Mmm..Oblivion question
 

Hey all, I guess this question is getting somewhat tired now, but I really need to ask it to prevent myself from making a stupid mistake. It's a 'can I play Oblivion question'

My dilemma is that I have an aging system: Pentium 4 2.4 ghz, 1 GB, Radeon 9600. Yum. I've decided to upgrade my card to an x800 xl. The reason I don't want to go any higher is because I really don't want to spend much more money on 1.) My aging CPU and 2.) My aging AGP slot.

I've already read a bunch of video card reports on Oblivion performance. The thing that worries me is my P4 2.4 ghz CPU. Despite my video card upgrade, will my CPU still be too crappy to play Oblivion (I know its below the recommended specs of 3.0)? If the CPU is going to be a huge bottleneck either way, I'd rather not waste the money on upgrading my video card. I'm looking to run Oblivion on good/medium settings. Nothing too fancy, but I don't want to have to turn all the settings off either.

Does the CPU even make that much of a difference on Oblivion, or is it very GPU dependent?


In the end I guess my questions boils down to this:
Pentium 4 2.4 ghz, 1 GB, x800 XL: What will Oblivion play like on it?

Thanks a lot to anyone who can help me out (I'm definitely no expert on this stuff)!

It'll work, just don't expect any eye-candy.

Are you planning on upgrading to a X800xl (AGP slot)? Isnt that throwing money into your dated tech like you didnt want to do?

Let me say at first that if you had the setup that you list on the end of your post, you'd be playing Oblivion at 1024x768 with medium-low settings for shadows, grass, and fades, with 4x AF and Bloom.... running at I would guess 20-30 fps. You might need to drop to 800x600 to hit those framerates, but it'd probably be pretty close.

Oblivion is VERY GPU dependant, but honestly, Oblivion is very dependant on everything. When I didnt have my HD defragmented well, I had problems with frame rates (no joke). The 1GB of RAM is gonna hurt too, as well as the low CPU speed.

I must say that you'd almost be better off waiting to play the game on a new computer, or buying a X360. Especially if you are going to be spending $200 on a new X800xl. For reference, my specs are 3.0 P4, 2GB RAM & X800XT PE, and I run at 1360x768, medium-low settings 8xAF, bloom, and 2x AA and get about 20-30fps, so I'm close to your setup with slightly better vid card, CPU and RAM.

Thanks for the help so far!

Well yeah, I guess I'd be throwing money at an old system...but it wouldn't have been that much (it was the $120 x800 xl agp on clearance..the one suggested in a previously thread I saw actually).

I considered buying an Xbox 360..but right now its pretty pricey compared to what I thought might have been a decent and cheaper alternative.

Hmm..I'll have to think it over. I guess its basically $120 for a mediocre play experience or $400 for a good one.

Dayvon, I tried the game on the same card, faster processor:

Low everything
Anything that can be off, was off. I would't bother TRYING anything above 800x600.

huh?? i have an x800gto (overclocked, but yeah), and i have high most things and tweaked the game a LOT, and it runs fine. 30ish fps outside, 60-100 indoors... i'm happy. (1024 res). i'd avoid AA or AF though!

there are a lot of performance-enhancing mods you can get - the low-poly backgroundLOD mod is really nice for outdoors areas, especially since the areas you can't see still take 8000 or so polys!

I can run oblivion with my Radeon 9600, just if I enter a town the game will lag heavily and eventually crash

Same card and processor as what? Secondly, did you have HDR on? Thirdly, don't ever have on shadow filtering/shadows on grass/tree canopy shadows/self shadows and turn down int. shadows and ext. shadows. Shadows will eat crap cards for breakfast. Fourthly, if you are hoping to run well above 30fps (ie in the 50-70fps range), you should expect to turn everything off, even the game ;). But seriously, you shouldn't shoot that high with this one. Be happy with a solid 30-35fps.

And lastly, people, you need to understand that just having a "good video card" and "good CPU" IS NOT all that Oblivion needs to run well. You have to have a healthy system for good performance. For instance, you MUST have a well defragged hard drive. Oblivion does TONS of accessing and the more properly indexed your files are, the better. You MUST have significant amounts of RAM (1GB = passable, 2GB = good) running at good speeds. You MUST have a video card with sizeable RAM (256MB recommended). You MUST have a NO performance draining apps running idle in windows. I have this one program called Aquadock I use, but it is DirectX app, and will slow down a game. Heck, anything that uses RAM is bad for Oblivion (anti-virus, spyscanners, etc).

And this is just the beginning. If you have all these down, and a good 16-pixel pipe card w/ an AMD 3700/P4 2.8 or better, you are gonna have a good experience. If you don't have one of these things down, you will probably see drastic performance hits.

HERE IS A LINK TO A GUIDE THAT I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU USE TO GET GOOD OBLIVION PERFORMANCE.

I was referring to the 9600. And like I said, anything that could be enabled....wasn't.

9600 (XT, Pro, SE, whatever) is heavily underpowered for Oblivion. Be happy it boots up!!

EDIT:
The OP was asking how Oblivion would run on his setup with a X800XL instead of the 9600. I was referring to the X800XL configuration of his future computer in my posts.

dayvon: yay, i meet your recommendations! (minus the 16pipe card, but high clockrate makes up for it mostly).

still, performance-enhancing mods rock

Good to hear Rush. I take it you looked through the TweakGuide on Oblivion as well? (great source for optimizing OB)

yeah, that and on the atomic somethingorother guide like 4 months ago

i'm going to reinstall it though with new levelling mods (i reformatted my pc after getting a new Raptor HD).

Just remember, when the music changes and you see no enemies in your 5-foot view distance....one is coming.