The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GPU Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 26, 2006 1:07 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Mid Range GPU Performance w/ Bloom Enabled
Just as was the case with the high end tests, we ran a separate set of benchmarks with HDR lighting disabled to allow for comparison to ATI's Radeon X850/X800 series. The question we're looking to answer here is what upgrade options X850/X800 owners have in the mid-range market segment.
The white lines within the bars indicate minimum frame rate
With HDR disabled, if you've got anything faster than an X800 XL from ATI you are sitting very pretty. While the GeForce 7900 GT and X1800 XT offer some pretty compelling performance, high end X850/X800 owners really don't have a reason to upgrade unless they want better image quality. Even the X800 Pro performs pretty well here; fortunately (or unfortunately) for owners of ATI's X850/X800 series, if you're not going to spend a lot of money on a GPU upgrade then your best bet is actually to stay put and just turn down your detail settings.
NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 GS does reasonably well here, but it looks like Oblivion isn't very friendly to NVIDIA's GeForce 6 architecture as the vanilla ATI Radeon X800 offers similar performance.
The white lines within the bars indicate minimum frame rate
The performance picture doesn't really change all that much here for Radeon X850/X800 owners, their performance is still chart topping.
The white lines within the bars indicate minimum frame rate
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bobsmith1492 - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
I'm playing with a 9700 mobility (basically 9600 ultra) in my laptop with a P-M and a gigger at 1024, medium settings about like you set it. Where in the world did all those extra settings come from though (shadows, water)? Is that something outside the game itself?ueadian - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
I played this game fine on my X800XL with high settings.. Yeah it PROBABLY dipped into the 20's but honestly I never really noticed "lag". I shortcircuited my X800XL by stupidly putting a fan with a metal casing on top of it it went ZZZZT and died. I bought a 7900 GT for 299.99 and voltmoded it to GTX speeds and I really don't notice a difference while playing the game. Yeah I'm sure if I payed attention to FPS I'd see it, but really, the only place I noticed lag with my X800XL at high settings was by oblivion gates, and my 7900 GT at 680 core 900 mem locks up near oblivion gates as well. I was sort of forced to "upgrade" my card, but the 7900 GT is the best value for the money right now considering you can do a pen mod to get it to run PAST GTX speeds fairly easy. I have a crappy CRT who's max resolution is 1024x768 and dont plan on upgrading it anytime soon, so I don't need 512mb memory to throw the resolution up to goddly high settings, besides, im pretty blind, I find it easier to play most online games like FPS's at lower resolution just to gain an advantage. Oblivion is near perfection as a GAME it's the most enjoyable game I've ever played, and I've been playing games since Doom. Yeah the engine does suck, and I was really disapointed to have my brand new top of the line video card actualy STUTTER in a game, but really, does it completely ruin the whole game for you? If you have played it you know that it doesn't.thisisatest - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
7900 series isn't what I consider to be the top of the line. There is high end and there is top of the line. The top of the line is clear.poohbear - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
im really curious to see how dualcore cpus perform as Oblivion is supposed to take advantage of multithreading. if anandtech could do a cpu performance chart that'd be great. firingsquad did a cpu performance chart but only @ 2 resolutions, 800x600 & 1280x1024, they found significant differences between dualcore and singlecore on 800x600 but no diff on 1280x1024. now, i play @ 1024x768 on my 6800GT, so wondering if a dualcore would help in that resolution. also, if u could investigate some of the supposed tweaks for dualcores and if they truly work that'd be great too. thanks.Eris23007 - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
A friend of mine is playing it on a 3.4GHz Northwood; he told me that when he enabled HyperThreading he got an immediate ~10% (or so) improvement.
That's a pretty good indication that dual cores will help a *lot*, in my view...
mpeavid - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
10% is VERY pooor multi threading performance. A decent multi threaded app should give 40-60 and higher for highlt efficient codes.nullpointerus - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
HT isn't the same as having dual cores. IIRC, ~10% improvement from HT is rather typical in certain areas where multiple cores have significantly better returns.Akaz1976 - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
Anyone have any idea how 9800PRO compares to x800?hoppa - Friday, April 28, 2006 - link
What this test fails to mention is that I'm running a 9800 pro, Athlon XP 3000+, 1.5 gigs of ram, at 1280x768, and the game runs quite well even at medium settings. This game is very stressful at maximum everything but still manages to run incredibly well on older rigs and lower settings. Had I not played this game, after seeing this article I would've thought that it'd be impossible on my rig, but the truth is I've got plenty of computing power to spare.xsilver - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
9800pro is considered midrange/lowend now -- i guess that article is coming latermy guess is aprox 10% less than the lowest card on each graph besides the 7300gs (also you dont have HDR)