Hello,
I have been unavoidably detained within World of Warcraft for the past 22 months and have lost contact with the gaming world. I am starting to come out of my game-induced coma and I am wondering what people think about Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion.

First, will the game work on a new Dell XPS-410 running the Vista operating system?

Second, are the latest patch files adequate to fix the bugs that were present when the game was first released? What is the latest patch? Do I need to load the earlier patches as well?

Third, what are the expansion packs that have been released and are they worth the money?

Thanks for the help, nice to be back to Gameboomers again.

Hey wownut,

I can't speak personally on Oblivion and Vista, but from what I've seen on the web it seems hit-or-miss. Bethesda is a bit ambiguous about it:


Bethesda Quote

I would scan the Elder Scrolls website and see what the fan base has to say.

I believe the latest patch takes care of most issues, but there are still a couple here and there. Nothing I've come across that are game stoppers though. Knights of the Nine is not a full expansion pack per say. It's more like an extra quest plus some added downloadable content. It's fun, but you do need to load the most recent patch to play it and it does add a couple extra bugs, but again no show stoppers. Shivering isles is a true expansion and is quite imaginative. It comes with its own patch. I'm not sure what "day one" game play is like if you add Shivering Isles and start from the very beginning of Oblivion. I'm only playing the Shivering Isles expansion. Personally, due to the sheer size of Oblivion Shivering Isles lost its charm for me about 3 days into it. It's pretty, but it's basically just more of the same game in a different graphic wrapper. The story line just didn't grip me, but if you can handle 22 months of WoW that shouldn't bother you.....

Yes, it will run on VISTA --- Oblivion that is.

If you go to the Bethesda Game Studio Forums (as they are called now ;), you can find the Oblivion section. In that section, please choose the Hardware & Software forum.

If you have any problems running Oblivion in VISTA, please read this forum, and pay special attention to the Oblivion & Vista thread(s).

The main showstopper for Oblivion has always been the videocard.
My guess is that the Dell XPS-410 is a laptop
If it is, then be sure you can insert (or get) a real, tangible videocard that can be put into the Dell computer. Most Dell computers seem to come with the Intel Extreme 945 (or 915) graphics controller.

This is just a chip on your motherboard, though. If you're nor sure if the Dell XPS-410 will run Oblivion, there is an excellent 'official will my pc run this game' thread in which you can - well just ask that

As for the latest patch, the latest patch is version 1.2.0416
(I think). If you only have Oblivion, you only need to install this patch. Be very sure to get the correct (localized) version of the patch, though.

After downloading the patch, you'll need to install the plug-ins, both official ones like Knights of the Nine big plug-in, and the player made ones, known mod(ification)s to the game.
And yes, all the former changes and bugfixes are included
in the 1.2 version of the patch.

If you have Shivering Isles, you will need to install Oblivion,then the patch for Oblivion, then Shivering Isles, (because it overwrites the masterfile for Oblivion), then Shivering Isles patch. It is vital, you download the Shivering Isles patch, or else... something very nasty can happen to your things in your inventory. Not good.... So download the SI patch, if you have it.

If you can get them, you should really by the Knights of the Nine disc as well as the Shivcring Isles discs, they are well worth the purchase, imo. You could download them (buy them as download), but I would advice against that as many people have had trouble with their installers. Also, both the SI disc as well as the Knights of the Nine disc work in VISTA 64bit operating system.

Again, if you have any trouble with Vista etc. be sure to ask
over at the hardware & software forum in the Oblivion section of the BGSF boards/forums (formerly known as TES forums).

Thanks very much for the quick replies - it does sound encouraging so far.

I should have mentioned that my computer is a Dell XPS 410 desktop computer (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and 4 GB RAM) with a 768 MB nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX video card and a SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card. So I should exceed some of the recommended system requirements.

I have read somewhere that Oblivion may have a problem with the GeForce video card but I'll check the web site and forums as you suggested.

-- hi ---

with that videocard and that computer, you're not going to get any problem graphics wise with Oblivion. However, I have seen a few reports that list the X-fire soundblaster card as getting Oblivion into trouble.

As for the Geforce Card, yes, there were a time where it was that way. This meant that only the 5700-6200 cards realy could play Oblivion well, and that you would need an Nvidia 6600 GT to be sure that Oblivion played (fairly) well on your computer.

As long as you have the current driver for both your video and your soundcard, there shouldn't be any problems (I hope ) with your computer playing Oblivion.

There might be a problem with your dual cure processor. Just yesterday, I read something about over at the BGSF forums that there were glitches and bugs in these, and that Intel had made a patch to squash these bugs. But you can, of course, see this for yourself...

The only problem with Vista is that you need to tell Vista that you have the rights to install Oblivion etc. There's a way to go around this, I think this way can be found in one of the threads I mentioned, though...

Hey Karsten, thanks for posting the information above. I have the very same processor (2.4Ghz 6600 Core Duo) currently in a PC. Those bugs might be the source of some of my past issues. Thanks!

Hi-

I would like to know if the game is a point and click please?

Thanks so much

Maggie

There's no problem with dual core processors, though there may be a problem with certain specific processors. My brother is playing Oblivion on a computer with an AMD 4800+ dual core processor and it works perfectly. The computer also has an Nvidea Geforce 8800 GTS and I believe he's still using the drivers that came with the card, though I'd have to ask him to be sure. I also don't know whether he patched it.

Maggie you can point-and-click some things in Oblivion but the game uses the keyboard for movement. The mouse can be used to steer.

Jenny-

Thanks so much, looks like I will not be putting this game on my list. It has been awhile since I bought a new one and I am looking for one.

Thanks

Maggie :cat:

A point and click that was recently mentioned on the forum that is not well known - Mage, Knight, Apocalypse I just picked it up a few weeks ago at gogamer for around $10 (well, partially because it came with a big free metal dragon ).

If my memory serves me correctly, then Gothic 3 is point and click, which means you click on the ground with the mouse and your character go where you want him to go. You also use the mouse for combat. Gothic 3 is something of the same as Oblivion.
There's another game coming out in the US soon, called Two Worlds, but I can't remember whether or not this game is point and click.

And yes, 'Mage Knight, Apocalypse' is point and click and apparently also a (somewhat) good game. Silverfall is also point and click as is Dawn of Magic. There are demos out for both Silverfall and Dawn of Magic, so you can see if these games are for you

There's a game being made similar to the Baldur's Gate games. It is called 'The Broken Hourglass' and it will be point and click (where you use the mouse). It's still in production, though.

edit:
I've just looked in my Gothic 3 manual and it seems you use use the keyboard to walk and do some other stuff, but from playing the demo, I remember using the mouse to walk??

edit 2:
As for the the problem with the dual core processors, I do believe that the problems only exists in some of the dual core processors. Nevertheless, Intel has released a patch to fix these problems.

Two Worlds is mouse and keyboard. Links to it, Dawn of Magic and the Broken Hourglass are all up top in the stickied topic for upcoming RPGs. We already spoke of it Maggie, but for anyone else desiring point and clicks - Loki, Legend and Witcher are all point and clicks, the first two coming out this summer, and the last coming out this Fall. No release date known on The Broken Hourglass, but they are well into production.

We've gone off topic though, so if we need to discuss this further, lets make this a new topic please.

Is that the way retailers can get you to buy anything Nickie, just include a dragon?

Well...yes!

Sorry for the long delay in getting back to this topic.

Obviously the game Oblivion runs very nicely on my computer with Vista, etc. No problems other than an occassionaly crash (maybe two in 10 days) but since the game has the option of autosaving quite frequently that has not been an issue.

I have been entralled with the game for the past 10 days or I would have been here sooner to report. Oblivion is a welcome change after many months of World of Warcraft - I had forgotten how much fun it is to play a game that actually has suspense and a storyline.

Thanks for the assistance.

Does anyone know if this works with Vista?

I have Oblivion installed on Vista and it seems to work fine.

Playing it with vista sounds iffy. Here is the only thing I saw on vista in the official forum. A patch came out for the game, but I don't see any mention of vista.

Wownut, glad you're having fun! Just come by and say hi when you take a breather.