Skyrim High Resolution Texture Pack Comparison

[Hawk-NGO]

NGOHQ.com has created a video demonstrating the differences between The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's original textures and the official high resolution texture pack that was released about a week ago. Make sure to watch it in full screen at 1080p. A downloadable version of the video is also available.

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[Kallenator]

Well it's great that they actually do something about it, but they really have to work harder than that...

[highoctane]

I could only see a small difference in a couple of the shots, would be largely unnoticeable during normal gameplay unless I wanted to look at cut logs or stare at benches.

[Zloyd]

Friends playing this say that other packs are better than the official high res pack.

[Erklat]

Not a paramount. Those kind of games are not sold by the graphics, but nice of them to do something that should have been done at day one.

[Lanek]

I could only see a small difference in a couple of the shots, would be largely unnoticeable during normal gameplay unless I wanted to look at cut logs or stare at benches.

you have try it ? cause the thing when you increase texture quality is even if it seems just a detail, in reality all the scene is increased in quality.. seriously it make a big difference when you play the game.

Friends playing this say that other packs are better than the official high res pack.

Some can, but the point is you dont care as you install other pack uppon this one, and most will not replace anything you can see in this pack just add things here and there.

[LexDiamonds]

Bottom line- the xbox was the lead development platform for Skyrim, so the textures were never righ rez to being with. This looks like they just ran the existing textures thru a supersample routine and called it a "HD pack". Fail. 256x256 textures upconverted to 2048x2048 size still look like crap.

[biohead]

it looks sharper but not more detailed, so it's missing its mark.

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well I prefer using Skyrim HD 2K texture pack anyway plus a bunch of other texture mods. Just a shame my GTX 460 1GB is having trouble coping with them all and hovering there around 1GB Vram use, GK104 you can't come soon enough!

[3lfk1ng]

Looks much better in Eyefinity, I noticed an immediate difference once I stepped outside.

Once I modify the config file things will look even better, uGrids especially. The biggest visual turn off for me is the way the game does shadows by default. It's rather simple to fix though.
Here are some quick guides
Geforce guide
[H] guide

[TomodaK]

Bottom line- the xbox was the lead development platform for Skyrim, so the textures were never righ rez to being with. This looks like they just ran the existing textures thru a supersample routine and called it a "HD pack". Fail. 256x256 textures upconverted to 2048x2048 size still look like crap.

This was the impression I got from screenshots as well Honestly it is a decent improvement and many will be happy with it, but it lacks so much. Some of the textures still like they're from 2002

skyrimnexus.com replace it all on your own

[XSAlliN]

Ok - looks a lil more clear/sharper, but not enough to be noticeable wile playing the game (you's have to stand still and gaze at certain spots with Skyrim running on 2 monitors - one with stock and the other with high resolution pack) - on the other hand the "performance hit" might be noticeable.

[Lanek]

Well I prefer using Skyrim HD 2K texture pack anyway plus a bunch of other texture mods. Just a shame my GTX 460 1GB is having trouble coping with them all and hovering there around 1GB Vram use, GK104 you can't come soon enough!

Well i have do some test with the official HD patch, i run at 1702Mo of memory.. if i add some mod i go over 2000Mo... Now i understand why my 5870`s was going on trouble.

[bhavv]

What exactly is the point in going from the vanilla textures @ 500-700 Mb usage up to these at almost 2 Gb when the visual difference is negligible?

I'll give them a test and see how they run on my spec.

[PatRaceTin]

i look that vdo and did not notice much change

[BeepBeep2]

The biggest difference is the cloth on the dress of the sitting woman. It looks like a matte surface with the original and textured with the "HD" pack.

However some of the textures look piss poor and others just barely improve...

[Dimitriman]

I'm with that guy who said this looks exactly the same as before...

[[XC] Lead Head]

Skyrim HD 1.5 is a much better pack IMO.

[bhavv]

I'll have to agree with the comments I read saying that downloading this is a waste of time. I just started a new game for a 100% master difficulty playthrough which I've been wanting to do for a while, and dont want to waste time that I can spend playing waiting for this to download through steam.

I'll wait until theres a hugely significant texture pack for Skyrim like QTP3 was for Oblivion.

[STEvil]

need side-by-side image comparison of normal vs hd vs 1.5

[gatecrasherlok]

I hardly noticed much difference in the heat of gaming, okay makybe if I was nit picking gazing at fences or cobbles i may notice slight improvements but not enough to make me go woooow.

[bhavv]

but not enough to make me go woooow.

Exactly what I'm thinking with all the texture packs I've seen so far, not enough to make me waste a full day trying to download them over crappy non - Londoner UK broadband.

[Hoboclese]

if you want to mod skyrim and are not faint of heart, go here

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11

warning, there be dragons.

[Levish]

I find any texture improvements to be a benefit. It's a massive undertaking if it's hand painting new ones or sampling from photos.

The official hd patch was underwhelming, skyrim hd on the other hand is a nice improvement along with all the other mods, in particular realistic lighting is probably the single best enhancement which finally gives torches a use and just makes things look more real. Can't expect too much for free though (from the community I mean) as it is some of those authors have hundreds of hours into them.

For next gen console larger textures will created by the authors at leat. I just hope they start with 2GB of vram at least.

(For non visual, My other favorite is sounds of skyrim)

[bhavv]

I just downloaded and tried out the unofficial Skyrim HD texture pack and that one is nice improvement. I played a new game up to the first dragon at whiterun on ultra settings, 4x AA 16x AF, all the texture mods enabled, FXAA post injector for better colour and sharpness plus various face texture mods and its running completely lag free and smooth as silk on my PC, which is nice.

Even with the HD texture mods, I dont yet need more Vram to play the game flawlessly. 8x AA used to cause lag even before the HD texture mod when my Vram usage was only sat on 700 mb, so i'm reaching a GPU limitation with any more AA and not any limitation with anything else.