System Requirements

[Sebastien (CNA)]

It is of great concern to me what will be the system requirements for running Oblivion. :eek: From my own research I came across some advice online:

Pentium 4 @ 2Ghz or Athlon 2000+.
256-512MB of RAM.
ATi Radeon 9600 or equivilent and above.
DirectX 9.0 compatable soundcard

(cant recall the source)

Since Bethesda is being tight lipped about the details Im kinda worried since Im investing in some new hardware. These are the stats I have decided on thus far but Id really like some quality advice on what would be best. And yes the purpose of this computer is to run video games (specifically morrowind) as well as 3D modelling programs and the such.

Pentium 4 (Laptop)
3.4 GHz processing speed
1024 MB of RAM
60 Gig Hardrive
ATi RADEON X850 XT


My questions:

What kind of graphics card should I get?
What kind of sound card should I get?
Is a Pentium 4 the way to go or not?
What about motherboards?
Any other ideas/advice? ?(

I dont really care what its going to cost me; however, I dont want to settle on something to find out that Im gonna have to upgrade this and buy that and change this other thing over...

Im sure there are a few others who have similar concerns, no? :yes:

[DarkEclipse]

Originally posted by Sebastien (CNA)
It is of great concern to me what will be the system requirements for running Oblivion. :eek: From my own research I came across some advice online:

Pentium 4 @ 2Ghz or Athlon 2000+.
256-512MB of RAM.
ATi Radeon 9600 or equivilent and above.
DirectX 9.0 compatable soundcard

(cant recall the source)

Since Bethesda is being tight lipped about the details Im kinda worried since Im investing in some new hardware. These are the stats I have decided on thus far but Id really like some quality advice on what would be best. And yes the purpose of this computer is to run video games (specifically morrowind) as well as 3D modelling programs and the such.

Pentium 4 (Laptop)
3.4 GHz processing speed
1024 MB of RAM
60 Gig Hardrive
ATi RADEON X850 XT


My questions:

What kind of graphics card should I get?
What kind of sound card should I get?
Is a Pentium 4 the way to go or not?
What about motherboards?
Any other ideas/advice? ?(

I dont really care what its going to cost me; however, I dont want to settle on something to find out that Im gonna have to upgrade this and buy that and change this other thing over...

Im sure there are a few others who have similar concerns, no? :yes:

I have such concerns also... I have a pretty kick-ass video card, which can run Halo on full graphic settings.

But everything else on my computer sucks, and I'm hoping to get some upgrade before the release date.

[Sebastien (CNA)]

At the moment, the best I can do is get my new hardware and wait for Oblivion to hit the stores in W.A.

[crosses fingers and hopes for the best] :goodjob:

[Grand Inquisitor]

I can just about run Doom III on Ultra High, same with Half Life 2. So I hope it doesnt take much more than that to run Oblivion.

[noremorse]

I'm afraid of the processor speed needed or the amount of ram. But I don't think I'll have much of a problem with it. But they haven't released the requirments yet and probably won't for a while, but I think it should be in my range. If it is, then you won't have any problem with it.

[Razorwing]

Sebastien: If it was me, I'd reconsider going with a laptop because my impression is that the parts are more expensive and much harder to switch later on. I'd also choose the motherboard carefully as I think that's the part that's the hardest to switch. If you put in a RAM the wrong way it just won't work, if you do the same with a motherboard the whole computer gets fried.

1024mb of RAM doesn't sound like that much to me. I just got a single Kingston 1024mb DDR ram-card next to my original 128mb, and I hope to switch out the latter with another 1024mb card before Oblivion comes out. My impression is that the more RAM one has, the faster the computer gets, and if you plan on doing 3D modelling then you could definetely use more RAM, I think.

On just a general note I'd go for much, much more than 60 gb harddrive. I want this little baby... 500 gigabytes, now that's freedom But it won't have much to do with Oblivion, it'd just make it easier for me to work with my DV camcorder, where a full tape usually take up 20 gigabyte. Seeing a movie in 760x576 resolution is rather surreal, much much higher definition than the TV normally shows.

As for processor I have no idea, but I'd assume Oblivion is more processor-intense than Morrowind as the new game constantly calculates a lot of AI behaviours that the 3D card can't help with.

[Cenobite]

The thing that I've heard from skimming the Oblivion section of the official forum...is that the video card is the most important detail. RAM doesn't need to be terribly high, same for processor. But the Havok engine is using some really intensive algorithms to handle the lighting in Oblivion, so the video card must be top of the line.

Again, this is just the rumor that is flying around that forum. But yes, it's got me worried too. To be absolutely on the safe side, I would wait until the TES4 specs are released before upgrading.

[noremorse]

Originally posted by Razorwing
Sebastien: If it was me, I'd reconsider going with a laptop because my impression is that the parts are more expensive and much harder to switch later on. I'd also choose the motherboard carefully as I think that's the part that's the hardest to switch. If you put in a RAM the wrong way it just won't work, if you do the same with a motherboard the whole computer gets fried.

1024mb of RAM doesn't sound like that much to me. I just got a single Kingston 1024mb DDR ram-card next to my original 128mb, and I hope to switch out the latter with another 1024mb card before Oblivion comes out. My impression is that the more RAM one has, the faster the computer gets, and if you plan on doing 3D modelling then you could definetely use more RAM, I think.

On just a general note I'd go for much, much more than 60 gb harddrive. I want this little baby... 500 gigabytes, now that's freedom But it won't have much to do with Oblivion, it'd just make it easier for me to work with my DV camcorder, where a full tape usually take up 20 gigabyte. Seeing a movie in 760x576 resolution is rather surreal, much much higher definition than the TV normally shows.

As for processor I have no idea, but I'd assume Oblivion is more processor-intense than Morrowind as the new game constantly calculates a lot of AI behaviours that the 3D card can't help with.

That 'little baby' is going to cost a ton when it first comes out though, but you're right, it would have so much freedom for the next 5 years... until a we start talking about gigabytes being small...
RAM will make stuff load faster, but not 'run' faster. Not really anyways. It lets a lot more programs run faster at the same time, but load times will be extremely fast with 2 gigs of it.:yes:

[Sebastien (CNA)]

Seeming as though, from my understanding, that Morrowind is all about loading exterior and interior cells; therefore, then a megaload of RAM would be most useful if Oblivion intends to use a similar system...

Updated stats:

Pentium 4 (Laptop)
3.4 GHz processing speed :check:
1024 MB of RAM x2 :goodjob:
60 Gig Hardrive :check:
ATi RADEON X850 XT (tis the best I could find thus far)


Ive opted for a laptop since it is my desire to take the world of Tamriel to the supermarket when I buy my groceries, to the zoo to see the animals, to the park to soak up some sunshine and back and forth between my work and my home.

As for the hardrive... 500 gig! *dies* Since the purpose of it all is to run Morrowind 3 and 4, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, TES CS and so on I dont think I will need that much... I'll just burn excess files to CD and make do with that :yes:

But what about this motherboard business? ?(

[Cenobite]

Originally posted by Sebastien (CNA)
Ive opted for a laptop since it is my desire to take the world of Tamriel to the supermarket when I buy my groceries, to the zoo to see the animals, to the park to soak up some sunshine and back and forth between my work and my home.

We have Alcoholics Anonymous already...when does Modders Anonymous hold their meetings?

:lmao: