Oblivion req.'s/PPUs GPUs

[VirusType2]

Hey guys! :smoking:

After watching the Elder Scrolls 3: Oblivion demo I realized that in the future of gaming, graphics will be so exciting, Viagra will be obsolete. The narrator of the video clip says that it is running on cutting edge GPU, so I want to buy a new Gaming PC in conjunction with its release

Holy crap this is a long post. be nice.

alot of you guys know of this new PPU Physics Processor technology. I remember reading and posting about it a few months back. This is Huge news. I believe they are including one in the new Xbox360. This does all of the physics processing taking a huge load of work off the Graphics processor!

I waited on buying my Dream machine a few months ago, waiting for this new PPU technology to be incorporated into PC's.

I have a bad feeling its not going to be an easy, smooth transition and have some questions:
Does it plug into a AGP slot? When is it coming? Is it going to be affordable? Will the Physics processor automatically handle physics or is there some special programming technique involved?

Oblivion looks like it will require an incredible PC to play. Now, im sure in the demo that PC was running high resolution. I would like a PC that can run it that well with shadows and all the effects in 800x600.

Do i need to get someone to custom build me an overclocked PC? I've decided i would rather pay someone else to build it than mess with it. I dont want to do tons of research on liquid nitrogen or whatever. heh.

Maybe... maybe i should get an Xbox 360. My main gripe with consoles is that i want to connect them to a VGA monitor instead of using a horrid video RCA jack

You see, my brother just got an Alienware PC from the factory with an AMD 64 and ATI 9550 and I tested my latest medal of honor Pacific assualt game on it, and it runs fantastic in 640x480, but in 1200x800 rez (or whatever) its quite choppy. (never did check it out in 800x600) but he only has 512 MB. Do you think the RAM is affecting the animation and framerate so adversely? My 2.66 ghz CeleronD with a 9250 PCI card doesn't run much lesser. but i have 1 gigabyte RAM

Any help or advice on what to go with would be so much appreciated. I want to run Oblivion smoothly without comprimizing the graphics settings. I was thinking i might spend $300-$500 a few months ago but would pay $400-$1400 for something that will run oblivion at 60fps

Well, thanks if anyone can help

 

[WhiteZero]

Right now PPU's arent anything serious. They havent really caught on with the major card makers... yet. But who knows whats going to happen?
And no offence, but your brother was foolish to waste money on Alienware. If you want to buy a prebuilt system, go to iBuyPower.

Also, overclocking really only produces noticible results when overclocking your processor. Video Card overclocking puts serious risk on you damaging your card for a minimal performance gain.

Yes, chances are his 512 is kind of huring him in games. Get him to stick another 512 in there. Also those video cards are pretty low tech.

At their current state, neither of your computers are going to be able to run Oblivion very well even on the lowest settings.

If you seriously want upgrade opinions, you should really post all the specs for your computer.

BTW: It's Elder Scrolls 4, not 3.

 

[jondy]

In general CPU overlocking does lift performance more than GPU, but it depends a lot on the game and the hardware as to the merits of each

Don't worry about PPU's yet, when they're a big deal they'll be in the news and rest assured there'll be thousands of articles dissecting the pros and cons for your pleasure

 

[VirusType2]

Xbox 360

ops, 4 not 3! ive been saying 3 all day

ok, thanks guys!

I had been thinking about it quite a bit after i wrote that message and decided it might just be a good idea to get the xbox360

I grew up on consoles, so I'm sort-of clumsy finding my way around a PC anyway.

as long as I can play elder scrolls 4 and need for speed most wanted .. stuff like that im sure it will be worth it

The Xbox 360 for the holidays is starting to sound great. especailly since im thinking they are what? like 360 dollars?

 

[CptStern]

Oblivion wont come out till february at the earliest ...oh there's far more to do on the computer then just play games

 

[Cole]

Will the Physics processor automatically handle physics or is there some special programming technique involved?

They have to completely reprogram the Physics Engine to take advantage of the PPU. The code isn't already there.

Does it plug into a AGP slot? When is it coming? Is it going to be affordable?

AGP means Advanced Graphics Port, in other words it is only for graphic cards. Plus you only get one of these. It will plug into Pci, Pci express x1, and pci express x16.

This does all of the physics processing taking a huge load of work off the Graphics processor!

]
The CPU not, GPU.

but he only has 512 MB. Do you think the RAM is affecting the animation and framerate so adversely?

Probably. You see animations and frames have to be saved into memory. So this is what the RAM does, and it can only hold 512megs plus background processes. When it needs to get something that isn't in there, it has to get rid of something else and load what it needs. This takes time and can cause quite the slowdown.

Any help or advice on what to go with would be so much appreciated. I want to run Oblivion smoothly without comprimizing the graphics settings. I was thinking i might spend $300-$500 a few months ago but would pay $400-$1400 for something that will run oblivion at 60fps

Oblivion will have tons of options you can tweak and mess around with to get a nice framerate. They have already said this.

 

[WhiteZero]

AGP means Advanced Graphics Port

*cough*Accelerated*cough*

 

[VirusType2]

Awesome info Minrel, thank you

But I think we were both right on one thing; a seperate physics processor takes a huge load off of the CPU and GPU

 

[WhiteZero]

But I think we were both right on one thing; a seperate physics processor takes a huge load off of the CPU and GPU

Well, seeings that the CPU takes care of all the physics calculations, the GPU wont really benefit from a PPU.

 

[Cole]

Whitezero is right, though you may see minor things depending on the GPU and CPU you have. If your CPU limits your GPU, then all that stress would give you a minor boost in FPS. Though if your GPU dosn't touch your CPU, then it would mean that you would basically mean the GPU wouldn't get any load taken off of it. This also goes down to the game. Doom 3 is more of a GPU game and HL2 is a CPU game. Would a Physics Card do shit for Doom 3? NO. A physics card might take a load off the CPU, thus allowing your GPU to go faster(if it can), thus giving a few more frames but not a tremendious amount.

Overall, it wont do to much for the GPU.

 

[VirusType2]

Oh, I see, That's very interesting.

With me having a PCI card that may explain why Half-Life2 runs so much better than Doom3 on my computer. My processor isn't too bad 2.66GHZ celeronD

I got the best PCI card I could find with 256MB even, not sure if that helped since it didnt have the power to use all those extra effects i could checkbox, but with lots of tweeking the graphics options i was getting like 60fps with HL2 but never got past like 20 fps on D3
But even though its PCI it still does stuff - trust me

lots of texture corruption problems have been a problem.

Thanks to Halflife2.net i learned how to fix that by using the console.

Unfortunately, I still have that problem with medal of honor pacific assualt

I Guess running very high rez with PCI is hard becuase it doesn't have the texture acceleration of AGP?

Half the time I am half right. I think
On he down-side that makes me Half wrong

Anyway I have been researching the XBOX 360 for hours and may buy it at launch, would like more info on the PS3 but apparently, there isn't one yet. lol

Oh, and Capt stern of course a PC can be used for many more things, and I would never give up my PC if i could only have one!

but, I can have both.
, I would be hard pressed to build a gaming computer that could F$#% with this thing any time soon. it would cost about $1000 ya think, so ya rather spend 299 for an xbox360 at this time.. ooo and put the rest of the money towards a 55 inch HD TV widescreen

 

[WhiteZero]

Well, the reason you get such a good FPS in HL2 is because Source is heavily optimized for ATi cards.

 

[giant384]

Well, the reason you get such a good FPS in HL2 is because Source is heavily optimized for ATi cards.

you have that tottaly wrong doom3 was running in dx 9 while hl2 would run in dx8.1 resulting in more performance but i dont think i would call it optimization just for ati on low end cards

 

[WhiteZero]

you have that tottaly wrong doom3 was running in dx 9 while hl2 would run in dx8.1 resulting in more performance but i dont think i would call it optimization just for ati on low end cards

You apprently don't know much about HL2's development then.
Want hard evidence?
Check out these benchmarks under Half-Life 2.
Then compare the benchmarks to every other comparison. The lower end ATi cards came out just on the heels of the higher end Nvidia Cards.

And the DX level has nothing to do with this when comparing the games performance against non-ATi cards, since their all being compared on the same game.

It's a pretty well known fact that HL2 runs better on ATi cards than on nVidia cards.

 

[Krynn72]

They said a long time ago that the developer's computers were running on like 1.9 ghz cpu, radeon 9800, with 512 ram. So if they can develop this game on those computers, you can run it on those computers. Of course it wont look next gen since you will have to turn down a lot of options, but it should give a general idea of what is "required" to play.

 

[Freemanator89]

They said a long time ago that the developer's computers were running on like 1.9 ghz cpu, radeon 9800, with 512 ram. So if they can develop this game on those computers, you can run it on those computers. Of course it wont look next gen since you will have to turn down a lot of options, but it should give a general idea of what is "required" to play.

Actually I believe the test demo's that came out recently were run on a P4 2.8Ghz or something? With dual 6600GT's, I heard this, but I may be in a twist of lies.

 

[VirusType2]

Yea thats what i heard also. ^

In order to run this game like the demo you need 1 bad ass ****ing game PC. You will be able to play it looking pretty nice with a lesser computer though.

things like shadows, distance draw-in, and resolution will have to be cut to keep the framerate smooth with anything less I would think.

I pulled this quote from a different thread

here's the link I mentioned earlier ..it breaks down performance on every card

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/i...&#entry3216079


the game is surprisingly scalable

 

[WhiteZero]

No, he was saying that some of the developers work PCs run with 9800 pros in them, which is true.

 

[Freemanator89]

No, he was saying that some of the developers work PCs run with 9800 pros in them, which is true.

No doubt.