Okay....I am sick and tired of reading reviews from total MORONS over at Gamespot that are giving this AMAZING masterpiece a 1.1 or some other stupid rating because they have so many bugs because they are trying to play it on machines that SUCK.

Is anyone else sick of people doggin' the game when the only reason they are having problems is because their computers suck?

This runs absolutely FLAWLESSLY so far on my machine and I have over 40 hours of varied gameplay in. I have been all around in the wilderness areas as well as the cities and tried even doing some crazy things that in other games WOULD cause a problem. So far my experience is incredibly stable.

My system specs are high, and that may be why, but partially, that is my point. You can't review the game badly because your machine isn't up to running it right.

I'm using the following system:

AMD Athlon FX-57 (NOT the fastest processor out today, for sure)
4G (yes, four) Ballistix by Crucial RAM
Two nVidia 7800 GTX 512mb cards running SLI
Hitachi 500G 300kbps SATA II 16mb cache hard drive
XFi Platinum sound
Thermaltake Liquid Cooling
Samsung 214T 21.3" LCD
Klipsch Pro Media 2.1
Saitek Eclipse keyboard
Logitech G5 Laser mouse
yada, yada, yada.....

There are people with higher end machines than that even....I am QUITE sure.

Anyway, my point is basically this.....why do these people dog the GAME when it's OBVIOUSLY not the game's problem, but a SYSTEM problem with their machine??? It's really really getting on my nerves.

This game is the most amazing game I have ever played on MY machine....so I think they need to just STFU.

Just my TEN cents worth!!

That's the reason you started this thread, isn't it?

wanna see my specs?

i have a mid-range system. ive had a couple midgame crashes and, and times, low framerates. i deal with it. it's a good game.

i think my gameplay would drastically improve, however, if i replaced my 9.99 logitech POS (black) with a G5 laser mouse. that would make it an awesome game.

I have a low end pc. I am not complaining though. In fact, my specs are below the minimum. But I play it enough and endure the lags and whatsoever.

I do feel a bit irritated though at the fast ways games are advancing now... My bf seems to need to upgrade his com like once a year just to catch up with the games he play...

for students like me, that is fairly impossible. and I have like my school fees and what so ever to worry about. I do wish things will slow down... especially nice games like this... because I do not really see the point in making things more life like... or what... and it's these little things that make the game lag... I play the game for the game... as long as the game play is there and smooth, I will not mind particualrly if the chracters look more blockly, or trees do not wave in the wind or something....

I think you hit the nail on the head there, Marxist ßastard.

I'm rather amazed at how uncritical some people are - the game is not bad, but a masterpiece? Not by my standards.

Eye-candy isn't everything.

Watercooling is something you don't do unless you're box is the best. And from those stats, there's not much better yours can get.



Can I have it?

While a lot of people are being more critical for having sub-standard systems, you're being less critical for having a rather pointlessly excessive system! The game is meant to be for middle-to-current-gen systems. What good is a game that doesn't run on the current default standard?

If you haven't got Bethesda's minimum requirements and complain about performance you can bugger off, but if you've got the recommended requirements, play at a respectable performance (i.e. mid-rang performance for mid-range PCs) then there's obviously a reason to complain.

I've not had any graphical problems with Oblivion since I got it. I run at 2xAA, large textures and all view sliders to full -- no shadows. I have a mid-range system. No complaints from me. Also helps having an ATi card. My love affair with ATi will continue well on into my next system after all the crap nVidia try to pull.

I actually think that this game does very well on performance.
If any of you read the previews, you will recall reports of horrendous loading times for every small area. But load times between exterior cells are nonexistant for me, I just see a "loading area" pop up really quick.

For me, this game is visually stunning, with an engine and settings in the background that borders on broken.

------------------------------------

ROFLMAO - What a perfect board name you chose....lol.

NO, the REASON I started this thread can be found by looking at the user reviews on Gamespot.com But I'm sure that never occured to you. I don't think I'm being overly UNcritical in thinking that someone who scores this game 1.0 or 1.1 is being an idiot. And there are about ten of those people in a vast sea of scores 9.0 and above. Hmmm....I wonder if that means anything?

I, personally, just haven't had any problems....YET. If I run into any, I'm sure I'll have a complaint, but not one that would make me rate this game 1.1 on a scale of 1-10, I mean, seriously....c'mon! And I'm not the only person that considers the game a masterpiece and it's not just because "it's pretty." I am happy to not be doing repeated quests of "go kill 10 of these and 4 of those," etc. Blah. It's nice to find some storylines to follow. It's also nice to have some beautiful and immersive atmosphere to look at in the midst of doing all of that. I think the voices are wonderful and well done. There are just a lot of things to like about this game.

I am EVER so sorry if my liking it SO much was offensive to you somehow. (Or if posting my system specs somehow irritated you.) How EVER will I apologize for such a heinous act of treason to the usual critical and cynical style of most forums? I should be skinned and hung in the town square and then flamed mercilessly for expressing an opinion that was gloriously in FAVOR of something.

I suppose if I was raving about some testosterone charged game like CS Source or F.E.A.R., that would be fine and dandy. But to rave about a game being pretty and having a great storyline and lovely voiceovers and whatnot....just too "girlie" for ya, huh?

Keep the name-calling off these forums, please. There's quite enough of that on the official forums. If you can't express yourself without resulting to calling other people 'idiots' and 'morons' then perhaps you should consult a thesaurus.

It's all well and good to find a game pretty, but to call a game shipped with obvious bugs (ran into the modskill bug yet? Noticed the shockingly shoddy worldbuilding in some places?) a masterpiece is being uncritical.

As Dark0ne said:



You love the game. Fine. Others don't. I read a couple of reviews which rated Oblivion 1.0 - nothing 'idiotic' or 'moronic' about those reviews, just people stating their opinion, and IMO those reviewers make very valid points. If you don't like critical reviews, don't read them. Calling them 'idiots' and 'morons' for expressing their opinions is immature and childish, and I hope these forums have higher standards than that.


I give Oblivion a 5 out of 10 at best - so far it's been a huge disappointment, and not because of performance-related issues.

Generally speaking, I find the people who find Oblivion to be disappointing base that decision on certain platforms - almost exclusively the scaling and certain types of "ease of use" accomodations (quick travel, quest waypoints, the compass, the UI in general).

While I certainly agree with some of these complaints - the inventory / spell UI in particular - I'm not sure that the overall naysayers would be happy with those concerns addressed. I don't think they could get past the fact that, when they started (or heard about) it for the first time, it wasn't exactly what they wanted.

I don't have any proof to back this up with, it's just a feeling I have.

Personally I find it a solid game, but as Theta said, it's hardly a masterpiece. The game is a step up from morrowind in graphics and AI, and perhaps better balanced for different styles of play.

So far I've encountered no graphical problems (most settings are lowered quite a bit since I have basically minimum specs).

The AI certainly gives the illusion of a living world, albeit a relatively unintelligent one with little to say...seems everyone recently saw a mudcrab down by the water...This is one thing that can certainly be improved upon by the modding community. Giving people more to say.

And yes, there's issues with the UI...I'm still trying to get used to it.

Besides, haven't you heard? most of peoples problems with the game these days isn't related to performance - it's the level scaling. Just read the 200+ threads griping on the official forums

I find it amazing that you call me UNcritical for calling it a masterpiece, and yet don't call someone rating it 1.1 OVERLY critical. Come ON here...1.1??? I would have maybe rated the game E.T. 1.0, not THIS game. That is ridiculous to rate this game 1.0 or 1.1.

If you are going to say that I am UNcritical, at least be FAIR about it and admit that someone rating this game 1.1 for having some bugs (which I'm sure it must have since you all say you've found so many)....is OVERLY critical.

All I'm asking for here is for you to judge others' opinions as harshly as you seem to be judging mine. Mine gets judged more harshly just because it it overly positive as opposed to overly negative. That makes just loads of sense, guys.

That's fine if you want to say it's hardly a masterpiece, but then I will reply, it's also hardly a flop. Thank you.

Calling Oblivion a 1 is being overcritical, yes. A 1 out of 10 should be reserved for the "games" that really deserve it, the truly awful worst of the worst. Oblivion isn't one of them... but at the same time, it's definitely not a 10 of 10 masterpiece. Like Theta Orionis said, somewhere around 5 out of 10 is pretty fair, the game is playable and decent fun, but has plenty of things in need of improvement.


And criticizing the game for poor performance on low-end systems IS a valid complaint. The engine has hardware demands vastly out of proportion to the results it produces. And the worst offender, the landscape system, is still inferior to Guild Wars (in my opinion). And that game runs flawlessly at max settings on my computer!

Well im still not sure if bethesda or nvidia is to blame for certain crashes. while im sure beth is responsible for that stupid error msg i get everytime i close the game, it seems that the game crashes since i updated the drivers for my 7800 GTX...i would just go back to my old 81.98 forceware drivers, but with the 84.21 the game runs a loot smoother than it did before.

there are still a lot of bugs that have nothing to do with the system and a lot of shortcomings that seem to be related to the game being a port from xbox to pc. i wonder how you, with the nice machine you got cant be upset by the fact that you cant run HDR and antialiasing at once and the awful standard textures you get for mountains that are far away (even if that can be fixed as i have heard).

while the game is really good, its far from being the best game ever made

Geez....I never said it was the "best game ever made," nor did I give it a 10 when I rated it on Gamespot. I'm getting words put in my mouth here. I do think it is an amazing game. I don't remember if I've ever rated any game a perfect 10...maybe Planescape Torment, I don't remember, that's been ages ago.

No, it doesn't upset me that I presently can't have HDR and AA on at the same time, I imagine over the course of time several things will change. I just don't get my panties all in a wad when a game is first released unless it is so buggy it just won't run, because patches are invariably released and technology as it is, is in constant flux.

I don't know. I'm tired of defending my enthusiasm over this game really. I still think it is a marvel. I adore it. I'm ENJOYING it....and isn't THAT what gaming is for? I think sometimes we all get too dang serious over games. The primary purpose of gaming is to have fun. So I'm going to go back to doing that. I'm really enjoying this game, minor bugs and all, and I'm not going to let those trivial things that will probably be fixed soon bother me in the least.

Sorry I'm such an ol' "cranky butt" about all this, but I just tend to get defensive when I'm enjoying something so very much (FINALLY, after waiting for years) and then have people "poo pooing" it at every turn. It's like being told something you really enjoy is crappy. Well, I respectfully disagree. =D

But I'm glad we all have opinions - the world would be dull and boring without them.

No one is quesioning you about your opinions on the game; most of us agree. I just don't see why you needed to post your monitor and other useless info about how good your pc is. Processor, Ram and Graphics would have been adequate - and does nothing to back up your points.
Want to show them off? - stick them in your sig to be a little more subtle.

kcgirl, you said the game was a 10 for you and people are disagreeing with you. People are entitled to do that -- they're not attacking you; they're not saying you're lame, retarded or incapable of understanding...they're disagreeing.

There's a difference.

Darkone this is my first foray onto your boards and I have to say your comments on Nvidia cards are not to my taste. First, right now its Nividia who is following the rules and ATI who is trying to get away with not following the DirectX api in order to achieve better frame rates. Go to hardware.fr where they report quite reliably that ATI does not support Vertex Shading 3.0 correctly. Their excuse is that they dont need to because of their unified R2VB support, however as Hardware.fr correctly points out, if the situation were reversed ATI would be all over Nvidia for not following the API as quite clearly ATI smacked Nvidia a few years ago with their 5XXXX series of cards.

Its worth noting that the unified R2VB shader model which ATI created brilliantly for the XBOX 360 system does a great job however it is NOT support by any pc games that I know of nor is it supported by Microsoft DirectX 9 api which dropped the ball in allowing certification on the Vertex Shader 3.0 even though ATI has no VERTEX TEXTURE 3.0 support at all. The API has a fault and that is poorly written code by Microsoft which means all you who have ATI cards do not have Vertex Texturing. This allows for faster cards as ATI does not have to draw Vertex Texture models but they are visually impaired.

I will respect your board and not post the article nor will I post the url as I do not know your policy on these matters and this is your board.

However, I beg of you to please consider the feelings of the people who come to your website who actually prefer Nvidia's current generation to that of ATI. But are fine companies and I have used both Radeon and Nvidia I just happen to prefer Nvidia in this current generation.

Anyway, I came here to figure out how to use the mods for Oblivion so I will continue my search

Cheers

Tamarelle

ps I neglected to mention the article is in french but I can translate for you if you do not speak french

I am entitled to my opinion as anyone else is, and I do not presume to tell people I am right (although its not scientific fact, it has been proven) on these sorts of matters simply because these are my boards.

Although off-topic to the current discussion I will respond as short as possible. No vertex shading 3.0 support or marketing a whole range of graphics cards to the gaming public that aren't actually gaming cards at all, and have very little or no support for current gen games.

I know which one I can forgive more.

I love the game, but I didn't buy it having the massive expectations some people had.
Just because they don't like the game doesn't mean that they necessarily have bad systems, it's an opinion. But I do feel that the minimum/recommended specs are a little low, as a minimum spec pc can't even play the game.

Unfortunately, this is almost always the result of voicing your opinion on the intarweb.
*le sigh*

I did not say the game was a TEN! Good GOD....do you all really read what people type? Just forget it and drop it, we all agree to not agree, fine not a problem. I rate the game a strong 8 - 9....disagree, agree....I don't care. I'm tired of arguing about it and I'm sure you all are too.

I said I had never rated a game a 10 except maybe Planescape Torment many years ago. I STILL think that Oblivion is a masterpiece (not necessarily in every individual area of the game, but as an overall accomplishment, and I don't care if you don't agree). YES, you are entitled to your opinion and I, to mine.

I'm done posting about this, as I'm constantly accused of saying things I didn't say anyway. I won't post anymore on the subject. That should be a relief to all of you, I'm sure. LOL!!!

I think all fans of the Elder Scrolls series agree that Oblivion is an incredible game. It isn't perfect, but what is? Also, there is no way to push the envelope with sound and graphics without demanding that people also upgrade their systems. Those who complain about this need to decide whether they want to move forward or be stagnant.

No we don't. I think Oblivion is a mediocre dumbed-down console rpg that gives you pretty pictures, but all the story and character depth of a puddle. But it does have the potential to be an incredible game, depending on what the community does with it.



Yes there is. A major factor in Oblivion's high system demands is the huge view distance and distant landscapes. But the problem is, Oblivion doesn't push the envelope in this area. Far Cry did the same massive view range, but with much lower demands. Guild Wars had better landscape quality, and vastly lower hardware demands. Oblivion's most impressive accomplishments, the massive increase in character/item/etc detail, are actually pretty light on the hardware demands... it's the long outside views that really kill FPS.

And not only that, but they've pushed the envelope too far in a lot of places. The glossy materials are awful, and applied in way too many places. The specular bloom on everything is massive overkill. The effects in general are way too overdone. Bethesda's artists need a few lessons in realism, these things are supposed to be subtle, not set to absurd levels to make sure the console morons are aware that yes, their xbox is actually using normal maps.

And finally, they don't even push it where they should. Metal doesn't look like metal, even though something like Morrowind's water reflections could give it the glossy effect with very little trouble. The ground textures are awful... sure, you can see a huge distance, but you don't want to, because it looks so bad in the distance. Baked lighting effects are old news, and can produce amazing realism in static lighting (leaving the engine itself to do the dynamic lights... on the character, on weapons, etc), but Oblivion doesn't seem to use it. The lighting effects are pathetic and completely unrealistic.

Had enough yet?

Boo.. new here, bah never mind I guess.

First of all, Peregrine's got a few points. I am a software developer and, from my point of view, this game was designed rather for an XBox 360, kinda forgetting the millions of gamers who like me love PCs cos we can use mods in it [correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't use mods in the console can you?].

I also agree, Far Cry or Guild Wars got much better results with less hardware. For example, the readme states the game will run with an Nvidia FX. Cool, I had an envidia FX. 5200 128 Mb - wonderful for absoltely all games I had played up to date. Didn't get beyond an average of 6 or 7 fps , with that FX5200, 1gb Ram and a P4 2,8MHz. Got tired, bought a 6600GT. Now it runs fine, but still, I am most disappointed with the graphical engine, now the guys at Bethesda should get some lessons from the guys who made Guld Wars, I believe.

Next critical thing, self-shadowing is amazingly.... crappy. don't know y'all, but I eventually disabled shadowing because every single character looked damn weird, like having a brown beard, even women :-S

As counterpart, without shadowing all look shiny and greasy. Even horses shine. Rock shines! Extra-glossy game.

If it's about complaining as well... What about the it takes for an enemy to fall dead on the floow once it's been hit by a fireball... I've tested it, the fps are normal, but it takes up to 3 seconds to return to the floor. Reminds me of Matrix =)

Things I miss or I haven't got or was expecting? Anyone remember how in Morrowing you'd roll the mouse wheel and change weapons? Or how it was extremely easy to find more quests? And how do merchants know you've stolen the things you wanna sell? Huh? Are they omniscient or what? That's kinda surreal. Uh, and I dislike the amount of grass there is everywhere. And sure, it's cool to see the winds dancing to the wind, but that's actually an fps-killer, and causes that it takes ages to load out-of-cities landscapes. Because after all, do you stop to watch how beautiful the trees are while dancing to the wind? I don't... And finally, tell me if it doesn't happen to you, but about half the characters don't have speech, and worsely, when they don't have speech, the subtitles change too fast to read them.

Things I love in this new game? The overall detail is gorgeous. The lockpick sys gives you a chance even if you're neglected with lockpics. Spell casting doesn't fail systematically when your magical skill is under 50. I love the whole AI [would be better if the actors wouldn't repeat themselves all the time] and generally the world seems to be alive. Uh and there are no flying monsters anymore which attack you while you travel, even though you neither get to travel much after the first time you get somewhere. I love the horses, but I miss not being able to fight while riding one.

And I think that's all. Yes, there is so much to critisize, still I give it a 6 which I'm sure with some patches can get to a 7.5 - or if I can ever buy a $1500 comp, then I'm sure I'll give it a 10 too lol.

But, as someone who makes a living off making software for people who complain as much we do here, I say: if you think it is awful, go do it better yourself, if you can. =)

So there you have it. The guy who doesn't like RPGs loves Oblivion.

Oblivion has succeeded in what was attempted by Dungeon Siege.

I actually really am liking the game and what it brings to the table. There are numerous ini tweaks that can take care of a lot of these nit picky problems. I know I know. You shouldn't HAVE to edit the ini file and I guess the xbox guys are screwed in that aspect but I for one and glad the engine offers this ease of flexiablity and amount of tweaking.

I've lowered the amount of "shininess" on surfaces so it's very little and much more real looking. I also lowered the amount of grass in the world. I wouldn't say my system is a slouch (3.2 ghz P4 + 6800ultra) but I'm still running the game at 1024 resolution with self and grass shadows turned off and medium appearing distance for stuff and far view distance turned on.

Frame rate is acceptable with 20 outside average and about 50 inside. And about 15 or mabey lower if I'm fighting multiple enemies outdoors in the grass or forest. I also turned off HDR and turned bloom on. HDR gives too much of the effect and detracts from the realisim and makes it too overly poofy light looking and less fake glowing glare from objects. Bloom is 10X better + you get AA.

I think that the developers tried a little too hard in some of the effects departments. HDR can be cool if done properly. Like the lost coast demo. Oh man, it was PERFECTLY done in that. The experimental HDR in Far cry though, that was rediculous looking. Same with serious sam 2 though but it worked in that game because the environment was specifiically made to have a cartoonish feel so the bloomy over done colors felt right.

I do think that this has some bearing on the game play becuase, just for fun, I cranked everything to the max and changed the ugrid load value to 11 from 5 and it was SOOO much better and more real feeling.

I've seen a guy play guild wars on a high end machien and it ran nice and smooth but didn't have the "real" feeling that obvlivion has. It was too cartoonish in my opinion. Sure it drew long distances but they were dull and lifeless. Just bare mountains unlike oblivion which throws forests and tall waving grass and rocks onto moutnain sides instead of dirty green and brown splotches of color.

Unfortunately though, right now, that's how my mountains and distant views look since I can't turn the forest draw distance past half way without a big performance hit. Others with the high end cards can and after seeign before and after, I can see how it would be more immersive to be in a better drawn world.

Minor gripes aside, the gameplay is phenomenal. The combat system is superb. I love the idea now that melee combat is no longer mindless clicking of the mouse for non stopped weapon swinging. There's a certain strategy that has to be employed (at least fighting skilled humaniod characters) if you want to live. Getting knocked back and thrown off balance is really real feeling and the blurred vision when taking damage is also very nicely done.

My criticisms for the game are not drawn from what I think the game should be more like in reference to other games or crashes (which I've not dealt with yet). I really don't have that many. No major gripes that's for sure. My sytem barely meets Bethesda's minimum requirements and therefore, I installed the game expecting minimal results but was rewarded with much more I think but definatley not NEAR the max that I've seen from other's screenshots and from what I saw on my machine when I maxed everything out. It was a breathtaking difference.

I'm also not being critical of the game because of what it lacks because I know that if something needs to be added, the community will take care of it like they've already taken care of countless other small things.

Ok I'm done.

To start off this is the first Elder Scrolls game I play so I didn't have the huge expectations and all. I was realy looking forward to it though and it's launch was realy hyped, with reason of course
I haven't regret a single second that I bought the game and for me it's game of the year or even last couple of years. And all this despite that I'm not realy into adventure/RPG's

The game runs pretty smooth on low settings on a medium to low ranged rig. And you can get loads of result with some tweaking. If you reach the recommended requirements I think it should run very smoothly.
I got a geforce 7800GTX and 2gig of ram and the game runs perfectly on semi-high settings. Gonna do some more tweaking in the weekend.
I've seen some freaky stuff happen, but sometimes it just cracked me up it's pretty normal for such a huge intens game that it has some buggs. And with upcomming patches much should be solved.

Point is, why should you worry about what other people write about it?!
It's the top selling game all around the world and gets nothing but good reviews. If some disgrunted people are givin git a 1 becuz they're pc can't handle it, just let them make a fool out of themselves.

I think what he's trying to say is if you rate the game without being at all biased there is no way to rate it a 1.0 out of 10 which i would have to agree. At the same time I don't think its a 10 (I was actually a little more into morrowind)

THe crashes to desktop might partially account for it. I've probaly gotten over 40+ so far....even before and after I started to use mods(so it's not a conflict issue from mods). They happen at least once or twice every hour....

Also, I don't know about you guys, but my game runs fine on high with a x800 pro, however, when I first got the game, the sewers and outside areas were some of the slowest, laggiest game play ever.....I actually shelved oblivion, waiting for a patch to come out to fix the game...for over 3-4 weeks.....later tried it again, and it works great now even with mods that increased texture size and other gameplay moddifiers.

If I was to rate oblivion from the first few hours I got it, I've give it a 4 until Bethseda released a patch that made it playable.

I've ranted several times (more than people would probably like to hear) about Oblivion and Morrowind. Essentially, I'm going to say "I agree" to everything Marxist, Peregrine, and Theta pointed out. Does that mean I won't play Oblivion? No, I spent money on the damn game and on upgrades so I could play it. What irks me is that graphically it is LESS better looking than Half-Life 2, and yet pre-ATI X850Pro I could run HL2 just fine with minimal fps problems. My biggest gripes are the lack of dialogue that's interesting, originality of dungeons, caves, etc. and the RAI which is only good for feeding guards poisoned apples (watching the npc's devour them is like watching a train-wreck in slo-mo, what? I'm sick like that). I'd say that the only really uber positive thing Oblivion has going for it, is the modding potential, because Bethseda gave the modders a HUGE reason NOT to keep the game vanilla.

I barely had any CTD's, and most of the times I did have them was because I was playing around with the console. A very few crashes playing the game normally.

The CS does crash a million times, even at the smallest and most normal things, but that's got nothing to do with the game itself.

Ok at risk of rehashing other comments... Oblivion isn't a masterpiece. It is a reasonable and immersive RPG and there seem too few of those about. It has problems, using a one size fits all skeleton-animation and mesh is cheap and nasty. I want cats and Argonians to have paws and look 'biped animal' not 'human in funny mask'! Personally it has nevered bugged on me except on exit and plays ok even in heated battle on my recommended spec p.c.

I think in the fullness of time the modders will make a silk purse out of this sows ear. Bethesda in charging extra for things like the Orrory are going to lose player loyalty in my opinion as these should have just been patch components to finish off the Uni, not dip a players pocket!