Lowest possible system Oblivion will run on.

Schwaa2 on 9/4/2006 at 21:21

OK, I've been looking fowrad to this release for along time, but I don't have cash for a recommended minimum system.
I have

900mhz
geforce T1 4200 (pixel shading) 64MB
Windows XP
512 Ram

Is anyone running with this slow of a system? Or should I just forget about it.

Komag on 9/4/2006 at 21:45

I would say forget about it. Here's what I tried and my results (posted in another thread a couple weeks ago):

Okay, just for kicks I installed Oblivion onto my laptop, which is:
- Pentium M 1.4ghz
- 512 meg RAM
- GeForce FX-go 5650 w/128meg
- XP Pro w/SP2
Playing at 640x480 with rock bottom settings

I turned EVERYTHING down to the absolute lowest settings possible, and, while the game would technically "run", you couldn't really call it running. It took me forever to just pick the basic guy they give you because it wouldn't register my mouse clicks and the curser was moving at like 1 frame every 3 seconds so I kept overshooting the buttons.

Eventually I got it started and somehow managed to jerkily grab a skull of the ground and toss it over to the table, and it flew through the air in a slow slide show, eventually falling against the table and down to the ground, after about 20 seconds overall, when it should have taken about 2 seconds.

Then I forced the character to meander his choppy self up to the gate to hear the other prisoner rant at me - the game froze for about 15-20 seconds and I thought it was crashed, but then it started again and the guy's audio started, so it turns out it was just my computer pausing to load the audio clip.

That's when I turned it off and uninstalled it. That was just bad.

The lesson is that if you're hoping to get by on less than the minimum specs listed, don't even try, it's impossible. I'm betting that my bottleneck here is the processor, it just can't crunch the physics, the audio, etc. I'm sure the relatively low amount of RAM (and it's probably slow laptop RAM too) doesn't help either.

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

I would hazard a guess that the game would simply not work at all on the system you mentioned, that it wouldn't start up or maybe even refuse to install.

But for something like $300-$500, keeping your old monitor, you could get a whole new desktop system that would be powerful enough to run it. You could even do it for less if you just got new MB/Proc plus RAM and a new video card.

RyushiBlade on 9/4/2006 at 21:53

Unless you're a big gamer (with only 900mhz, you probably aren't, or atleast you're only just getting started), I'd go ahead and get the 360 version. It runs about equal to my setup, but costs a good $1000 less. But if the construction set and fan mods really mean a lot to you, upgrade your computer.

Schwaa2 on 10/4/2006 at 00:06

Well, I have a PS2 so that rules out the XBox version, but the editor would be a big consideration, although at this point I'm not sure I'd use it much.

Sucks that games are getting so sweet that you have to drop a large amount of coin on a system to play. Oh well, thanks for the advice.

MrSidnet on 10/4/2006 at 05:21

Quote Posted by Komag

Okay, I have an
AMD 2000+ (1.67GHz)
768 RAM
RAdeon 9600 128mb
xp pro/ sp2 blah blah blah
dont remember teh playing resolution.
antialiasing turned on (bogs down when i see oblivion gates and those floating shade creatures)

so, its not much better than yours (other than maybe the vid card, I dont know geforce equivelents)

and I have pretty decent settings. LOD textures, nice water, I turned off the grass, its pretty, but annoying (hard to see through). Loading screens are fast, textures are at medium, all in all, I would say looks pretty decent. I usually pull a restart before I play, it helps a bit.

The only thing it chokes up on sometimes, is riding a horse, where it likes to load lots of terrain, and fighting enemies in teh woods, outside of any dungeon/Oblivion.

Ultraviolet on 10/4/2006 at 06:12

One thing I'm noticing not being stated here is memory speed.

MrSidnet: I suppose your memory is PC133, since you're using an AMD (Athlon XP?) 2000+?

Komag on 10/4/2006 at 08:27

Quote Posted by RyushiBlade

get the 360 version. It runs about equal to my setup, but costs a good $1000 less.

No, that's just not true with today's low PC prices. You can get a PC that runs Oblivion pretty well for around $500 if you shop good, $600-700 if you're a bad shopper, only $100 more (or $200-$300 more) than buying an XBox 360.

Fig455 on 10/4/2006 at 12:09

True, komag, ESPECIALLY if you can recycle monitor, hard drive, optical drives, case, soundblaster, speakers, and operating system from your old PC.

ignatios on 10/4/2006 at 12:38

Quote Posted by Komag

Does that include a motherboard that does PCI-E and SATA? I wouldn't spend money on a new computer unless I knew that I could keep upgrading it in the future. AGP/PCI and IDE are on their way out.

scumble on 10/4/2006 at 13:45

There are quite a few reasonable boards with PCI-E and SATA. I'm a bit confused by the socket types, so I'm not sure whether dual core processors need a more expensive board - well, not necessarily, but dual core chips are still on the pricey side. As long as they don't change the sockets in the meantime, one can put in a dual core chip when they get more reasonable, and keep going for a few years at least.

Incidentally, there are reasonable boards with dual PCI-E slots for a bit of SLI action, not a bad future-proofing measure, but then I bet there will be some new hardware feature that makes using two old cards sub-optimal for some reason...