Will my laptop run Oblivion?

[chuckshuck]

I wanted to know if my laptop could run oblivion (I have a Toshiba Satellite I bought new at the end of 2012).

The canirunit.com site gave me green checks for everything except my video card... but the required listing was always lower (sometimes way lower) than the "you have" listing:

 

Required You Have

Video RAM 128 MB 1.7 GB

3D Yes Yes

Hardware T&L Yes Yes

Pixel Shader version 2.0 4.1

Vertex Shader version 2.0 4.1

 

Will I be fine? I REALLY want to play oblivion with mods. :(

[discovery1]

to be honest...no.

not enough video ram to run mods. It might just run vanilla oblivion but it may not even start the game once it gets past the intro video. I used to run a sony vaio with 512 ram and it would run about 100 mods but only on mid resolution and with a lot of care about clean edits and load order.

 

If you want to start changing up for some decent eye candy textures then I reckon 1 gb of ram minimum.

 

coincidently I had a sattelite pro with your specs and morrowind (unmodded) was no problem but oblivion in any form just spat out black screens.

[chuckshuck]

to be honest...no.

not enough video ram to run mods. It might just run vanilla oblivion but it may not even start the game once it gets past the intro video. I used to run a sony vaio with 512 ram and it would run about 100 mods but only on mid resolution and with a lot of care about clean edits and load order.

 

If you want to start changing up for some decent eye candy textures then I reckon 1 gb of ram minimum.

 

 

I have 1.7GB video ram...

Edited January 25, 2013 by chuckshuck

[Hickory]

to be honest...no.

not enough video ram to run mods. It might just run vanilla oblivion but it may not even start the game once it gets past the intro video. I used to run a sony vaio with 512 ram and it would run about 100 mods but only on mid resolution and with a lot of care about clean edits and load order.

 

If you want to start changing up for some decent eye candy textures then I reckon 1 gb of ram minimum.

 

 

I have 1.7GB video ram...

 

No, you don't. You have 128MB dedicated video RAM, and the rest is shared memory taken from system RAM. It's not the same; it will never be the same.

[bben46]

Video RAM 128 MB 1.7 GB

:unsure:

 

One - or the other. :pinch: Possibly 128M , expandable to 1.7G? Although the 1.7G is a strange value for ram - are you sure it's not 1.7 Ghz? which is a common clock speed and unrelated to RAM. I have not seen a laptop with expandable video ram.

 

System Ram is usually expandable but to a limited extent on a laptop - usually it will read something like 2G expandable to a maximum of 8G.

[talveren]

If chuckshuck wants to just run vanilla Oblivion, then he's fine. I ran Oblivion on a low end toshiba satelite for years before I got my gaming system and started modding it. chuckshuck, if that's all you want to do, you should be ok. You won't be able to run ultra high graphics but if medium's fine for you, you're good. If you want more, such as the graphics mods that make Oblivion stand up right next to the most current games, then you've got a problem. You may be able to do some modding with some of the performance enhancing stuff (like stream line) but the fact that your video card ram is low is always going to limit you.

 

Actually, now that I read your specs again, you say 128 MB 1.7 GB. What's what? Is the 128 MB your RAM or your cache? Ditto for the 1.7 GB?

Edited January 25, 2013 by talveren

[chuckshuck]

If chuckshuck wants to just run vanilla Oblivion, then he's fine. I ran Oblivion on a low end toshiba satelite for years before I got my gaming system and started modding it. chuckshuck, if that's all you want to do, you should be ok. You won't be able to run ultra high graphics but if medium's fine for you, you're good. If you want more, such as the graphics mods that make Oblivion stand up right next to the most current games, then you've got a problem. You may be able to do some modding with some of the performance enhancing stuff (like stream line) but the fact that your video card ram is low is always going to limit you.

 

Actually, now that I read your specs again, you say 128 MB 1.7 GB. What's what? Is the 128 MB your RAM or your cache? Ditto for the 1.7 GB?

 

 

I don't mind running on medium settings... and what I want to mod for isn't graphics.

 

I want to add gold, add characters, shops, etc

[DavinaJo]

@ Chuckshuck, i noticed you said you wanted to add characters, small cavat on that depending on weather or not you're using vanilla characters, if you are fine if not well 128 video memory is going to have a problem , here's why - most third party add on characters rely on prerequisites like body mod, face mods hair mods and well anything else that will fix the way the default charcaters normally look and that eats into the video memory that game requires.

 

same with building mods (depending what was done to the building durning it's creation) in the end you can try to avoid high poly count mods Ie anything with words 1024k or higher in the name of the mod or in the discription but the short of the long your modding choices are going to be short but sweet.

 

 

 

A decent gaming rig needs at least 1gig video card (2 or more if you can afford it) 2-3 Gigs main memory(again more if you have the cash though by 8 gigs going any further won't improve in game performance) processor high 2 low 3 gig multicore and a decent harddrive (the larger the better if you run more than one game (and mod them) (read desktop computer)

 

and there is no getting around the fact that laptops will never ever run 3d games correctly because mobile video cards just aren't good enough to handle a gaming setup.

 

note to others who read this this is my personal experience and not a overall representation of laptops but i think that laptop video graphics chips will never catch up to what the gaming industry is doing graphics wise.