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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Crassus - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
Here, demand *wave* (at least concerning an AGP platform review). I've got a trusty K8N Neo2 with a 939 3000+ and a 6800 GT that was sort of standard about 1 1/2 years ago and I'm trying to figure out if I would gain a FPS increase worth talking about switching over to PCIe, while staying in about the same price range, or getting a 7800 AGP, or just turning down settings and saving the money.
Cheers and thanks for an article that I was very anxious to read.
Ozenmacher - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
Everyone argues about how bad the performance is outside. I am running a 7900 GT and I was getting around 20 fps outside, I truned the grass off completely and now I get over 30. And honestly, I don't even notice it. I tjhink the game looks better than the rather lame looking grass.Madellga - Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - link
I can't see any pictures in this article. I've tried both IE and Firefox, at 2 different computers.Is it only me or anyone else has the same?
JarredWalton - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Can you see the graphs even?nicolasb - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
I can't see any of the pictures either, including the graphs.I'm getting really fed up of this happening in Anandtech articlres: it's been happening on and off for months, now. Could you guys please <b>sort it out</b>? It's really very unprofessional to have allowed the problem to go on for this long.
JarredWalton - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Nothing has changed on the images in a long time. Are you surfing from work or home? Do you have any ad blocking software? I suppose it could also be browser settings. I know you can configure Internet Explorer and Firefox to not load images by default, or to only load images for the originating web site. The article content comes from www.AnandTech.com or as the images come from images.AnandTech.com. There's really nothing for us to sort out if the problem is on your end, but hopefully my comments will help you solve your issues.Madellga - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
I found it. The feature causing the problem is Privacy Control. I just turned off and now the page works fine.JarredWalton - Friday, April 28, 2006 - link
I'm glad to hear you got it working. If it's any consolation, I've felt that every release of Norton Internet Security since 2002 has actually been a step backwards. The latest release seems more bulky, slow, and more prone to causing errors. There was a time where I thought Norton Utilities was the greatest thing ever in terms of useful software. Windows 95 started to reduce its usefulness, and as far as I'm concerned windows XP pretty much killed it off. These days, I feel like I can get better overall quality from free software in many cases.I think the only reason Symantec is still in business is due to all of their bundling agreements with various computer manufacturers. So many systems come with Symantec software preinstalled as a 90 day trial, but lucky for me I've found that 90 days gives me more than enough time to uninstall the junk! I've found that a hardware firewall is generally much more useful, in that it's less likely to cause problems, either with web sites or with system performance.
Madellga - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
It was definetely not the browser. All options are default.Add blocking is turned off. I have to find which Norton feature is causing the issue. Interesting enough, the problem seems to happen only at Anandtech.
Madellga - Thursday, April 27, 2006 - link
Thanks for the reply. I am surfing from home and I have this problem since a couple of weeks. Based on the comments above, the only thing I have running that could be the problem is Norton Internet Security......I just turned off the Norton Firewall and reloaded the page. Now it works!
Jeez, it sounds silly but I expected more from Symantec. And my copy is an original one, legally purchased - no hacking.
That feels awful....