Oblivion PC performance

[gurgle]

i just purchased a 7900GT to go along with my OC'd 3200 venice running at 2400 mhz. will i be able to push out 1680x1050 at a reasonable fps?

ive got 2 gigs or RAM too.

 

[kdog]

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. I shouldn't have even dignified a statement like that with a response.

Is it really? I am talking about spending significant time, not 5 mins. If you were getting over 60fps on a game, when was the last time you were sitting down and editing the INI files?

 

[Xenozx]

i just purchased a 7900GT to go along with my OC'd 3200 venice running at 2400 mhz. will i be able to push out 1680x1050 at a reasonable fps?

ive got 2 gigs or RAM too.

I dont see why not. Pretty nice rig there. Many people are running worse PC specs then you and getting really good frame rate, all depends on what you try to turn on.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

The common thread here is that the game was primarily developed for consoles. Think back to the last few major games released on the PC that were ports of the console version:

Halo: extremely hard on hardware with no visual payoff
Riddick: extremely hard on hardware with some visual payoff, shlocky controls
CoD2: beyond extremely hard on hardware with visual payoff, too many bump maps - otherwise excellent
Oblivion: beyond extremely hard on hardware with *no* visual payoff, every menu is clearly geared to the console user

The games that stress PC hardware the way that you would expect like Quake 4 and FEAR look far better than Oblivion IMO. Even HL2 blows Oblivion out of the water, yet we end up with the same bump-mapped mess as all the other console ports. What puts Oblivion over-the-top for me is how absolutely bugged it is. The Technical Issues forum at the Bethesda site for Oblivion is nearly as big as the game discussion only 2 days after release. You make a post there and its instantly buried five pages back. I have never had to tweak a game as much as this one just to get it to *run* and the constant fear of a crash really takes away from the experience. The game itself seems fun but I'll never give in to the hype over another game from this company, ever. Theres no excuse for the game being released in this condition on the PC.

I haven't had a single problem with the game yet. It runs quickly and fluidly, (though I wish I could push back the foliage draw distance futher than it allows.) I'm sure I'll run into a bug or three as I play it more, but so far, I have nothing to complain about stability-wise. In some ways the graphics are pretty amazing, and in others they could have used some work. The HDR makes certain surfaces a little plasticy, which is annoying, and some textures should have been higher resolution, but overall, I think it has a pretty good look. (especially for the type of game it is) Yes Quake IV (one of my favorites by the way,) and the others you listed look better overall, but the levels are SSSOOO much smaller. Those games deal with a small section of the world at a time, and have huge loading times in between. In order to make something the size of Oblivion run as quickly as it does, I think some tradeoffs have to be made. I would much rather have a more seemless (hardly ever loads for more than a second,) than have to wait 30 seconds between each area. That would ruin the immersion factor for me in a game like this. In a FPS, I can be a bit more forgiving with loading, and sectional levels. Another thing to think about is the fact that half of the background in those shooters listed, is simply a 2D mapped image. If you see something in the distance, it's likely that you'll never get to it.

I'm not denying that there are some issues with the game, their forums prove that, but I am saying I haven't yet run into them, and my experience with the game so far has been quite positive. (And yes, I'll also agree that the interface should have been more PC-centric, and dumbed down for the console version.) Still, for the scope of game they were building, I think they did a pretty good job.

 

[gurgle]

cool! how can i get my hardware into my sig?

 

[Deleted member 83233]

cool! how can i get my hardware into my sig?

Click on the User CP link at the top of the page, and then click Edit Signature.

 

[chiablo]

**1600x1200

settings?

Sorry, I don't know why I get those numbers backwards.

My system:
P4 3.6 (Stock speed)
1GB ram
X800XT

My settings:
Bloom on
Shadows turned all the way off
Draw distances on everything all the way up
1600x1200

I get about 40-50fps indoors and around 15-30 outdoors.

 

[K600]

The common thread here is that the game was primarily developed for consoles. Think back to the last few major games released on the PC that were ports of the console version:

Halo: extremely hard on hardware with no visual payoff
Riddick: extremely hard on hardware with some visual payoff, shlocky controls
CoD2: beyond extremely hard on hardware with visual payoff, too many bump maps - otherwise excellent
Oblivion: beyond extremely hard on hardware with *no* visual payoff, every menu is clearly geared to the console user

I agree with a lot of what you have to say, but I wouldn't blame it on consoles. It's the developers, as I said earlier, who are getting lazy with their PC efforts. They're more concerned with the larger market, which happens to be consoles at the moment.

I disagree with the "every menu is clearly geared to the console user" comment as well. I've played a lot of games with a lot of different UIs, and I've seen far better UIs even in console titles. Again, it's a matter of poor design choice and lazy development.

 

[Mabrito]

Looks like this might help with things, some people are reporting a good performance boost:

This worked for me. I got like a 20 FPS boost out of it, so I cranked up the view distances. Before this, I was averaging about 30 in the wild, now I average about 50, so I cranked up the view distances and now averaging 30 again It makes sense though, now your card doesnt have much a load, because it isnt rendering any other frames ahead.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

Don't know if it's been mentioned here but some of the people on ES forums are reporting that disabling HW audio acceleration in the .ini files will go a long way to smooth out hitching (seems both onboard audio and Creative users are reporting this)

I tried it during lunch but I didn't have time to really make enough of a comparison to say for sure if it helped or not. It did seem more consistent though, at least when running in one direction. Quick spin-around hitching after a re-load seemed less noticeable as well.

 

[Mabrito]

Don't know if it's been mentioned here but some of the people on ES forums are reporting that disabling HW audio acceleration in the .ini files will go a long way to smooth out hitching (seems both onboard audio and Creative users are reporting this)

I tried it during lunch but I didn't have time to really make enough of a comparison to say for sure if it helped or not. It did seem more consistent though, at least when running in one direction. Quick spin-around hitching after a re-load seemed less noticeable as well.

How does it sound though with that disabled? How will I go about doing this to give it a test?

 

[fbody98]

I'm listening to the discussion about consoles vs. PC, not blowing thousands on your rig every two years and upgrading your video card every 3 mo...

What kind of crack are you guys smoking?

You can build a top of the line rig for $1000 not including monitor and as long as you buy the second or third best video card (and cpu) you can play the latest games while maybe upgrading your video card every 12-15 mo.

Really...

I think your problems with the # are that you think like a rice boy racer. You get a Civic and then blow thousands on 'cold air induction' and all that mess instead of just buying a 5.0 to begin with. Lets go through all the things 'gamerz' spend on their rig that are just plain stupid in turms of ROI. (That's return on investment for those of you who don't have careers)

--2 gb XMS LL ram
--anything above a 3500+/3800+ (read Hardocp's recent cpu article)
--Dual Raptors in raid 0.
--23in. monitors to play games on (they're for work and e-penis comparisons, nothing (not even the 360) can push a mondern game on 2.3 million pixels.)
--SLI (you know the next gen card will be out in 6 mo. that's better!)
--650 watt power supplies (usually to run an SLI rig)

Take all of that crap of your setup and you could be like me, who's enjoying the game with all the settings maxed out on a $1000 PC... see below.

AMD A64 3500+
DFI Lanparty Ultra-D
1gb Corsair
19in. Widescreen 1400x900
XFX 7800GT 450,1050 stock
250gb WD HD
onboard audio

 

[Opie]

Wow, that's really constructive fbody; berating hardware enthusiasts on a hardware enthusiasts website.

 

[Circuitbreaker8]

AMD A64 3500+
DFI Lanparty Ultra-D
1gb Corsair
19in. Widescreen 1400x900
XFX 7800GT 450,1050 stock
250gb WD HD
onboard audio

That rig would most likely choke on oblivion. 1Gb Ram? Uh..no....Onboard audio? are you joking? and 1400x900 is a pretty odd resolution.

 

[Jared701]

Still waiting for some reports from 7900GT SLI users. Anyone? Please? I want to see numbers before I buy another one

ok, built this system like 3 days ago. 4400+ dual core at 2.5 gig 2 gig of ram 4000 2 7900 gt in sli
outside I get around 30-45 fps at 1600x1200
my settings (I have tested many many settings to find what works best)
All of the top sliders are set to max, HDR is turned on, far buildings and trees are turned on (this setting gives about a 10 fps hit) all other settings are maxed. I tried turning down many of the visual settings (turning off HDR shadows etc) and found that it really did not affect my gameplay. The sliders at the top, seeing far distances and changing the setting in ini file about how far to draw (don't remember the name of it right now... at work, but it is set to 5 by default and many say to change it to 7 or 10) make a huge impact on performance. I see very little change in fps between 1600x1200 and 1024x768. I have the draw distance set to 5 to get me the fps I have now. I thought I was video card limited, but turning on all the extra settings (shadows HDR etc) didn't really affect my game.... Am I CPU limited then? I've heard the game doesn't use over a gig of ram, so now I believe it must be the cpu that's limiting me. Anyone have any advice for out of game tweaks to improve performance?

 

[Circuitbreaker8]

30-40fps?! And you spent how much on that SLi Wow....I thought SLi doubles your FPS

 

[fbody98]

Wow, that's really constructive fbody; berating hardware enthusiasts on a hardware enthusiasts website.

You got me there I admit

Enthusiasm is great, i'm itching to read about the next latest and greatest release just like anyone else and I tweak my rig to get the most out of it I can.

I'm not berating the guy who gets a 2800+ and OC's the hell out of it to get what he can.

I'm berating the one who bought a 4000+ with dual 6800's a year ago and now wonders why it won't run the latest game at 1900x1200 on his dell 2400. and then complains about having to blow thousands on his rig. He made a poor choice for a long term investment and that shouldn't be put on the shoulders of PC gaming in general.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

How does it sound though with that disabled? How will I go about doing this to give it a test?

Meh, sounded fine to me. Granted I'm not running anything special, just onboard ALC880 HD audio with a set of Logitech X-230's.

There's some confusion over whether the setting needs to be changed in the player-specific .ini file or the oblivion_default.ini file. But the setting you need to change is:

bDSoundHWAcceleration=1

Just change it to zero and save. It should be the first entry under the [audio] heading. One oblivion.ini will be in My Documents\My Games\Oblivion. The other one will be Oblivion_default.ini in your Oblivion program directory.

 

[Kaddish]

30-40fps?! And you spent how much on that SLi Wow....I thought SLi doubles your FPS

It's pretty rare to see a 100% increase in FPS due to SLI. Considering I get 18+ FPS outside right now, if it never dipped below 30 I would be happy.

I have a

Opteron 170 @ 2.6GHz
2GB PC4000
7900GT
Creative X-Fi

 

[fbody98]

That rig would most likely choke on oblivion. 1Gb Ram? Uh..no....Onboard audio? are you joking? and 1400x900 is a pretty odd resolution.

19in. widescreen resolution, 16:10.

Why would you think it would choke?
+Recommended process is 3ghz. I have a 3500+.
+1gb ram recommended (that's what I have)
+Video card? only 3 nvidia chipsets are better than it and two aren't even widely available 7800gtx (and 512) and 7900gt/gtx.
+Onboard Audio? - go back and read what Hardocp said about your motherboard (since we have practically the same one) and the onboard audio. They fully recommend it and say that it's impact on framerate was more than acceptable.

With as much invested in your .sig i'm sure it seems paltry in comparison but i'm through spending twice as much for 10% better. When I upgraded I threw all the benchmarks into a spreadsheet and found the breaking pricepoint for performance.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

That rig would most likely choke on oblivion. 1Gb Ram? Uh..no....Onboard audio? are you joking? and 1400x900 is a pretty odd resolution.

First off, I run 1gb of RAM and Oblivion runs FANTASTIC on that (as far as HDD caching and load times and other RAM related functions go).

And that system would run Oblivion just fine, just maybe not at 2400x1600 with 16xAA and 16xAniso and every slider in the game maxed.

This game is kind of like Far Cry in that we'll really see what it can do in 12months + from now when systems can REALLY push it to its limits.

 

[sakurakana1003]

You got me there I admit

Enthusiasm is great, i'm itching to read about the next latest and greatest release just like anyone else and I tweak my rig to get the most out of it I can.

I'm not berating the guy who gets a 2800+ and OC's the hell out of it to get what he can.

I'm berating the one who bought a 4000+ with dual 6800's a year ago and now wonders why it won't run the latest game at 1900x1200 on his dell 2400. and then complains about having to blow thousands on his rig. He made a poor choice for a long term investment and that shouldn't be put on the shoulders of PC gaming in general.

Damn, I'm exactly the kind of people you are berating. Guess I should retaliate .......... nope, can't be bothered.

What monitor are you using? 1400x900 sounds delicious.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

Anyone tried standing at the top of the mountain where Belda(sp?) shrine is and looking down on the imperial city with all settings maxed, 4xAA, 8xAF, bloom, Supersampling Trans AA enabled, ugridstoload=9? Mmmmm... purty. At about 15 fps on my single 7900GTX standing still on a rocky outcropping.

I just wish the kind of hardware necessary to play the whole game like that was available. SLI would probably do it but there's no way I'm spending $1100 on one game, I already spent way too damn much on the single GTX just for this game =\

 

[kdog]

Anyone tried standing at the top of the mountain where Belda(sp?) shrine is and looking down on the imperial city with all settings maxed, 4xAA, 8xAF, bloom, Supersampling Trans AA enabled, ugridstoload=9? Mmmmm... purty. At about 15 fps on my single 7900GTX standing still on a rocky outcropping.

I just wish the kind of hardware necessary to play the whole game like that was available. SLI would probably do it but there's no way I'm spending $1100 on one game, I already spent way too damn much on the single GTX just for this game =\

Turn off AA, put 4xAF (can you really tell a difference bw 4 and 8??), turn on HDR. This will get your frames much higher and look just as good.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

Turn off AA, put 4xAF (can you really tell a difference bw 4 and 8??), turn on HDR. This will get your frames into the 30's.

I prefer AA over HDR. I might even disable Bloom. It's an interesting effect, but outdoors during daytime it's really pretty unrealistic... too much like a foggy dream sequence.

IMO people who say they don't see jaggies on their LCD's native res are full of it. I only have a 17" Samsung running 12x10 and I can see jaggies quite clearly when AA is off, and it drives me mad. HDR is better than bloom, and somewhat more subtle (usually) but I'm not giving up AA for it. And of course even if the game could do HDR+AA, no current single card would be able to handle that at playable frames with all the other settings I'm using (not to mention my 7900 can't do it anyway, I think... watch out, here come the ATI fan boys )

AA + Trans AA = way nicer than HDR. Just my preference.

 

[kdog]

Thats because your native res is too low. Most serious games nowadays have 20+ inch LCD's with high native res.
At 1600X1200 native res, with HDR and no AA, I see no jaggies. Honestly.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

Thats because your native res is too low.
at 1600X1200 native res, with HDR and no AA, I see no jaggies. Honestly.

Are you using an LCD or a CRT? In my experience LCDs shows jaggies *worse* simply because they are so sharp. Even if a ~20" LCD with 16x12 native res could cover up most of the jaggies, I wouldn't want to be stuck with such a high native res cuz then I'd be pretty much guaranteed that I'd never be able to run new games maxed out unless I was running SLI.

 

[Toireht]

Really have to tweak this game, I finnaly got it running perfectly on my system while still looking really nice. Settings:

1024x768
4xAA
No HDR/ Bloom On
Tree distance is a little below 3/4 -- While Actor, Object, Item and grass are at 3/4
Water is on Normal (This helps alot with performance)
Shadows options are off, and the shadow sliders (ext, int) are at 1/4

Big system hogs: Grass, High Water, HDR, Self Shadows, and Tree Canopy Shadow. Tree distance sometimes helps with performance.

You really have to test everything to see how your system reacts to certain things. I spent probaly around 2hours today testing and retesting a lot of things and I finnaly found a setting I like the looks of and doesnt dip down below 23fps.

 

[Khaydarin]

What kind of frames is the 360 getting, anyways? 30 or so? I know its not "always" 60 constant fps.....a ton of games bog down the console pretty well.

 

[Mabrito]

Quick question that is for a friend of mine. He has a 3.0GHz P4 6xx series, a gig of ram and a X1800XT, what would he see with this setup at a 1024x768 res(plans on getting the 2407 once they come out)? Can he do all settings maxed at a 1024x768 res? Well he still has yet to get the X1800XT. Will he be better off with a 7900GT?

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Quick question that is for a friend of mine. He has a 3.0GHz P4 6xx series, a gig of ram and a X1800XT, what would he see with this setup at a 1024x768 res(plans on getting the 2407 once they come out)? Can he do all settings maxed at a 1024x768 res?

Should run very nice at that rez. Probably won't want to max out ALL the sliders (like actor and object fade and such) but it will definitely run with them really high.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

What kind of frames is the 360 getting, anyways? 30 or so? I know its not "always" 60 constant fps.....a ton of games bog down the console pretty well.

I'm pretty sure it's constant 30fps with some dips in huge battles (like kvatch)

 

[Geo Fry]

You really have to test everything to see how your system reacts to certain things. I spent probaly around 2hours today testing and retesting a lot of things and I finnaly found a setting I like the looks of and doesnt dip down below 23fps.

I have very similar setup and did the exact same thing... spent a few hours tweaking settings and am getting no lower than 20fps.

I was really hoping for 1280x1024 res but ah well. Now i just need to stop worrying about how my pc will play it and just enjoy the game... FINALLY

 

[Mabrito]

Should run very nice at that rez. Probably won't want to max out ALL the sliders (like actor and object fade and such) but it will definitely run with them really high.

Not sure if you saw my edit, but would he better off with a 7900GT as he has yet to order and is placing it tomorrow? He basically wants that kick ass view distance at great detail and at least medium textures, with 2x AA.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Not sure if you saw my edit, but would he better off with a 7900GT as he has yet to order and is placing it tomorrow? He basically wants that kick ass view distance at great detail and at least medium textures, with 2x AA.

DEFINITELY tell him to get the 7900GT then

 

[Chacranajxy]

Wow, I was really surprised when I changed the rez from 1024X768 to 1280X960 or whatever it is... I didn't take a hit in terms of frame rate because it's still very smooth and runs at anywhere between 50-60FPS most of the time and never goes in the 20's, but the graphical quality shot up like crazy. This made an absolutely huge difference and everything simply looks superior... I was surprised how much Oblivion benefited from that. So yeah, I guess my 7800GTX is sufficient for this game which is good.

 

[Jared701]

Wow, I was really surprised when I changed the rez from 1024X768 to 1280X960 or whatever it is... I didn't take a hit in terms of frame rate because it's still very smooth and runs at anywhere between 50-60FPS most of the time and never goes in the 20's, but the graphical quality shot up like crazy. This made an absolutely huge difference and everything simply looks superior... I was surprised how much Oblivion benefited from that. So yeah, I guess my 7800GTX is sufficient for this game which is good.

see, thats what I don't get... I can enable all of the graphical settings except doing ini distance changes and change the resolution and it doesn't really affect my frames much. Is this game THAT much of a cpu hog? I can change lots of video settings without killing the fps but I add much distance at all and boom, my fps just melt away.

 

[Rehevkor]

I have a 7800GT running it smoothly on the highest settings at 1920x1200. I remember just before the Doom 3 release a lot of people were going "OMG you can't run this at 640x480 low settings without quad-SLI and a portable nuclear reactor to power it" (slight hyperbole). Somehow the system requirements get hyped up along with the game, and it ends up being much less of a beast than people think.

 

[sgi02]

any person with the x850xt pe want to comment?

Sure

System in my sig running at 1600X1200 0XAA 2XAF performance grass at maximum , shadows are at low no Bloom or HDR everything else is at autodetected levels. I am using the latest Catalyst release 6.3 and Windows XP x64 edition. All possible driver and system tweaks being used.

Lowest I have had the framerate drop was 15. Other than that a good majority of the game has been playing at 50+ FPS ( Even mostly throughout the first gate of Obliivion ) Large outdoor areas I have averaged between 20-35 FPS.

 

[Chacranajxy]

see, thats what I don't get... I can enable all of the graphical settings except doing ini distance changes and change the resolution and it doesn't really affect my frames much. Is this game THAT much of a cpu hog? I can change lots of video settings without killing the fps but I add much distance at all and boom, my fps just melt away.

It seems like it really is a huge CPU hog given how you can turn on whatever graphical stuff you want without taking a performance hit... I couldn't believe how much increasing distance a little bit killed my frame rate though. Still, the game's graphics are really good now so I don't care all that much.