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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JarredWalton - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
I can't say I'd even begin to consider DOAC as better looking graphics. But if that's what you like, more power to you.dhei - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Thats easy to say when you prob don't play it currently. It has all the graphics features you see in Oblivion minus maybe HDR.
ueadian - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Lol are you serious? DAoC might look better while you are smoking the reefer bud but I've played it many times and Oblivion blows it away graphicaly.dhei - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Well your doing drugs to think oblvion has good graphics. I consider them medicore compared to other games of same kind, has I have seen people play the game.DAOC graphics look a ton better to me imo...drug free..
hondaman - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
Why play oblivion instead of MMO?1. No monthly fees
2. Oblivion has an end. MMO doesnt. Thats a good thing for those of us with lives, but little self control.
3. No annoying kids to deal with.
4. No annoying cliques
5. No annoying server downtimes.
6. Not having to answer "a/s/l" every 30 seconds.
There is a pleasant serenity about single player RPG's that is impossible with MMO.
TejTrescent - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
But hmm.My rig is no where close to the rig that you guys used for comparison, and I don't know my exact framerates because I've not yet ran FRAPS with Oblivion, but..
My 3500+ Newcastle, not overclocked, with 2GB of Corsair/Mushkin running dual channel at 2.5-3-3-7, with my AGPx8 6800OC from BFGTech (not overclocked any further either).. I pull highly playable framerates (aka no choppiness unless I'm getting jumped by 6+ Daedric mages, that lightning is killer) at settings MILDLY better than the medium GPU ones (though still 1024x768, just higher fade rates), no tweaks on either. I can even run MediaMonkey for music in the background without any choppy feelings.
I guess Oblivion isn't very CPU dependant or gains anything from multithreads really or something, because huh. I mean, I can't believe my crappy 3500+ is keeping decent pace with an FX60. o_o And better RAM. Just huh. I can generally tell if a framerate falls below 24 thanks to FPS games being painful at any lower than that.. and just huh. Weiird.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
I would say there's a good chance your framerates are below 20 on a regular basis in the wilderness. FX-60, 7900 GT SLI, 2GB RAM, 2x150GB Raptors, and at Fort Bloodford looking towards the closest Oblivion Gate, I pull 13-15 FPS. (1920x1200, most detail settings at high.) I've also found that lowering a lot of settings doesn't have much of an impact. The various "fade" settings don't do much for me.Open the console and type "TDT" to see your frame rates. I personally find anyting above 15 FPS to be acceptable for Oblivion, but opinions vary. :)
TejTrescent - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
Well.. I'll check it out later tonight, but if they are, it's absolutely the smoothest sub 20fps I've ever seen.Lot more playable than UT2004, Painkiller, FarCry, or... pretty much anything else on this comp. XD
TejTrescent - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Wish there was an edit because I feel stupid replying to myself, but. Huh.18-30 outside commonly, 18-35 in the city, and consistent 25-35 in dungeon areas.
I am so so confused right now. The 18 isn't even noticeable. How did they.. what did they.. wha.. Guess it's just the slower pace making it less noticeable..
nullpointerus - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Uh...I'm not a graphics guru, but is it possible that the dips in fps are smoother? If we draw a graph with "1" indicating a frame draw and "x" indicating stalling of some kind - such as processing sound, physics, or waiting on the GPU hardware - then I can illustrate what I'm talking about.1xx1xx1xx1xx1xx
1xx1xx1xx1xx1xx
1xx1xx1xx1xx1xx
1xx1xx1xx1xx1xx (20 fps on a 60Hz display - balanced)
1xxxx11xx1xxx1x
1xxxx11xx1xxx1x
1xxxx11xx1xxx1x
1xxxx11xx1xxx1x (20 fps on a 60Hz display - choppy)
Or do 3D games not work like this?