Modders Just Took Skyrim To A New Level

The modders have done a marvelous job by giving gamers another reason to play Skyrim.

[Kalebninja]

Really low res images.

[ChrisW]

Funny thing; when you install all of the patches and start playing, it looks phenomenally better than the original, but not really as good as the screenshots.

[frostypants]

Yeah. Sort of tired of all the bullshots in these "OMG LOOK AT THIS MOD" articles. They never look as good as the shots imply.

[krazeecain]

Yeah, the problem with fancy screenshots is that a lot of effort is made to frame them nicely. Especially those shots of the terrain... at that angle it looks 3D, but at any normal angle you'd actually see them from, you can see they're just 2D textures.

I will say though that my mod setup in skyrim is about %90 as nice as this, and I'm running it on a R9 270x. I just don't have as much grass, lod detail or shader fidelity. People assume you need a super computer to run skyrim like this, but that's not necessarily true...

[frostypants]

@krazeecain, that's still a $160 GPU. Certainly more than a budget card. Pair that with an i5 and the requisite parts and you're looking at a $800 rig (if you count the OS). To people used to spending $400 on a console or a budget PC, that's some coin.

[Thefreeman012]

What kind of rig would you need to get this even playable at 1080p 30 fps??

[xPhearR3dx]

A few years back I had my Skyrim game modded pretty close to many of those screens running at 30-40FPS with a i5 3350p, 8GB RAM and dual GTX 660 TIs. You'd be surprised how good Skyrim can look with older hardware and mods. Especially those ENB presets, they work magic.

Actually, here's a mini-gallery I made showcasing some screens from the Skywind mod. Same specs used above but I had that running closer to 50FPS.

http://imgur.com/a/1GI5W

[Thefreeman012]

Can't wait for Skywind. I may build a rig with the new i5 skylake 8 gig ram and a nvidia 970 Think that would be enough to run these enbs and mods?

[OverdosedWitDopeness]

@freeman
If u wanna run tons of mods the r9 390 should be better due to the 8gb of ram compared to the 970s 4 or 3.5gb of ram. They both have very similar performance.

[AndrewLB]

Skyrim runs really well with mods. CHeck out this video. Pretty decent FPS for it being 4k resolution. he does have 2x GTX 980 ti cards.
https://youtu.be/o8eu88wG-D...

A single GTX 780 ti should be able to do 1080p/60fps since it's only about 15% slower than a single 980 ti.

[OhMyGandhi]

When the game came out, I loaded up on Skyrim 2k textures, W.A.T.E.R, realistic snow, Lush Trees, Lush Grass, and so on...perfectly playable on an HD6870, with 8gb ram on a i7 2600k.

Skyrim does an amazing job with mods, the game runs damned well on older hardware as well. I had an older monitor that I think went up to 1400x900, and the game still looked beautiful.

[Inzo]

Its really not that impressive.

[frostypants]

Somebody disagreed with your question. Sheesh...

[Thefreeman012]

I know right? You get disagreed for anything here at n4g..

[nosferatuzodd]

I was thinking the same thing you need the tx9000 to play that at 1080p lol

[susanto1228]

What a dumb article just go to Nexus to learn some real modding....

[Emp0ri0]

That ass

[Taco_Waffle]

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photo...

[blackblades]

See this crap people, every time, someone always have to say dat azz or dem boobies.

[Donnywho]

I wish Bethesda devoted as much time to my Ps3 version as the modders have devoted to the PC version.

[level 360]

Some of the low-res image kinda reminds me of Hailee Steinfeld..

[massapeal79]

I am running 2 970sc with a i5 4670k 4way z87x oc desktop motherboard

[dmeador]

Cool story bro

[s45gr32]

This looks unreal

[christian hour]

The scenery looks pretty sweet, but as usual when it comes to making realistic characters they always go with "pretty" over interesting or something that makes sense aesthetically in the ES universe... I mean where did she get that lip gloss?

Same goes with the hair, it's always a bit too Anime/RunwaySupermodel in these mods... Does a dragonborn fighting in the cold harsh environment of Skyrim really have time to pluck her eyebrows?

A good mod not only looks impressive, but fits the aesthetic/draws from the lore it's set in.

That's my only critique, other than that these look pretty incredible (although again in some of the scenery they kinda lost that ES aesthetic, which is important if you're hoping to get hired by modding, it's what will set you apart)

[Forum_Pirate]

Magic exists and has no well defined limits in it's application. Pretty easy to justify a lot of cosmetic things using the words "alchemy," "alteration" and "enchanting." Maybe not for everyone, but rich people and mages.

[christian hour]

haha I was actually thinking that as I was typing, I guess these modders like to play as rich elven sorcerer types XD

[dreamoner]

I finally have a mid range rig that could handle skyrim with heavy modding but I don't wanna go back to that mess, mod for a week then play for a day then mod some more... wish there were some mod compilation packs : p

[Ocsta]

Wandering a frozen tundra and battling fantastic beasts in lace undies. Makes sense.

[letsgopal]

Every mod which brings new female character or edits an existing one is so oversexualized, it's just a pain to look at it.

[BallsEye]

Played fully modded skyrim on my PC...it looked awesome but somehow didn't enjoy it more than console version. BTW those pr0n style characters break the immersion. It just doesn't fit.

[Inzo]

I see allot are amaised by this, I guess the standards of the PC community has dropped somewhat.

[Iltapalanyymi]

shame the core game is shit. oblivion and morrowind are much much much better.

[Tzuno]

All in all we need a new TES.

[pyroxxx]

Looks nice,.. game is still pretty shitty anyway

[eddvdm]

I agree.. most people rage when I mention that Skyrim has the more dull and uninteresting story and somewhat gameplay of the Bethesda Games TO ME.

Started (but not influenced that much) at Fallout 3 the streamlining of mechanics to please broader audiences (*ahem* consoles), and lost much of their touch. That's my main concern about Fallout 4.

Anyways, if they have to profit like that to keep making great (not excellent) games like they do I guess I'm ok.

[pyroxxx]

My main concern about Fallout 4 is that it is Bethesda doing it and not Obsidian,.. So the story will probably suck ,.. and these games get repetitive anyway,.. so having really poorly written narrative (without quirkie fallout humor )wont help

[Viryu]

If only modders spent even a portion of that time on improving animations. Skyrim is still stuck in early 2000s when it comes to something as simple as movement.

[phoenixwake]

I've seen these articles on Skyrim mods for years now and I'm honestly sick of them. They're extremely curated and misleading, and if you try to recreate the look on your own PC, you're going to see where the seams split on Bethesda's poorly optimized engine, and honestly not get anything anywhere close to these screenshots.

I tried running 100+ mods on everything from terrain to character models and it looked marginally better at the cost of half my framerate. I'm sure this sort of thing is possible, but it's not realistic and doesn't look a fraction as good in motion. You might as well show pretty concept art rendered in the Unreal engine for all its worth.

[The_Kills]

Worthless. Vid or it never happened.