ceiblue Posted June 2, 2017 Author Share Posted June 2, 2017 The main reason I went with the 1050Ti was because any alternatives that were available at the closest Canada Computers store to me (still an hour's drive away) were all 2GB VRAM and not all that much cheaper. I was sort of under the gun time wise for the upgrade (would you believe that tax software forced the WinXP dinosaur to his knees ... after all those years). From what I have seen in my keyboard display I'm not even scratching the surface of the 4GB (highest I've seen is just shy of 1.4GB used) but I haven't done anything to my load order that would use more (my load order is still designed for that 896MB card). Blockheading is one of my Strikerisms used to describe how I've used Blockhead to give diversity to all those NPCs who wind up losing their gear to my guy after the battle is over (so primarily bandits, marauders, conjurers and necromancers). I rarely kill anymore ... have a well developed strategy of disabling, then destroying their armor, "befriending" them and "collecting" them in Ayleid ruins or player owned houses. For example Trumbe is a necro "safe house" and probably has in excess of 50 necro NPCs "stored" there (I have also learned a trick to give them a new "editor location" of sorts). That strategy evolved as I learned to exploit the tools I'd included in my current guy's load order, and as it evolved the number of NPCs present in any particular cell I was using kind of got well out of hand and pushed the old hardware to it's knees. Even though I'm not currently utilising the full potential of the 4GB card I'm confident in the autumn, when I get back from my summer's break from Oblivion, I'll find ways to push hard at the new limits. When I say that it performs about the same as before I mean that I don't notice anything like smoother play etc ... that's because it played smoothly before, as long as I monitored my VRAM usage and didn't allow it to hit the max. The only thing I've noticed with the new video card is that sometimes I'll get a sort of hitching, that I can only describe as a fraction of a second jump ahead (so not a freezing and then jump ahead, it's like my guy jumped ahead by a half a stride). When I get back into things in the fall I'll delve into it and see if I can figure out what's going on. What part of Canada do you hail from? You're not near Windsor are you? I rarely kill anymore .. Wow, how ...empathetic of you. Reminds me of good old days when I'd play Metal Gear Solid and just use the tranquilizer gun on everybody... so they could all go home to their families. Plus, I think you got rewards if you could beat the game without killing anybody. That also kind of explains why you were only getting 15 minutes of playtime. Hell, I usually got at least an hour from my 8800gt. Lol, I was hoping blockheading was referring to some magical way of lowering the polygon count for NPC's heads. From what I've learned, NPC heads are one of the main things the game has to render that brings game performance down. I think it has to do with oblivion coming out before advanced bitmapping techniques that reduce the need for high polygon counts when rendering human faces. I was looking at getting a 1050ti or 1060 with as much VRAM as possible, so I can play at 4k, add some REALY hi-res textures and ENB shaders. I figured getting a lower end card with more VRAM makes more sense than buying a superclocked 1080 that would most likely be overkill for Oblivion and Dolphin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted June 2, 2017 Share Posted June 2, 2017 A bit less than 2 hours drive to Windsor, unless I cross the border. Generally speaking, anything you're likely to get from me will not lead to less strain on your machine ... I'm the same as most people and always want more. Yes there were video card options that were considerably more expensive. They came with all kinds of bells and whistles but were lacking in one department ... bang for the buck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceiblue Posted June 4, 2017 Author Share Posted June 4, 2017 (edited) A bit less than 2 hours drive to Windsor, unless I cross the border. Generally speaking, anything you're likely to get from me will not lead to less strain on your machine ... I'm the same as most people and always want more. Yes there were video card options that were considerably more expensive. They came with all kinds of bells and whistles but were lacking in one department ... bang for the buck. Hell, that's the most important part...at least to me. Even a 1050ti would be a improvement over my 6950. She's served me well for 6 years now but she's showing her age. At this point I've narrowed it down to either a rx580, rx480 or a 1060, which seem to be the "best bang for the buck" cards. The rx480 and 580 seem to be sold out everywhere, so I may have to settle for 1060, despite being slightly slower and only 6gig as opposed to the 8gigs of vram I'll get from a 480 or 580...but who knows if I'll even get to use up all 6, let alone 8. I'm gonna try though.. :wink: Edited June 4, 2017 by ceiblue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 Something that just occurred to me after reading your reply ... you know how the game is 32 bit, and so will only ever access 4GB of RAM (or 3.5GB, as I've read elsewhere)? I wonder if the game engine would be able to utilise more than 4GB VRAM (thinking along those same 32 bit limit guidelines)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceiblue Posted June 5, 2017 Author Share Posted June 5, 2017 Something that just occurred to me after reading your reply ... you know how the game is 32 bit, and so will only ever access 4GB of RAM (or 3.5GB, as I've read elsewhere)? I wonder if the game engine would be able to utilise more than 4GB VRAM (thinking along those same 32 bit limit guidelines)? That's true for The vanilla game, but I think graphics mods are a different story. In fact, if I remember correctly, there is a ENB based mod that specifically states that its best used by agpu with 4gb of vram or more, I will post a link if I remember it or come across it again. We'll find out once I get the new card and I crank it up to 4k, add a bunch of EBN effects/shaders and dump the highest grade textures I can find into the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 LOL ... see, we're alike ... don't stop until it groans in protest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceiblue Posted June 6, 2017 Author Share Posted June 6, 2017 Lol! you're probably right ;) I'll post the results when I pop the new card in, I may wait till rx 580 are back in, which may not be until a few weeks from now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts