I don't have Windows x64, I ment just plain 64 in my post, sorry for the missinformation . But considering the compatibility, I've read quite a bit about it, it seems to be a bunch of problem with compatibiliy and dual-core CPUs aswell. I've had quite a few problems, but I use a windows tool that sets an application to use just one of the CPUs if that happens, it's quite enough with half the CPU for most games .

Right now:

Pentium 4 2.8GHz HT
X800XL 256mB AGP
1 gB RAM

Will get:

AMD 3700+
X1900XT
2gB RAM

Wont be for a while, though.

Alright just finished building a new comp, not really because I needed it, but because I sold my old one to my friend for $500.

Any new specs:
3800+ amd x2
geforce 7800gt <- lovin it
1gb (2x 512 corsair overclocking ram)
250 gb sata (fergot the brand but it wasnt bad)
all for a cool $900 including case, powersuply, and of coarse motherboard.

I can't wait till oblivion comes out so I might actually have a reason to overclock

Also, if anyone doesn't want to build their own comp. www.ibuypower.com is a good CHEAP custom place to go to. Pretty good tech support to. >off to play AA<

so.. Basically oblivion is the game ive been waiting to play for quite. I am hoping I wont have to upgrade, but chances are I will.

Im running

Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8ghz)
768mg ddr400
6600GT 128mg agp
200gb 7200rpm

which as far as i can remember its almost on minimum specs for oblivion.. What do you think I need to upgrade.

I would like a new motherboard and cpu. But I have an agp card. So I was thinking about that asrock mobo with both agp and pcie. (Joeri) what was the name of the board?

Oh yea.. I want 64bit and all would I need to upgrade ram? If I got the new stufff.

oh yeah, and I was wondering if it was worth waiting for the AMD M2 before I upgrade. I heard it was going to the new chipset that they would make upgradeable for a long time..?

If you arent the type that upgrades processor, then you might as well as get whats out now as the new stuff wont be THAT much better and is gonna cost a hella lot when it does.

It's generally a good idea to get rid of any 128MB sticks you may have left, but anything else depends on the socket:

Socket 940 takes registered DDR and runs it in two channels. Socket 754 takes registered or unregistered DDR and runs it in a single channel. Socket 939 takes registered or unregistered DDR and runs it in two channels. Socket AM2 will take DDR2. Socket F will likely take DDR3.



Socket 754 / 939 processors will be dirt cheap by then.

Hmmm... Hopefully someone can help with this question here.

The other day I was trying out the fear demo... mostly just to test my new video card and see what kind performance Oblivion might have for me. Anyway once after playing for quite awhile on all max settings.. the screen turned multiple colors. I had to reboot. Today after playing Civ 4 for quite a few hours, the screen again turned colors briefly and then I think my video card shut down.. Again rebooting fixed it.

I assume my video card maybe getting too hot? If so.. what kind of tips does anyone have that I can use to help keep it cooler. Oblivion I assume will be really taxing and I dont want to have my video card keep shutting down.


Edit: Well I looked around NewEgg.. and decided to go ahead and buy a few things there just in case it is overheating... I got some copper heatsinks and a bunch of case fans.. Anything else to suggest?

I've got the following:

AMD Athlon +3700 2.2gHz
Corsair ValueSelect 2x515 mb DDR-DIMM
Asus A8N-E (nForce4 Ultra, socket 939)
Gainward GeForce 6800GS 256MB

The processor, motherboard and memory should definately do it, the only thing I'm a bit unsure about is the graphics card. Do you guys think 6800GS will be sufficient?
(And by sufficient I don't just mean enough to run the game, but to actually run it smoothly on high graphics ajustments.)

I think it very well should considering the dev. team used 9800pro(or xt i cant remember) 256mb. It may not run it on the HIGHEST settings, but maybe with like one or two things taken 1 notch down it should do just fine.

Seems like heat might be the culprit, I've never personally had a heat problem though. Other than getting heat sinks and fans there isn't really much you can do. Does your case have a vent on the side?

My case doesn't and I only have 1 fan in there and I played through F.E.A.R. twice with no problems. nVidia's might run hotter than ATI's. Also, are you using the latest video card drivers?

There are apps you can download to monitor your systems temps, you might want to get one of those and check the numbers after playing through F.E.A.R.

Nope.. no side vents. Its pretty much a standard case that came with a DELL computer. I decided to get a bit adventuress and make some modifications to it though myself. There was a piece of plastic covering the hole for the floppy drive which I don't have. So I removed that. Also there was a contraption up front for USB ports and I guess a headphone jack. Removing that leaves a nice big hole into the case. It also leaves room for me to put one of the fans there when they get here. I also took out the phone modem which I don't use(have broadband). Hopefully that will allow more air around the video card.

Thats a good idea about finding a program to monitor temperatures... I will look for one and see if thats the problem. What kind of temperatures are normal? When do cards shut down? its a 6800gt. Yep... drivers are the very latest. I was a bit surprised that Civ4 would be taxing enough to cause an overheat, but I do have every option turned on highest.

It may also have been a bit dusty in there, so I cleaned it really well. I might have to make it a point to clean inside my case more often.

Is there any particular best way to set up the fans? I assume you want maybe two intakes on one side of the case and one or two exhaust fans on the other?

Will my ATI Radeon 9250 work with oblivion

Say yes and ill be ur eternal slave for a century

Even if it would, it probably wouldn't work very well. From my understand, that's a pretty old card, isn't it? You might want to upgrade.

According to this forum, the temp for your video card should be around 50 or 60-ish when idleing and some have reported temps up to 90c when playing through F.E.A.R. I'm not sure what the official temp should be but those might give you a good barometer of what's normal.

I'm not sure how to set up the fans, I only have 1 in my case and it's in the front blowing toward the back. Let me know how it turns out.

I just bought a new Pavillion a few weeks ago, here are the specs:
AMD64bit 3800+ (2.4 Ghz)
250Gb hard drive
1Gb RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6200SE with TurboCache
Im lovin' it

will my ATI RADEON 9250 work with oblivion, i dont really feel like going out and spending money on my computer with a lot of debt from chrissie to clean up. Of course Oblivion doesnt count

Well I checked your card against the upgrade thread in the official forums...

I hate to break it to you.. but this was listed in the first post

Chipsets that will NEVER work:
Intel Extreme, Intel Extreme 2, as well as most integrated graphics chipsets
GeForce 2, GeForce 3, GeForce 4MX, GeForce 4 Ti
Radeon 7xxx, Radeon 8500, Radeon 9000, Radeon 9100, Radeon 9200, Radeon 9250


Heres the link.. just read through the first post for all the information you might need..

official thread on recommended hardware

Owch that cut deep damn looks like it will be a 360 job thanx for ya help

Ok, a friend of mine keeps bugging me about "Will my computer work? Will my computer work? Will my computer work?" and I'm not to knowledgable on the set-up he has (though I think it should work). If you guys could help me out, thanks a lot.

He's got a AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 Clawhammer Processor,
a ATI X1900 video card and 2 gigs of RAM.

Now, I think he can probably run it, but I, as previously stated, havn't really studied this set-up before. Anyone able to help?

He can run it easily with that setup.

Thats what I thought since it was the Gametesters same setup, but he's at the point where I was about a week ago. Fanatical. He checks the TES website 900 times a day, 100 more than me.

I've got the following :

- CPU Pentium 4 2.26GHz
- DDR 1Gb ( 512 x 2 )
- VGA geforce 6600 128Mb

I've read System Requirements . But I wonder if my PC can run smoothly at low settings . Really I don't have enough money for any Upgrade . Thank you !

Why are you posting in an upgrade thread?

Hello, I am new to this forum!

I will begin with boasting!

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
1024MB RAM
ATI Radeon x1900 XTX
200GB Hard Drive
SB Audigy SE

My new computer! I am so happy so don't slag it off!

It is a drastic step for me compared to my previous computer which is:

Intel Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz
1024 RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
160GB Hard Drive
(Forget which sound card I have)

There are many other system specifications that are considerably improved I just decided to put in the parts that stand out really!

I apologize if I offend anybody with this blatant boasting but im well chuffed

Inciting Jealousy within the community was the intention

Oh and btw Red,

I think your friend well knows that his computer will work the game!

Pretending to be naive is another form of boasting, I know, I do it myself

Hello all, I need some advice here:

Current rig:

CPU- 3.0 GHZ Intel
Ram- 1 GB
Video- NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 (256 mb)

I'm swooning over this game and want to be able to play at full video, so am willing to splurge on a new video card, but I keep hearing about how the AGP 8x simply doesn't compare to the PCI-Express. Which would indicate that I need a new motherboard too. But since they don't make motherboards with 478 socket cpu and PCI-E combined, then I'd have to upgrade my CPU and RAM too, which according to system recomendations, doesn't need to be upgraded.

So, basically I'm asking you:

If I just upgrade my video card to something like the Xfx Geforce 7800GS 256MB DDR3 Agp Extreme Edition, would it be comperable to if I had upgraded to the new motherboard and got a new 3.0 ghz CPU with 775 sockets, effectively spending much more money and throwing away my perfectly good 3.0 GHZ 478 socket chip and RAM. Or is the power of a 775 socket cpu, and a PCI-E so much better than a 478 socket and AGP 8x, that I should spend the bucks to completely revamp mysystem?

Any advice is appreciated!

I don't want to give out any bad advice so I suggest you thoroughly search for reviews and such about preferable socket types etc.

But, in my opinion, if you were to get a new pc you should consider those 939 sockets and the AMD processors because I hear they get alot of praise.

The graphics card you are getting is a beast. Even if it is an AGP, it is just a tad slower than its PCI-e counterpart and I don't think you would notice that much of a difference.

My current specs are:

P4 2.26 ghz OCed to 2.6 ghz
512 (2X256) MB DDR PC2100
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB

As you can see, I'm in a dire need of a new graphics card, but I was wondering if I should get a 6800 of some form (was thinking a vanilla or possibly a GS, AGP, obviously) as a stop-gap until I have enough money to get the parts needed to build a new PC, or if I should just skip the graphics card and go straight to a new PC. Keep in mind that I'm currently 16 and won't get a job until the summer/christmas holidays that last roughly 6 weeks, so there's a chance that the 7800s will come into my price range.

Honestly I would wait considering you need more/better of everything you have to get the performance I think you are seeking. I would suggest at least meeting the recommended specs.

I don't really need Oblivion to look great, I can just turn stuff down until it rus at an acceptable frame-rate (I play HL2 on this PC for christ's sake! Plus, two of my favourite games are Daggerfall and Fallout, so graphics don't particularly matter), but maybe you're right. A current moderately high-end PC should be a lot cheaper at the end of the year, so I might be able to get a half-decent PC, depending on how much money I end up making.

Maybe you should get an Xbox 360?

You can play the game at all its glory for the price of a graphics card!

1. I already pre-ordered the PC version
2. When the 360 is released here, it will cost $650 AUS, the average price of a 6800 GS AGP is $400 AUS
3. If I get a 360, I won't be able to get user-made mods, plus we don't have broadband, which means no live service to get patches from. Also, considering that Live is half the 360, it kind of makes the 360 not seem worth it at all.

My computer:
AMD athlon XP 1700+ processor
256MB ram
CD-RW
nVidia TNT2 M65 with 32 SDRAM

So you think it can run oblivion? Just kidding, even if it had a DVD drive, it can bearly run MW.
I know nothing about computers so building my own isn't an option but considering this:
AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+
1GB DDR 400 RAM (Dual Channel)
2x 120GB Serial ATA HDD (RAID)
Nvidia 6600 PCI-X Graphics Card
Samsung DVD +/- RW 16x, Dual Layer 4x
How well could it run oblivion?

Maybe try getting a better video card, just for more eye candy, But yes, the system you listed should run it great. If you can bump it up to a 6800 GS (approx 200 USD, seen it rebated to 150 USD. Just looked it up, still rebated down low. 154 dollars Ive read reviews on the 6800 GS and almost bought one, except the fact that I would lock myself on AGP, and unbalance my system. If you pop that in there it will run very smooth.



AMD Athlon XP 2500+
9800 vanilla 256 MB
1.5 GB DDR Corsair valueRAM
SOYO KT600
Antec TPII 430 watt
5.1 Logitech X-530


Yes. I know my compy isnt gonna run oblivion max graphics or anything all amazing. Id like to see other people do better on 40 bucks a month.

Sad part is my compy beats most other prebuilts that cost 1200. Sad. Anyway, Ive pulled off some tough things with this comp well. I had 3dmark05 running 800x600 with 2x AA, trilinear filting, at about 13 FPS. Which is darn good for this system. 1024x768 kills it though. Looks awesome (but slow) at 6x AA, 16x aniostrophic, 1280x1024.

I have quite a bit of money, but any upgrades on my current system would greatly unbalance it. My brothers computer is unbalanced.
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
Socket 754 mobo (He couldnt afford 939 at the time)
6800 GT
512 MB Ultra RAM
2x SATA Hardrive RAID (Used to be an old 80 GB, the speed of my old slow backup hardrive)

He isnt gonna run oblivion like he hopes for. The lack of RAM will slaughter his performance. Ive offered to let him borrow a 512 MB stick of my RAM so he doesnt lag bad, but he refuses cause he doesn't like the fact that he is getting my help.

(I'll go on and on about compys, this is my last few sentences >_>) I was going to go to the oncoming socket AM2, for AMD, but it only supports DDR2 RAM, and PCI express. My goal, save a ton of money and get another compy. And get off of AGP for good. My brother tried to sell me his old Socket 754 motherboard for 80 dollars. If Im spending that much, Im gonna get 939. I'm done

My comp

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (2,9GHz)
1024MB DDR Ram
nVidia GeForce 6800LE 128MB

This should be enuff for playing Oblivion, aye? Atleast the displaydriver is recommended at the official Oblivion wep page, and my mate is kind of a wiz and he said i'll be runnin' smooth.

But, what is your opinion?

Well if anyone was wondering about the followup to my video problem. I guess they are called artifacts from my research. Anyway.. I downloaded a program called speedfan. It tells me the temperature of my cpu, video card, and harddrive.
From what I can find I am running pretty cool now after the addition of a couple small fans. Highest temperature the program recorded is 52C while playing a graphic intensive game.

What I also found out is that I may have made a small mistake when inserting the card. Apparently when hooking up the power cable to the card you shouldn't use the same one that is connected to the hard drive. I wish the card installation instructions mentioned this. So its possible that the card lacked enough power if the hard drive was in use at that moment too. So I changed to another power cable. I haven't had any problems so far after these changes *crosses fingers and knocks on wood*

So hopefully that info might help any potential card upgraders out there.

I was not aware of that, looks like I'll have to check my power cable. I'm not having any problems but I don't want my card to burn out right when I finally get Oblivion.

Hello! I've been lurking around this forum for a while, but I haven't really done much of any posting. Let me start by saying that this is a much nicer forum than the official Bethesda TES forum. You can't post in or start a hardware thread on that forum without starting a PC vs. Xbox 360 flame war between all of the kids on the official forum. Really frustrating.

Anyway, here's my setup:

Athlon 64 X2 4200+ @ stock
2GB Corsair XMS Platinum RAM @ 2-3-3-6-1T
eVGA GeForce 7800GT in SLI
Misc. other specs

I think I'm going to wait and see how the game runs on my 7800GT, and if I need more I'll add another 7800GT. They're running around $300 at Newegg.com right now.

The reason I'm posting in this thread is to offer some information that I've only recently come across (which is a bit embarassing as I'm usually pretty on top of hardware specs)

Anyone looking into buying new hardware for Oblivion might want to keep a few interesting points in mind (I'm sure some of these have been touched upon):

- Oblivion will mostly be a shader-intensive app, so your video hardware is going to have more of an impact on performace than your CPU. If you have a single-core CPU that's at least 3GHz Intel or and AMD that's performace-rated at 3000 or higher you're in the clear. Bethesda has been downplaying advantages to dual-core CPUs, so I'm thinking that dual-core won't be a huge advantage (most current dual-core-equipped gamers are used to this already).

- The ideal current GPU for running Oblivion is the ATI x1900XTX, and that's not just because of framerates. The nVidia 7800 series of GPUs is generally outperforming the ATI x1800 and below, but they have an important limitation. While the nVidia 6800 and 7800/7900 GPUs are shader model 3.0 compliant (which is a VERY good thing for running Oblivion), the GPU resources that execute FP16 (16-bit floating point) blending operations and the resouces that handle AA (anti-aliasing: removal of jaggy edges in hardware) are shared. That means that if Oblivion exclusively uses FP16 for HDR (high dynamic range lighting: very pretty), current nVidia cards will not be able to do HDR and AA at the same time. If Oblivion is capable of doing integer HDR, then nVidia users will get to use HDR and AA at the same time with a performance hit. The pre-x1X00 ATI cards (the x850 and below) cannot use shader model 3.0 effects at all, and will probably not be able to use HDR lighting effects at all. I'm not sure if this isn't a moot point, however, because owners of x1X00 ATI cards (including the almighty x1900 cards) might not even have the horsepower to run both at decent framerates, but it's something to keep in mind anyway. I'm not just being a fanboy here - I looked into this because I'm locked into nVidia technology for now. nVidia hardware is getting some really nice framerates (better bang-for-the-buck as far as framerates go, in fact), but is seeing some feature limitations in the current iterations of their designs. That ATI x1900 is a really nice GPU, but SO expensive!

- Having at least 1GB of RAM will be an advantage, as there have been a lot of complaints about load times between areas, which more RAM will help with.

Anyway, I just wanted to chime in and share a few interesting bits of info that I've picked up recently. If anybody has hardware questions feel free to PM me. I'm not the be-all end-all for info (who is?), but I am a computer engineer and enough of a nerd to be able to answer most hardware questions and help with troubleshooting.

This seems like a friendly community. I look forward to interacting with you folks more once the game is released.

It really depends on how long you want to wait. You're close enough to recommended specs that you could probably get away with a real video card (the Geforce 4 MX series is very underpowered...you need a 6800 or 7800 series card if you're going to stick with AGP) and more RAM (at least 1GB). However, that's going to run you upwards of $300, and it won't be re-usable in a new rig down the line. The other side of that is that your current video card isn't going to run Oblivion at a satisfactory level at all. So, you can spend the money now to run the game, or you can wait until you can buy a new PC to run the game. However, you're better off spending the $300 now to run the game than to rush into a purchase of a new PC that isn't going to be future-proof. If you're excited about playing Oblivion fairly soon I would go with a video and RAM upgrade.

So, again, it depends on timeframe and what kind of money you will have to spend.

It looks like you'll be a-ok. Certainly don't spend any money on upgrades until you have the game installed. If you decide you're not satisfied with how it's running and you need more then re-evaluate at that time. Everyone has different opinions as to what is acceptable performance.

Would this be ok?

AMD AthlonXP 2600+ 2.07 Ghz
1.5 Gb RAM
ATI radeon X800 SE 256Mb

Hmm.. if i were you, i'd probably clock my CPU a bit more, or even buy a new one. But this is just my opinion, what isn't worth much. Ask Dex if ye wanna be sure.

clock?

Check here.

YEp, that al seems too complicated an dangerous. ill manage with my setup.

Well, I'm going to be playing Oblivion on the 360, but I just ordered a new laptop. I guess it's a moot point, but here are the specs.

Gateway’s 7510GX Notebook PC
Athlon™ 64-Bit 3700+ FSB 1600, 1GB (512MB x 2) DDR333 (PC2700) ATI Mobility Radeon X600 (PCI Express) 256 MB 100GB hard drive.


Now, I realize that laptops aren't exactly your ideal gaming platforms. I'm pretty confident that I can run Oblivion, it's just a matter of how well. I imagine that I'll lose some performance on the hard drive. Thoughts??

Actually your performance loss with be a combo from generic ram/slower hd/somewhat dated graphics (though it is good for a laptop).

However, I share your comfidence in being able to run Oblivion

I have built my new computer today and it is hawt.

CPU:athlon 64 3200 2.0ghz
RAM:2 gigs
Vido card: 6800gt 256ram

it runs BF2 rome total war and hl2 on full settings so i think that i will be ok with oblivon

Dont suggest overclocking to someone who doesnt fully understand it, you can kill/damage your processor. You will be alright with a 2600+. You will have to buy a new heatsink to overclock it, and it really isnt worth the trouble unless oblivion runs slow and it is necessary. You have to know how to monitor temperatures. And achieve stability while doing so.

Didn't you at one moment say you're like 13 or what Nice talking there mait!