The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GPU Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 26, 2006 1:07 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Our Settings
We tested at two major settings, one we defined as High Quality and the other we called Medium Quality. The settings were as follows:
| Oblivion Performance Settings | High Quality | Medium Quality |
| Resolution | 1280x1024 | 1024x768 |
| Texture Size | Large | Medium |
| Tree Fade | 50% | 25% |
| Actor Fade | 65% | 50% |
| Item Fade | 65% | 50% |
| Object Fade | 65% | 50% |
| Grass Distance | 50% | 25% |
| View Distance | 100% | 100% |
| Distant Land | On | On |
| Distant Buildings | On | On |
| Distant Trees | On | Off |
| Interior Shadows | 50% | 30% |
| Exterior Shadows | 50% | 30% |
| Self Shadows | On | Off |
| Shadows on Grass | On | Off |
| Tree Canopy Shadows | On | Off |
| Shadow Filtering | High | Low |
| Specular Distance | 50% | 50% |
| HDR Lighting | On | On |
| Bloom Lighting | Off | Off |
| Water Detail | High | Normal |
| Water Reflections | On | On |
| Water Ripples | On | On |
| Window Reflections | On | On |
| Blood Decals | High | Low |
| Anti-aliasing | Off | Off |
Note that when we talk about a setting being 65% we mean that the slider is moved 65% of the way to the right. As you can see from the table above, our High Quality settings aren't as extreme as they could be and the Medium Quality settings are more suited for upper mid-range cards. Since we were dealing with such a wide spread of GPUs we had to err on the side of being more stressful in our visual settings, especially in the mid-range, in order to adequately characterize the performance of all of the GPUs. We didn't want to end up with a graph where everything performed the same because we were too lax with our detail settings.
At the end of the day, these two configurations are what we would strive for in order to get good performance while maintaining a good gameplay experience.
High End Settings
Mid Range Settings
Note that the ATI Radeon X850/X800 series of GPUs don't support Shader Model 3.0, which is required for HDR in Oblivion. Thus we had to leave the X850/X800 out of our default tests with HDR enabled and ran a second set of configurations with HDR disabled and Bloom enabled.
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Yawgm0th - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
...or Oblivion is playable with an average of 20 FPS. I did a benchmark of my own (at a big Oblivion gate with 6-10 enemies and several allies fighting) with settings completely maxed (everything at it's highest except AA) at 1280x960, and my system pulled framerates slightly better than the 7900GT according to the FRAPS results. More importantly, the game is completely playable in all areas. Framerates are low for about four seconds anytime I enter a new area through a door of some kind, but that's not unusual for most games. After those first couple seconds, things pick up and I see no reason for the game to appear to have such abysmal performance as the article would indicate. My system consists of the following:2x1GB of Patriot 2-3-2 at 205MHz in dual-channel
Venice: 274x9 (about 2.47GHz)
7800GT with a slight overclock
Audigy 2
XP Pro x64 with latest nVidia drivers
Furthermore, that RAM was a recent upgrade. I had the game maxed with 1GB of the same stuff in single-channel.
At this point, I'm convinced that either there's something wrong with FRAPS (and there's certainly something different that caused the low frames in this article, because I shouldn't be outperforming the Anandtech test system when it's better than mine) or that the game is completely playable with mid-20s framerates. I don't think I've ever played a 3D game and found anything less than high-30s to be playable.
ueadian - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Yep you nailed it that's my exact feeling. I played the game with my X800XL and it was very playable on high settings, oblivion gates killed my computer but not enough to drive me insane, other then that i didnt see any lag other then after entering a new area. Benchmarks are overrated I played Counter-Strike : Source at 20-30 fps for a year just fine and when I got a card to do 50+ fps miminum I really didn't notice that much of a difference.TejTrescent - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Crazy.Testing just now, I got 20-30 on my system, no matter where I was, with a bit higher than those medium settings.
The game's ENTIRELY playable at even 18.
Dunno how, but it doesn't feel choppy when it falls, as long as it's above 15. Weird.
dhei - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
Laugh, real excitement comes from online play. Might as well pay $15 a month for a game with just as good graphics that is updated constantly. Plus you can play missions and fight monsters yourself just like a single player game if thats your bag or slay other people that are actull people online.Looking at screenshots, i've seen 4 year old MMO games that look better after they got free graphics updates. /shrug
I never understood why people pay for single player games like this. :D
kmmatney - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
You really can't judge the graphics of Oblivion by screenshots. The actual look and feel is much more impressive than the screen shots show.ueadian - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Agreed. Screenshots do not to ANY game justice. HL2 didnt really impress me visualy with screenshots, but then I played the game all the way through and was blown away by the graphics.poohbear - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
"i've seen 4 year old MMO games that look better after they got free graphics updates. /shrug "name one
bobsmith1492 - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
What's "mmo" ??xsilver - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
when a cow is on crack it cant say "moo" properly :PMassivly Multiplayer Online
as mentioned before its difficult to play a game that has no end and is pressuringly addictive if you join a guild/faction
eg. most deaths that have resulted from gaming have been from players of such games; most recently from WoW i think
dhei - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
Dark Age of Camelot.