Skyrim engine performance

[Talova]

I've spent the last while really racking my brains over the new engine Bethesda is implementing into Skyrim. When we look at the difference in performance between Oblivion and Fallout 3 on equal pc's, it feels strange that a game like FO3 would run better with its higher graphics. So obviously the engine has become more optimised. But Oblivion ran like crap on both consoles. So where did Bethesda optimise (or sacrifice) to make this exponentially intenser game even runnable on the aging console hardware? 'Cos I don't see how it's gong to work.

[JimboUK]

We don't know how well it work, they made a right mess of the Gamebryo engine so I shudder to think what an engine they've built themselves is like. As for consoles, the screenshots and videos can be very misleading, it's not unknown for developers to pass off the PC version as the console version or render the game at a very high resolution and then downscale the screenshot/video. Some have even put them through photoshop, google "Bullshot".

[CommanderCrazy]

Jim, it isnt their own engine. It is, in truth, a 100% overhauled... GAMEBRYO.

 

So much had changed that we decided to call the engine and editor by a new name, the Creation Engine and the Creation Kit. - Todd Howard, Game Director

 

Source

 

 

 

So it's really not a new engine, just the same engine thats been updated. I bet they changed the name and said it was a new engine to try and shut down all the whining about Gamebryo. Personally, I think its great that they simply overhauled it, as a completely new engine would mean they would have a lot of stuff to learn from scratch and thus, reduce how many new features they could include. This will also help modders pick up on the new creation kit faster since it shouldn't be THAT different.

Edited March 17, 2011 by CommanderCrazy

[JimboUK]

Oh my god, the problems with the Gamebryo engine were caused by Bethesda "modifying" it in the first place, they should be undoing their modifications instead of screwing it up further. Anyway thanks for the update, I wonder what other lies they've told us. :verymad:

[Zaldir]

Well, also from the same Article as CC posted:

 

"We then rewrote all the major graphics and gameplay systems including lighting, shadows, level of detail, animation, interface, scripting, dialogue, quest systems, melee, magic, and more." - Todd Howard

Source

 

It says rewrote, and not updated - and that's a lot of features that was rewritten (it also says "and more".).

So basically, it's a new engine. :P

[CommanderCrazy]

Technically, since they used the Gamebryo as a base, it could be very much the same. We have to wait for these answers though.

[runway]

I love GameBryo, so I'm not fussed. GameBryo is 90% the reason we can have such an in-depth construction set anyway. And the construction set to me is over half of the game's worth.

[worm82075]

I've spent the last while really racking my brains over the new engine Bethesda is implementing into Skyrim. When we look at the difference in performance between Oblivion and Fallout 3 on equal pc's, it feels strange that a game like FO3 would run better with its higher graphics. So obviously the engine has become more optimised. But Oblivion ran like crap on both consoles. So where did Bethesda optimise (or sacrifice) to make this exponentially intenser game even runnable on the aging console hardware? 'Cos I don't see how it's gong to work.

 

Oblivion lacked occlusion culling and that is how FO3 was able to do so much more visually than Oblivion.

 

At everyone else: There is a reason why Beth refers to it as the "Oblivion Engine" and not the "Gamebryo Engine" and it's because Gamebryo is nothing more than a renderer and a file format included with a suite of 3rd party middleware (Havok, speedtree, etc..). The file structure, the game mechanics, the cell structure, the weather, the lighting and all of that functionality that is present in the CS and in fact the CS itself, it's all Bethesda's creation which was either derived from middleware, made from scratch or has been steadily built upon since Morrowind.

[Zaldir]

At everyone else: There is a reason why Beth refers to it as the "Oblivion Engine" and not the "Gamebryo Engine" and it's because Gamebryo is nothing more than a renderer and a file format included with a suite of 3rd party middleware (Havok, speedtree, etc..). The file structure, the game mechanics, the cell structure, the weather, the lighting and all of that functionality that is present in the CS and in fact the CS itself, it's all Bethesda's creation which was either derived from middleware, made from scratch or has been steadily built upon since Morrowind.

 

You are absolutely right! And this time around, they're not using SpeedTree either, but are actually creating the trees by hand. :D yay!

[Denizen]

Can anyone speculate at how different the system requirements will be for Skyrim in comparison to the fallout series? I'm hoping that with all the improvements to the engine I can expect a similar frame rate to fallout without upgrading my system. I want to pre-order but there's no point if my rig won't run it.