Why Skyrim Should Have Been Delayed: An Argument in Pictures

[Atmos Duality]

I find it incredulous how so many people dismiss/marginalize these bugs as the exception.
All the while the fan-made "Unofficial .... Patch" is one of the most popular (downloaded) series of mods for *any* of Bethesda's "mega-games"; from Morrowind to present.

What a stupid world we live in.

 

[Lord Thodin]

Im with you OP. I have these same problems on both the PS3 version of my game and the PC version. Its funny to see people rush to the aid of Skyrim like youre hurting it, when all you were pointing out is somethings that need patches

 

[Footinbox]

The graphics issue hasn't happened on my xbox 360 version. Granted there have been many missions (namely the very first one of the main story) that glitched out of completion or people not being where they are suppose to be. In short, many small glitches that build up to be relatively large and annoying over time. I've also had some bad cases of the game freezing during loading screens. Saying these are just Bethesda issues so cannot hold it against them like saying bad handling for a Sonic game doesn't matter (which Sega worked on for a couple years and Sonic Generations was well done on that front). Skyrim is still a great game and all, just wish Bethesda would better test their games. I see reoccurring issues not as an excuse but as worse...should be keeping their eyes out for this. But yes, anyone who complains about it to the point they regret the game or w.e should have expected this and balanced the good against the bad. And those who say Bethesda should have moved the release date back don't know what they are saying. Think about it. All these little issues, they'd be delaying all the time. Personally, I'd rather a Bethesda game hurry up and come out.

 

[Captain Chemosh]

I have to say, though those glitches might be bad, from a third party perspective: they all look pretty damn awesome, your commentary on them of course add to this drastically. The only real glitches I've encountered are the last one (ironically right after taking ten+ skooma)and the immortal dragon skeletons

 

[TheEndlessGrey]

The graphics problems (missing textures, artifacts and crazy patterns) are almost definitely related to either drivers or the video card hardware itself. Overheating is a definite possibility, especially if it works fine in the beginning but then starts to get worse the longer you play. Try it with reduced settings and see if that helps. There's also the possibility that brand new or not, the video card is bad. I've built 6 complete PC's for myself in the last decade. Every single one of them has had at least one of the initial components that needed to be replaced within the first 3 months, as in it was bad right out of the box. (And for those who care, yes, I wear a properly grounded ESD wristband when I work on my electronics. I used to work in micro/miniature electronics repair and fabrication, and I have my garage setup to support my continued tinkering.)

Things getting worse the longer you play is also a possible indicator of a memory leak, which is usually a developer issue and is something we already know is a problem in Skyrim because damn near everyone has seen it at some point, but again it's also possibly an issue with your actual, physical memory sticks if it's frequent or starts immediately after launching the game. That other games are fine doesn't mean it is definitely not a hardware problem, there was an article here a few weeks ago quoting one of the Obsidian devs who worked on New Vegas (same basic game engine as Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind) explaining in greater detail than I care to repeat how other games don't tax the memory the way games based on this engine do. Don't start with new RAM though, that's probably the last thing I'd recommend replacing, especially since this looks like a bad video card to me.

The crazy behaviors like people getting stuck in terrain, flying mammoths being launched into the air only to drop to their deaths, that sort of thing is the result of poor tuning of the physics engine. It has been a problem for the last few TES games, and the recent Fallout games. Try stacking a bunch of plates on a table in Oblivion, they'll get all wobbly and then explode. The physics engine is screwing up their behavior because it can't handle all those "collisions" every frame. It's a similar problem causing a lot of these things in Skyrim, like the flying mammoths or the dancing dragon skeletons. This one is wholly on the developers, but it's not entirely fair to say it could be perfect with more testing, because when everything is managed by a combination of Havok physics and their Radiant AI, and who knows what else is going on under the hood, you don't have much in the way of scripted behaviors, it's all basically procedural. This means it is going to do stupid things from time to time. It's actually not even fair to say it could have been better with more testing. I'm sure they've identified the crazy stuff that's still in there, it's just not worth the time to fix it. The popular mantra of debugging is that the last 10% of the fixes take 90% of the time, and someone probably had to pull the plug and say that's all we can afford.

**Disclaimer: opinions provided here are educated guesses based upon professional experience in software development and general tech support. Some information may be incomplete or situationally inaccurate, but obviously I think it's close enough or I wouldn't have bothered typing up something that has reached TLDR proportions. Nonetheless, don't forget to grab your complimentary grain of salt on the way out.

 

[Funkysandwich]

I find I get missing textures after an extended (at least five hours) play session, but I've not encountered some of the weirder graphical glitches you've seen.

I did however see someone trying to cut invisible wood with an invisible axe. I don't think these bugs are worth delaying the game over though, I'm more then happy to be playing the game now with a few graphical issues rather then wait 6 months for a slightly less buggy game.

 

[TilMorrow]

Spoiler

The rare albino dragon guards a faded word wall.

I had a similar texture problem but it occurred on cave walls and on some npcs clothes late in the game when I arrived at Markath. Although, at the time I thought it was the Bubblegum silver prison mines and that it was actually part of the game. Until I saw a purple bubblegum man running around. I fixed the problem as well as random crashes by using Skyrim 4GB. Made it run faster too.

 

[Bat Vader]

I had the same problem with the purple textures when I played it for more than six or seven hours at a time. From what I understand it is because Skyrim only uses 2 gigs of ram. I got the 4 GB mod and it has fixed the problems I was having. I would suggest trying that and seeing if the problems clear up.

 

[A Free Man]

Obviously I know nothing of the machine you run this on.
But did the idea occur to you that your machine might have something to do with these graphical glitches?

It did not. My machine is a brand new Alienware (two months old) and runs other games without incident. I play Skyrim with no lag too.

That doesn't make any sense. If your computer was not at fault for the graphical glitches that means you think it is an issue with the game itself. But I have played the game for 50+ hours and done almost all of the things in your pictures without any of the effects. So I highly doubt the issue is with the game sorry.

 

[Fasckira]

It did not. My machine is a brand new Alienware (two months old) and runs other games without incident. I play Skyrim with no lag too.

I'm thinking you're isolated on this one to an extent. I have never seen anything like what you've posted, either through my own play or seeing the many many many Skyrim bug threads (Im guessing they weren't good enough for you to post in, huh? ). Thing is you could have the bestest rig set up in the world but it doesn't automatically mean it will be 100% flawless in running a game sadly.

The only glitches I've encountered so far is one time I was walking up a path towards Solitude and found a nearly invisible horse standing in the path. It wasn't moving, its tail was bolt out right behind it and I could only see the outline of it. The only way I noticed it at first was that its saddle was completely in view. The second glitch I came across was a bandit stuck halfway into a wall; she showed up red on the radar but made no attempt to attack me (despite me just killing her friend) and if I stood next to her she spouted random NPC greetings. I put her out her misery in the end.

 

[CommanderKirov]

120 hours played. Not a single glitch yet.

 

[SuriKatta]

Those neat shapes and colors you see are (most likely) the final cries of your graphics card as it begins to die.

It has nothing to do with the game itself, or how it's programmed. Your graphics card is struggling to render the game's graphics because it's failing somehow. It's totally your hardware. Any hardware can experience this if it is faulty, damaged or overheated (melted) and you try to run a game that is beyond its level of functioning.

Bethesda games tend to be very resource-heavy games simply due to the way the 3D models are rendered. Let's just say... Bethesda models are not very 'clean'. They're horribly wasteful, in fact. Ridiculously high polygon counts. Been that way since Morrowind. Mix that with a cocktail of advanced shaders and normal maps and the output is why Bethesda games are such sticklers for running well on any computer. It's also the reason why ES games tend to run better after you plop in different 3D model mods.

Reinstall your drivers, and if that doesn't work, you're going to have to contact Alienware and see about a warranty on parts replacement. It doesn't matter if you got it a month ago, a week ago, or yesterday. I've burned out several graphics cards due to my work/gaming and this is a tell-tale sign of pending replacement.

 

[Appleshampoo]

Aye, as others have said it's a graphics card problem. Overheating I'd say, as artifacts are a pretty sure sign of the graphics card being unhappy.

However, I must commend your ability to role play through that =p If it happened to me I'd be like 'Oh man, I don't feel like playing anymore' and go off to cry under a table.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Looks like a hardware issue my friend, not one of the game. I've only encountered minor bugs myself after 30+ gameplay.

Still, it could've benefited from a few weeks of extra tuning, especially in the physics and AI/path-finding department.

Kind of an off-topic question: Why is it that Skyrim has so many bugs? I play WoW quite frequently, also a huge open-world RPG, but these kinds of graphical glitches never happen to me. (I've never seen flying NPCs, quest givers melting into the ground, dragons exploring space,etc) The worst seems to be "oh this mob is evade-bugged", which gets fixed relatively quickly. Is it just a difference in the beta, the developer, or what?

Hah, that's WoW now, WoW right after it launched however...

Bethesda games tend to be very resource-heavy games simply due to the way the 3D models are rendered. Let's just say... Bethesda models are not very 'clean'. They're horribly wasteful, in fact. Ridiculously high polygon counts. Been that way since Morrowind.

Ah yes, Oblivion's infamous 20-something grass polygons. Maybe that's why cities in Skyrim also get a lot of slowdown? Especially in Markath I get a lot of FPS lag.

 

[SuriKatta]

Ah yes, Oblivion's infamous 20-something grass polygons. Maybe that's why cities in Skyrim also get a lot of slowdown? Especially in Markath I get a lot of FPS lag.

That's really why everything in Tamriel gets a lot of slowdown.

Almost everything in the Elder Scrolls games are good examples of how not to model in 3D, how not to create mesh morphs and how not to bound box or rig your models.

In fact, a good way to start out doing 3D modeling for games (if anyone's interested) is to tear apart Morrowind and optimize/modify the ever-loving bejeezus out of it. You can actually make Morrowind look far beyond what one might deem imaginable for the time it was made (if you have some good technical or artistic skills) by literally "reducing" the complexity of the models.

... And it will run 100x faster.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Almost everything in the Elder Scrolls games are good examples of how not to model in 3D, how not to create mesh morphs and how not to bound box or rig your models.

You know what ? You're absolutely right. When people grabbed TES Construction Set for Morrowind and redid some models and textures i was sure that Bethesda will take it into consideration with next installment of franchise. Then Oblivion came and modicians also proved that in terms of graphics it was very crude and easy to enhance and optimize. So i said to myself, "hopefully that's not the case anymore".

But now we have Skyrim and people are already correcting its gfx mistakes.


http://static.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/2812-2-1323159027.jpg
http://static.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/2812-2-1323228236.jpg
http://static.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/2812-4-1323159028.jpg


WITHOUT F*CKING CONSTRUCTION SET !

(In the background "war, war never changes" can be heard alongside with scream of one billion damned souls and facepalms powerful enough to swirl whole galaxies)

 

[Kramcake2516]

Let me preface this by saying that I went into Skyrim expecting to like it, not expecting it to be the perfect game. I know the typical argument of "A game this big will have bugs that aren't caught." The pictures I present are of bugs that I have encountered multiple times. I overlooked things that I've only seen once (like when Hod walked out of his house in Riverwood and flew across the village) and things that I can't show in pictures (like not being able to exit a conversation or a quest not updating). But god damn! It's like the game wasn't even play tested.

Below are my experiences and attempts to roleplay through them in order to stay immersed.
EDIT: I'd also like to note that this is entirely unmodded vanilla Skyrim.

With his dying breath, my reptillian foe has cursed the trees of Skyrim by turning them all to crystal!

The rare albino dragon guards a faded word wall.

It appears that some sort of daedric craft has descended from the sky and is attacking Windhelm!

Despite their reputation, blood dragons are actually very cowardly. Though their ability to survive in the stratosphere is impressive. (If you can't see him, look at the "B" in blood dragon and move your gaze down. He vanished into space shortly after I took this screenshot)

Don't drink too many different potions at once. It may look pretty, but it burns coming up.

Skooma's a hell of a drug.

By the looks of it your computer has taken an arrow to the knee

No but seriously the game is by bethesda these glithes come with the territory

 

[SuriKatta]

You know what ? You're absolutely right. When people grabbed TES Construction Set for Morrowind and redid some models and textures i was sure that Bethesda will take it into consideration with next installment of franchise. Then Oblivion came and modicians also proved that in terms of graphics it was very crude and easy to enhance and optimize. So i said to myself, "hopefully that's not the case anymore".

But now we have Skyrim and people are already correcting its gfx mistakes.


http://static.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/2812-2-1323159027.jpg
http://static.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/2812-2-1323228236.jpg
http://static.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/2812-4-1323159028.jpg


WITHOUT F*CKING CONSTRUCTION SET !

(In the background "war, war never changes" can be heard alongside with scream of one billion damned souls and facepalms powerful enough to swirl whole galaxies)

Yeah, whoever Bethesda employed to create the models, they've probably been employed since Morrowind, probably haven't done any 3D modelling for anything else, and probably learned everything they know just from modelling for Elder Scrolls. So we're going to be getting the same sort of content, over and over, at the inner core of the game, no matter how much nicer they think they've gotten it. Sure, people might swoon over the prospect of how good the new Elder Scrolls game will look, but I shudder at each new release, as I know of the true hardware-devouring evil that lies within.

As far as the visual look of Skyrim I was actually quite impressed with it, aside from the horrible models I know must dwell beneath the surface textures. I was glad they fixed the race silhouettes somewhat, though it's still not perfect for several of the races (specifically the more human ones). I do enjoy the more nitty-gritty appearances of the characters, though.

"Silhouette": When someone refers to a model's silhouette, they are literally talking about the silhouette of the character model and how people recognize objects at a distance (aka: Spatial Recognition). A good example of a company that uses silhouettes correctly is Valve with "Team Fortress 2". You can tell who is a Heavy, Scout or Medic just by looking at their silhouette.

 

[silverbullet1989]

curse bethesda for not personally sending someone round to each house hold who purchases the pc version and make sure it runs flawlessly on their own set up