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Thinking of spending my last part of my student loan on this game , but the minimum system requirements say 2.0 ghz for processor speed. my laptop is 1.8, but it has a 2mb cache (which if im right in understanding means that is effectively double).
anyone got this game and could post system specs and say if it runs ok?

also, can you turn the view to third person. something really wrong about first person rpgs.

thx.

Says 2gig processor min, recomended 3gig, might be able to handle it if you have a decent graphic card but would advise checking on the elderscrolls forums will find more info there

We're playing oblivion... not ready to voice an opinion on it yet tho

A Pentium M is different to a desktop processor, and so assuming you're talking about a 1.8GHz P-M then it's probably similarly fast to a 2.4 GHz P-4, i.e. it will be fine.

The issue will be your graphics adapter - unless it's something pretty meaty the laptop will really struggle.

[quote="pikeh"]Thinking of spending my last part of my student loan on this game ]
Here's the technical explanation of cache etc. Cache just acts as an area of fast memory where instructions can be stored so that the processor can grab them with minimal delay after it's finished executing it's current instructions. It therefore has no effect on the clock speed of your processor which is the amount of instructions per second that can be handled at a basic level. That said however, various processor have different optimization techniques, for example SIMD (more commonly known as MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, etc.) which stands for Single Instruction, Multiple Data allows a processor to execute multiple instructions in a single processor cycle. In your case, a 1.8Ghz processor runs at a frequency of 1,800,000,000 instructions per second. SSE3 allows operation on 4 floating point (decimal) numbers in one instruction, so a 3D coordinate transform which might usually require 4 individual instructions will only require one instruction on a processor with SSE3 support assuming the application is written to make use of SIMD. I'm not entirely sure what optimizations the Pentium-M processors make in terms of getting more operations per-cycle but using the explanation of SIMD above you can see that clock speed really isn't everything. 2MB is a fairly large amount of cache for a 1.8Ghz processor so it's a pretty good bet that your laptops 1.8Ghz processor is doing something to pull instructions through faster than your average 1.8Ghz chip as it obviously needs the capability of storing more instructions in fast memory (cache) ready for execution than the usual processors.

...Or to cut a long story short, your processor clearly has the capability to execute instructions much faster than your average 1.8Ghz processor

My girlfriend has classic 2.6Ghz processor in her laptop whilst my new laptop is an Pentium-M 2.13Ghz with an ATI X-300 in and it runs DAoC extremely smooth (faster than my 2.8Ghz, GeForce 3 desktop also) in comparison to hers, despite her much higher clock speed.

The game rocks awsome graphics and it has everything Ive always wanted in any elder scroll game! I love it!

(works pretty good on a 2.4-2.6ghz if you got 1-2gb ram and a decent gfx card btw)

/Ankh

thx for info guys, nice explanation xest

im pretty certain my gfx can handle it (256mb radeon 9700).

B-b-b-but ankh! No levitation!!!1!!!one11!!!

I've only had 3 hours or so with it, but so far I like the physics a lot, like the dungeons, don't like the facial animations, like the landscapes, don't like the many immersion-busting features like loading messages and getting-on-horse animations, hate the quest compass, LOVE the fact the NPC's shut their shops at night and all that malarkey.

Time will tell whether I can ever love this game as much as Morrowind. It feels like a new pair of shoes at the moment.

How similar is the graphics engine in Oblivion to Morrowind? I know the graphics are greatly superior (moving trees and all that) but is the general field of view, perspective, camera and character motion etc the same?

The reason for asking is that *some* 3D games give me motion sickness. Daoc and WoW don't but FPS games like Doom 3, Quake, Half-Life 2 give me very bad motion sickness. I was fine with Morrowind (especially in 3rd person view) so hopefullly Oblivion will be the same if the engine is similar. I hope so, as it looks like a stunning game.

Its all new Cernos, excellent field of view, the perspective is well.. as expected I guess camera is as in most games (first person view..not much to say ) and the models/motion are superb.

If you get motion sick by shooters you can always switch to third person view if you prefer that - but imo it works best in 1st person.

I bought a house in Oblivion some minutes ago

/Ankh

Thanks Ankh, sounds like it should be ok for me. Is there a 'head bob' motion when running in first person view? And if there is, can you turn it off? And yep, 3rd person view usually the best way to go for me though it is less immersive (but it would seem to be the immersion that causes the motion sickness for some people from what I've read).