choking on oblivion

[bluekatt]

I agree with macmert. About the overheating. I had same problem with a Shuttle XPC that I had spent over 500$ upgrading including 200$ for an nVidia 7600GS that was well over minimum requirements. It still rebooted spontaneously from time to time. I'd open the box and turn the machine back on. Always, I found a fan had stopped running. Shuttles run HOT, especially with the AMD 64bit Athlon cpu. I went through at least 6 fans since Oblivion. Finally got the idea it ain't workin'.

 

I saw a new Gateway 4gig gamers' laptop and convinced my wife if I got one, it would stop the bouts of manic-suicidal depression that seemed to coincide with my system meltdowns. So I'm playing Oblivion on Ultra High settings and all relevant sliders at maximum. That is the difference between a "new" and an "old" machine. Of course, this is wholly based on my own experience. But if I've gained nothing else from playing Oblivion, I now know how important cpu temp is to a computer's stability.

 

I've also learned that if you upgrade your video card to the newer "recommended" specs, you will most likely need to get a better power supply. If your system is as old as you say, then that card will be AGP, for which you will spend close to 200$ as opposed to a PCIexpress that you might be able to get for as little as 70$. So rather than fall into the same rut I've just spent 1350$ in order to dig myself out of, if you are on a tight budget, save the money you'd spend on "fixing" your system and invest whatever you can afford into a current generation computer with a nVidia or ATI graphics card. Even if it's at Walmart. Because it's not the specs so much as it is the technology that matters.

 

Good Luck! I mean it.

pablopicasso

 

deep breath

 

its not the psu that is brand new

its not the heat sink of the video card either it runs at a steady 53 C even when i pump oblivion through it

its most likley the video card unable to cope

the pc is 6 years old yes

and its struggeling that much is obvious

i am not going to spend 149 on a good AGP card this 6200 was expensive enough as it is its predecessor was a geforce mx4 which not somuch choked on oblivion it commited suicide

 

 

unless walmart suddenly has outlets in europe and i dont think they do at least i havent seen them buying at walmart is going to be prohibitivley difficult

same goes for circuit city best buy radio shack and compusa

i believe there is a radio shack in belgium though but dont quote me on that

 

iam not inclined to buya new pc

the brand new 20 inch core duo 2 intel imac will do just fine with 2 2000 mhz cores 2 gig of ram and a x1600 128 mb pcie video card which wil hopefully be sufficient to run oblivion adequatley

or at least with medium options and with out artifacting and random crashes

before you start the intel imacs ar emore then capble of running windows via mac osx leopard and bootcamp

all i am doing now is waiting fo rmy xp sp 2 pro cd to be deliverd

( orginal i might add)

the pc has to hold out justa bit longer but i'd prefer it if that period was as painless as possible while playing oblivion

 

finally this is just amachine i play game son any documents i value are saved on usb sticks and most of my ork i do n sia dintel imac or a G4 imac

so if it dies the pc dies it has a good run of it 6years and thats more then most pc's

[Vagrant0]

I would find it hard to believe that there aren't any sites that you could order computer components to your country without paying an arm and a leg. Go find any tech savy place that has several computers near you (college campuses, cyber cafes, computer clubs) to see where they get their stuff from. Could also search online.

[bluekatt]

i am sure there are

i know there are

the real question is is it worth the bother when i have a 20 inch intel imac core 2 duo standing on my desk ?

the only thing i need to get oblivion running on that is windows xp sp 2 which is coming my way

all i really want is making the gaming experience til sp 2 arrives as painless as possible

i am aware i am asking a lot of this machine

and its quite amazing that it is stil capable of doing everything im asking from it with almost the minimum of fuss

even if oblivion is pushing it down on its knees

but i am not going to spend more money on this machine thenis neccasary

[macmert]

Well I guess you should format and install your OS and drivers again, I told you it should be a heating problem because I experienced it before, I was playing a game, for 10 or 20 minutes it esed to work fine, then graphical glitches would start...

 

If the heat is stable and never goes up or anything, maybe you already fried your video card's CPU or something... Do you have a UPS with your system? To have a voltage stability you need a UPS you know so if anything similar happened to you, that might be the case...

 

So already something might be fried, I suggest you try your video card on another system and see if it works well or not...

[bluekatt]

graphical artifacting only happens sometimes

sometimes immediatly some times after hours of play

it doesnt do it with the sims 2 ( which is boosted to levels the game cantbelive)

nor in vampire blood lines which is running on the scource engine ( buggy at that )

not with colin mcrae rally 04 or 2005

 

oblivion is the only game who does it and even that infreuently i just played for 6 hours before i saw a graphical artifact

so i can savely say

i fried nothing and it is NOT a heat problem

[Vagrant0]

If you plan right, you can usually incorporate videocards, hard drive, and memory upgrades from a previous computer into a newer one. You just have to know what you're doing. I'm using one such frankenputer right now.

 

But yeah, you might be better off just saving up your money instead since your next computer might not support AGP cards (they've been threatening to phase them out for the last few years).

 

As suggested previously, I would use oldblivion, and probably refrain from using any large mods, or mods which add flashy new things like shaders, textures, meshes. Every different texture you see on screen is another file that your videocard needs to load. It might even make sense to overwrite many of the bumpmaps used by the game for architecture and environments with a much smaller texture. You shouldn't lose too much graphically, and it might make all the difference. Turning down your game settings and tweaking your .ini is also an idea.

 

As for why it is Oblivion, only normal maps and shaders come to mind as the probably cause. Both make use of chip architecture which older cards can have problems with. Grass and reflections are another possible.

[bluekatt]

some times however its better to break complelelty and start with a new slate so to speak

hard drives wont last forever

and AGP much like ddr is on its way out

the pentium 4 architecture is old and to be superceded by core

so far i dont have great many mods

rens beauty pack

the tabaxi race

kvatch rebuild

lowpoly gras

and i am now looking in to oldblivion

 

i am however somewhat perplexed why people keep referring me to a new computer while that same new computer is alreadyhere

its an imac core 2 duo with a pcie video card

running mac os X leopard waiting for windows xp sp 2 to be installed with bootcamp

[GBHis]

since i installed oblivion

my pc is experiencing ...problems

i get bounced back to the desktop from time to time which is normal but the game also experiences horrible graphical artifacts polygonal break ups and snow which i guess is my underwhelming graphics card being unable to cope with the strain

the computer even rebooted during oblivion and ijust lost my video output while the game was stil running

am i correct in assuming i am stretsching my 6 year old pc to the break point and its literally choking on oblivion ?

 

specs of said machine are

windows 2000 pro sp 4

pentium 4 2000 mhz

1024 mb system ram

geforce 6200 256 mb

 

it just about edges in on the minimum specs

The reboot sounds like a bluescreen to me. There's probably a setting in your BIOS config named something like "reboot on ..." and a menu with options like [NEVER], [ERRORS DURING POST], [ALL ERRORS]. Check "NEVER". That way the bluescreen will stay on the screen until you turn off your machine manually, hence enabling you to read the error description :)

[Vagrant0]

i am however somewhat perplexed why people keep referring me to a new computer while that same new computer is alreadyhere

its an imac core 2 duo with a pcie video card

running mac os X leopard waiting for windows xp sp 2 to be installed with bootcamp

An imac is not a PC. No offense to any Mac users out there, but it is a toy computer. It's too restricted and user friendly, and often leads to brainless users. The argument "should people know what they're actually doing or should they spend their time just doing" is all too frequent, and in my opinion, people should have some understanding about the workings of their computers before they should do anything with them. I've known Mac owners who don't even understand how folders and directories work. The fact that the computer allows for no hardware modification, and almost no internal tweaking only further limits the uses of the machine.

 

But more to the point, many things just don't work properly on a Mac, some of those being Oblivion related. I don't know specifically, but a search could probably turn something up. It has been mentioned before, it's just such a rare occurance that anyone using a Mac is trying to play Oblivion. Most just use it for their e-mail, or to go on facebook.