Oblivion Hardware Demands?!?!?

[m1ldslide1]

Most everyone has probably read anand's Oblivion hardware review, and to summarize:

FX-60
x1900XT crossfire --and-- 7900GTX SLI x16
2 gigs of ddr3500

And you can't even come CLOSE to maxing out eye candy at 1280x1024. This is what, $2500 in CPU/GPU/RAM and you can't touch this game?

I'm wondering how this was even developed and passed quality control? Does the developer have hardware that the population at large doesn't have access to at enthusiast prices?

 

[alcoholbob]

Bethesda is the only company that makes games with such a huge free flowing world, instead of the 128x128 tiles that other *large* games use which means you don't see the are ahead of you. This is a difficult programming challenge.

There are two things that are true of Bethesda games.

1) They are badly programmed (occlusion culling).

2) Nobody else even tries what they tries, and in the same 4 years, I doubt id or epic could have done much better than they at an engine-level, much less even make a game.

 

[Frankie]

This is a first for Bethesda. Normally their graphics don't compare to other games, and they don't even try because that's not what TES is about. HOWEVER, with them also putting this out on the XBox they HAD to make this game look impressive as well as play impressive.

I wasn't expecting to be able to play this game on full settings with a new high end rig. In about 4 years, maybe..... but not any time soon.

Not to worry, the mid-range settings on the Anandtech article looked head over heels better than anything I'm looking at. I'll be happy when I get my new rig.

 

[Polish3d]

I don't know, I'm doing pretty well at 1680x1050 with almost everything maxed out, and I only have an OCed 7800gtx


The game is pretty awesome, the only big complaint I have is that the graphics don't match the E3 videos, AND, the textures on some things are extremely bad, like a big blur... I don't get that. If I could fix that I'd be very happy

 

[Frankie]

Originally posted by: Frackal
I don't know, I'm doing pretty well at 1680x1050 with almost everything maxed out, and I only have an OCed 7800gtx


The game is pretty awesome, the only big complaint I have is that the graphics don't match the E3 videos, AND, the textures on some things are extremely bad, like a big blur... I don't get that. If I could fix that I'd be very happy

If the graphics were like the E3 video NO ONE could play the damn thing. Those graphics were insane, I'm assuming you were talking about the prison scene.

They had to tone things down to get it playable. Graphics aren't a big thing for me with TES, not what I bought the game for.... guess that's why I'm happy with how the midrange grahpics looked.

 

[Polish3d]

I actually bought the game primarily for the graphics, but am glad I did anyway.


Now if I could just fix those textures, and make the HDR a little brighter I'd be a happy camper

 

[Howard]

Software drives hardware, not the other way around.

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: Frankie

Originally posted by: Frackal
I don't know, I'm doing pretty well at 1680x1050 with almost everything maxed out, and I only have an OCed 7800gtx


The game is pretty awesome, the only big complaint I have is that the graphics don't match the E3 videos, AND, the textures on some things are extremely bad, like a big blur... I don't get that. If I could fix that I'd be very happy

If the graphics were like the E3 video NO ONE could play the damn thing. Those graphics were insane, I'm assuming you were talking about the prison scene.

.

Well then why did they show it at all? I'm sick of games at E3 with great graphics and then somehow they suddenly find out 2 months later that it cannot run on the latest hardware so they are "forced" to downgrade it.

Like they didn't know whether it would run or not after 4 years? What were they expecting to happen?

 

[Markbnj]

1) They are badly programmed (occlusion culling).

So they use occlusion culling and that means the game is "badly programmed?"

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

Originally posted by: Howard
Software drives hardware, not the other way around.

I beg to differ. Hardware drives software now. Look at all the shit_ty games with good graphics out.

 

[Looney]

I'm playing it on Very High Quality setting (what it defaulted to on my system) at 1200x800 on my laptop (2.0PM - 2GB ram - 6800Go Ultra). The only thing i turned down was HDR to Bloom... it looked better to me (i didn't like the overly bright faces)... but i was playing HDR for hrs just fine.

 

[Cabages]

Yea, I also think the HDR is pretty bright. Especially because I have a ring that puts a ring of light all around me, and the rocks look plastic looking.

Am I wrong in thinking that Morrowind was a pretty heavy on the hardware game when it came out? Cant quite recall...

I do 1024x768 on my 6600. The graphics look great. The only time I feel jealous is when I see screenshots of everything turned up.

I think I will really start getting into this game when I can push the graphics up really far. Say in a couple years. Until then, I just dont play it as much as I thought I would. One cave hunt to many, I suppose.

 

[MechaSheeba]

Originally posted by: Astrallite

2) Nobody else even tries what they tries, and in the same 4 years, I doubt id or epic could have done much better than they at an engine-level, much less even make a game.

lol this makes me laugh. Id, as a company, sticks with rehashes of succesful titles. They may be poons too afraid to try new things, but to say Carmack couldn't have done better on an engine than the guys at Bethesda is just hilarious.

 

[imported_goku]

This game is believe it or not perfect for lower end systems because those people can feel less inclined to upgrade/bad they have an old system. Since the highest end system of now can't run the game with all of it's eye candy and high resolution, there is no real incentive to upgrade. The next affordable system that can run this game at full eye candy is the one that will take off.

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

1) They are badly programmed (occlusion culling).

So they use occlusion culling and that means the game is "badly programmed?"

No....its "badly programmed" because they didn't use it to help improve performance.

 

[Polish3d]

I have to say, I used the tweaks from the link in the AT article, and another set from an oblivion thread in video, and the difference is dramatic... I finally feel like I can begin enjoying the game and its (now) fantastic graphics, rather than being constantly annoyed by bad texturing

 

[fixxxer0]

back to the OP question, what are they running these e3 machines on?

 

[Markbnj]

No....its "badly programmed" because they didn't use it to help improve performance.

Just kind of lame to slam the whole thing as badly programmed because they made a technical decision in one area that you don't agree with. The game is not badly programmed, any more than any other game with some compromises in it is badly programmed.

back to the OP question, what are they running these e3 machines on?

God knows. What could they be running them on? The fastest GPUs can't render the game at max settings in hi resolution, even dualed up. I didn't see the videos. Maybe they cherry picked scenes and did some targetted optimizations.

 

[Polish3d]

Yeah I wonder the same too

 

[m1ldslide1]

Originally posted by: goku
This game is believe it or not perfect for lower end systems because those people can feel less inclined to upgrade/bad they have an old system. Since the highest end system of now can't run the game with all of it's eye candy and high resolution, there is no real incentive to upgrade. The next affordable system that can run this game at full eye candy is the one that will take off.

I feel the same way - somehow seeing that the most expensive stuff can't max out this game made me more content with the hardware I own now. I don't feel at all inclined to upgrade anything for a good while now...

 

[xuemike]

I've been playing this game for a while now and i have been running on max settings with tweaks that i've done and I still lag. I'm running the game on 1280 by 1024 with 4xAA and bloom and maxed AF, it looks nice but i'm definatly getting owned by the AI. Whenever i'm around AI , horses and outside my frame rates dip to 20 it's horrible. I dropped about good 4k+ Canadian(recently built my self) on my system and just not seeing results. I'm really considering playing without AA and use HDR instead of bloom but my low resolution wouldn't let me. This is the only game that's killing me right now. Tomb Raider legends is giving me some trouble as well but my frame rate for that would never drop below 30 anywhere with maxed out everything. Fear is running pretty flawless and i get 140 average frame rates on halflife 2 with everything maxed with AA and AF turned to max as well. I jsut don't understand it, i'm at the momment not playing Oblivion any more maybe it's a grudge thing or i'm just waiting for a patch to fix all this.

P.S. for any one building a Highend system I highly recommend going ATI as sli gtx indeed give very low minimum frames as said by Anandtech review.

 

[Dman877]

Originally posted by: m1ldslide1

Originally posted by: goku
This game is believe it or not perfect for lower end systems because those people can feel less inclined to upgrade/bad they have an old system. Since the highest end system of now can't run the game with all of it's eye candy and high resolution, there is no real incentive to upgrade. The next affordable system that can run this game at full eye candy is the one that will take off.

I feel the same way - somehow seeing that the most expensive stuff can't max out this game made me more content with the hardware I own now. I don't feel at all inclined to upgrade anything for a good while now...

Ditto, Seeing that a X580XT performs within a few percent of a 7800GT also made me feel better. I haven't bought the game yet, I'm waiting until my semester is over. Can anyone give an idea how much worse the game looks at medium detail settings? I want to run the game at 1920x1080 and I don't care about aa, af, or bloom. I just like having geometry and textures set to decent levels.

 

[MrUniq]

I think the real reason is the gap btw high-end and lower priced cards is shrinking. I have a 7600GT and I am running at pretty high settings. The only thing I've turned down is some of the grass distance and grass/tree shadows. Everything else is pretty much maxed out...but the trick is that I always run at lower resolutions like 1024 ect...I guess if someone has a large LCD that would be a diff issue. But dropping money on the priciest hardware and using SLI there just aren't any practical benefits to it b/c any true next gen game...really will require next gen hardware to run it fast and maxed out...usually in the form of one card.

Before I rebuilt my system..I was running Oblivion on a 9800 pro 128mb / 512mb system ram/ AMD 2700+! Of course the textures weren't nearly as nice but looked better than Doom3 IMO. So don't beleive the hype...it's all about scaling the settings down.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: m1ldslide1
FX-60
x1900XT crossfire --and-- 7900GTX SLI x16
2 gigs of ddr3500

And you can't even come CLOSE to maxing out eye candy at 1280x1024. This is what, $2500 in CPU/GPU/RAM and you can't touch this game?

"Playability performance" is highly subjective. I'm using a 3000+ Winnie @ 2.5, 2GB of ddr400, and an XTX @ 675/845 (total price for all <$700) and it runs perfectly with all settings maxed (except for self shadows which are off) at 1600x1200 2xAA 16xHQAF. It averages less than 30fps outdoors, but 25fps in this game is pefectly playable in my opinion. This is not BF2, COD2, or FEAR.

I'm planning to spend some time this w/e to do my own benchmarks with different settings (AA, HQAF, HDR, Bloom, different resolutions, etc), with some gameplay video footage and fraps logs of each.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: MechaSheeba

Originally posted by: Astrallite

2) Nobody else even tries what they tries, and in the same 4 years, I doubt id or epic could have done much better than they at an engine-level, much less even make a game.

lol this makes me laugh. Id, as a company, sticks with rehashes of succesful titles. They may be poons too afraid to try new things, but to say Carmack couldn't have done better on an engine than the guys at Bethesda is just hilarious.

Well, i'm not an expert on things like this... but using what is available, Oblivion looks much better than D3. Sure, eventually id will come out with something better when there's more horsepower to play with, but with what's available now, Oblivion is pretty damn impressive. You can not only tell by all the eye-candy that you can turn on in the game, but also how fast the game and areas load (compared to D3 if you've ever played it).