Oblivion - GOLD - Ships 3/20!!

[Hetz]

(I made this a general thread so that I/we can Just post all Oblivion news in this thread, so the forum doesn't get cluttered with lots of Oblivion topcs as we get close to release. I know when Morrowind was released it caused a great deal of greaf among some forum members due to the huge volume of topics, so I'm  just trying to head things off at the pass, so to speak)

Posted by one of the devs today...

Pete might beat me up for posting here, but I will say this without giving out any real info....

I have one of the oldest systems here at work. Its about 4 years old and has only had minor upgrades since then. I tested today with EVERYTHING turned on and maxed out. I didnt think it would do it, but it worked. And yes, it was higher than 1024x768 on a fairly dated card. Extremely beautiful. I do recommend something better than what I have here for "complete" enjoyment, but by knocking down some of the bells and whistles (and there are MANY options to play with), it is still a great time while being pretty.

I would love to share my actual system specs with you all to compare, but that is a no go. Hopefully, you can take my word for it with what I COULD tell you, so that you know that you dont have to get a 2nd job flipping burgers just to buy new gear. New gear helps and allows Oblivion to shine in 100% of it's visual glamour, but lower specs dont mean you cant enjoy it and have a lot of goods at the same time.

Relax, you all will still be surprised. I am still in awe that it can run as well is it does and still look insanely beautiful.

[Orgull]

(Drools)... YAY! Maybe my dinosaur will run Oblivion with only a few upgrades instead of a complete replacement.

[Andrew Wonser]

I still cannot understand why they are so hush-hush about the specs. Wouldn't you have a pretty good idea about what hardware you would need by this point?

[Turtle]

Because often times the specs aren't nailed down until the final build, when all the optimizations are in place.

[Hetz]

Because often times the specs aren't nailed down until the final build, when all the optimizations are in place.

Yep, they want to be very careful with this game. I am sure they have pretty much nailed down the specs now, but they are going to wait until the game goes gold to make them public.

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

Hahahahahaha.  Yeah f-ing right.

Daggerfall still has a chance to lag on modern systems.  Why the hell would you ever be gullible enough to believe Oblivion will be some miraculous physics-defying program that runs like melted butter on 1GHz, GeForce 2 machines?

[Hetz]

Hahahahahaha.  Yeah f-ing right.

Daggerfall still has a chance to lag on modern systems.  Why the hell would you ever be gullible enough to believe Oblivion will be some miraculous physics-defying program that runs like melted butter on 1GHz, GeForce 2 machines?

Uhh....where did it say that it ran like melted butter on a 1Ghz machine? It said it RAN, not ran amazingly well. Heck he didn't even think it would run at all, but it did run with all the details at max and higher than 1024x768. It wasn't as smooth as melted butter...but it ran well enough to play once he turned some details down.

[EddieA]

Has Bethesda said if there will be a demo or not?  The post gives me hope, but without a demo, I wouldn't want to risk it.  I was a little over the minimum specs for Morrowind, and while the game ran, it was barely playable.

[Knightshade Dragon]

No word on a demo, but I do recall there was a program you could download that would just simulate what the trees would be like in Oblivion...anyone recall the name?  It'll push your system and give you a taste.

[Zarkon]

If I remember right, it was the program from the people that made the software that Bethseda is using to create or populate the world.  I can't remember the name, but IIRC they were right across from the Dark and Light boot in Kentia at E3 last year.

[Hetz]

http://www.speedtree.com/

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

Hahahahahaha.  Yeah f-ing right.

Daggerfall still has a chance to lag on modern systems.  Why the hell would you ever be gullible enough to believe Oblivion will be some miraculous physics-defying program that runs like melted butter on 1GHz, GeForce 2 machines?

Uhh....where did it say that it ran like melted butter on a 1Ghz machine? It said it RAN, not ran amazingly well. Heck he didn't even think it would run at all, but it did run with all the details at max and higher than 1024x768. It wasn't as smooth as melted butter...but it ran well enough to play once he turned some details down.

Ohhh OK.

Well they got Doom 3 to RUN on Voodoo 2s.  It's not hard to get something to actually start up.  Good luck getting anything playable, though.

[Harpua3]

I was going to grab this on the 360, but I`m not getting one of those for awhile still...but my B-day is in March...Hmmm...I think my system can run this good enough. Is there anyone here that plans on grabbing the PC version of this that has a similar system as mine? Here it is-> p4 3.0ghz, 1gb ddr, 6800gt 256mb, sb audigy 2 etc. If so, I`ll be thrilled to here how it plays on it once this game comes out. I`ll wait for the me to get a 360 if I need to...BUT, if it runs good enough on this, well then...I obviously grab it on PC :wink: .

[Zarkon]

Here's a guess at system specs:  Note, these are what I'd think to be about minimum specs.

P4 2.0 Ghz or Athlon XP 2000+
512 MB Ram
Radeon 9700 / Geforce 5200
3-4 gigs HDD space
Windows XP or Windows 2000.

This is just a guess, by the by.

[Calvin]

I was going to grab this on the 360, but I`m not getting one of those for awhile still...but my B-day is in March...Hmmm...I think my system can run this good enough. Is there anyone here that plans on grabbing the PC version of this that has a similar system as mine? Here it is-> p4 3.0ghz, 1gb ddr, 6800gt 256mb, sb audigy 2 etc. If so, I`ll be thrilled to here how it plays on it once this game comes out. I`ll wait for the me to get a 360 if I need to...BUT, if it runs good enough on this, well then...I obviously grab it on PC :wink: .

I am definately getting this on 360-I can then run it and play it in close to max detail instead of having to have a 3000$ pc to do so

[Knightshade Dragon]

Here's a guess at system specs:  Note, these are what I'd think to be about minimum specs.

P4 2.0 Ghz or Athlon XP 2000+
512 MB Ram
Radeon 9700 / Geforce 5200
3-4 gigs HDD space
Windows XP or Windows 2000.

This is just a guess, by the by.

Anyone remember the box to Ultima 4?  It listed the minimum hours to complete the game...thems were the days.

[CeeKay]

Here's a guess at system specs:  Note, these are what I'd think to be about minimum specs.

P4 2.0 Ghz or Athlon XP 2000+
512 MB Ram
Radeon 9700 / Geforce 5200
3-4 gigs HDD space
Windows XP or Windows 2000.

This is just a guess, by the by.

Anyone remember the box to Ultima 4?  It listed the minimum hours to complete the game...thems were the days.

I remember dedicating a whole summer to Bards Tale 2.  Dammit, I need to get a system with decent RPG's!

[Hetz]

Here's a guess at system specs:  Note, these are what I'd think to be about minimum specs.

P4 2.0 Ghz or Athlon XP 2000+
512 MB Ram
Radeon 9700 / Geforce 5200
3-4 gigs HDD space
Windows XP or Windows 2000.

This is just a guess, by the by.

Anyone remember the box to Ultima 4?  It listed the minimum hours to complete the game...thems were the days.

I loved the Ultima games. They are my favorite RPG series of all time, but the Elder Scrolls are in a close second. It's really too bad what EA did to Origin and the Ultima series....

 :cry:

[Hetz]

More new info from a German gaming mag...that has about 5 minutes of new footage of the game on their DVD!

Ok, I got the mag today (subscriber) and I'll quickly tell you what I know. German mags somehow got ahead of schedule a few years back (was some silly race to get ahead of the competition ), so since then you'll get the march issue at the end of january.
I'll try to be rather vague with my descriptions, so this won't get deleted

The video is a compilation of old scenes (long versions of the scenes we know from the official E3 trailer) and some new scenes. The most interesting part of the new scenes is the draw distance, which is truly amazing. In one scene the player is standing on a tall hill surrounded by some trees, and in the distance (maybe 800m) you can see the city of Cyrodiil. There were some other new scenes showing off some dialogue between NPCs, including a shot inside a nicely lit tavern. Another scene showed the arena, which really captures the feeling of the Gladiator-movie. The player used a staff to cast some magic in this scene. The emperor was also shown, he looks much more like the white-haired guy in the pre-rendered E3-trailer now than the dark-skinned guy we saw in the 30min video.

The shadow system has changed since the 30min-video; now only NPCs and creatures cast really nice soft shadows. Those even flicker if the light source is a torch for example.
Every other object got nice shading (meaning its bright on the side of the light source and much darker on the opposite side), but no dynamic shadows (as far as I could tell).
The sky is also extremely well done, the clouds look like they are truly backlighted by the sun and give the appearence of a really high sky.

The article had two different takes on the first hours of playing by two different editors. There was not much new stuff, just the usual description of character generation, the quest with the missing painter, introduction to the dark brotherhood and so on; stuff we ahve read about numerous times.

There were quite a lot of new screenshots, many of which showing the enormous draw distance. The distance you can see things at is almost endless. In most of the screenshots some mountains are the reason that you can't see further, and not a limited draw distance. Looks really natural. I really hope those screenshots get released soon since I want to check them out in full detail

Well, and at one point the editor checked what system the preview version was running on. It was an AMD FX-55 (2.6GHz) with 1GB RAM and a 7800GT. The editor said the game ran absolutely fluently at 1280x1024, but when he checked, some sliders for tree, grass and character detail were only at the middle position. So he decided to try cranking them to full, expecting the machine to blow up. Instead, it still ran completely fluidly! Only when he entered some woods he got some slowdowns (mouselag), but he fixed that quickly by turning the draw-distance for grass a bit down.
Keep in mind this was not a completely optimized version, in fact it was an old build from december since they had some minor installer problems with the most current build.

I really hope this is not saying too much, but since this was printed in a mag it's kind of official now anyway.

[Jumangi]

Here's a guess at system specs:  Note, these are what I'd think to be about minimum specs.

P4 2.0 Ghz or Athlon XP 2000+
512 MB Ram
Radeon 9700 / Geforce 5200
3-4 gigs HDD space
Windows XP or Windows 2000.

This is just a guess, by the by.

There's a wide diffrence in power of the 9700 vs the 5200. I highly doubt a 5200 would get you much past the game menu.

[Zarkon]

My mistake.  Something in the same realm of the 9700 then.  

Although you never know, a 9500/9600 might be able to run it fine, too, at lower settings.

[Knightshade Dragon]

More new info from a German gaming mag...that has about 5 minutes of new footage of the game on their DVD!

Ok, I got the mag today (subscriber) and I'll quickly tell you what I know. German mags somehow got ahead of schedule a few years back (was some silly race to get ahead of the competition ), so since then you'll get the march issue at the end of january.
I'll try to be rather vague with my descriptions, so this won't get deleted

The video is a compilation of old scenes (long versions of the scenes we know from the official E3 trailer) and some new scenes. The most interesting part of the new scenes is the draw distance, which is truly amazing. In one scene the player is standing on a tall hill surrounded by some trees, and in the distance (maybe 800m) you can see the city of Cyrodiil. There were some other new scenes showing off some dialogue between NPCs, including a shot inside a nicely lit tavern. Another scene showed the arena, which really captures the feeling of the Gladiator-movie. The player used a staff to cast some magic in this scene. The emperor was also shown, he looks much more like the white-haired guy in the pre-rendered E3-trailer now than the dark-skinned guy we saw in the 30min video.

The shadow system has changed since the 30min-video; now only NPCs and creatures cast really nice soft shadows. Those even flicker if the light source is a torch for example.
Every other object got nice shading (meaning its bright on the side of the light source and much darker on the opposite side), but no dynamic shadows (as far as I could tell).
The sky is also extremely well done, the clouds look like they are truly backlighted by the sun and give the appearence of a really high sky.

The article had two different takes on the first hours of playing by two different editors. There was not much new stuff, just the usual description of character generation, the quest with the missing painter, introduction to the dark brotherhood and so on; stuff we ahve read about numerous times.

There were quite a lot of new screenshots, many of which showing the enormous draw distance. The distance you can see things at is almost endless. In most of the screenshots some mountains are the reason that you can't see further, and not a limited draw distance. Looks really natural. I really hope those screenshots get released soon since I want to check them out in full detail

Well, and at one point the editor checked what system the preview version was running on. It was an AMD FX-55 (2.6GHz) with 1GB RAM and a 7800GT. The editor said the game ran absolutely fluently at 1280x1024, but when he checked, some sliders for tree, grass and character detail were only at the middle position. So he decided to try cranking them to full, expecting the machine to blow up. Instead, it still ran completely fluidly! Only when he entered some woods he got some slowdowns (mouselag), but he fixed that quickly by turning the draw-distance for grass a bit down.
Keep in mind this was not a completely optimized version, in fact it was an old build from december since they had some minor installer problems with the most current build.

I really hope this is not saying too much, but since this was printed in a mag it's kind of official now anyway.

Thats pretty much my system specs, but with 2GB of memory.  Looks like I'm squared away. FLUIDLY! (is that a word?)

[EddieA]

It's better than fluently :lol:

[Sarkus]

IGN's PC section has an interesting Oblivion article today.  Not much new, but a few things stand out:

1) water doesn't look like it's moving and only certain things will reflect in it.

2) Some optimizations to the 360 version to take advantage of it's multi-processor are also available on the PC version for those who have a multi-processor system but whether this means the 360 version (with the hard drive) will be better than the single processor PC version is not addressed.

3) mod ablity is more limited than I expected - you can't create new weapons, for example.  That would seem to rule out total conversions to non-fantasy settings.

[Destructor]

3) mod ablity is more limited than I expected - you can't create new weapons, for example.  That would seem to rule out total conversions to non-fantasy settings.

Now that doesn't make much sense. You could make entirely new weapons in Morrowind. Yeah, it was a bitch to do correctly, and required some expensive computer software (until they finally released a converter much later on in the game's life), but it could be done.

Why would they change that around in Oblivion? Weird.

[Knightshade Dragon]

Remember back when you used to work for GT - you know very well that not every checks their facts.  This is probably "I'm too dumb to do it, so it can't be done" kinda thing.  We'll have our proof either way soon enough.

[Sarkus]

Remember back when you used to work for GT - you know very well that not every checks their facts.  This is probably "I'm too dumb to do it, so it can't be done" kinda thing.  We'll have our proof either way soon enough.

The IGN piece is not based on them doing anything; it's based on questions answered by the developers.  If the dev's say it can't be done, it most likely can't be done.

EDIT: The IGN piece is based on a "fan interview" posted on the official Oblivion site, located here:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=223640

From the piece:

"Will it be possible to ADD new weapon types via the CS, defining new fight animations etc?
No"

[kathode]

3) mod ablity is more limited than I expected - you can't create new weapons, for example.  That would seem to rule out total conversions to non-fantasy settings.

Big difference between new weapons and new weapon TYPES

[Calvin]

3) mod ablity is more limited than I expected - you can't create new weapons, for example.  That would seem to rule out total conversions to non-fantasy settings.

Big difference between new weapons and new weapon TYPES

This makes sense. Perhaps they dont want you to make battlefield 27 morrowind edition with their game

[Sarkus]

3) mod ablity is more limited than I expected - you can't create new weapons, for example.  That would seem to rule out total conversions to non-fantasy settings.

Big difference between new weapons and new weapon TYPES

True, and I didn't think to clarify (either that or I interpreted the IGN article that way).  Either way, my point was that total conversions would be limited.

[kathode]

True, and I didn't think to clarify (either that or I interpreted the IGN article that way).  Either way, my point was that total conversions would be limited.

Not any more limited than Morrowind.  Couldn't add weapon types or skills in that either.  We've got to hardcode -something-

[Hetz]

For those that are interested....

137 NEW PICS FROM OBLIVION

http://rapidshare.de/files/11827479/obl-pcgamesvideo0106.zip.html

They are from the new German video. Enjoy!

(some of the pics have a lot of blood for a Teen rated game....)

[Calvin]

For those that are interested....

137 NEW PICS FROM OBLIVION

http://rapidshare.de/files/11827479/obl-pcgamesvideo0106.zip.html

They are from the new German video. Enjoy!

(some of the pics have a lot of blood for a Teen rated game....)

The quality of the pics might not be that great if they are capped directly from a video, so be aware of that.

[Hetz]

Get the new video here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9QC70N2M

It's about 5:30 minutes long and has a ton of new footage.

[Destructor]

Get the new video here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9QC70N2M

It's about 5:30 minutes long and has a ton of new footage.

Holy shit. That's...just some amazing footage. Did you see the draw distance?  Did you see the world detail? The true 'action' in combat?

Don't expect to see me once this game comes out. I'll be too busy playing to do anything else.

[Hetz]

Get the new video here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9QC70N2M

It's about 5:30 minutes long and has a ton of new footage.

Holy shit. That's...just some amazing footage. Did you see the draw distance?  Did you see the world detail? The true 'action' in combat?

Don't expect to see me once this game comes out. I'll be too busy playing to do anything else.

Same here!

The draw distance is incredible. I can't wait to get this game home.

[Sarkus]

My computer refuses the recognize the format of that download.  Anyone know what I need to get the thing working?

[Knightshade Dragon]

Its MPEG4 and probably DivX.  Do you have the Divx codec installed?

[disarm]

actually, the initial file that you download is a .rar archive...you need WinRAR or some other compression program capable of processing .rar files in order to get the actual video file.

[Sarkus]

Thanks, I finally got it working.  I had to download a .rar utility and then figure out Windows Media couldn't play it so I had to try a Quicktime player.