence for followers and enemies, to more difficult combat, to completely overhauled game mechanics, like more in depth crafting systems, added quests and NPC's, more in-depth skill trees as well as completely new ones, etc. You can mod Skyrim so heavily, that is essentially plays and feels like a completely new ES game.

The ES games have always been about heavy mod support from the community, hell, all of Bethesda's open-world games have been. In this regard, if you are not playing the PC version of games like ES or Fallout, you are really gimping the potential of what you can experience, and all of it comes at no extra charge.

[insomnium2]

Is Skyrim worth getting on PS3? Have they fixed the bugs?

[showtimefolks]

i would love to play Skyrim on ps4 or xbox one.

[3-4-5]

That looks better than Ne...this gen.

[AuToFiRE]

As a modder, its not really hard to believe.

[Dynasty2021]

A simple reminded as to why PC will always be best.

[Agent2009]

inb4 console fanboys will tear you down.

[The_KELRaTH]

You see all those lovely Supercars but in the background there's crowds of PS4/Xbone owners defiantly shouting SKODA SKODA SKODA SKODA lol

[GentlemenRUs]

I could not care less.

My PC is for hardcore gaming, My PS4 is for relaxing gameplay in the living room.

It's how it has always been.

[Am_Ryder]

You've got it damn straight there, son. I use consoles to enjoy games of any kind. I use PC to get more edgy, hardcore experiences when I'm in the mood for it.

Console has those too, but it also has the swathes of just plain fun titles which are easier and quicker to access.

[elhebbo16]

@alex easier and quicker to access? any rig with an ssd is a thousand times faster than a console.

[Neixus]

Yup, i don't get why it only have to be one side.
I have my PC to play Gmod,bf4, DayZ and WoW
And my ps4 and ps3 to play sony exclusives, can't really miss on them, almost every sony exclusive have been critically aclaimed. Except those ps4 games,tho.

[GentlemenRUs]

So many pc-elitestsnobs in here... Bloomin heck just grow up...

[iiorestesii]

These photos have all been air brushed and doctored. Not that mods aren't at work. But mostly, the enhancements are made to the images themselves. Just like 17 magazine. That's why there will never be a video for most of these.

[NeXXXuS]

I'll always prefer console since that's what I've been playing with since about 4 years old (started out with SNES). I use PC to play LoL with friends and that's about it. I never really took to PC gaming even though I've tried it many times.

[awi5951]

@iiorestesii

Stop being a hater the mods make the game look that good i have a pc that can easily run them. When i was playing skyrim i had over 250 mods running at the same time and the graphics mods make the game look this good easy and i could still run at 60 fps.

[Studio-YaMi]

To a "fraction" of PC gamers,I'm sure it is.

[BallsEye]

After finishing it on 360, tried it on PC with all the graphics mods. ENB series etc if I rememeber well. I gotta say it did look pretty (some overdone instagram effects tho!) but I somehow preffered the vanilla version. Graphics does not make a good game.

[Tsar4ever01]

You like the ENB Vanilla mod for SKYRIM? I can't choose between ENB SharpShooters(orig) for it's deep color and shadow dept or Project ENB(realistic)+COT for it's gorgeous LEN flare effects.

Still, it would've be nice to see a straight PC port of "SKYRIM Legendary Edition" with all the add-ons and *Unofficial Skyrim Patch, to the PS4/XB1, and the ENB modders could create a scaled down version of the various ENB texture mods and charge a fee on PSN/XBLive and let gamers choose their ENB mod(*Sharpshooters & Project+COT for me)for their SKYRIM game. The reason I mention *scaled down version of ENB is because the I know the nextgen consoles GPU's aren't strong enough to handle the ENB mods as they are NOW for the pc.

I'd gladly pay another $60 for a direct PC port of Skyrim L.E with a scaled ENB mod support for the nextgen consoles.

[frostypants]

Can your PC run these mods smoothly? I'm confident in saying no.

[duplissi]

Mine certainly can.

FX 8350 and HD 7950.

[NeXXXuS]

"Can your money run these mods?"
lol terrible joke.

[Maxor]

Easy as pie. Skyrim was designed to run on the 360 so even with these mods 1080p 30-60 fps is automatic. The only thing that would dramatically effect Skyrim is 2560x1440p with extreme texture mods or mods that feature huge battles with 50+ npcs.

[akiraburn]

The thing is, a lot of the graphic mods can be run smoothly and easily on any mid-range card. But what these screens are showing off has more to do with an ENB being active, and certain Skyrim.ini/skyrimpref.ini file attributes being changed. And the thing about this that many people will neglect to mention, is that in order to use a lot of those really nice effects which make the screens so pretty, you basically end up running the game at unplayable framerates, even with something like a GTX 780 coupled with an overclocked Core i7 3770K.

If you get familiarized with the custom ENB menu, a lot of those post-processing effects (things like Complex Indirect Lighting, SSAO, Skylighting, etc) are so intensive you can't really play the game with them active, or at least not with them at maxed settings. You basically just activate them to take screens like this, then tune them down significantly so you can play at a decent framerate.

So while it is relatively easy for any mid-range card (like a GTX 650 for example) to run the majority of the texture packs, SMIM (Static Mesh Improvement Mod), and a lot of the like, it most likely won't be enough to handle an ENB, and definitely not with any of the post processing functions. And the more you turn up certain functions in the Skyrim.ini file or the Skyrimprefs.ini file (like the different Shadow sample sizes or perhaps the most intensive being the uGrids settings), the lower your overall performance will be, but the prettier your game becomes.

And so basically what you're seeing here, and on most of these kinds of articles, are screenshots with these effects all turned on and pushed as high as they can go while still being able to load their game, but then they turn them down/off afterwards to actually play. I've spent a long time finding happy mediums for mine, and while I have it looking very nice at a solid 55-65 fps, I don't use the majority of the heavy post-processing functions within the ENB. I've spent more time than I care to admit working on getting this balance and trying to troubleshoot all the CTDs, some of which I found were a direct cause of Bethesda not cleaning their DLCs (a function performed in TES5Edit to fix these things called "dirty edits"), some of them are due to mod authors not cleaning their mods before posting them.

[H0RSE]

Even with ENB and enhanced lighting mods, as well as COT and 2K HD texture packs, I can run Skyrim at 1920x1200 on max settings, and never dip under 30fps, usually maintaining around 60 or more.

[tee_bag242]

Mine can. Here's my video.

http://youtu.be/2WNBhUv-05A

Not only am I playing at 1080p 60fps with a butt ton of mods, I'm also recording at 1080p 60fps. And guess what? I'm playing on my TV with a wireless 360 pad..how about that!
So to answer your question. Yes my PC and many others can run these mods.
Sorry to disappoint you.

[OsirisBlack]

As beautiful as this is there are very few people who could play the game with those settings without a horrid framerate.

[awi5951]

Yes you can easy even low end cards like the 7850 can run it fine with a good cpu to push it. Because skyrim is a bad game and uses the cpu too much.

[FarEastOrient]

These people need to be hired.

[Timesplitter14]

no, I don't want the next Elder Scroll game to look like Anime Girlfriend Simulator 2015

[Bimkoblerutso]

I couldn't agree with you more, Timesplitter...

Still, the actual environmental mods look pretty impressive.

[KillrateOmega]

Yeah. I feel the same.

I liked most of the work they did, but sometimes they just go too far with the females. Too often they just turn them into over-the-top, sexy, elf, angel, bondage, and/or anime chicks.

[Sarcasm]

"I liked most of the work they did, but sometimes they just go too far with the females. Too often they just turn them into over-the-top, sexy, elf, angel, bondage, and/or anime chicks. "

Soooo... What's the issue?

lol nah I get what you're saying.

[awi5951]

To be honest i like the sexy female mods because bethesda has proven they cant make female characters. All the women in all the elder scrolls games look like men with large chins and butt ugly.

[Bimkoblerutso]

^I agree that the vanilla female character models look weird and disproportionate, but come on. These models don't fit in the world of Elder Scrolls.

No one is saying that they shouldn't exist...as mods. But when I think of a next generation Skyrim, I don't think of creepy-doll-faced anime hookers.

[CrossingEden]

Why is it that the majority of graphics mods always comes with nearly nude woman? They might as well call it a different game with some of those lame designs.

[Summons75]

Because these almighty modders are really just lonely introverts who aren't happy with what others worked hard on and want to complete their own fantasies. These only look good because they live in their parents basement unemployed with no social life.

[KillrateOmega]

The female designs are often my only complaint with these types of things. Everything else is beautiful, but the female designs are just so over-the-top that it ruins what would otherwise be a perfect set.

[Tibbers]

People use this stuff to get views on videos/articles. There are plenty of realistic and fitting mods out there.

[Psychotica]

I bet the game runs really fast, maybe 4 FPS?

[The_KELRaTH]

It's not for PS4 or Xbones

[Psychotica]

Yeah no kidding..

[elhebbo16]

@psy that was the joke..

[Studio-YaMi]

Now tell me exactly how many PC gamers can run these mods,I'm waiting ..

:)

[LordSane]

Ouch

[starchild]

@Studio-YaMi

A hell of a lot more pc gamers than console gamers, that's for sure. lol

[Are_The_MaDNess]

even a GTX 580 can run this.... its not that demanding.....

[duplissi]

Yup, a 4 year old GPU.

[Psychotica]

Really? Ok, maybe I am wrong then. I have a GTX 670 FTW so I guess it could run it fine. It just looks like it would be pretty demanding..

[kingduqc]

this is what console gamer think.

right now video cards are 3-4 faster then ps4 and yuo can have 2-3 of them.

[CyrusLemont]

Looks great, the modders in the community have done such an amazing job to squeeze as much as possible out of Skyrim. You really reap the benefits being a PC gamer in this case. However, in doing so it's shown the limitations of the game's possibilities. I hope Bethesda thinks a bit more ambitiously for the next title, imagine the following:

- Huge particle and physics system, all environments are destructible and dynamic e.g. Trees can get set on fire, spread across forests. Towns/cities can be destroyed. Rain dynamically wets objects, waves at the shores, ocean tides, an event above ground could cause a cave you're exploring to start collapsing etc.

- Seamless world, no loading screens to enter cities/towns/houses/caves etc.

- Freaking ships and boats! Something similar to AC4 but WAY more in depth, with tonnes of different ships to choose from, upgrade, crews to hire etc. A water world type area with large towns/cities floating out at sea would be out of this world.

- Time based world, forest gets burnt to the ground. Regrows over a few months in game. Cities and towns can be built, new mines dug, they can also get destroyed and rebuilt.

- Magic crafting again please! But imagine being able to use magic abilities that use the environment e.g. You're in a cave and cause rocks to fall enemies, or grow around your fist and punch them with it, make trees start collapsing or vines come out of walls and hold enemies etc. that kind of cool stuff.

- Random environment disasters, imagine being in a city when an earthquake hits, or out travelling along a valley when a tornado strikes. All that stuff would be amazing.

- I'd love some light steam punk elements, like the first zeppelins, and some preliminary flight abilities. Guns etc. all done in a way, that blends medieval and that more advanced tech together in a way that's plausible.

Okay, so there's probably heaps more ideas to think of. Mine are pretty crass in writing, but you catch my gist. Now, imagine all of what I've said in the game, THEN ADD MODDERS.

OMG.

[Are_The_MaDNess]

the particle system and havoc system is already in place.... alot of mods use it.
open cities mod makes the cities open without loading already.....
magic crafting is also a mod now.
and noone want fing Steampunk in their TES games...

[CyrusLemont]

Yes I have a few mods that give better particles, but what I'm talking about is physics particles cranked up, like the UE4 demo. What I mean by physics, is total destructible environments. I didn't mean the ragdoll physics on all the items and people. Wouldn't it be cool if water reacted dynamically to your interaction with it?

I have the open cities mod but it's very raw, it'd take a lot of mods to make it an actual seamless experience, and not just two separate areas patched together. Besides, a world built from the ground up with all of that in mind on a new engine is definitely more likely to be a memorable and fluid experience.

I know magic crafting is a mod, but no ones going to go and animate different types of powers like vines running through the ground from where you stand to the enemy then pull them down or something.

Okay, well the steampunk was just a little fantasy of mine haha. I just think it would be rad to have one city in the sky made by eccentric wizards or something lol.

Look I know there's mods that can emulate those ideas to a degree, but they aren't making it synergetic and connected. Obviously they're mostly 1-3 man armies. Having the entire Bethesda team pull of a core foundation with an amazing world from the get go next time opens up even more possibilities with what could be done by modders.

[DragonKnight]

The stuff you're talking about in as massive a world as the TES games are made in is not possible, nor profitable. If anyone had a computer capable of playing that, there wouldn't be enough of them for Bethesda to make a profit off of.

[Pintheshadows]

Sexy elf girls.

[Kennytaur]

Skyrims weakest part has never been the visuals, this is like one of those fake Chinese supercars that look like a Ferrari but has some Nissan familycar underneath.

[elhebbo16]

If you're to gameplay then there some realy awesome mods that enhances it a lot. Frostfall, SkyRe, Requim, etc... imo makes the game more enjoyable and fun.

[Pelmete]

The combat in skyrim is terrible to be honest. There's no mod to fix that. Some mods will improve it but still the combat feels like crap. I'm hoping next elder scrolls will have combat like dark souls...

[Are_The_MaDNess]

the combat is fair. and there is alot of mods that make it alot better..... dont talk about shit you dont know about.

[DragonKnight]

@Are_The_MaDNess: The combat sucks. There's no weight to the weapons, no strategy needed to win, all you need to do is "Hit attack button to win" and that's pretty much it.

If the combat were like Dark Souls, you'd actually need to strategize to win battles.

[Pelmete]

What does the article mean "closest to next gen"? If Skyrim comes on next gen it doesn't still look this good.

[Are_The_MaDNess]

who cares about gens? if its not on the PC it cant get modded. and Modders will always be better than any Dev no matter how well they make it.

[Are_The_MaDNess]

ok, i love the disagrees you guys are giving me.....
1. how can a 100-400 person team stand a chance over a few thousand people modding your game.
2. Dev limit everything about the game to make it "runnable", modders does not.

[The_KELRaTH]

I don't understand the disagrees either. Many future games have been based on modders pushing the boundaries.

BF2 and subsequent BF games were based on BF1942's Desert Combat, killing waves of AI enemies whether aliens or zombies was based on mods for Unreal Tournament 99 etc. and while the elf might be a bit OTT there have been many photo realistic mods - GTA IV, Half Life 2 even UT99 has had yet another major texture and engine update just recently.

It's been the modders and map creators that have been the driving force of the gaming industry and while some publisher actively promote it like Epic games others like EA and activision try to block it.

[KillrateOmega]

I really need to get a gaming PC at some point...

Don't get me wrong, I will always be a console guy at heart, but so many times I feel like I'm missing out on some awesome content by not having an appropriate PC.

[duplissi]

It is well worth it. Keep the consoles for console exclusives and play the rest on PC. My PS3 and Xbox have only been turned on to play TLOU and GTA IV respectively

[sammyspam]

Very impressive, both the quality of the visuals and their choices of girly shots.

[RAAMzilla]

First example of impressive modding: Massive tits.

[Mr Tretton]

That's just good modding.

[feraldrgn]

Holy crap, wow.
even if you could get that running at 30, that'd be impressive.

...Is that Lightning? >_<

[duplissi]

The game is really not that demanding, even with all the mods.

My HD 7950 can achieve 45-70 Fps with 150+ mods installed.

[e-p-ayeaH]

Those graphics look really nice in screenshots but not so good in motion belive me.

[kx11]

so Next-gen is half-naked ladies ?

[Mr Tretton]

Let's hope so!

[mysteryraz11]

Meh looks like ps2 level graphics

[cyclindk]

My favs in descending order:

Lacey white angel titty-girl
Dark angel titty-girl
Oddly enough, the sort of foggy little lonely isle
Dragon dude and dragon
Final fantasy looking chick thing
The girl in tight leather that looks like she should be in mass effect
Then horned helmet guy

All great though