The Oblivion Hardware Thread...

[yin26]

Yeah, this review kind of sold me: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...VudGh1c2lhc3Q=

Particularly this part:

If you’ve currently own a X1900 XT or XTX, stick with it. Those are great performing video cards and nothing here is enticing enough to move from them. If however you have an X1800 XT or XL, moving to a GeForce 7900 GTX or GT may give you a good boost in your visual gameplay quality. Or if you’ve got an older Radeon X800 series, the 7900 GT would be great improvement.

And, again, the comments in other reviews about the card running cooler.

[yin26]

Any thoughts on which of these manufacturers I should use?:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010380048+1067920129&Submit=ENE&Subcategory=48&description=geforce&Ntk=all

[bonscott]

If I had the money I'd go for that card too probably.

Grass tweaking really gains a lot of performance. Here is mine (taken mostly from the complete ini thread at the Elder Scrolls forum)

[Grass]
iMinGrassSize=130
fGrassEndDistance=8000.0000
fGrassStartFadeDistance=7000.0000
bGrassPointLighting=0
bDrawShaderGrass=1
iGrassDensityEvalSize=5
iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure=1
fWaveOffsetRange=1.7500
fGrassWindMagnitudeMax=150.0000
fGrassWindMagnitudeMin=0.0000
fTexturePctThreshold=0.3000

The first one is the big one. Default is 80 which is really dense grass. The higher the number the less grass you see. I believe above 170 or so grass is turned off completely. Around 130-140 is a sweet spot for me in terms of amount of grass (still quite a bit) and performance gain. Tweak as desired. Of course when you get that new card you can crank it up!

[bonscott]

Originally posted by yin26
Any thoughts on which of these manufacturers I should use?:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...eforce&Ntk=all

MSI and Gigabyte are usually good makers of boards and usually get good reviews. Check out what Toms Hardware or Anandtech say if they've reviewed them. Sharky Extreme is another good spot for hardware reviews.

[yin26]

Thanks Bonscott. Most helpful! I'll report back on that grass setting.

[yin26]

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/322/12/

As an enthusiast and over clocker I have to say that if you were planning to upgrade or building a new system I highly recommend looking long and hard at the 7900 GT. If you were thinking of spending within $75 of its asking price I would still look at the performance of this card and beg, steal, or borrow enough to purchase one. The added value that the 100MHz + overclock gives can't be matched anywhere. A pair of these overclocked in SLI is an enthusiast’s dream of bang for the buck.

....

TheLegit Bottom line: The 7900 GT is the leader of performance in its price segment. We just can't say enough about how good this card really is. Sold? We are!

Well, it looks like I'll have to wait until mid April for these cards to come on the market in numbers. Newegg is sold out, etc. Anyway, I think this is the card, so I'm happy to wait. My thanks to everybody for giving opinions, etc.

[asleepathewheel]

anyone try using the x-box 360 pc controller with this (pc) game? I wonder if that's possible.

[Nostromo]

nm

[Dis]

I'm a ATI fan. In fact, I don't think I ever had a NVidia. I take that back. I did have one in between my Voodoo 3 and my ATI. Despite supposed problems I heard about with such games as KOTOR 2 and Civ4 with ATI cards, I have never had any major issues. *knocks on wood*

I'm also an Athalon fan over Pentium. I have a fairly slow processor, yet I can still run this game very well. I'm running an Athalon 2600 + right now.

[El_Cid]

rather worryingly, after reading about Yin's x1600 troubles, i'm a few days away from powering up my new home built pc. I've also got an x1600pro(256mb) that also has no individual power connection. Mine is made by Connect3D, another 'cheap+cheerful' vendor?

All this trouble we put ourselves through for a game eh? And will it actually be any better than either Daggerfall or Morrowind? After we've all given it a good go for a few months it will be interesting to see people's opinions. Is it all about the graphics? And is the hoop jumping worth it?

[snoopy369]

That eVGA card at the bottom is perhaps a good choice ... faster core clock and memory clock than the others. It's a bit more, but what's $40 more when you're at $300 already?

Chaintech is another good brand, but I don't see one listed, so they apparently don't make one of that model

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
anyone try using the x-box 360 pc controller with this (pc) game? I wonder if that's possible.

It's possible. Any joystick/gamepad, in fact, should work - though I am annoyed at the fact that my logitech controller's right analog won't "look" left/right even though it's supposed to (probably a minor difference in the driver, but the game should take that into account), so you can't turn left/right, only slide. They didn't allow much button customization, sadly, just another example of how the PC port of this was pathetic

[Imran Siddiqui]

I have an eVGA 7800 GT. I like the card myself, so if you do get a 7900, eVGA may be a pretty good one to check out, as snoopy369 pointed out.

[Kinjiru]

In looking around at the state of the art I came across this little beauty...

http://secure.hypersonic-pc.com/scripts/custom_sys.aspx?sysid=Aviator_AX9

Dual Geforce 7800 GO in SLI on a laptop!

Let's see.... how many hours of overtime would it take if I also sold my current laptop...

Oh wait, my wife would kill me...

=(

[yin26]

O.K., Imran and Snoopy -- The eVGA is on "auto-notify" for availability. Thanks for the input.