Oblivion's framerate

[Shifty Geezer]

Yesterday I looked at the Oblivion movies from gametrailers. Looked pretty good and the external 'life' was cool. But I couldn't help but notice Morrowind like drops in framerate.

Does anyone know if these movies were taken from XB360 or PC? Are these framerate drops to be seen in XB360? It wouldn't surprise me - I've said all along I don't think much of Bethesda's ability to get the best performance from hardware. I'm just curious how the game will perform and how it will vary on XB360 and PC.

 

[robofunk]

Those clips are from sometime before E3. They're probably from the PC version since there is a cursor, but he talks about it like he's using a controller.

 

[LunchBox]

i actually noticed that as well

it sporatically drops from that killing rat vid that i saw recently

but didn't want to say anything in fear of getting flamed...

peeps are quite sensitive about framerates

*shudders*

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Like I say I'm not surprised from Bethesda. Their games are great and pretty much in a league of their own (what else will Oblivion be competing with as a Western fantasy RPG?) but graphically they've not managed smoothness of framerate or animation before.

Part of the reason I mention this is because I've friends who're interested in Oblivion and saw the vid and were raving how it looked, but I said (going mostly be screenshots) that Oblivion was far from the best next-gen visuals have to offer and there was plenty more about next-gen to get excited about. But I thought I ought to check what the animation was like which I hadn't seen, such as the very nice trees, and saw the jitters and poor animations. The fight scene was running at a low frame rate, and when the people left the dungeon the animation was something right out of Morrowind.

The lighting and such inside is good. The scenery looks good with the bumps and specular, but of course every next-gen game is going to have these effects as they're bread-and-but SM3.0 shading. The character lighting and shading IMO is weak compared to other efforts. These presumably will be the same between XB360 and PC and I think these are far from the best next-gen will be seeing. But the framerate is something that might be better on one platform than the other, and by account XB360 will be best on the console, no?

Does anyone know of any actual XB360 movies? One of a fight scene would be good as that was definitely a low-framerate on what I saw.

 

[Farid]

If the game runs smoothly, be it on PC or X360, the red sea will part.

Bethesda devs are whatever you want them to be, but they're definitely not graphical engineering wizards. They're still using Gamebryo's technology, BTW (new engine, though).

let's hopê that this time the engine does render its polygon from front to back and not the other way around... Or else it's going to be another waste of the complex Z saving technologies present in our cards, just like Morrowind was.

Note to the Console Forum member only that I'm the president of the Bethesda Hating Club of the PC games Forum. Therefore take everything I say about Bethesda's work with a grain of salt...

 

[one]

Since it's a UE3 game, it may be interesting how it compares with other UE3 games. Frame City Killer, Mass Effect, and obviously Gears of War come to mind. Is there any other UE3 game on Xbox 360?

 

[therealskywolf]

Since it's a UE3 game, it may be interesting how it compares with other UE3 games. Frame City Killer, Mass Effect, and obviously Gears of War come to mind. Is there any other UE3 game on Xbox 360?

? Since when is Oblivion a UE3 game?

IT's their own engine.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's the first I've heard about it being UE3. It looks similar graphically but they all do these days. Vysez says they're using Gamebryo too.

www.gamebryo.com confirms this!

So is it the Gamebryo tech that has the jitters, or Bethesda's implementation?

 

[Powderkeg]

Some people just assume that every good looking game is UE3.

It's a Bethesda game, which means it's going to have ugly animation, and it's going to ship with a huge list of bugs. Every Elder Scrolls game they've ever made has been this way, there is no reason to think Oblivion will be any different.

It will still be a great game though, even with it's flaws.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Blunt, but probably a fair assesment
Will the XB360 version have the console accessible for when quests are bugged and you need to issue commands to bypass them? I wonder if Bethesda saying the HDD was wanted for the best experience wasn't just to allow d'loadable bugfixes!

 

[one]

? Since when is Oblivion a UE3 game?

IT's their own engine.

Sorry confused it by the SpeedTree usage!

 

[Powderkeg]

Blunt, but probably a fair assesment
Will the XB360 version have the console accessible for when quests are bugged and you need to issue commands to bypass them? I wonder if Bethesda saying the HDD was wanted for the best experience wasn't just to allow d'loadable bugfixes!

With Bethesda, I pray they do have downloadable patches.

I love their games. I still onw a copy of Daggerfall. I may still have Arena on floppies somewhere.

But they do make some very buggy games, which I personally think is mostly due to the scope and scale of their games. With literally thousands of hours of gameplay options, it's got to be a monumental task trying to properly playtest them. The animations are a little less excusable, but Bethesda never has tried to make the Elder Scrolls series action games. They are still RPG's, so the lack of some fluidity in their animations should be something most fans of the genre would quickly accept and get over.

If they can make the animations better via a patch, that would be fine, but please let them have patches that fix game bugs. If nothing else, just make sure I don't get disk errors if I sit in an inventory menu a few seconds too long.

 

[scooby_dooby]

To me this games visuals really stand out in the forest, watch the video's with the trees swaying in the wind, the deer grazing in the forest, the skies....wow

The character models are so-so.

On the topic of animation, it's really a mixed bag. I downloaded the 20minute DVD rip, and the animations are actually quite good, what really sucks is the transitions between animations.

For example when a NPC is walking they look extremely life like, but when they turn, hey just do like a 90degree turn instantly, or the dog flips from one direction to the other without actually turning around.

On the postive side, the sword animation and fight animations aer qute good, and the deer in the forest was excellent.

All bugs aside, as long as they fix the combat mechanisms I'm happy.