Im running Oblivion on an Acer Veriton 5600GT with Intel Pent.4 3MHz CPU and 3GB PC3200/DDR 400 SDRAM. At present I have an ATI Radeon 9600 Graphics card and am looking for the right card to upgrade to, to enhance Oblivion game play in particular.
I currently run the game with most settings in the high/full zone (no shadows) and I get pretty good performance. I notice a little lag in densely populated and heavy foliage areas but it is negligible.

Q1. I do not know how to tell what my fps rate is, where do I find that?
Q2. If my mobo only supports DDR ram, do I need a DDR graphics card or will other (e.g. DDR2) formats work?
Q3. How else can I tweak my system (not game settings) other than upgrading hardware to give better gameplay performance in general?

* I'm not complaining about my system, for what it has cost me all up I am very pleased BUT I would like to take it to it's performance peak if I can.

Thanks for all constructive input.

1) There are a few different programs that you can use to tell you what your ingame FPS are. One is FRAPS. http://www.fraps.com/ - Simply have it running when you start Oblivion. Another way is to use the console to find out hat your FPS are ingame. To do this type TDT to turn on the counter & then TDT to turn it off.

2) You can use a video card that has DDR2 or DDR3 in your motherboard. The DDR you are talking about is only for your system RAM.

3) Not sure all that you have done, but of course do the common check list first. Such as,

A) Update all drivers,
B) Defrag your hard drive,
C) Remove excess programs on your HDD, as more space=slightly better performance (in some cases),
D) Overclock your video card & CPU, but ONLY if you know what you are doing,
E) Reinstall WindowsXP or Vista if over 6 months old.

Oblivion Tweak Guide
http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

-MRG

As above, but i would recommend overclocking the CPU a little bit..
there are guides on the internet, but if you don't want to risk killing your system too quickly, only increase the CPU to like 3.2ghz..

don't reinstall vista if over 6 months, just delete all the programs you don't use and run CCleaner AND Privacy Mantra.

Q1) the easiest way is to type tdt into the console.
Q2) almost all graphics cards use DDR, so don't even worry about that.
Q3) as above, but as a last minute add-on, when playing oblivion and while NOT connected to the internet, try disabling any Anti-Virus and or Anti-Spyware.

OK, so now I'm studying up on overclocking, looks like I have a lot to read...

At least I don't have to limit myself too much now re. graphics, and the fps via consol is just what I was looking for, thanks.

Simple advice is the bset...



gone readin'...

forgot to say,
add another gig of ram so it runs in dual channel

if you can afford it, get a cheap ASrock (Asus' budget brand ) mobo and upgrade to 2gb of DDR2..

I have just added the 3rd G of ddr and will have the 4th and last in a week or two. That takes care of RAM for the mo. Next will be gfx & so on & so on.

I plan on maxxxxing this board first and then going up the cost ladder (if necessary) when I'm more sure of exactly what I want and how to go about it.

Thanks for the tip.

I fully support the above quote.

Since I am a married man, i'm of course poor. So 2 years ago, I bought an ASRock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard to use with my E6400 OC to 2.41GHz, 2GB DDR2-667, Audigy2 ZS & an old AGP 6800 Ultra. The motherboard was around $54 at the time. While it does not need to be said that the motherboard is obviously a cheap board cost wise, I must mention that it has provided me with excellent performance vs cost & has been dependable, with not a single problem since I bought it on Newegg. It also has very good onboard HD audio for those that are on a budget & so don't have a quality dedicated sound card to use instead. I installed a friends 7900 to see how the performance was with the motherboards 4x PCI-e slot. All in all, not bad. Better than my 6800 Ultra.

I recommend ASRock.

-MRG

There's some fairly inexpensive cards out there that will run Oblivion very nicely if you're ever interested in upgrading. I like these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814129101

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814133216

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130318

The 8800GT is in my opinion the finest price-performance card that's ever existed. What that card can do at $200 is ridiculous. It's as good as the 8800GTS 640MB in many tests for a fraction of the cost.

WIthout upgrading, overclocking your video card will probably give you the best overall performance boost of anything. There are utilities like ATI Tool and Rivatuner that will advise you on how to overclock your card without frying it. You may try one of those.

Thanks for the links but my mobo don't support PCI-e.

I've been searching for the best AGP8X card and was leaning towards ATI X1600/1650 PRO with their 12 pixel pipelines as opposed to others with 4 & 8. That was until MRG stated ^^^ that I am not limited to a DDR GFX card. The search continues...

I would be interested to hear any opinions/educated guesses on what difference the ATI 1600's might make to my system...

Thanks again.

For an AGP system, ATi is the way to go

The Radeon 3850 for a AGP will give you fully up to date, DX10 graphics on your AGP system

ATI Upgrade adviser recommends X1600/1650 PRO for Acer Veriton 5600GT which I am guessing must be based on standard system specs at time of release.

In order to use the 3850 AGP which seems reasonably priced I believe that I would have to upgrade my power supply from the 250W installed to 450W requirement to run this card. Yet another expense although I am not letting expense decide the course of this project.

I am seriously considering the 3850 as THE best option to achieve what I'm looking for as this card is lauded as the BEST AGP card available, however I am wondering if I there will be other necessary upgrades that I have to make in order to make it all work together as I want it to...

Q. If I went with the 3850 and compatible power supply, am I then likely to need additional cooling or other that I am as yet not aware of?
Q. Can it really be as simple as installing a new power supply and the 3850?
Q. What other hitches am I likely to run into if I take this course?

Thanks.

I will have to agree on the suggestion to use the 3850.

As for your questions:

1, Additional cooling shouldn't be required. But it never hurts to be on the safe side. Its your choice though.

2, Pretty much. Just make sure you uninstall your NVidia drivers before you install the new ATi card.

3, Driver problems. Just use the drivers that come on the disk. 3850 that is probably the most reliable AGP 3850. Atleast from what I have read. Sapphire has always been a top notch brand for ATi cards. The drivers on the disk shouldn't give you any problems.


If you have any questions at all. Feel free to ask.

If you're really on a budget, may i recommend this system upgrade path? (all prices AUD, cheapest available to me)
Asrock 775i65G - $60AUD
Nvidia 8600 GT (256mb) - $74AUD
Thermaltake 470w - $70
2gb generic DDR2 - $27

with that setup, overclock the P4 to 3.2-3.4ghz, and you'll be able to play Oblivion on high, at 1280x1024 with EASE..
and this way, you have the ability to upgrade to Core 2 Duo later, along with the PCI-E graphics and DDR2 support.

Thanks for the suggestion but it would defeat the purpose of what I'm trying to do if I just opted for a new rig altogether. Basically, I want to build the one I have up to it's full potential. I am learning more & more with every hour and this was why I started this project in the first place, to learn.
I may be a little naive but I am under the impression that what I already have is capable of supporting all of the peripherals I will need for a long time to come and will allow me to play games to my hearts' content (at full specs) without needing further upgrades, once I have put it all together. Not far to go now...
So, again thankyou for your suggestion but I think I'll just plod along and sooner than later, I will be able to stop spending $$$ on hardware and be able to get on with what I should be doing... Studying!

Cheers.