Oblivion PC performance

[cornelious0_0]

I'd take those numbers with a grain of salt. Unless he's playing with some sort of grass tweak or just never battles outdoors, I guarantee he's not staying above 20 fps at ALL times at 16x12 on that system. First thing I do when I'm fighting in a grassy area is drop the console and toggle grass off. It's just too slow otherwise, and I'm only playing 1440x900 (1.3 Megapixels vs the 1.9MP he's claiming)

X2 @ 2.4 ghz, 7900 GTX, 2x1 GB DDR400

Yes I've tried all the tweaks, no my system isn't borked, yes I know what I'm doing.

I dunno man, until I've got the game to play with myself I'm not to sure. I'm not saying who's right and who's wrong, but I've also seen ppl with similar setups to yours that are pulling numbers/settings a fair bit above what you're quoting that you're at.

Ah well, I won't be up and running with Oblivion for awhile.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

I dunno man, until I've got the game to play with myself I'm not to sure. I'm not saying who's right and who's wrong, but I've also seen ppl with similar setups to yours that are pulling numbers/settings a fair bit above what you're quoting that you're at.

Ah well, I won't be up and running with Oblivion for awhile.

Yeah I'm not saying he's wrong, just saying it's pretty unlikely. In all honesty, if I'd known how poorly Oblivion was going to be optimized for SMP (read: not at all) then I probably wouldn't have bought an X2. I definitely get the impression that my CPU is holding me back more than my GTX, but all the same, grass is a major framerate killer in this game.

 

[cornelious0_0]

but all the same, grass is a major framerate killer in this game.

And the award for the understatement of the day goes to.....

 

[Sabrewulf165]

And the award for the understatement of the day goes to.....

Do I win a prize?

 

[cornelious0_0]

Do I win a prize?

If only it was that easy eh?

I'd say back on topic, but if there's no new blood around here getting going with the game I'm not sure how much else can be said.

 

[Sunin]

I'd take those numbers with a grain of salt. Unless he's playing with some sort of grass tweak or just never battles outdoors, I guarantee he's not staying above 20 fps at ALL times at 16x12 on that system. First thing I do when I'm fighting in a grassy area is drop the console and toggle grass off. It's just too slow otherwise, and I'm only playing 1440x900 (1.3 Megapixels vs the 1.9MP he's claiming)

X2 @ 2.4 ghz, 7900 GTX, 2x1 GB DDR400

Yes I've tried all the tweaks, no my system isn't borked, yes I know what I'm doing.

Well I've never had it get choppy in battles at all, and yes it drops to 22 fps during battles and at times it swings up to 60fps, but the avg is between 22-33. It very rarely showed anything below 22fps. Now I don't have a single tweak. It auto detected ultra high quality setting on initial setup and I have not tweaked anything. Textures are at large as that is the highest setting. Plus to me this sounds right as I play WOW at 16x12 and stay at 65avg fps in that game and I know its a helluva lot easier on my hardware then this game. Also 32fps is consistent with my COD2 experiences. So it did not shock me that I was staying 22-32 fps. Its smooth as silk for me so that's all I care about, even if you doubt it.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

Well I've never had it get choppy in battles at all, and yes it drops to 22 fps during battles and at times it swings up to 60fps, but the avg is between 22-33. It very rarely showed anything below 22fps. Now I don't have a single tweak. It auto detected ultra high quality setting on initial setup and I have not tweaked anything. Textures are at large as that is the highest setting. Plus to me this sounds right as I play WOW at 16x12 and stay at 65avg fps in that game and I know its a helluva lot easier on my hardware then this game. Also 32fps is consistent with my COD2 experiences. So it did not shock me that I was staying 22-32 fps. Its smooth as silk for me so that's all I care about, even if you doubt it.

I'm not doubting your honesty, but it's easy to lose track of the framerate when you get into the game. I just have a hard time believing that if you got into a battle with 2 goblins in a large grassy field @ 16x12, that you're able to stay above 20 fps with all in-game settings maxed and no .ini tweaks. In the end, that you're enjoying the game comfortably (for you) is all that matters.

 

[Ehren8879]

I was so amped up to play this game that I went out to three places the day it came out to find a collectors edition. Never having played any of the Elder Scrolls series before I wasnt sure what to expect. I've played games like Diablo 1 and 2, loved both, Neverwinter Nights was good, played Dungeon Seige recently, that was alright too. Mostly the point and click, dungeon crawler variety obviously. Most people complain when a game is overly linear, but when it comes to my RPGs, call me old fashioned, but I look for that. There's a lot to like about Oblivion, its graphics, AI and combat system all live up to next gen expectations, but for me I feel it lacks the necessary element to motivate me. Most often I'll play through a game and never pick it up again, if I even get that far. The longest I've ever played a single game for was DoD source and that was for about three months consistently. This was the first true online game I've really played and I must admit that alone made the game. Maybe things will change in the future but for now I must say that single player games like Oblivion are a dying generation with little replay value. Many reviews are placing TES:O in the 90% range, but I feel it does not deserve a ranking quite this high with it's lack of online play and therefore diminished replay value.

Fire away flamers

 

[Sunin]

I'm not doubting your honesty, but it's easy to lose track of the framerate when you get into the game. I just have a hard time believing that if you got into a battle with 2 goblins in a large grassy field @ 16x12, that you're able to stay above 20 fps with all in-game settings maxed and no .ini tweaks. In the end, that you're enjoying the game comfortably (for you) is all that matters.

I'll have to get a screen capture. I've never noticed any slowness, and I'll try to screen capture the settings.

 

[Sunin]

I was so amped up to play this game that I went out to three places the day it came out to find a collectors edition. Never having played any of the Elder Scrolls series before I wasnt sure what to expect. I've played games like Diablo 1 and 2, loved both, Neverwinter Nights was good, played Dungeon Seige recently, that was alright too. Mostly the point and click, dungeon crawler variety obviously. Most people complain when a game is overly linear, but when it comes to my RPGs, call me old fashioned, but I look for that. There's a lot to like about Oblivion, its graphics, AI and combat system all live up to next gen expectations, but for me I feel it lacks the necessary element to motivate me. Most often I'll play through a game and never pick it up again, if I even get that far. The longest I've ever played a single game for was DoD source and that was for about three months consistently. This was the first true online game I've really played and I must admit that alone made the game. Maybe things will change in the future but for now I must say that single player games like Oblivion are a dying generation with little replay value. Many reviews are placing TES:O in the 90% range, but I feel it does not deserve a ranking quite this high with it's lack of online play and therefore diminished replay value.

Fire away flamers

I plan on playing this game 2 other times. Once as a rogue, and once as a caster. I am a warrior at the moment and will have had my fill of melee!

 

[Drexion]

..... with little replay value.....

Many years later there's still a massive community of people playing Morrowind till today, with mods being released for it on a daily basis. Theres thousands and thousands of mods/texture packs/addons etc available for it.
That alone should hinder thoughts of Oblivion having no replay value. Plus official expansions will probably be released.

I can see what you are saying and where you are coming from, but where you say 'motivation' its what others may consider 'restrictive' or just 'pushy' (best I can can come up with :s)

Some people just like having no 'motivation', ie they can just go do whatever the hell they want. And thats where the TES games succeed.

 

[Dan_D]

I think there are a lot of gameplay options for Oblivion. I am not that far through the game, but I can see extreme differences in how the game can be played based on your choices. Plus the quests are actually pretty interesting. I can think of several ways I could have gone and I am only about 10 hours into it.

On the performance side, the game is a pig. But at least it looks good. I can't wait to drop the second 7900GTX in and see what it does for my frame rates.

 

[Devnull]

Anyone know if newer ATI drivers are better for this game? I'm still on 5.13s, but I haven't gotten anything newer because I've been uncertain if I can get them working without CCC installed.

 

[Nuzzles]

I didn't even know there was a "huge" selection for the textures... what do you need to activate it? 2gb of ram?

My apologies. I meant large.

Recently, my Oblivion performance has turned to shit. Framerates are a lot worse, and it takes a good 5 seconds to open up the menus for looting and whatnot.

 

[cornelious0_0]

I think there are a lot of gameplay options for Oblivion. I am not that far through the game, but I can see extreme differences in how the game can be played based on your choices. Plus the quests are actually pretty interesting. I can think of several ways I could have gone and I am only about 10 hours into it.

On the performance side, the game is a pig. But at least it looks good. I can't wait to drop the second 7900GTX in and see what it does for my frame rates.

Good god would I love to have your (sig) rig to play this game...or just for general use for that matter. I think a system like that might be JUST enough to get me back into Maya.

 

[Dan_D]

Good god would I love to have your (sig) rig to play this game...or just for general use for that matter. I think a system like that might be JUST enough to get me back into Maya.

Thanks. It's a reliable and solid machine. I spend too much damn money on it though. The only thing that's ever gone wrong was when I popped my 600 Watt Eneramx PSU. Hence the dually Antec NeoHE's. I did just drop in the second 7900GTX. I'll be firing up Oblivion after I get something to eat.

 

[Obi_Kwiet]

I was so amped up to play this game that I went out to three places the day it came out to find a collectors edition. Never having played any of the Elder Scrolls series before I wasnt sure what to expect. I've played games like Diablo 1 and 2, loved both, Neverwinter Nights was good, played Dungeon Seige recently, that was alright too. Mostly the point and click, dungeon crawler variety obviously. Most people complain when a game is overly linear, but when it comes to my RPGs, call me old fashioned, but I look for that. There's a lot to like about Oblivion, its graphics, AI and combat system all live up to next gen expectations, but for me I feel it lacks the necessary element to motivate me. Most often I'll play through a game and never pick it up again, if I even get that far. The longest I've ever played a single game for was DoD source and that was for about three months consistently. This was the first true online game I've really played and I must admit that alone made the game. Maybe things will change in the future but for now I must say that single player games like Oblivion are a dying generation with little replay value. Many reviews are placing TES:O in the 90% range, but I feel it does not deserve a ranking quite this high with it's lack of online play and therefore diminished replay value.

Fire away flamers

It's a good SP game. If you don't like having no MP don't buy it. duh.

 

[Dan_D]

Well I can tell you that on my system it doesn't want to run with two video cards in there. Even if I disable one of them.

Needless to say I am pretty pissed off at this point.

Nothing I do makes that pile of shit run. (Technical pile of shit, not a gameplay standpoint)

EDIT: For some reason it worked when I started a new game. So I loaded a slightly older save and it worked perfectly. Weird.

The game looks amazing and runs much better now. Though I haven't run FRAPS or anything on it.

 

[wtburnette]

I was so amped up to play this game that I went out to three places the day it came out to find a collectors edition. Never having played any of the Elder Scrolls series before I wasnt sure what to expect. I've played games like Diablo 1 and 2, loved both, Neverwinter Nights was good, played Dungeon Seige recently, that was alright too. Mostly the point and click, dungeon crawler variety obviously. Most people complain when a game is overly linear, but when it comes to my RPGs, call me old fashioned, but I look for that. There's a lot to like about Oblivion, its graphics, AI and combat system all live up to next gen expectations, but for me I feel it lacks the necessary element to motivate me. Most often I'll play through a game and never pick it up again, if I even get that far. The longest I've ever played a single game for was DoD source and that was for about three months consistently. This was the first true online game I've really played and I must admit that alone made the game. Maybe things will change in the future but for now I must say that single player games like Oblivion are a dying generation with little replay value. Many reviews are placing TES:O in the 90% range, but I feel it does not deserve a ranking quite this high with it's lack of online play and therefore diminished replay value.

Fire away flamers

Everyone is different and has different needs and expectations from gameplay. To me, this is the best type of RPG (or any game for that matter). There is a good storyline from the main quest and many of the guild quests. If you need a linear storyline, stick to those and you should still have something like 30+ hours of good gameplay. To me though, what's better is I can go explore in the wilderness, hit howevermany dungeons I want, go sit and create potions or enchanted items, or whatever I want for however long I want. I absolutely love the open ended gameplay. I also love the fact that it's singleplayer only. I hate having to worry about getting a group together, working out time issues (when everyone is available to play), worrying about whether I get a crappy PUG, etc. That's why as beautiful as Guild Wars was, I stopped playing after getting to the higher level missions. I only have a very limited amount of time to game and I want to spend it gaming, not sitting in town or teamspeak trying to get a group together. Plus I like having the story center around me and me only and I get all the loot...

 

[Sunin]

I think there are a lot of gameplay options for Oblivion. I am not that far through the game, but I can see extreme differences in how the game can be played based on your choices. Plus the quests are actually pretty interesting. I can think of several ways I could have gone and I am only about 10 hours into it.

On the performance side, the game is a pig. But at least it looks good. I can't wait to drop the second 7900GTX in and see what it does for my frame rates.

Yep I'm 44 game hours into this and have had several dozen game altering decisions to make. I could have killed certain people when they turned out to be innocent or stolen anything not nailed down. I only do that legit in my guilds. I somehow managed to get in all 4 guilds: Arena, Dark Brotherhood, Fighter's, and mag's. I'm also a gladiator, 1 fight from Champion, I've avoided becoming a vampire (yes you can play as a vampire), I'm lvl 5, with all my major skills close to 60. I'm trying to not rush uping my lvls and only advanced what I have because it was required to get in the dark brotherhood and to finish a quest. Plus as you advance your skills they have a HUGE impact on your character.

I think playing as a rogue/thief/asassin, and as a true spell caster will make this game a unique experience each time!

 

[Sunin]

Well I can tell you that on my system it doesn't want to run with two video cards in there. Even if I disable one of them.

Needless to say I am pretty pissed off at this point.

Nothing I do makes that pile of shit run. (Technical pile of shit, not a gameplay standpoint)

EDIT: For some reason it worked when I started a new game. So I loaded a slightly older save and it worked perfectly. Weird.

The game looks amazing and runs much better now. Though I haven't run FRAPS or anything on it.

The bug i'm dealing with right now is half the time my audio won't play. Its either gargled or silent half the time. And it is an in game issue, exiting and re-opening the game a few times will finally fix it. I do plan to hunt down a newer driver for the onboard audio, but weird nonetheless.

 

[TwistedJester]

Turning sound hardware acceleration down a notch or two from full with dxdiag will fix the gargle problem, but I still get instances where I'll cast a restore spell a few times and sometimes the sound just won't play though.

 

[Ehren8879]

Don't get me wrong, it's a great game and what I've played of it so far I have enjoyed. My comments concerning replay value were just a matter of personal opinion and for others the numerous mods and expansions to follow will surely mean years of solid, immersive gameplay. I applaud Bethesda and their acheivement and I am proud to say that this is one game that I supported monitarily. If you know what I'm saying. Eventually I will play through this title and had I done my normal "try before I buy" I'm not so sure that I would have given it the second chance that I feel it deserves. Still I feel a game of this magnitude deserves an online component and hopefully a mod will bring that to the table. Maybe once I finish the main quest and mods start to be released my opinion will change. Wouldnt be the first time I was initially disapointed with a game only to be hooked months later.

 

[cornelious0_0]

Everyone is different and has different needs and expectations from gameplay. To me, this is the best type of RPG (or any game for that matter). There is a good storyline from the main quest and many of the guild quests. If you need a linear storyline, stick to those and you should still have something like 30+ hours of good gameplay. To me though, what's better is I can go explore in the wilderness, hit howevermany dungeons I want, go sit and create potions or enchanted items, or whatever I want for however long I want. I absolutely love the open ended gameplay. I also love the fact that it's singleplayer only. I hate having to worry about getting a group together, working out time issues (when everyone is available to play), worrying about whether I get a crappy PUG, etc. That's why as beautiful as Guild Wars was, I stopped playing after getting to the higher level missions. I only have a very limited amount of time to game and I want to spend it gaming, not sitting in town or teamspeak trying to get a group together. Plus I like having the story center around me and me only and I get all the loot...

That pretty much sums up how I feel...I love the open-endedness, but I need a decent amount of storyline/questing to guide me, or I get bored. I love being able to develop my charater how/where/when I want, and having the ability to drastically alter the way the game flows.

I played Morrowing to death, hit level 87 or so and had some really nice stuff. I'm really looking forward to being able to play Oblivion, I can't wait.

 

[Jodiuh]

Runs great on my end 1680x1050 max everything

Sure it does...

I cant understand how you guys are a x1900xtx are able to max all the settings, mine sure cant handle it @ 1680x1050. Gotta run no grass, no distant trees/buildings, 2xAA, 8xHQAF, bloom on. With those settings the game is very playable, looks okay, but isnt the best it could be.

Im running Windows 2000, could that be a poblem? Shouldn't be...

2 GIG Ram. 2.5 Ghz 754 AMD64. Running 250x10. X1900XTX running @ 690/800. 6.3 Modifed Drivers(ZeroPoint)

They're not. The only major difference between our rigs is my cpu. It's @ 2700. But I'd be willing to be that doesn't do a damn thing. Ram and XT speeds are identical.

If I run with 1680x1050, Max details, 16xHQ AF, and HDR...it WILL hit 10FPS in a battle outdoors with mad grass. If I bring my resolution down to 1360x768, I gain 3-5FPS...but the native LCD doesn't like that...not one bit.

So in order to get a decent FPS, I have to:

1. turn down some details = Booo!
2. edit the ini = Time not playing!!
3. turn the res down = Nasty!

So what do I gain by sitting in a chair with my mouse? I'm not so sure anymore. The game has definitely convinced me to check out the 360 on an HDTV. If it's even CLOSE to as pretty, I'll probably end up saying goodbye to pc gaming.

I'm just tired of the all the $$ and time spent that could be allocated to other aspects of Jod's life.

 

[Sunin]

I'm not doubting your honesty, but it's easy to lose track of the framerate when you get into the game. I just have a hard time believing that if you got into a battle with 2 goblins in a large grassy field @ 16x12, that you're able to stay above 20 fps with all in-game settings maxed and no .ini tweaks. In the end, that you're enjoying the game comfortably (for you) is all that matters.

Ok ran some tests over the weekend. First, some facts: I don't have all bars set at max, I never said that. I said it came up on auto detect as Ultra High, HDR, etc. So with the sliders where they default from this setting I'm getting 22-32fps. I also noted inside dungeons and some cities I get about double that. I also noticed I get 600fps when I'm goofing around with my inventory.

So finally I went and tested what you said. Its pretty hard to find 2 mobs at once at lvl 5 for some reason but I did, and you were right it drops below 22fps, to 15fps.

Oh yeah and I did go buy a 74g raptor, cuz they just rock for decreasing load times. The jittering that I got before when loading new areas is all but gone.

So for the system in my signature its not all that bad to play with. Do I wish I had 60fps non-stop yeah! But like I said I'm holding out for early 2007. When Quad or Oct 45nm processors will be on the market Vista will be out and patched heavily, and maybe even the new tech in video cards will be released.

Sunin

 

[MirrorIK]

Has anyone watched their CPU load while playing Oblivion? I've got an FX-55 and I'm consistently seeing 100% load, and I'm wondering if that's bringing down performance. Especially because areas don't start lagging until I'm being attacked, when the AI kicks in (I assume). It doesn't seem realistic that even with the AI I should be at full processor load almost all of the time, does it? I'd like to see what other people are getting on single cores.

Cool 'n Quiet is off, also, so no dynamic multiplier changes. I'm not sure if that messes with the CPU load graph or not.

 

[Khaydarin]

FX-55 is only a single core and this game supports dual.

 

[cornelious0_0]

FX-55 is only a single core and this game supports dual.

Correct, there's a lot of physics/AI going on in this game...and it wouldn't be the first time I've seen a single core CPU get loaded down completely by the game alone. Not only does Oblivion support dual core chips, it tries to make use of one right out of the box.

 

[Devnull]

FX-55 is only a single core and this game supports dual.

That's debatable... With all the multithreading tweaks enabled I hardly see it making more than 52% or so useage, with it briefly spiking higher then bouncing around the low 50s.

 

[cornelious0_0]

That's debatable... With all the multithreading tweaks enabled I hardly see it making more than 52% or so useage, with it briefly spiking higher then bouncing around the low 50s.

There could also then be some service/spyware item in the backgroud running eating up a lot of CPU cycles. Back in the day when i had my first Duron processor, the same thing was happening, I was getting crappy FPS in solder of fortune, but I realised that there was some stupid process running that was keeping my cpu at 100% usage once the game loaded. Killing that service/process fixed things right up, and I wouldn't doubt if a similar thing was happening here to MirrorIK.

 

[Sunin]

There could also then be some service/spyware item in the backgroud running eating up a lot of CPU cycles. Back in the day when i had my first Duron processor, the same thing was happening, I was getting crappy FPS in solder of fortune, but I realised that there was some stupid process running that was keeping my cpu at 100% usage once the game loaded. Killing that service/process fixed things right up, and I wouldn't doubt if a similar thing was happening here to MirrorIK.

Also there are about 20 services that you can disable on your PC without any impact to online gaming / gaming. Just keep a log somewhere and I went from a commit charge of about 265k to 86k. (PNP, help, spooler, etc are all extra fat on a gaming system) Just turn them on when/if you need them.

Also turn down your page file size if you have 2gig of memory or more! I'm considering running at zero soon as I have it at 256meg right now. Not a single game I've played to date has reached beyond the 1gig size so the more you can keep your machine from hitting your HD the better!

 

[cornelious0_0]

Also turn down your page file size if you have 2gig of memory or more! I'm considering running at zero soon as I have it at 256meg right now. Not a single game I've played to date has reached beyond the 1gig size so the more you can keep your machine from hitting your HD the better!

I did the same thing even when I had 1GB of memory. Granted it's easier to use up a gig of ram then it is to fill up 2 gigs...but in terms of game performance it did help to completely get rid of the pagefile. That was awhile ago though, and I probly wouldn't completely kill it off unless I had 2GB of system memory these days.

 

[Sunin]

I did the same thing even when I had 1GB of memory. Granted it's easier to use up a gig of ram then it is to fill up 2 gigs...but in terms of game performance it did help to completely get rid of the pagefile. That was awhile ago though, and I probly wouldn't completely kill it off unless I had 2GB of system memory these days.

Yeah I might try that tonight just for fun. I also wanted to say removing a bunch of services did reduce the load of the processor. Its not so noticeable when idle, but when a game starts using say 40% the processor can start to get loaded down by having to handle 30 services and the game. Of course, this is a no duh, but ditch the virus scan, and zonelabs during gaming. I do a raw install and game only on my gaming system. Keep it lean and fast!

 

[cornelious0_0]

Yeah I might try that tonight just for fun. I also wanted to say removing a bunch of services did reduce the load of the processor. Its not so noticeable when idle, but when a game starts using say 40% the processor can start to get loaded down by having to handle 30 services and the game. Of course, this is a no duh, but ditch the virus scan, and zonelabs during gaming. I do a raw install and game only on my gaming system. Keep it lean and fast!

I'm actually looking at converting an older system of mine into a Linux router to eliminate the need for Norton, Zonealarm, and whatever else on my main system. I'll probly wait and order a cheapo s462 shuttle though, as I don't want to devote a lot of space to the Linux box, and it'll have to be fairly quiet. Add in a GBLan card and it'll be ready to go.

 

[Thuleman]

I just got a Dell E1705 with 1GB of RAM and the T2300 1.66Ghz dual core CPU, and then I ran the "Can you play this" test on Gamespot, and it tells me that my CPU is too slow as a 2Ghz is required as well as me failing the CPU test in general because they recognized the CPU as Pentium 3 instead of the required Pentium 4/ Athlon

So, my question is, will I be able to play the game, or do I have to buy myself an Xbox360 instead? (I really don't want to buy a real PC, just got rid of one in favor of the laptop).

 

[Sunin]

You can play it with low resolution and everything turned down graphics wise. IMHO get a xbox 360

 

[cornelious0_0]

I just got a Dell E1705 with 1GB of RAM and the T2300 1.66Ghz dual core CPU, and then I ran the "Can you play this" test on Gamespot, and it tells me that my CPU is too slow as a 2Ghz is required as well as me failing the CPU test in general because they recognized the CPU as Pentium 3 instead of the required Pentium 4/ Athlon

So, my question is, will I be able to play the game, or do I have to buy myself an Xbox360 instead? (I really don't want to buy a real PC, just got rid of one in favor of the laptop).

You would be able to play it, the 1.66GHz Yonah is still enough to at least handle the game, but the graphics processor in your notebook (not sure what it is...assuming it is a notebook) would also possibly hold you back. Turn everything down and it should run decent enough, but a 360 would probably give you a better experience.

 

[Dan_D]

You would be able to play it, the 1.66GHz Yonah is still enough to at least handle the game, but the graphics processor in your notebook (not sure what it is...assuming it is a notebook) would also possibly hold you back. Turn everything down and it should run decent enough, but a 360 would probably give you a better experience.

Unless you get really expensive notebooks systems, their video cards are usually crap.

 

[cornelious0_0]

Unless you get really expensive notebooks systems, their video cards are usually crap.

All too true...notebooks are getting better and better...but that's the one main area where they'll never be comPLETELY up to par with their desktop bretheren.