The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GPU Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 26, 2006 1:07 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Setting Expectations
While we've been used to running high end SLI setups at 3MP resolutions and still getting reasonable frame rates in games, the same is not true for Oblivion. In fact, there isn't a single GPU or pair of GPUs today that will run Oblivion at 1600 x 1200 with everything turned on smoothly. Our highest end X1900 XT CrossFire setup can't even run our most stressful real world Oblivion test at 1280 x 1024 with all of the detail settings set to their highest values. That's right, $1200 worth of GPUs will get you less than 50 fps at less than the highest image quality, and we're not talking about having AA enabled either.
With Oblivion, you've got to set your expectations appropriately for what good performance is. If your frame rate never drops below 30 fps, then you've put together a very fast system for Oblivion. The problem with Oblivion is that while performance may be in the 60 - 70 fps range indoors or while taking a stroll around town, as soon as you engage a few enemies or walk near an oblivion gate your frame rate may drop into the teens. A choppy frame rate really impacts your ability to do things like slice the correct opponent and not someone you're trying to protect. If a video card can maintain a minimum of 20 fps in our most strenuous test (the Oblivion Gate benchmark) then it will do you very well, otherwise you may want to start turning down some of the visual quality options.
Oblivion is also one of those rare games where turning down all of the image quality options not only impacts how good the game looks, but it actually can have a pretty serious impact on gameplay as well. Turning down your view distance is a sure fire way to increase performance, however the lower your view distance is the more difficult it is to spot landmarks you're searching for. You can decrease things like the distance which characters, items and other objects will appear, giving you better performance, but also putting you at a disadvantage when you're looking for a particular item or when someone is about to attack you. With Oblivion it's not all about performance and dealing with slightly blurred textures and jagged edges to maintain higher frame rates, the total experience of the game is very dependent on having a powerful system with a fast GPU.
The Test
Given that we're looking at GPU performance we tested all graphics cards with the same, very fast CPU, to minimize any CPU bottlenecks. In future articles we will look at how the CPU impacts performance under Oblivion, but for now the GPU is our focus. All ATI cards were run on a CrossFire 3200 platform while all NVIDIA cards were run on an nForce4 SLI x16 platform.
The latest drivers from ATI and NVIDIA were used, including ATI's Chuck patch for Oblivion that enables CrossFire support and AA+HDR rendering support. Given the low frame rates that we're talking about already, enabling AA simply didn't make any sense as you will see from the performance results on the coming pages. We would much rather increase detail settings than turn on AA in Oblivion.
| CPU: | AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 (2.6GHz/1MBx2) |
| Motherboard: | ASUS A8N32-SLI ASUS A8R32-MVP |
| Chipset: | NVIDIA nForce4 SLI x16 ATI CrossFire 3200 |
| Chipset Drivers: | nForce4 6.85 ATI Catalyst 6.4 |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.9 300GB SATA |
| Memory: | 2 x 1GB OCZ PC3500 DDR 2-3-2-7 |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 6.4 w/ Chuck Patch NVIDIA ForceWare 84.43 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1280 x 1024 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
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cgrecu77 - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
consoles are not great and they're a waste of money - think about Oblivion, the game barely runs on 6 months box (Xbox360). Do you honestly think that in 5 years a top of the line PC game will run on an XBox? I bought my x850XT last year for less than $300 on eBay and I can play this game at my lcd's native resolution (1280x1024). I'm pretty sure that with my current video card I'll be able to play games for 1 year or so and then I can probably buy the X1900XT for ~300 and that will give me another 2 years.Lower the resolution a little and you can extend it even further.
The biggest danger is to avoid buying middle range/ extrem upper range - this way you'd be screwed. If I would've bought a 6600GT last year it would've been a bad decision. If I'd buy a x1800GTO now it would be a poor decision also, because it can barely play the new games, in one year it'll become obsolete. The trick is to buy things that last 2 years at a decent price.
The problem with consoles are that if you buy beyond the first year or two you are actually buying an obsolete piece of hardware (think about the original Xbox, still selling - it's p3 with geforce 2 or 3). In the past consoles had a big advantage by running at low res, but once hdtv becomes mainstream they would have to support pc resolutions. If you have an hdtv you know that low-res content looks like crap with or without upconverting to a higher res (take a picture at 400x300 and enlarge it with Photoshop to 1600x1200 and you'll see what I'm talking about).
pnyffeler - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
Is there any way anyone can look at these numbers and not just by an Xbox360? I had a feeling my 6800GT wouldn't cut it, but wow! It's games like this that make the feasibility of upgrading your PC to play the latest game ridiculously stupid. Spend the $470 to get the console and the game.If you really feel the need to spend more money than that, I'd recommend investing in a nice HDTV. Oblivion in hi-def from your couch is about as good as it gets.
Now if I could just get the Mrs. to stop hogging the TV...
mesyn191 - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
In every bench instance shown they're testing at a higher resolution than the X360 will ever display...Also the X360 version only looks good if you've got the HDTV to go with it, otherwise it really does look like crap on a SDTV.
Gameplay wise this game is very very good, not perfect, but better than any other game I've played.
erwos - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
That's flatly untrue. The X360 has a 1280x1024 resolution with the VGA adapter. Also, the PC version would also look like crap on an SDTV, so that's not really a valid point against the 360.-Erwos
mesyn191 - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
That is the X360's built in video scalar doing the work though, max that any game renders real time ATM on the X360 is 720p due to the limited amount of EDRAM available. Real and not scaled 1080i may be possible, but only if the developer specifically designs the game for it by cutting out effects, reducing textures, etc. and does not use FSAA.http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/xenos/">http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/xenos/
My point about how the X360 games look on a SDTV is valid as most people don't use thier PC's with a SDTV or any TV at all, they use a CRT or LCD monitor... The opposite is almost never true in the X360's case.
hondaman - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
I would have upgraded my "crappy" 7800gtx had I known how bad my FPS really is.I love this game. Easily the best game I've ever played in my life. Its not perfect, and I wont defend it as being so, but overall, its magnificent. I have over 270 game hours, and still havent done everything there is to do.
mpeavid - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
The engine is extremely inefficient. The quests are not really that interesting.The NPCs are stiffs.
Overall? 8/10.
The game engine needs major tweaking.
FYI - eliminate the grass totally and you can increase your frame count by as much as 50%. There is also a tweak to increase threads (another possible 50% increase).
I went from 20 fps outdoors to near 30 fps with higher visual settings (except the grass part)
Spoonbender - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
You know, it seems they've compiled the game in debug mode... :)That's how much they've bothered tweaking performance. ;)
When the game crashes (which happens to be every time I exit the game, or alt-tab too much), I get an access violation, always on special debug locations, like 0xCDCDCDCD or 0xFEEEFEEE.
So, yay for high performance tweaking.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
Lowering grass height and detail is probably the best tweak you can make. I set mine for "60" in terms of density and half as tall (I think?) and performance went WAY up without seriously ruining (IMO) the appearance.As for the game, it depends on what you're after. I really like the game, but the UI has some major issues. I think the quests are relatively well done overall. I love the huge game world (huge in content, not in square miles). Eventually, though, a lot of the game becomes repetitive. I've been doing too many side quests; time to hit the main quest in earnest.... :)
kmmatney - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
I installed a mod for the UI (BTMod) to make the UI windows larger and its a huge improvment. I dont bother with Bloom, and performance is acceptable on my modded X800GTO2 and Sempron @ 2.4 GHz.