1: Higher polys on buildings doesn't give much, but does cause the engine to choke.
2) comparing with Skyrim is completely unfair.... Aurora, the Engine that NWN is built with, will NOT support that sort of overlaying composure. Skyrim is built with a HUGE number of overlapping objects, textures, etc. Any single item can have 5 or more textures assigned to it.
NWN can not support it, at all. You can overlay a bit with alpha textures, but you are completely required to have an overlapping object to hold that extra texture, thus doubling the total poly count for truly very little gain. To accomplish what Skyirim does, you would have to have at least 5 overlapping objects in place, and some way of merging/creating the various alpha layered textures so that they line up etc... believe me, you MIGHT accomplish that with a single tile, but an entire tileset would cause the engine to just crash if it ever loaded at all.
Believe me, we ALL want to accomplish something like that with Aurora, and we have searched for years to find a way to do it. So far, we have been able to increase the quality a bit but it costs a great deal of processing to accomplish. NWN was built to work in a Windows 95 environment. Long before things like multi-core, multi-threading, ram over 1 gig etc... NWN has no clue about such things, it can't. The core of Aurora STILL works on Windows 95... that is Ninety Five, not even Win98 or Me. When multi-core cpu's were released, Bioware gave us the ability to single out a single CPU to be used, but it does NOT support multi-core, you are just locked into whatever single CPU you choose. They also boosted the ram options to a certain extent, but the main Aurora engine does NOT recognize anything above 1 gig, in fact, it likely doesn't even use the full 1 gig.
When all of us users requested upgrades to utilize more powerful systems Bioware replied that it would require a complete rewrite of the original code, and that it just was not feasible for that to occur as the cost would be way too high.
They claimed, originally, that Skyrim would not be using speedtree, yet they actually went back to speedtree anyway, which is why Skyrim only has 2 tree types currently. Yes, they are resized throughout the world, but still only two tree types, with minor graphic changes between them all.
Whatever the engine is behind Skyrim (I used to know, but can't remember right now) is very powerful, and has been used/licensed by many companies. Skyrim itself doesn't use the full power of that engine, yet it does accomplish quite a bit of it... water that actually flows and moves the player around, wind that blows and affects the environment etc..
However, even folks that have REALLY powerful computers have already run into problems with increasing graphics loads on the engine that Skyrim uses.
Aurora, doesn't stand a chance of EVER competing with software that was designed to run in 64 bit, multi-core, high ram computers, with Vid cards that carry mutl-gigs of ram themselves.
If you were to take a look at the physical side of things in SKyrim, a single mdl.nif file has selection options for a minimum of 6 different textures that can be applied, simultaneously on that single object. Aurora only allows ONE. They just can not be compared side by side, the power of Skyrim's base engine code far exceeds what is available to us, even using injection systems like nwnx. There is only so much we can accomplish.
You CAN create better looking textures, you CAN increase poly counts on buildings, but that only helps if there is a reason to add the polys, IE bent over sections etc, but aligning a texture to properly match that object is a nightmare. Which is why complicated building shapes typically use multiple, simple, objects to increase the depth looks etc.
Skyrim is really difficult to manage creating new stuff for. Folks are accomplishing it, but the ones that actually accomplish much are rare. It is VERY complicated to have to handle the .NIF file and adjust everything that needs to be adjusted. So far, there really is not a single engine that you can use to do that. You have to create the .NIF in something like 3dsmax or other software, THEN use Nifskope to apply the textures, test, re-edit with Nifskope or 3ds and try again. No simple replacement of textures for complicated objects, you really need to spend a huge amount of time on it.
NWN-Aurora is a whole lot easier to mod with/for, but it is also limited in what can be accomplished. You have a trade off.
For exteriors, Skyrim uses placeables to create everything. Their mountains look great, from a distance, but if you actually walk up the sides of those mountains (no on roads or paths, but just walking around) you can find HUGE gaps between what was intended to be a slope and what actually occurred, you can walk right though bits of the mountains etc...
You can have the same issue with NWN, but it uses tiles, 10x10 meters, and is much easier to find and close those gaps. With Skyrim, using that placeable type of system, it requires a huge amount of time reviewing what you paint, from various camera angles etc.
Interior wise, Skyrim offers a sort-of tile system that has fewer locks on it than NWN, it offers and actually requires, multilevel placement of the various tiles, you MUST have a rise/fall in a long hallway to block view, and set a special feature to block/limit the line of sight. In NWN you don't have as much control, but have much fewer possible issues of gaps or line of sight issues.
They really don't compare very well.
