Oblivion Graphics engine? What's best ATI or nVidia????

[Wapas]

Does anyone know where there is any kind of comparison of hardware for Oblivion. I see some games work much better with some cards. Wierd , but I see it is true. What card would work best with oblivions engine?

 

[Wapas]

I guess I am not the only one wondering. Thanks anyways.

 

[Human1]

You're certainly not the only one wondering. I want to know, too. But, I don't think anyone has any info on this yet, as oblivion hasn't been released or demoed. As far as I know, neither major card manufacturer has been tapped as 'prefered'.
I did read in an interview yesterday that you should be able to tweak the settings quite a bit to get it to run decently on just about any modern machine.
Still, I can't wait. This is the only game I'm looking forward to. Everything else looks lame.

 

[sirkillalot]

Personaly i would use Nvidia





Recommended:

3 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
1 GB System RAM
ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher video card
Minimum System Requirements:

Windows XP
512MB System RAM
2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
128MB Direct3D compatible video card
and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
8x DVD-ROM drive
4.6 GB free hard disk space
DirectX 9.0c (included)
DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
Keyboard, Mouse
Supported Video Card Chipsets:

ATI X1900 series
ATI X1800 series
ATI X1600 series
ATI X1300 series
ATI X850 series
ATI x800 series
ATI x700 series
ATI x600 series
ATI Radeon 9800 series
ATI Radeon 9700 series
ATI Radeon 9600 series
ATI Radeon 9500 series
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series
NVIDIA GeForce FX series

 

[Wapas]

Thanks for the reply, can I ask why? The ATI cards seem to perform better at least under high quality, high res settings, I am talking about the x1900xt compared to the 7800 gtx.
I have 2 x1900xt in crossfire, I only can go 16x12 on my monitor now, but when the 30" dell arrives, I will test this setup at very high res. Just wondering. Regards, James

 

[Human1]

If you like I could test it for you. Just send the monitor and both of those cards and I'll give you the results ASAP

 

[Wapas]

If you like I could test it for you. Just send the monitor and both of those cards and I'll give you the results ASAP

Ok, what is your address?

 

[pokemon]

27246 Green Hill Drive
Ely, Minnesota 56320

 

[dmantech]

Go with the X1900XT it would do you justice plus better Image quality.

 

[nottheking]

Well, it's been at least known that the game will neither have an ATi nor an nVidia logo on the box. Bethesda has been given lip service to both, and it should also be noted that their demonstration boxes, at various times, have had cards from either; the original machines used Radeon 9800pros, while the machine that rendered the high-def E3 trailer (not to be confused with the press demo) had a pair of GeForce 6800ultras in SLi. Later, they apparently switched to a machine with a single 7800GT, and most recently, the machines they used for the fianl pre-release demos used a single Radoen X1900XT.

In reality, I'd judge that it would be whichever card would be the best deal at that given price range. However, Oblivion, unlike a lot of other games, does appear to be on the shader-heavy side, so at certain levels, it would be best to go for a similarly-built card; that is to say, a GeForce 7800GS over a Radeon X850XT PE if you're on AGP, or on PCI-express, a Radeon X1900XT over a GeForce 7900GTX. (both over the X1800XT PE) Someone released a fragment of an image that claimed to be a benchmark, and while it looked demi-plausable as soemthing from an AnandTech chart, I had a hard time believing that, at even 1600x1200, the best any card got was the X1900XTX at around 41fps, and that the X850XT PE would actually get only one FPS slower than the 7900GT. (21 to 22 fps, I believe) I feel that it was just made by an ATi fanboy, particularly when there is no such matching content at any site.

 

[decripple]

well it depends on what u are currently running in ur machine, if it has an ati chipset ur pc is optimized for ati video but with nvidia chipset it';s optimized for nvidia cards so since u have crossfire ati would be better for u and u already have basically the best u can get other than the new 32 pipeline crossfire socket 939 mobo but since the new kings of video cards is maybe the 7900gtx extreme (higher clocks) or X1900XTX depending on the benchmark it would probably go either way from what u can tell from not having the game yet. until it is at least benchmarked let alonedemoed u can't really tell right now either ATI or Nvidia they are about equal

personaly i'd go with a 7900series since it is built to work with vista (according to the box)

 

[nottheking]

well it depends on what u are currently running in ur machine, if it has an ati chipset ur pc is optimized for ati video but with nvidia chipset it';s optimized for nvidia cards so since u have crossfire ati would be better for u and u already have basically the best u can get other than the new 32 pipeline crossfire socket 939 mobo but since the new kings of video cards is maybe the 7900gtx extreme (higher clocks) or X1900XTX depending on the benchmark it would probably go either way from what u can tell from not having the game yet. until it is at least benchmarked let alonedemoed u can't really tell right now either ATI or Nvidia they are about equal

personaly i'd go with a 7900series since it is built to work with vista (according to the box)

Just as a first fore-warning, (or perhaps simply because I'm responding in reverse here) that note will be on ALL new Radeon and GeForce cards; the GeForce 7900 provides nothing technically "new" above the 7800, only higher clock speeds and lower prices. (lower prices for nVidia, that is; it seems that the stores are sure to make their cut of profits out of it) No card out has actual DX 10 or SM 4.0 support; that will wait until at least the GeForce 8 and Radeon X2k cards. However, all GeForce and Radeon cards will work under Vista, or at least DX 9 and later cards, since DX 10 is fully backwards-compatible with them.

As for the motherboard chipset, that's actually false; tests have shown (and even at this site, as I recall) that the maker of the motherboard chipset has no impact on the graphics performance as related to the card. However, the chipset has its own impact that's there regardless of who's cards you're using. As it turns out, nVidia's nForce chipsets are the best, though they are only a sliver ahead of ATi's Radeon Xpress. So in the end, there's no problem in using a GeForce card in an ATi motherboard, or a Radeon card in an nVidia motherboard. However, I still lean toward nVidia's chipsets, for the abovementioned performance reasons. (my own main rig uses an nForce 3)

 

[ivoryjohn]

Regardless of how the different cores work with the new engine, Bethesda has always developed on ATI cards, so an ATI card is more likely to match what they created.

 

[ivoryjohn]

Thanks for the reply, can I ask why? The ATI cards seem to perform better at least under high quality, high res settings, I am talking about the x1900xt compared to the 7800 gtx.
I have 2 x1900xt in crossfire, I only can go 16x12 on my monitor now, but when the 30" dell arrives, I will test this setup at very high res. Just wondering. Regards, James

Oblivion is also supposed to support the triple view surround view that Matrox makes, so if you got the bucks you can do three identical LCD screens (which makes for some extreme resolution, 3840 x 1024 max!!!)

If you haven't heard of it, the triplehead2go works with ANY graphics card (incuding SLI/CF) and presents a huge widescreen to the card.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/offhome/th2go/home.cfm

:roll: If only I were single...

 

[nottheking]

Regardless of how the different cores work with the new engine, Bethesda has always developed on ATI cards, so an ATI card is more likely to match what they created.

Thgat is very unlikely, given that they had the SM 3.0 shader components done before ATi was even ready to ship their X1k series cards; Bethesda develops on both ATi and nVidia cards; if you didn't notice, for instance, that nVidia's website has advertisements for Oblivion, and they previous had advertisements for Morrowind's expansion packs?

Of course, this does have little to nothing to do with the performance, but as I've previously said, I'd go for the card that has the best shader performance; I.E, a Radeon 9xxx over a GeForce FX 5, (twice as many shader units) a GeForce 6 over a Radeon X, (SM 3.0 support) and a Radeon X1k over a GeForce 7. (more and more powerful shader units)

 

[nottheking]

the game is using the unreal engine,I found nothing on that site to indicate what gpus were used in developement,id guess nvidia.and the unreal guys made a showing at the ps3 intro,with nvidias co founder.

Well, since there seems to be no way you're talking about any game other than oblivion, you're wrong. Bethesda Softworks is NOT using the Unreal engine, in any shape or form. None of the middleware is the same between ANY Elder Scrolls game and any Unreal/Unreal Tournament game.

What BethSoft IS using, however, for graphics, is the GameBryo engine by Emergent. For physics, it's Havok, by the company of the same name. (U2/UT2k3/2k4 use Karma, and UT2k7 uses Novodex from AGEIA)

Nothing between the two games is shared. Hence, there isn't the same bias. It's suggested that since most of the development took place on ATi-equipped PCs, (the standard development machine used a randome 2.5-3.0 GHz-equivalent x86 processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 9800pro 256MB) That the game might actually run better on ATi cards, but I doubt so, since a lot of the demonstrations took place using high-end nVIDIA cards, like the E3 trailer, (not demo) with a 6800ultra SLi setup.

 

[nottheking]

my bad it was speed tree rt http://www.oblivionsource.com/?page=content&op=view&id=50 i sincerely apologize for the mix up.
and if thats not good enough up yers pal. 8) http://www.speedtree.com/html/downloads_images.htm?gallery@_games
my confusion was based on the fact that the unreal engine uses some of this stuff.and it had been months since i visited the site.
yeah ok so where are your links to back your ati claims up??????eh?
just curious about what they developed this on.Id guess it was both ATI and Nvidia,most folks would go there Id think,to insure compatibility.
during the span of developement ati and nvidia traded top places a couple times,so if matching to top enthusiast cards was on their mind as well as great graphics,theyd have to use both,pretty equally.
just my guess. :? the ultimate telltale sign is wether or not its open gl
optimized or direct x optimized.And that is stated nowhere.(to my knowledge)

Ah, that is something that I think you might've thought; although I also knew that while they share the same tree engine (I believe I had forgotten that) they use different physics engines.

At any rate, the developers used both types of card; just simply browse through their statements, including the quotes saved at the site "Waiting4Oblivion," (run by some of my fellow Elder Scrolls "Godfathers," Alexander, Epy, and Stargelman) Such as this comment, made by programmer Steve Meister, (a.k.a. MrSmileyFaceDude on their forums) that his main workstation used a 9800pro.

Similarly, many other developers noted that their workstations used such cards. Some were lucky enough to get switched out; before the Radeon X1900 series, it seemed that the most popular cards there were from the GeForce 6800 and 7800 series.

 

[nottheking]

Well, I wonder what optimization it is ,open gl or direct 3d :?
Have you douwnloaded the oblivion TES construction set?the terrain tools are really cool.I was messing around with noise and trying to figure out how to make gentle slopes ,it has a color reference to elevation,,,way cool.

GameBryo is a Direct3D engine, hence Oblivion is a Direct3D game.

As for the Elder Scrolls Construction Set, I've downloaded it once it became availible; I did a lot of editing with Morrowind's CS, and I like Oblivion's. It will take a while to learn all the changes and advances, though. I do like the heightmap editor.

 

[brainysmurf]

Very interesting thread. It's now March 24, I have been playing the game for three days, and I can say without reservation that it plays fine on an Nvidia 6600 GT PCI-e video card, with video settings set to medium quality settings. I forget what all gets shifted down (there's so many optional adjustments), but I let the game install to the recommended detail settings; the game world is still pretty, and it runs smooth.
That's good enough for me!

 

[Wapas]

I have it running at 1920x1200 with my X1900XT crossfire setup. Everything is maxed and it looks better than I ever hoped. Smooth too. the forests are incredible. Wow, what a game. It is raining here, so it is nice to have the spring like forests to explore during the rain.

 

[ssalter]

I have a Radeon 9800 pro, on a Sony Vaio, p4-3.0mgz, 2gb ram. Morrowind ran great on that.

I got Oblivion today. I didn't go for the default settings but set them slightly higher. I've just gotten out of the sewers so I haven't really done a lot of testing yet. I did notice that the leaves were moving on trees. But, during battles, everything would slow and get choppy. I'd get a burst of sound, fragmented movements, etc.

I'll go ahead and reset things back to what the setup set as default for my system, but I hate to think what I might be missing.

I saw that the Radeon X1900XT runs close to $500....not sure I want to go that high. Any middle road choices between that and my 9800 pro? OR, can the 9800 Pro be upgraded?

I'm hardware ignorant.

Thanks.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

Well.. the final verdict is quite simple... the game runs better on ATi's SM3.0 cards (x1K cards).

I have a 7800GTX SLI setup and a single x1900XTX oce'd a tad. The x1900XTX is noticeably faster and even benchmarks faster. It also looks better (AF quality is noticeable).

6x Adaptive AA and 16x High Quality AF enabled when HDR is disabled, with HDR the 7800GTX SLI stumbles and loses much head way to my x1900XTX setup.

I usually game on my LCD at 1280x1024 but have been using my CRT for 1600x1200 to play this game.

 

[whereami89]

hey, could someone help me? i am pretty noob at this sort of thing...
which is better: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series or ATI X1300 series for Oblivion or overall
thanks

 

[shin_krelian]

So then what would be best for Oblivion a 7600GT or X1800GTO?

 

[Dr_asik]

im playing on an ati x1600 pro almost all of my settings are on Highest .....

Is it the AGP or the PCI-Express version?

hey, could someone help me? i am pretty noob at this sort of thing...
which is better: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series or ATI X1300 series for Oblivion or overall
thanks

GeForce 6600. See this thread.