Oblivion Press Demo 02/22/06 Chicago

[Griffith]

some interesting info on comparison between the two platform supported by the game, the 360 version seems very very good, this is a good thing, as I don't have to upgrade my pc until (maybe) vista will arrive, with dx10 games :

"Personally, I felt that the Xbox 360 was the better version of the two. While the PC version has the ability for mods later, the Xbox 360 framerate was much smoother than the PC version. The PC's we used had a top of the line video card, so if these machines had issues running the game smoothly, you'll have to turn off some features to get a smooth framerate on systems with older video cards. While you might be able to run Oblivion on older video cards, I speculate that this could be like saying that you can run Strike Commander on a 386. It runs, but you have to turn off a lot of the special effects, and it won’t look like the pictures on the box."

"While some pop-in was noticable on both versions, it was more pronounced on the PC version."

"I went to the PC version of Oblivion. These machines were built with a Pentium 4 3.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM, and an ATI X1800 (possibly 1900, still confirming) video card. These machines were obviously very powerful. The monitors were Samsung widescreen LCD monitors. These were used for both the PC and Xbox 360 versions."

"The controls on the Xbox 360 just seemed more streamlined and smooth compared to the PC version. For instance, I never had any issues casting a spell on the Xbox 360 version. Unfortunately, trying to hit the C button on the PC seemed clumsy. Hitting the space bar to activate an object was counter-intuitive to using the left mouse button. The control was more natural on the Xbox 360 controller. I’m certain that getting used to the control on the PC shouldn’t be that great of an issue though, especially for fans of PC shooters. "

http://www.gamingtrend.com/Articles/articles.php?artID=132&pg=7

 

[Griffith]

to be fair, cons to console:

Loading times on the PC were faster than the Xbox 360, but the Xbox 360 had acceptable loading times, roughly 12 seconds on the Xbox 360 compared to 4 seconds on the PC. Loading times did seem to get better as the game progressed though. Those without a hard drive will have longer load times, but they should still be acceptable. Save games shouldn’t have any problems fitting on the 64 MB memory unit. Apparently the biggest save file Bethesda has created is 8 MB in size, and to get a save file of that size you must have played for a couple hundred hours before the save file gets that big.

 

[Mordecaii]

Of course, according to http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/691/691449p6.html :

"The PC version looked slightly sharper and ran at a better clip than the Xbox 360, but Dan and I agreed both looked strikingly similar."

 

[Griffith]

the developers says that the two versions are the same, but the 360 have all the effects on on the maximum, on pc you can have the same experience if you have a top class pc

so, what I've posted are impressions with pc with X1800 and X1900 cards, 2 GB of ram and P4 @ 3.4 GHz, so this seems not enought to match the 360 version

I'm sure that a rig with a crossfire of X1900 will run Oblivion with same effects, but higher resolution the the 360 version

please look at the configuration pc of the article

edit: to add this

Will the Xbox 360 version be a straight port of the PC game, or are you developing both versions separately?

Gavin Carter: We are developing both versions simultaneously.

Will there be different features or limitations in the Xbox 360 version?

Gavin Carter: We are working to make the two versions as close to identical as possible. The Xbox 360 version should be visually identical to a PC running with all the visual options turned to maximum. PC users will have more options to turn down certain visuals to better accommodate older hardware setups.

http://www.computerandvideogames.co...com/interviews/interviews_story.php?id=133589

 

[Lysander]

Of course, according to http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/691/691449p6.html :

"The PC version looked slightly sharper and ran at a better clip than the Xbox 360, but Dan and I agreed both looked strikingly similar."

ign guy who said that never played pc version

 

[AlNom]

Is it fair to compare component video versus VGA or even DVI?

 

[pjbliverpool]

ign guy who said that never played pc version

How on Earth would you suggest that he can agree both versions look similar if he never saw both versions?

 

[pjbliverpool]

You might want to include this massively revelant nugget of information when comparing the framerate of the two:

While the resolution was better on the PC version, the Xbox 360 version felt smoother, and the difference was negligible.

So we are comparing at different resolutions and thus framerate comparisons are meaningless. Also, he doesn;t seem to be able to make up his mind about the framerate differences, are they negligable or is the X360 version "much smoother"?

Makes no difference either way, the PC version may have been running at double the resolution or even more. They may have even toned back some of the graphics settings to keep framerates reasonable at the higher resolution, hence the supposed extra pop-up.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

In another preview it is said the PC version didn´t have AA on. I think everything depends on the part of the game previewers played or saw in both systems and that in the end the two versions are similar.
And if it is true that the PC version was shown with an X1900XT this says much about the power of Xenos...

 

[Griffith]

You might want to include this massively revelant nugget of information when comparing the framerate of the two:

So we are comparing at different resolutions and thus framerate comparisons are meaningless. Also, he doesn;t seem to be able to make up his mind about the framerate differences, are they negligable or is the X360 version "much smoother"?

Makes no difference either way, the PC version may have been running at double the resolution or even more. They may have even toned back some of the graphics settings to keep framerates reasonable at the higher resolution, hence the supposed extra pop-up.

read better before posting:
"The monitors were Samsung widescreen LCD monitors. These were used for both the PC and Xbox 360 versions."

they used the same LCD monitors, so how in earth you could think that the pc are running at higher resolution than 360 if they use the same LCD samsung set (that are only capable of 1280x720) ?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Widescreen monitors, not widescreen TVs. Could be 1600x1200 monitors showing a 1600x1200 PC game and a 1280x720 XB360 games. If they were the same resolution, why did the reviewer write "the resolution was better on the PC version". Surely he'd write "they were both running the same resolution" or something similar, or not even talk about it if it's the same across machines?

 

[Griffith]

Widescreen monitors, not widescreen TVs.

even LCD Widescreen monitors, have fixed resolution

Could be 1600x1200 monitors showing a 1600x1200 PC game and a 1280x720 XB360 games.

no, it can't be that same LCD set is used to show 1600x1200 to pc then badly downscale to show 360 version

have you never seen the quality of a LCD monitor that downscale?
do you really think that this can be done to demo the quality of a game on 360?
don't be absurd

If they were the same resolution, why did the reviewer write "the resolution was better on the PC version". Surely he'd write "they were both running the same resolution" or something similar, or not even talk about it if it's the same across machines?

maybe he is talking of the pro's of pc version, even the stones knows that with pc games you can upset the resolution, if your gpu can do this, of course

 

[Lysander]

Widescreen monitors, not widescreen TVs. Could be 1600x1200 monitors showing a 1600x1200 PC game and a 1280x720 XB360 games. If they were the same resolution, why did the reviewer write "the resolution was better on the PC version". Surely he'd write "they were both running the same resolution" or something similar, or not even talk about it if it's the same across machines?

I already posted this

Graphics look like they're still being optimized. The rig they set me up on was a powerhouse--a Dell 3.4GHz packed with an ATI X1900 512MB card. The video settings were set at a modest 1280x768 and anti-aliasing was turned off. There were some occasional stutters, and I could (albeit on rare occasions) see some stitching lines between textures. Performance seemed pretty similar for this machine as it was for the Xbox 360s running Oblivion on the other side of the room.

Perhaps there was aa on x360 version and no aa on pc version.

 

[Griffith]

I already posted this


Perhaps there was aa on x360 version and no aa on pc version.

so this is 1280x768 PC vs 1280x720 msAA 4x 360?

then yes, this make sense to me, the LCD then are 1280x768 monitors, and with 360 they do 24 pixel bar when displaying the 360 signal

 

[groper]

Gamespot :

Both versions of the game ran fairly smoothly, though we did notice that the Xbox 360 version seemed to have a slightly faster pace than the PC version.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/theelderscrollsivoblivion/news.html?sid=6144925&page=2&q=


1UP

The PC and the Xbox versions of Morrowind had clearly superior and inferior control schemes, respectively.
But the 360 is next-gen in more than just its graphics -- the 360 controller is quite nice as well.
Just like on a PC, on 360 you can now actually map any button to any function you like and save anywhere, anytime. More impressively, the default 360 control scheme is actually superior to the PC one. The inventory and character screens are organized so smoothly that it's noticeably easier to just snap from field to field with your shoulder buttons and a thumbstick than to try to get to them with a mouse and keyboard -- and that's really impressive. And while a PC running at the top of today's models will have no problem running Oblivion, the 360 version looks and runs so smooth it's hard to justify taking up all that space on your PC's hard drive.

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pager.offset=1&cId=3148324

 

[Bobbler]

If the game was merely running as good as the X360 version with an X1900 512 and 2gb of ram then I imagine they have some issues to work out on the PC version.

That isn't a knock to the 360, it's just the way it is. An X1900 with 512mb of ram and the PC having 2GB of ram should perform quite well at 1280x768 (w/o AA too?), considering Oblivion no longer looks quite as sexy as it once did (in comparison to other stuff we've seen) -- I imagine that 3.4ghz cpu was dual core as well (otherwise I'm not sure why it would only be 3.4ghz).

Hopefully both versions end up workin well on their respective platforms... If I end up with a copy it'll be on 360 most likely anyways though.

 

[RobertR1]

If the game was merely running as good as the X360 version with an X1900 512 and 2gb of ram then I imagine they have some issues to work out on the PC version.

That isn't a knock to the 360, it's just the way it is. An X1900 with 512mb of ram and the PC having 2GB of ram should perform quite well at 1280x768 (w/o AA too?), considering Oblivion no longer looks quite as sexy as it once did (in comparison to other stuff we've seen) -- I imagine that 3.4ghz cpu was dual core as well (otherwise I'm not sure why it would only be 3.4ghz).

Hopefully both versions end up workin well on their respective platforms... If I end up with a copy it'll be on 360 most likely anyways though.

On the PC version they'll have to make compromises so that game runs adequately on thousands of PC configurations around. They simply cannot optimize the entire game to run for a x1900xt with 2gb of RAM and a P4 3.4.

Such compromises are not needed on the console since the hardware is homogenous. So while the PC could have higher specs, the necessary compromises could dumb it down a bit and make them seem on par atleast for this game. Luckily for PC users, IHV's can release driver specific optimizations that can increase performance over time. The game manufacturer can also do the same with patches.

 

[Bobbler]

On the PC version they'll have to make compromises so that game runs adequately on thousands of PC configurations around. They simply cannot optimize the entire game to run for a x1900xt with 2gb of RAM and a P4 3.4.

Such compromises are not needed on the console since the hardware is homogenous. So while the PC could have higher specs, the necessary compromises could dumb it down a bit and make them seem on par atleast for this game. Luckily for PC users, IHV's can release driver specific optimizations that can increase performance over time. The game manufacturer can also do the same with patches.

Obviously, but it should still run quite well at 1280x768 with nearly the highest end system you can get... there isn't really an excuse for it running at what seems to be ~30 fps (maybe even less, 25ish?). Even if you plan for an average system, a powerhouse will be able to run it even better -- optimizing for a suckier system generally doesn't preclude the ability of a better system to run it even better. 1280x768 isn't very high resolution as far as PC goes, and Oblivion isn't all _that_ impressive compared to games we've seen... certainly not so much that the highest end system only runs it decently at 1280x768 -- I would expect such quotes in reference to a 1600x1200, but not 1280x768. Who knows though, it's sort of hard to judge from preview, but what they are saying doesn't bode well for the PC version...

I guess I'm mostly wondering if all these previews actually knew the exact hardware and settings the games were running at (for example was it an x1800 or an x1900? was the CPU dual core or just a modestly clocked P4? etc, etc)... because from the couple previews it seems the PC version is going to run like horseshit even on high end systems if we are to believe those PC stats listed.

 

[Griffith]

ATI says that on brute force, Xenos is at the level of X1900, but in this case, Oblivion is optimized for xenos but not for X1900, because of the nature of pc, this is not possibile

 

[m1nd_x]

The Xbox 360 version also supports HDR effects, maybe that is why they didn't have AA in the PC version that they played, they had to turn the AA off in the PC version to get the HDR working... of course I'm going by the assumption that you can't have both at the same time, correct me if I'm wrong.