Oblivion / Cedega love

[davemc]

There is an ebuild in portage now for cedega6. All you have to do is download the small-tgz file from transgaming website and put the tarball in /usr/portage/distfiles. Then just #emerge cedega, and your done. After that pull up the GUI and run through the install wizard. For Oblivion just do "install" and then use the Oblivion GDDB file. DO NOT use Oldblivion as it is no longer necessary under the newest wine (which loop 2b has). You should be up and running after that. To increase performance you should probably use Medium settings with AAx4, no HDR. Ive pretty much run through the whole game now running on Sabayon with no issues at all. Ive posted a video of it under OFF TOPIC section.

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[handy]

I installed Oblivion yesterday on my machine via Cedega 6.02, with all the game add on packs including Knights of the Nine & Shivering Isles, from Bethesda. I played for about 4 hours before it crashed, so I then went & found the latest update patches & installed those, one for Ob the other for SI. I played again without trouble, & today for about 10 hours before it crashed. I think the reason it crashed this time is due to my hacking around in the game console. It does not like the impossible things that my character at level 2 is using.

The machine I am using is as follows:

GA-K8NS Ultra-939
Athlon 64/3500
2 Gig DDR Ram
nVidia 6600GT 128Mb

I can play ok at 1024 x 768, it does not have all the graphic goodies turned on, but it looks fantastic & is smooth enough in battle. I wish my 6800GT / 256mb card had not had a melt down. That would really be ideal for this game.

I'll post my results for what I can get away with in the games console in the first levels. I like to give myself a pile of gold, so I don't have to spend so much time looking in dark corners & in every container laying around the place for gold & other things to use & sell. I also like to have good armor & weapon, so I'm not dying all the time while I'm learning how to play, & the Mundane Ring, Grand Ring of Vigor, Amulet of Luck are fun as a level 2, to play with.

Except for the small problem of the game crashing that is!

[davemc]

To play this game at max settings you really need at least 2G ram and a very powerful video card. I can run it at max with an NVIDIA 7900GT and 2G ram, but I still have to use AAx4 to improve frame rates, otherwise outdoors it can really lag up, but the graphics are absolutely amazing. Best game ever imo.

[WarraWarra]

Damn nice game but it tortures any video card at max settings especially the outside scene's in windows + max resl. even on 8800ultra + 8gb ram vista but looks awesome on the test rig at the pc store. Yup I know vista is not for games.

I am amased to hear that it runs so well in wine / cedega , have to dust off my copy and try it.

[handy]

Well, I have spent quite a bit of time with Oblivion lately & this is what I have found so far, with regards to setting up & playing the game:

Oblivion is quite fragile, at least with regards to using the console to do anything but tcl(s) to get out of a situation where otherwise you might self destruct. I found that giving myself any extra gold or other items will cause the game to be unplayable on reload. This is ok, but still unfortunate, there is no reason to build the console cheats out of the game imho.

As far as mods go:

In the process of learning about running mods with Oblivion, I spent about 20 hours. At first I had a couple running, with no problems, then I dumped another 30 in there, & that did cause problems. Some were just not working, mods that were working now were not, a couple would give me purple sky, or totally distorted the game with purple vertical panels!

So, in the process I went through the slow installation process a couple of times. I found that the unofficial patches were also trouble! Reading on download sites & forums mentioned nothing about these problems (some mention of purple problems, but not appropriate to my situation). Then I twigged (it's not particularly fast between the ears in here these days )

It was all about case sensitivity.

Once I realized this was the problems, I could go through & check all folder names before they were dumped into the /oblivion/data folder & everything worked out fine. The software is not case sensitive, thankfully, it is just the difference between the two OS's. Windows is not case sensitive & the Unix type systems are.

With thirty two mods running, I have put in about fifteen hours, with one crash. I have some big graphic mods functioning, both from capnkill - the nonTillingTextures & the 4096LODv2. They really improve the visuals on my machine, I have to run in 1024x768 to use them though. The short grass mod, in combination with the Operation Optimization mod, probably make it possible for good frame rates at 1024x768, on my 6600GT/128 graphic card.

It is visually a beautiful game, most people should be able to customize the game to suit their style via mods. I am still only in the very early stages, & there is so much to learn. I have one more set of candles to buy & the Frostcrag Spire quest will be finished, then I will start to learn about spell making & enchanting. I have made potions, but really all the magic stuff is still in front of me yet.

Most of my time has been learning how to make the game run the way I want it to!

[ScottishDuckHunter]

This game still pushes modern hardware a long way, its just brilliant.

[razor1394]

It worked ok for me except horse armor. It just crashes when you ride a horse with it. Totally useless. All other official mods and expansions worked ok. This included Knights of the nine and all the other addons on the disc like Merunes razor, and Shivering isles. In September I believe, Bethesda will release a big package containing Knights of the nine and the Shivering isles for Windows, Xbox360 and the PS3. I can't wait for that. I'm running the 360 version now and it runs a lot better. I barely game on the PC even though I run Vista.

[handy]

It worked ok for me except horse armor. It just crashes when you ride a horse with it. Totally useless. All other official mods and expansions worked ok. This included Knights of the nine and all the other addons on the disc like Merunes razor, and Shivering isles. In September I believe, Bethesda will release a big package containing Knights of the nine and the Shivering isles for Windows, Xbox360 and the PS3. I can't wait for that. I'm running the 360 version now and it runs a lot better. I barely game on the PC even though I run Vista.

You wouldn't have the OS problems that those of us who run windows Oblivion under Linux do. & really the only two problems are case sensitivity as I mentioned above, & the very few mod related packages that require .NET.

Many get better frame rates on the same hardware under Linux than natively on windows!

[handy]

I have nearly finished leveling my Battlemage! It has taken me nearly a month, learning as I go, to create a master level character.

My Attributes are as follows:

Strength: 100
Intelligence: 100
Willpower: 100
Agility: 100
Speed: 100
Endurance: 100
Personality 43
Luck 98

If I go to jail & get a few random levels knocked off, I should be able to get luck to 100 too.

All Minor Skills that are not 100 yet will be easy to make 100, it is just controlling the Attributes' progress that is the pain of this game, unless you do want to end up with a weak character in the later levels.

So, after laboriously working to make a master character, I will now be able to play the game!!

I have just sold an old ride on lawn mower & want to create a great gaming machine with the newly acquired funds , a machine capable of playing Oblivion, with all graphics turned up on full, in very high resolution with 40 to 50 non original mods running too...

Has anyone got any recommendations regarding which nVidia graphics card(s) & motherboard / cpu combination?

I won't use intel cpu's, so it has to be AMD, & I do have a soft spot for Gigabyte motherboards.

Any suggestion's appreciated, as I will hopefully hear from a user or two with personal experience using the hardware & Sabayon...

[WarraWarra]

Mos tof this below should be overkill for oblivion except the raid hd's + video card.
Amd no idea , Amd Quad core prices in link below.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33762/135/

Video card if you can get a 7950gx2 or 8800gts about should be $260 -> $300 XFX is a good brand name and worked well for me not sure how well it works with the nvidia linux driver ?

Ram is dirt cheap now and can get 2gb ddr2 pc6400 for $80 ->$150 try to get 2x 1gb sticks or 2x 2gb stick if you can and stay away from the slow ddr3 ? junk ? lots of money for nothing and uses more power than ddr2 on same speed / performance. Samsung chips used to be good not sure about now , I like g-skill if I can not sure about other makes. price + specs + performance is the thing for me.

Cpu I can only tell you about intel quad core "q6600 G0" for linux compiles + g33m motherboard or p35 motherboard , alternatively E6750 dual core is insane power and both cpu is $280 last time I checked. gigabyte g33m one's is good enough for me + q6600 some time in the future. You can also overclock them to 3.2+ghz on air cooling but depends on motherboards.

Amd + amd motherboard as far as I have read the 650 nvidia chip ones will have slow hd sata drive performance not sure if it is fixed in the 680's ?? but can be cheated and bypassed with sata raid controller card $30. Current Amd cpu's in real life ends up using more power than the intel ones in standby as well as in performance / load so check on this when getting a new power supply or reusing your current one.

Hd's you can get 2x wd4000kd's = 800gb raid 0 running at 120mb/s to 140mb/s = double normal hd speeds very good for graw and other hd dependant loading games and have them in a hardware raid using a raid pci type adapter with sil3132 chip = works in SL as well as in dirtloads another broken window
Hd's wd4000kd = $80 when in stock or on ebay and it is consistant excelent performance , wd7500ks has 750gb but for $200 about and is also good.

Fans get the 120mm ones = uses less power and more wind. Water cooling is overated / expensive for normal humans and gameplay.

Make sure your house electricity is good maybe get a avr backup battery thingy $70 as this gives good clean power and will help your hardware last a long time + gives you time to shutdown about 30 mins or it can shut the pc down for you in windows.

Power supply's = 12v cable = ?? 18amp = 216watts or 1 8800gts @ 208w and all other 12v 4pin molex stuff on other power cables.

O if you get a motherboard gigabyte has the solid capacitor boards and they garantee them to last for years because of this + very good at overclocking.

I use newegg.com rating next to a specific item once I know what I want + they have most info in one place + good pics and stops me from running all over the web to get correct info / pics etc most of the time , tomshardware.com + xbitlabs + pricewatch.com + shopzilla.com + google.com , google is good if you have the part number.
zipzoomfly.com has good service and free shipping , as well as ewiz.com , mwave.com as they all take paypal so it makes it a bit easier to find a good price.

Any other parts can be used as well especially if you have a good cpu and a medium type video card it should still run very well or until you can upgrade it to something more powerfull.

Motherboard = $60 to $140 , hd's = $80 each , cpu = $120 to $300 , ram = $80 to $140 , video = $120 to $300 , dvd drives = $30 about for a good DL format ones philips shoudl be good , sata raid 0 / 5 card = $30 Case = $40 to $100 for a good one with power supply a the bottom and cpu runs at 28C / 76F about , power supply $80 to $250 get a good quality one if you can very important item. 22" 4ms samsung lcd = $250 to $300 avg.

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My wish machine will have this;
$290 - Intel Q6600 G0 cpu
$110x2 - 4gb G-Skill ddr2 6400 ram
$80x2  - WD4000kd hd (when in stock)
$120 - GIGABYTE GA-G33M
$309 - XFX 8800gts 320mb "hd4"
$109 - Case Aero cool $109  AeroCool ZeroDegree-SV Silver 0.8mm SECC ATX Full Tower Computer Case
$33  - Samsung 20x dvd SH-203B
$260 -  SAMSUNG 216BW
Alternative case if I need to travel / lan game party's = APEVIA X-QPACK2 micro atx with 500w psu should be enough for above. $83 to $100

Travel weight without screen about 13lbs

NB: plan for at least 10% of the parts might need to be send back for replacement = duds so keep it in your budget , shipping will be from 2 days to 10 days depending on time of week you buy and when it ships usually 2 days later by default or earlier shipped out. Several company's has warehouses all over or close by and when ordering / paying as them to send it from close by , they do this some times to help.

Hope somethign here helps to plan etc .