Anyone playing Elderscrolls IV yet?

[Angry_Games]

hrmm...looking around on ATI's site I see this:

 

Knowledge Base

ATI Customer Care > Solve a Problem > Display > Games >

737-22015: CrossFire AFR mode support is now enabled for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

 

The information in this article applies to the following configuration(s):

 

* Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

* Radeon X1000 series

* Windows XP Professional / Home Edition

 

CrossFire AFR mode support is now enabled for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

 

To take advantage of CrossFire AFR mode, download and install Catalyst 6.4 or later.

 

 

and then this:

 

Knowledge Base

ATI Customer Care > Solve a Problem > Performance > Games >

737-21960: Beta 6.5 Catalyst for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - aka The Chuck Patch

 

The information in this article applies to the following configuration(s):

 

* Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - aka The Chuck Patch

* Radeon X1000 series CrossFire

* Windows XP Professional / Home Edition

* Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition

* Windows 2000

 

This special driver is provided to enable additional functionality for Oblivion. Specifically this driver will:

 

 

 

1. Permit High Dynamic Range Lighting (HDR) concurrently with Anti-Aliasing (AA) on RADEON X1000 series graphic boards

 

2. AFR mode for CrossFire (2 GPU’s)

 

 

 

Note: You will need to enable HDR and disable AA in Oblivion while enabling AA within the Catalyst Control Center. This package does not include Catalyst Control Center.

 

 

 

This driver is provided as a proof-of-concept and is not supported by Bethesda, 2K games or ATI Technologies.

 

 

 

Known issues:

 

 

1. SuperAA with CrossFire in HDR mode is not enabled. If you have SuperAA enabled you will get the quality and performance of one card as opposed to two.

 

2. Rendering issues with grass shadows

 

3. On an ATI Radeon X1600XT CrossFire configuration, the game may intermittently crash if the resolution is set higher than 1600x1200

 

4. On an ATI Radeon X1900 series card, the game may crash while task-switching between the desktop and game (alt-tab).

 

 

 

ATI Engineering is currently investigating these issues. Updates will be posted as they become available.

 

so maybe my previous post should be ignored unless you are still using CAT 6.3's...

 

Crossfire sux in the official 6.5 drivers for Oblivion so I am still looking for a way to make it run better (than it already runs lol)

[Angry_Games]

ok....looks like someone from Guru3d might know..

 

apparently you shouldn't patch to 1.1 Oblivion, as if you do, it kinda negates using the ATI "Chuck" patch to enable Crossfire:

 

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:6_o9ae...s&ct=clnk&cd=10

[OldGuy]

Read a review the other day when I kept seeing references to "Oblivion"...Haven't played an RPG for quite some time but this one looks to be the one to get...

 

Reading the last few posts I see problems with the ATI stuff. Anyone having issues with nVidia? More specifically the 7900gtx's???

[Angry_Games]

not problems with ATI stuff...just problems with Crossfire

 

SLI and single card solutions from any mfg work just fine

 

I tried patching and renaming the exe and the chuck patch and none of them seem to make Oblivion work very well with Crossfire enabled...so I think I am going to totally uninstall the ATI drivers and CCC and .NET if possible, and go to Omega 6.5 drivers and ATI Tool and see what a single X1900XT can do clocked up to about 750/900

[Voltes-5]

Man, there are so many mods with this game I just dont know where to start! So I just kept on playing and I have got to get the hang of using the mouse and keyboard. This game is so awesome it kinda reminds me of how I collected all the weapons and hidden stuff on the Final Fantasy 7 game. I have to get some sleep now.

[Angry_Games]

Voltes-5

DFI Global Warmer

 

Voltes-5's Avatar

 

Join Date: Apr 2005

Location: Hawaii

Posts: 1,066

Voltes-5 is on a distinguished road

 

Finaly figured out how to install the mod. Theres just too much of it man, its so hard to restrain myself. I think I learned a lot out of this tweaking the gpu and such that I did so much reading till my eyes hurt, I did not have a bottle of Merlot on the desk this time, only Heineken, LOL. I mean, this game is just awesome, I'm not even giving game time with FEAR and the rest of my games anymore.

 

ok i copied your last post out of the mod thread cuz it aint the place for discussion and i cleaned it up a little

 

 

 

anyway...

 

 

I've reverted everything today...

 

6.5 Omega version drivers

 

uninstalled the CCC as well as .NET 2.0 and .NET 1.1 etc

 

driver cleaner'd them all out

 

installed ATI Tool latest beta and cranked up the voltages and clocks on a single X1900XT to 745/846 and have been testing all day

 

 

here's the deal on Crossfire:

 

 

Use the ATI "Chuck Patch" on UNPATCHED Oblivion...if you patch to 1.1final then you won't get any Crossfire benefit at all.

 

If you use the patch, you won't get Crossfire performance benefits at all

 

If you use CAT 6.3 then do the renaming of the

 

oblivion.exe

 

to

 

AFR-FriendlyD3D.exe

 

as I stated earlier

 

 

 

now I'm going to go in and see exactly how long Oblivion will run this X1900 clocked up this high...and I am gonna check my performance because i was only getting about 20fps to 30fps in most places and I know damn well that with my FX-60 speed cpu and a couple of X1900XT cards that this game is not gonna run that slow...

[Voltes-5]

Thanks HG, sorry about that, just too excited. I went and got myself a G5 and a Zboard. Geez 'aint it sweet.

[Angry_Games]

ps If you look at the bottom of any forum page, you will see a Direct2Drive banner for Oblivion....if you are wanting to purchase this game, just click the banner!

 

(should work for any games purchased via Direct2Drive but I can change them as needed)

[OldGuy]

Hey guys a quick question. I started playing oblivion with a single 7900gtx and have recently upgraded to another 7900gtx in SLI. I was semi happy with gameplay with one card and since upgrading I see absolutely no difference in how the game "appears" to be running. I can take every slider and max it to the right or just use it at defaults and it still appears to be the same "kinda" choppy gameplay. What I mean by that is a game like F.E.A.R., Farcry or Doom 3 is silky smooth, very fluid and Oblivion just has this somewhat stuttery if you will look to it. Don't get me wrong, it looks beautiful and it is very playable, it just isn't..."fluid". Is it just the game itself? My rig is running at 3ghz with 2gb of G.skill F1 HZ's and like I said earlier, other games are definitely seeing benefits from the SLI config...

 

Maybe Expecting too much considering I'm running at 1920 X 1200?

[Angry_Games]

Hey guys a quick question. I started playing oblivion with a single 7900gtx and have recently upgraded to another 7900gtx in SLI. I was semi happy with gameplay with one card and since upgrading I see absolutely no difference in how the game "appears" to be running. I can take every slider and max it to the right or just use it at defaults and it still appears to be the same "kinda" choppy gameplay. What I mean by that is a game like F.E.A.R., Farcry or Doom 3 is silky smooth, very fluid and Oblivion just has this somewhat stuttery if you will look to it. Don't get me wrong, it looks beautiful and it is very playable, it just isn't..."fluid". Is it just the game itself? My rig is running at 3ghz with 2gb of G.skill F1 HZ's and like I said earlier, other games are definitely seeing benefits from the SLI config...

 

Maybe Expecting too much considering I'm running at 1920 X 1200?

at those high resolutions, cpu becomes a limiting factor

 

you should go through teh TweakGuides tweak guide for Oblivion. I did, and i tweaked for performance in some areas (like grass) to gain speed, while anti-tweaking in some areas (like detail levels and Anti-Aliasing etc) for quality.

 

@ 3Ghz you should be ok, but keep in mind you have a single core cpu also...with the huge amounts of physics, AI, calculations & rendering, etc, a dual-core is really the way to go, especially in very high resolutions with SLI/Crossfire. That second cpu is a godsend. (keep in mind I've never actually played Oblivion on a single core cpu yet, only on dual-core cpu's).

 

Also keep in mind that Oblivion might not ever be 'fluid' just because it...might not ever be fluid lol. Some games are just like that, and we might not see 100% fluidity in gameplay until 4Ghz Conroe quad-core cpu's are out with X2500XTXZR 1GB quad-gpu crossfires.

 

If Quake4, BF2, FEAR, Prey, etc are smooth and fluid at those high resolutions with all the eye candy maxed, then you should really go check out the TweakGuides tweak guide for Oblivion. You can really get some serious tweak going on by lowering certain things that will make no visual or graphical difference, but will give you a nice performance boost (and then you can take that performance boost and spend it on upping other settings to make the game look even better!)

 

 

also look in this section for the Mods thread for Oblivion...there are some EXCELLENT mods that replace textures, LOD (level of detail), etc that make the game look a LOT better without any (or very little) performance hits.

[OldGuy]

Is this the tweakguide of which you mentioned??

 

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

[Angry_Games]

ya man it is the BEST!