New ForceWare drivers specifically for Oblivion

[Everlost_MI]

HardOCP (http://www.hardocp.com/) is reporting (http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MTc2OTcsLCxobmV3cywsLDE=) that NVIDIA is releasing new Forceware drivers specific performance enhancers for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivionin on March 22.

NVIDIA has has informed us they will be releasing a new driver on Wednesday March 22nd at NZone. (http://www.nzone.com/page/home.html) This new version ForceWare 84.25 will contain specific performance enhances to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion being released Monday the 20th.

Our developer relations team worked closely with Bethesda to optimize game performance, which also included making some driver changes to fix/enhance performance in certain areas.

Our performance testing shows no two benchmark runs are identical in exterior scenes, due to Oblivion randomly placing grass and rocks, changing the amount of grass, and varying other aspects of the terrain.

We will most likely be adding this game to our video card gaming test suite. So if you are looking forward to this game as much as we are be sure to pick up this new driver when it is released.
Thanks to VE (http://ve3d.ign.com/) for the tip.

Now that kicks ass.

[lockwoodx]

Well I've been looking for an excuse to upgrade my old 9800 pro for a while now.

[Tricky Thumb]

Heh, nice.

Hopefully if nothing else it'll just make the game very stable.

Stable is key, stable is all.

[Citizen Philip]

If I'm not mistaken, Nvidia is at 81.98 released Feb 7th. Considering the rather nice rapid driver releases from both ATI and nVidia (ATI being 6.3 catalyst, March 9th), I am not too surpised to see an nVidia driver release about now.

[Rirath]

Well, certainly seen this coming. Cool news, and good for the PC guys... but I'll be happy with my boot-and-play 360 for now. :D T-Minus 7 hours and counting.

(And yes, I will most likely be using the PC version some day for mods, just not til I've seen it the way Bethesda lovingly crafted it. And that's gonna take awhile.)

[51|RandoM]

Any bets on whether or not the new driver will break bf2? :-)

[Tricky Thumb]

If I'm not mistaken, Nvidia is at 81.98 released Feb 7th. Considering the rather nice rapid driver releases from both ATI and nVidia (ATI being 6.3 catalyst, March 9th), I am not too surpised to see an nVidia driver release about now.

Actually 84.21 was released on March 17th.

So Nvidia is pretty on-the-ball lately with these driver releases, it's nice.

[TrackZero]

Hrm, guess this'll give me reason to upgrade to a 7800. ;) Nice of NVIDIA to let people know they're giving this game some extra attention.

[UnderHero5]

If I'm not mistaken, Nvidia is at 81.98 released Feb 7th. Considering the rather nice rapid driver releases from both ATI and nVidia (ATI being 6.3 catalyst, March 9th), I am not too surpised to see an nVidia driver release about now.
Huh?
They just put new Forceware drivers out a few days ago. 84.xx
Whatchyu talkin' bout Philip!

Edit: Bah, beaten to the punch. That's what I get for not refreshing before I post.

[AspectVoid]

This is cool, I'll have to grab them when I get home from work, and before I install Oblivion tonight. ^_^

[Citizen Philip]

Even better then. My X1900 is smokin' everything I have i my library. Nothing like replaying Dawn of War at 1900x1600 resolution with permenant bodies and map scarring. It's gorefully beautiful... partiailly when the Dreadnaughts pick up those snotty Eldar and toss them away.

[YoungAlCapone]

Nice, didn't even grab the drivers that were just released, now I can just skip them.

Normally a driver update, to me, means more issues with the older games I really like, the ones that I have played for years because they are just that good. For Oblivion I will make an exception though, as I fully expect it to earn a permanent spot on my HD.

[Zurik]

Sweet. Now I can only pray that Oblivion will run as good as those videos show, then I'll be calling in sick everyday!

[BleedTheFreak]

Sweet. Now I can only pray that Oblivion will run as good as those videos show, then I'll be calling in sick everyday!

I just saw on the official forums that Desslock reviewed it in the latest PC Gamer and scored it a 95%, and is quoted as saying it's a "roleplaying masterpiece". Here is the text written up by the OP on that thread, I still have it on my clipboard from sending it to my cousin:

I got my copy of PCGamer today. They gave it a 95%. I don't know if this has already bee posted, but I'll give some quotes from the magazine. In summary:

Highs: Incredibly dynamic and detailed virtual world; involving quests; beautiful graphics; epic plot.
Lows: High system reqs; enemies scale to your level, lessoning the reward of character advancement.
The reviewer was Desslock, and he said that he had played for 60+ hours.


Good roleplaying games always seem to offer either an involving, character-driven story or a cool, open-ended virtual world, but never both, as if those features were mutually exclusive. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion utterly shatters that preconception by coupling a truly epic plot with the most dynamic, interactive, and expansive virtual world ever seen in an RPG. Oblivion is a roleplaying masterpiece.

He had a lot of good things to say about the RAI and the NPCs feeling more real than they did in Morrowind, and he was surprised by how extensive some of the random banter could be, especially between guildmates. However:


Though some exchanges regularly reoccur, there is enough variety that the chitchat adds to the atmosphere instead of feeling redundant. The AI isn't scripted, so it occasionally does something goofy like cramming a group of residents into confined quarters, or prompting two sinister cultists to have a dialogue praising your not-at-all evil deeds. But the gaming world truly feels alive.

On guilds:

Guild advancement rewards you with novel perks, such as sidekicks and access to special equipment. Guilds also do a better job than in most RPGs of actually requiring you to act like a member, so you'll steal and fence goods to advance as a thief and commit suitably dstardly deeds as a budding Dark Brotherhood assassin.

He talked about the combat system at great length, and was impressed by how much more involved it was over Morrowind. He said that it was always challenging, but if you are personally having trouble you can turn down the difficulty level. Other than that, nothing new.

He says that it is launching pretty bug free. In his 60+ hours, the game crashed twice, both times when he was leaving houses. He says that this bug will likely be fixed before we get to play it.

The game is a system hog, and he added a separate boxout to address this:


On a bleeding edge system with an ATI X1900XTX video card, Oblivion is silky-smooth and its graphics appear almost photo-realistic. To assess how well Oblivion plays on a more typical machine, pay particular attention to the video card (something you didn't need to do so much with Morrowind, which was very CPU-dependent). The video card must be no more than three years old (Nvidia FX or better), and becasue Oblivion relies a great deal on pixel-shaders, more recent cards will be much better, as they handle shader instructions more efficiently. Gamers with older supported video cards will have to sacifice some visual fidelity by tweaking graphical options (viewing distance, shadow rendering, and so on) to sustain a decent performance level. In my opinion, the best bang-for-the-buck Oblivion upgrade is an ATI X800 video card.

Other than that, it was all things we've heard before. Like I said, Desslock praised Oblivion through the whole article, and I could practically imagine a smile on his face while we was writing it. I cannot wait to play this game!

[Syl]

Actually 84.21 was released on March 17th.

So Nvidia is pretty on-the-ball lately with these driver releases, it's nice.
Yeah, I just upgraded from my 81.98's to 84.21 yesterday.
(Tweak-r-us Extreme-G edition, of course).

As i don't see myself getting oblivion anytime soon, i'll pass up this next driver install.

My 7800GSish (hugely overclocked 6800GT) videocard should do fine to run it, i haven't seen anything the Xbox360 can do that it can't handle better. (Better meaning at a higher resolution, i don't PC game at 640x480 :p )

[Tricky Thumb]

Yeah, I just upgraded from my 81.98's to 84.21 yesterday.
(Tweak-r-us Extreme-G edition, of course).

As i don't see myself getting oblivion anytime soon, i'll pass up this next driver install.

My 7800GSish (hugely overclocked 6800GT) videocard should do fine to run it, i haven't seen anything the Xbox360 can do that it can't handle better. (Better meaning at a higher resolution, i don't PC game at 640x480 :p )

I should look into overclocking my card for Oblivion, now that I think about it. I'm running a 6800GT myself, hopefully I can tweak it a bit.