Nvidia vs ATi in Oblivion

[deusex]

What rig (and graphic card ) does it take to run Oblivion smoothly on 1280x1024?
HDR enabled and little to none AA?
Everything on mid to high?


Thanks
getting a new rig, not knowing what to get...max is 1500$ US

 

[Human1]

If you're smart any $1500 machine will have no problems playing oblivion. I play smoothly at mid to high settings with my rig (see sig for details).
ATI has a huge advantage that their cards (1x00 series only) can enable HDR and AA at the same time. So if you really want to play Oblivion in ALL its glory, go with ATI.

 

[Weirdo]

ATI being able to do HDR and AA at the same time is nice, I didnt know it did that because on my computer, see sig, I cant enable both so I figured it was a game feature, not a gfx card specific feature.

After spending hours with tweaking Oblivion settings, I have figured out one very important thing, turn off the grass, completely. It only adds visual candy and does nothing for the gameplay, it also MURDERS FPS. With grass on the default setting, my FPS gets cut in half. I dont have HDR or Bloom, or even AA on just cause I prefer to run at a higher res then have those 3 options on, I figure why have AA on if I can make the res bigger? it accomplishes near the same thing. I run at 1680x1050 (widescreen mind you) with just about every setting, but Shadow smoothing and Grass, on to max or near to it.

 

[wambam]

Hi Wierdo... What FPSs are you getting with your rig? Check out my post (just put it on) re. low FPSs . I am having real probs with that and I have the grass off totally as well. Any insight on the prob?

 

[ellover009]

In my oppinion ATI has upper hand because it is able to use HDR and AA/AF at same time, but Nvidia's more aggresive HDR looks better HDR wise. As for me I'm running a 6800gt and it plays fine, I would love an ATI 1k series but compatability issues and the horrible CATALYST have kept me from changing sides.

 

[ScottyHutch]

Hi ellover009,

What compatability issues are you talking about. I was considering an X1800, but now am worried because of your post as I haven't read anything to sugges copatability issues with this card.

Cheers

 

[ellover009]

ATI seems to have more compatability issues with certain games, one example is metal gear 2PC had some issues with ati cards and wasn't ironed out till almost 6months after game release, another example is that there was a bug that caused GTA San Andreas to crash when the graphic card was set to 32 bit color, this also too a few months to fix. I will give ATI credits that they have changed and is a wonderfull graphic card company. If I was buying a new card I might still consider an ATI card because they are powerfull, and fast, I do think that when it comes to using two video card solutions ATI falls a bit short because they still haven't managed to show same performance gains as nvidias and most SLI mobos are better featured packed. Even Nvidia has issues theyr 7900 series non reference stock speeds aka overclocked from factory had a tendency to die because they where really overclocked beyond normal capacity of cards, the good news is that most companies BFG and xfx, evga came with lifetime warantee this issue has been mostly ironed out and some of this companies allowed u to OC they cards and still be covered. If you have a friend with an ATI card check out the CATALYST aka ATI's Bios setting program, I really dislike it it's not as nicely and friendlys as nvidias. If you want single card ATI(BEST) or NVIDIA fit the bill, Strap two cards and NVIDIA has the best yields.

 

[sojrner]

hmm... I have had ati for the past 4 years. (since the 9700pro) Never had any issues like what you are describing. In fact I got San Andreas the moment it came out and never had one problem, ran great @ 1280 w/ 2xAA on the 9700. (yes, in 32bit color)

Catalyst is the driver. There are no issues w/ it. The control center (ccc) is what you are talking about not liking. It does use more ram when up on the desktop, but gives it back when closed. The actual driver can be loaded w/o ccc but you lose alot of oc and tweak controls. Best is to get the omega drivers if you really want a ccc alternative. They are usually a bit slower on getting the newest rev of the driver, but work more like the "old" control panel. drivers themselves (you do not have access to the bios at all, regardless of Nv or ati) are solid.

most games look better on ati right now. Yes HDR+AA is a plus, but overall image quality, AA quality, AF quality are all better then the Nv implementation. Nv is not bad per-se, but ati is a touch better

as for oblivion, I may be the only person on the planet that thinks the game looks rather dumpy. My machine is not a slouch by any means, so it handles the game just fine. Turning everything up in the game resulted in close up things looking great. (most online screenshots show this) but distance textures look like a$$. (look closely at the distance land in some of the shots) Going to tweakguides resulted in minor fixes and messing w/ the .ini file was a hassel and a AAA title should not make me have to do that and add mods to make it passable. Plus characters and animation are a far cry from what HL2 does.

JMO, but if you want it to look the best that it can (such as it is) get the ati card. no worries, there are no incompatabilities.