Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC Performance Review - PAGE 1

Today we are following up our initial review of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by taking a look at the performance of the PC version of the game. Like the console version, Skryim for PC features an open world full of luscious landscapes, large scale cities and high-quality character models. However, with the PC version, you have the ability to increase the graphical fidelity of the in-game visuals.

Skyrim uses Bethesda's Creation Engine, which allows for numerous graphics improvements over Bethesda's previous engines, including improvements to the draw distance, dynamic lighting, shadows, improved textures, dynamic weather effects, and more.

Still, with all the improvements, the engine is stuck on DirectX 9 technology, meaning there are none of the latest graphics features such as tessellation, improved geometric details, and compute shaders. So, while the game looks good, the overall visuals are not of the same quality as games that utilize DX11 technology.

Graphics options, presets

The graphics menu is broken up into three parts: Graphics Adapter and Resolution, Detail, and View Distance. The Graphics Adapter and Resolution menu includes the bulk of graphics options available to the user, including aspect ratio, resolution, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. There are also four preset detail levels: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. Each detail level adjust the visual settings to a certain level by either increasing or deceasing the settings automatically, while the Default button restores the settings to a pre-configured level that best suits the installed hardware.

Both the Detail and View Distance options can be accessed by selecting the Advanced button in the Graphics Adapter and Resolution menu. The Detail menu offers control over the quality of the textures, radial blur, shadows, and decals; this menu also sports reflection options and fast approximate anti-aliasing (FXAA).

The View Distance menu allows you to increase or decrease the fade of objects, actors, grass, specularity, lighting, and items. There is also a Distance Object Detail option that can automatically change the view distance, and an option to enable or disable object detail fade.

Settings comparison

The images above show the difference between medium, high and ultra settings. The left most image was taken with the settings at medium, while the middle represents high and the right image ultra. At medium the total view distance is drastically cut down from the higher settings, as the background eliminates the majority of trees to cut down on the rendering. The high and ultra settings, though, have a much larger view distance and the landscape also includes more vegetation. Also, as the settings are increased, the quality of the nearby water is improved and the environment is filled with more rocks and foliage.

Again, the images above reflect how the game looks at when playing at either medium, high, or ultra settings. The biggest differences observed are in the textures and shadowing. When playing the game at medium, both the textures and shadows are blurry; as the settings are increased, the quality of the textures becomes much clearer, and the shadows below the plants are more accurately rendered.