The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GPU Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 26, 2006 1:07 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Looking at the performance offered by a variety of GPUs in Oblivion makes one thing clear: this game is the most stressful title on the market right now. We've focused primarily on stock performance using commonly available settings, but if you're serious about getting the most out of Oblivion we highly recommend looking at some of the tweak guides to help balance performance with appearance. For now, those of you hoping to run Oblivion at 1920x1200 with all the detail settings at maximum will need to wait for future GPU generations. But how do the current generation of cards fare?
At the high end, there's no better solution than ATI's Radeon X1900 series. While NVIDIA can offer similar performance with the GeForce 7900 GTX, its minimum frame rates aren't anywhere near as high as what ATI can deliver, meaning that the X1900 series will give you a much better overall experience. Oblivion is quite possibly the first game we've ever benchmarked where having multiple GPUs is almost necessary to get good frame rates at relatively common resolutions with most of the impressive visual effects turned on. The performance offered by a pair of X1900 XTs simply can't be matched by any single card, but as good of a game as Oblivion is you'd have to have a pretty serious computer budget to accommodate the $1200 that a pair of X1900 CrossFire GPUs will set you back.
Looking at mid range offerings, our recommendation sticks with ATI as the Radeon X1800 XT continues ATI's trend of offering absolutely stellar performance (relatively speaking) under Oblivion. At $200, the GeForce 7600 GT also proved to be a fairly strong contender in our medium quality tests.
In terms of upgrades, if you've got a CrossFire or SLI motherboard, adding a second GPU can improve performance by 25-50% in our Oblivion Gate test. X1600 CrossFire is probably the cheapest upgrade offering reasonable, assuming you already own an Radeon X1600 XT. At around $150 you really can't go wrong there. Moving from a single 6800 GS or 7600 GT to SLI also provides nearly 50% more performance, but the cost will be a bit higher.
If you own a slightly older card like something in the Radeon X800/X850 series, you honestly don't really need an upgrade to get better performance under Oblivion. Moving to a Shader Model 3.0 card like something in ATI's Radeon X1800 or X1900 series will give you HDR support and you'll be able to turn up some more eye candy, but then you're talking about a fairly significant upgrade investment. Moving to an X1800 XT will set you back more than $300 and still not offer you tremendous performance at higher image quality settings; for that you'll have to turn to a X1900 XT or XTX. Owners of the GeForce 6 series are in a similar situation: lowering your expectations a bit may be better than spending a lot of money on an upgrade.
This is just the tip of the iceberg however; we have a general idea of what GPUs do the best and worst in Oblivion but what about CPUs? And at what point does it stop making sense to spend money on new graphics cards versus just going out and buying the Xbox 360 version instead? We'll be answering those questions and more as our Oblivion coverage continues...
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nullpointerus - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Really? I follow most of this site's articles, and I've never run into this problem.cgrecu77 - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
this is the article I've been waiting for, I was leaning towards upgrading to x1800xt but wasn't sure.The game is easily one of the best i've played (and it's my first RPG, I'm a TBS fan). While it doesn't have the depth and replay value of series like Civ or HOMM, it's still far better than any FPS (can't compare with other RPGs) I ever played.
Whoever says that the graphics in Oblivion are not the best is just full of b..t or lacks the hardware to turn everything on, looking from the top of the mountain at the Imperial City on a clear moon night it simply breathtaking.
The gameplay and interface are also among the best I've seen and there are few occasions where I think: "this should have been improved". The inventory system is probably a weaker point, but even that is debatable (it's quite obvious that much thought was put into it but maybe the decisions taken there are not the greatest).
However, performance is a big issue. My system is middle to upper range (a64 3200, 2gb ram, x850XT) and I can barely play at 1280x1024 with all sliders to the top and without shadows or AA.
Outdoor I get ~20fps which is ok, actually even excelent considering the huge number of objects rendered (especially grass and trees) - and acceptable since most battles are inside. What I don't get is why I have such a poor performance indoors, there are moments in a heated dungeon battle (especially where there are many fires, like inside sigil towers) where frame rates drops to low teens (from mid 50s). Graphics are average in those building, I only battle 2-3 opponents or less, the map is quite small (since any door leads to loading times )- so I don't get it, how come the game slows to a crawl there. I would consider this an obvious place where optimizations are lacking. Another thing that's missing is a way to alter the grass length (from the game menu, most people only look there to alter settings) and a few other things that were proven to greatly improve performance.
oneils - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
The hit to performance in dungeons may be due to a mix of having the shadow detail and specular lighting (or filtering?) set too high. I have the same problem with my 6800gt. Especially when I am fighting spell casters. If we are both casting spells, the system crawls.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
Opteron 165 @ 2.51Ghz2GB RAM
Geforce 7900GTX SLI
Check the tweak guides. There is A LOT you can do to make it run smoother without lowering graphic settings.
bollwerk - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
I also have 7900GTX SLI and it also runs fine for me with maxed settings at 1920x1200. (Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 2GB ram, A8N32SLI) It's obviously not high FPS, but it's also not choppy at all as far as I can tell. Totally playable for an RPG. I'm loving it and I'm glad I didn't get the 360 version. The PC mods are soooo worth it.JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
But the tweak guides ARE lowering the graphics settings, just in a different way. I'm okay with 1920x1200 at modified details on 7900GT, but there are still times when frame rates drop into the single digits.Yawgm0th - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
No, they're not. I mean, you can do tweaks that involve lowering settings, but that are tons you can do that improve graphics and graphics performance at the same time.JarredWalton - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
For example? I'd really like to get more graphics quality for less graphics work.kmmatney - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
I would also like to see the performance without Bloom and HDR. A lot of times, I prefer games without this effect (its often not implemented very well). PLays well on my setup without AA and bloom, and with AF, at 1280 x 1024. Sempron 2800+ @ 2.4 GHz, and modded X800GTO2 running at X850XT speeds. I'd rather play at the higher resolution than lower resolution + Bloom.OrSin - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
My problem is half the hipe of this game is that you a need a monster system to use it.Does any one remeber when a game bragged about the fast that it doesn't need powerful card to play it. Now its just the opposite. No wonder game will not be made for hard core gamers soon. I just can't understand have to pay $400 for a card that only 1-2 games will actually need. When in 6 months that same card is $250 maybe 6 games out might need it. Program in this age are jsut lazy or the products are being rushed. Can we get some optization and have people talk about great graphics on $150 cards.
As much as I hate consoles I'm leaning to them more and more. They will always the play the game good and mulitplayer support internet support is here (not this game).
I just hate the UI of most of them.