The Oblivion Hardware Thread...

[Silver14]

Originally posted by Tuberski
Mrs. T. and I went in halfs on an X-Box 360 with her ex husband.

How does that work out exactly, does he get visitation rights but only on the weekends?

[bonscott]

Looks like the Sapphire version of the x1600 is the only one with trouble. Sorry yin! You shouldn't have too much trouble with newegg on a return. Could always spring for the extra $20/30 for the x800 GTO or go with a different brand x1600.

[snoopy369]

Odd ... Sapphire has (in my research) a pretty good rep. Surprised that they'd do something that silly ... the x850 GTO that I have is great, cheaper AND amazingly fast

[Imran Siddiqui]

Damn.. that Sapphire screwup is worse than the infinite range nuke problem in SMAC, right Yin?

If Newegg is a good retailer (never bought anything from them), they should take it back and refund the price if it doesn't work (buy.com did it with a monitor they sold me... btw, stay away from buy.com except for things like books or something!)

[yin26]

LOL. Well, I got a cool name out of the Yang fiasco. I've learned a lot during this adventure, including installing a new power supply unit (PSU), learning the difference between AGP and PCI-E, and discovering there is an entire underworld of graphics card nerds out there! Well, I'm an Apprentice Graphics Card Nerd now, I guess.

I also learned to downclock the GPU, and I just had a good, stable play session. I nixed the CCC (Catalyst Control Center) in favor of the OmegaDrivers (long story), and although I've also lost my temperature monitor by ditching CCC, I think I've got the card under control now. If I had to make a wild guess about this situation, it would be the following:

*Rumors abound that this is a graphics card BIOS problem. Supposedly the German ATI group is coming up with a solution.

*Running a high-end card off the mobo's (yeah, that's right, I just said "mobo") power seems a risky business. I know this works in some card/mobo combos (yeah, you saw it here first -- "mobo combo"), but it seems a stupid thing to bypass a cheap and direct connection to a solid power source at the PSU. Power Supply Unit if you are new to this.

*Finally, heat is our next final fontier. If we can't solve heat problems, we're in trouble.

[Imran Siddiqui]

to a solid power source at the PSU.

Penn State University?!!

They aren't going to be too happy about that (shades of "Ocean's Eleven" [the remake] come to mind).

[yin26]

Alright, quick update: the card is back in the box, going back to Newegg ($20 restocking fee, don't you love that?). By late last night, it was clear the card had to go, so the old Radeon X300/550 is back in. Sure, I had to lower my graphics quality, but it's stable and definitely still good to look at. I also got a little more juice out of it using ATITools. If you have a Radeon card, get the tool here: http://forums.techpowerup.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9 I'm using the beta version to good effect.

Now I just have to choose my next card. I'd like to stay in the Radeon family, PCI-E, 256Mb is fine, would like to avoid Sapphire but am willing to use them again IF the card has its own power line (don't know why, but I just think this makes sense on a high intesity card, but maybe it doesn't matter).

My budget: $200-$300. I would push $400 if it means nirvana.

Now get to work, Poly!

[Solver]

Yin, why not buy NVidia? Seriously. My subjective preference for them aside, they really seem to be better suited for Oblivion, with having Oblivion-optimized drivers and (allegedly) better results through INI tweaks.

[bonscott]

Sorry about that Yin. I'm having great success with the x800 from Sapphire and yes, it's got a power plug. It has yet to get above 54 degrees C when playing. I've also used the TriXX overclocking tool that came with the card and I can overclock the sucker to 428/540 if I want (400/490 is stock). Anandtech gave this card great ratings so if they trust it, I trust it.

I've also had good experience with Powercolor brand cards. My old 9800 Pro and my wifes 9600 Pro are both Powercolor and they have been rock solid for over 2 years.

Now if you can spend $300 then you might as well blow past these budget cards and go for the big boys like the x1900 or x1800 line.

Nvidia vs. ATI. For me it probably doesn't matter but I've been an ATI guy for many years. Probably due to all the trouble I had with a couple GeForce 2's back in the day I wrote them off. I've actually heard the opposite of Solver that the Nvidea 7xxx line has problems with Oblivion but then it could just be people that don't get it how to optimize your gaming experience. If you get a game like this you may need to work a bit to gets things to work well and many don't seem to get it and thus just complain.

Good luck!

[bonscott]

And upon further review.....

The upgrade was totally worth it and I recommend it to anyone. The depth in graphic detail and just how much better it looks over the 9800 is becoming more clear the more i play.

I did a few more ini tweaks. Turned off all shadows - useless to me and huge FPS hog. Turned off specular distance - another FPS hog. And also turned off the refraction shader (bUseRefractionShader=0). This controls the heat "waves". When a mythic dawn agent dies it would drop the game to 1 fps. Turned this off and it's smooth as pie. This will also give great FPS boost if there is a lot of fire or at the Oblivion gates.

So basically now I'm a solid 40-50 outdoors and slowdown rarely drop below 30. Indoors are 40-50 easy, usually 70+, even in battles. Still at 800x600 but with AA turned up to 4x. I upped it to 1024x768 and I feel this is very playable now but there is about a 20% loss in frames which means slowdowns now drop in the low 20's. I'd rather just leave it at 800x600 and stay smooth. I'm probably running up against a CPU barrier now as I only have a 2.8 ghz. I've read many people with the x800 running 1280x1024 smoothly but then their CPU's are a lot more powerful then mine.

Anyway, just a quick update for those on the fence about an upgrade. I'm back to playing.

[Solver]

I've actually heard the opposite of Solver that the Nvidea 7xxx line has problems with Oblivion but then it could just be people that don't get it how to optimize your gaming experience.

I've also heard some of that, but that's not real issues. Some are people getting the wrong expectations, but most are people who don't have a clue about computers, think they plug in the card and that's it - without an idea of drivers, etc. But once you do that sort of stuff and tweak the INI for better looks & performance, Nvidia seems to respond better.

[Quillan]

Sapphire is a good company. My old 9800 Pro was a Sapphire and I had no problems at all with the RMA the time the card died when it was 2 years old. You must have returned the card to Newegg for a refund instead of replacement, since they charged you a restocking fee, right? Right now, I'm partial to nVidia unless you're going all the way to an X1900XTX. I'm running an AGP 6800 GS, and it runs Oblivion wonderfully. Since you've got PCI-E, you might take a look at the X1800GTO, which Newegg has for $231, or the X1800XT for $289, and the X1800XL for $310. The X1800GTO only has 12 pipelines, while the other two have 16. Heh, I said "only has 12 pipelines". My old 9800 Pro had 8. Boy have video cards come a long way in the last 2 years.

[yin26]

Thanks for the tips, Bonscott. I'm back to 640x480 with 4xAA. I already had shadows off. After reading your post, I put specular distance to 0 and turned off the refraction shader. If you have more tips like that, please post them!

You mentioned something that I have been thinking about: CPU speed. I have a P4 3.2, so in theory I should get good speeds with a higher end card, right?

I've done more research and am now looking at the ATI X1800 GTO ($250 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...SubCategory=48) or the Geforce 7900GT ($309 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...eforce&Ntk=all).

One good review on the ATI X1800 GTO seemed to lean toward the Geforce: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/313/11/

Certainly this one is very positive about the 7900GT: http://www.gadgetizer.com/2006/03/10...7900gt-review/

EDIT: And this one kind of seals the deal for me getting a 7900GT: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...VudGh1c2lhc3Q=

I have to say that a number of the Geforce reviewers specifically mentioned the cooler running card whereas the ATI group still talks about getting coolers, etc. Given my recent headaches with heat, I'd honestly be leaning in the 7900GT direction at this point.

Any comments from the Poly gallery?

[yin26]

x-post:

So, Solver and Quillan -- what's your take on the 7900GT? Oh, yes, Quillan, I am set to send it back for a refund because I don't want the same replacement card (that's the right way to do that, right? I can't somehow get a different card as a replacement, can I?).

[Solver]

The 7900GT is THE kickass card. OK, there's also the 7800GTX, but that's a bit too extreme . This thing has 24 pipelines, so you'll be good if you buy it.

Hmm, IIRC, some NVidia card had the capability to do both HDR and Bloom for Oblivion...