Oblivion will ship March 20th

steviec

_CreeD_ wrote:

Be subjective....ran perfectly = what level of performance? At what resolution? With which FX? Saying something ran perfectly on X hardware is pointless when you don't say at what level.
I dont remember the individuals but Texture quality was 2nd highest, and the rest about 2/3 maxed, 1/3 medium. REs 1280x1024 with softshadows off.... The same machine hist 5100+ on 3dMark 2005 and flies on maxed out Quake4.
But alas, ****s it's mighty self on 3dMark 2006....

Ran perfectly = perfectly playable.... I don't see the point of running 3d mark and spending a fortune on a graphics card to run games at 2000 FPS in ridiculously high resolutions that make little difference on a typical sized monitor anyway. If FEAR doesn't work on your hardware because you refuse to lower the detail settings then it's your fault not your hardware's.

I have a 9600XT, ran Fear grand on low to medium settings. Not so on high settings. Although I couldn't tell how anything looked better in high settings anyway, it just looked slower.

Laguna

steviec wrote:

Although I couldn't tell how anything looked better in high settings anyway, it just looked slower.

I ran low and high settings on my computer to see what the fuss was about, to be honest, FEAR on high settings isn't that impressive, not much more so than what it is on low to medium, I personally thought the character models, scenery and effects were pretty generic and low key for such a graphically lauded game.. Half Life 2 is prettier IMO..

Pugsley

_CreeD_ wrote:

Be subjective....ran perfectly = what level of performance?

I run all games newer than Half-Life1 on minimum pretty much

_CreeD_

steviec wrote:

If FEAR doesn't work on your hardware because you refuse to lower the detail settings then it's your fault not your hardware's.

I have a 9600XT, ran Fear grand on low to medium settings. Not so on high settings. Although I couldn't tell how anything looked better in high settings anyway, it just looked slower.

You missed my point. My first post pointed out that FEAR was not a good metric for gaming performance as it's visuals did not justify the horsepower it required - of course I could lower my settings , but that was not my point, the actual performance of the game is irrelevant as I was discussing it's RELATIVE performance to similar titles. To make it nice and simple if you compare it to Quake4 (only because they were released at the same time and ignoring the actual game play as that's irrelevant) - Q4 ran at a nice solid 60FPS or so with everything turned on at the same resolution and while it lacked some of FEAR's sparkle it had much richer and more colourful environments, FEAR had some very sharp detailed models and superb particle fx but the environments were very simple from both a visual and a model/geometric complexity standpoint yet it ran at about half the speed of Q4 - so the tradeoff here while hard to quantify is maybe a 50% reduction in speed for a 5% improvment in visual FX. Hence to me it's not a good metric. I agree on benchmarks and they were only mentioned to show that the system I'm running it on is not slouch in general terms, hardly top of the range but still a decent rig, it saves one of the 'My penis is >insert PC specs here< this big' posts. 3dMark 2006 however seems to use a lot of the type of advanced lighting/shader and shadow fx being shown in upcoming 'next gen' titles and would provide a better metric imho...not a perfect one, just better than looking at a current title.

Niall - Dahlia

...so! Anybody like me doing a full HD reformat just so your computer is in tip-top condition for Oblivion?!

_CreeD_

Tempting...tempting .....

Zillah

Niall - Dahlia wrote:

...so! Anybody like me doing a full HD reformat just so your computer is in tip-top condition for Oblivion?!

Thats just crazy. I will be doing a defrag though.

Niall - Dahlia

Well I'm riddled with spyware, games have been getting noticeably slower over the past few weeks, has to be done!

grimloch

So long Leaving Certificate!

Even though I won't able to actually buy it for another week or so, I am rather excited about this.

As soon as I'm able to get it, a townward expedition will be launched.

Lord Oz

grimloch wrote:

So long Leaving Certificate!

Even though I won't able to actually buy it for another week or so, I am rather excited about this.

As soon as I'm able to get it, a townward expedition will be launched.

I'm really going to have to find some way of balancing this with the leaving cert. Or dump one of them, and it's not looking too good for the leaving cert. In fact Oblivion could consume my whole life...I just hope it doesn't crash.

grimloch

Lord Oz wrote:

I'm really going to have to find some way of balancing this with the leaving cert. Or dump one of them, and it's not looking too good for the leaving cert. In fact Oblivion could consume my whole life...I just hope it doesn't crash.

This is just some rough mathematics off the top of my head:

I reckon an hour or an hour and a half each weekday is enough to make a fair bit of progress through the game.

So, taking that into account I reckon that I could get up to six hours work a day after school if I'm efficient and don't ass around wasting time.

Now, granted it won't work out that way but all I'm saying is thats it is far from impossible to play a moderate amount of the game without sacrifing your school work.

DingChavez

My new x1900xt will be waiting!

nix

Hummm im seeing alot of fuss about this game, excuse my ignorance but is it another MMO? If not whats so good about it? =D

Dooom

nix wrote:

Hummm im seeing alot of fuss about this game, excuse my ignorance but is it another MMO? If not whats so good about it? =D

Google. GOOGLE. GOOGLE.

DingChavez

nix wrote:

Hummm im seeing alot of fuss about this game, excuse my ignorance but is it another MMO? If not whats so good about it? =D

No, it is not an MMO.

*hands flame shield*

Ri_Nollaig

its not a mmo
its a huge non-linear rpg, sequeal to morrowind which was a brillant game
screenshots ->http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=58045
its got hours of dialogue too and with some voices by patrick stewart , u really need to watch the videos as the screenshots just dont do it justice

nix

Spike wrote:

Google. GOOGLE. GOOGLE.

I'm in a little thing called work, which has game sites restricted. Maybe you will think of that next time you decide to play the smart man role.

Thank you Ri_Nollaig, most appreciated.

nix

Dooom

Ah apologies. I'm not one for thinking of Sunday as a work day. But google wouldn't give out all game sites..such as this one.

Roen

In the same boat meself Nix, anyway it's the fourth installment in the Elder Scrolls series, all of which were fairly epic RPG's. They are all stand alone games, although they are all set in the same world.
I reckon I put about 1000 hours into Morrowind (the third game) so if you like your rpg's non-linear and absolutely massive in scale this lad won't dissappoint.
I've had it on pre order on Play.com for about 5 months now but unfortunately the release date has been pushed back several times. I'm happy to hear that I'll finally be getting my hands on it at last

nix

Ah no probs, sorry for coming off a bit "hostile" as i am working a sunday i am a bit stressed =0D

I'll have a look into later at home, but i doubt ill buy it as im addicted to Everquest2 and CSS. I've bought many single player games over the last few months and just never get around to playing them =(

Beecher

Got 93% in PC Gamer! I cannot wait for this!

Niall - Dahlia

So release is the 20th, but has anybody been in the game shops recently and seen a date on posters or whatever? I hear that alot of branches of GAME in the UK have it down for 31st March. And alot of people in the UK are expecting it to be available about Friday week at the earliest (23rd/24th), since games are rarely released on a Monday.

So don't get your hopes up too much to be playing Oblivion this time next week, might just have to wait an extra few days!

Ri_Nollaig

its going to be released week of 20th
new games are always released on a friday in the eu so expect it out on the 24th

The Free Man

did anybody read the PC gamer review? it goes through some of the random missions that they played, my god they sound amazing! if anybody wants to buy me an xbox360 or a decent graphics card, i will love them forever

Inisin

Just get it for your phone....

http://www.elderscrolls.com/news/press_031306.htm

March 13, 2006 - Vir2L Studios LLC, a ZeniMax Media company, in conjunction with Superscape Group PLC, today announced The Elder Scrolls® IV: Oblivion™ for mobile phones

Oblivion.... on a phone... yeah, I'm sure it will work well.

Zillah

Inisin wrote:

Oblivion.... on a phone... yeah, I'm sure it will work well.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/games/oblivionmobile_overview.htm

jones

Ri_Nollaig wrote:

well thats strange as i know people who played FEAR perfectly on 9800's nevermind a X800XL...
still there is no real way to be sure that oblivion will actually run well on what they say are the required specs, can only wait and find out. if all else fails u will be seeing my pc copy on the for sale section as i go out to get the 360 version

i had FEAR looking/running great on my 9800XT! get in there!!!!
(obviously with a few things turned down)

_CreeD_

Inisin wrote:

Oblivion.... on a phone... yeah, I'm sure it will work well.

It'll be fine so long as you're using said phone to call someone with an uber-pc and telling them what to do with the game on their end....genius...

Elessar

Considering we wont see it until next Friday, which are the "usual" retailers who start to sell it early? Even online companies, dont play.com/cdwow usually post out earlier than most?

Ciaran500

The online companies normally ship a day or two before but they still arrive later than launch.