Hi guys. I'm new to these forums. I'm also a new but a huge Elder Scrolls fan. I've got Oblivion on console. I want to get it on PC aswell but only have a oldish pc with a oldish graphics card. Do you think the graphics will be greatly improved (using hd tv with hdmi cable for console version)? Do you think my game experience will be much better. I want to know if $25 Aus dollars is worth it for the Goty. Also can Morrowind's graphics be improved with a better graphics card for my current computer. Thanks

System Information


Display Devices

We'll need to know the actual system specs for your computer. Could you post a DXDiag?

-If on XP, Start, Run, type DXDiag, select save all information, then paste it here in [spoiler][code] blocks to make it easier to read
-If on Vista/7, same thing, but use Search instead of Run.

Sorry about that, i'll add that when i get home, thanks for the help

The short answer is yes, a mid-range PC will be much better than playing on the consoles. Your current PC has an integrated video card so you'll see a huge performance gain

One thing to keep in mind is the video card - Most PCs (doesn't matter if they are high-end, mid-range, or low-end) ship with integrated graphics. Most also have the appropriate PCIe 16x slot and an adequate power supply for a mainstream graphics card (5770 or gts450) which will allow you to play Obilvion at 1080p with mostly 60fps. An entry-level dedicated video card will also be better than consoles but for the price I would go with mainstream or better. There are parts of the game that even on the best hardware have lower FPS due to the game engine unfortunately

Morrowind with MGE is a huge improvement with a modern graphics card over the vanilla install. The vanilla game won't look much better than what it looks like now, I would imagine your current PC probably runs it as good as it was made to run. MGE lets you take advantage of higher resolutions and widescreen, increases the draw distance and shows distant land, enhances the textures, optionally adds things like depth of field and hdr shaders, and also lets you use AA and AF. It won't make it look like Oblivion (although with some mods you can make it look pretty darn good) but it makes it look a lot better

I believe that the XBox360 can, indeed, far surpass that poor excuse for graphics:

Card name: RADEON X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: RADEON X300 SE (0x5B60)

That was the worst Dx9.0"a" card that anyone produced in 2003, when its name was the Radeon 9600 SE {for any kibitzers, while all but perhaps one of the FXes was worse than this poor thing, none of them were honestly "Dx9" of any kind. nVIDIA tried going alone with a 32-bit shader engine that was slower than snail snot, but could interpret the real Direct3D, and yet still had to run at the 32 bit speed, until the 5700, 5900, and 5950 grafted in the Dx8 shader units from the GF4s, and then could run Dx8 at "closer to normal" speeds (still slower than the top GF4s, though)}.

If that old PC has any nostalgic meaning to you, a cheap POS card like an HD 2400 Pro for $25 will be twice as good, although still well short of the XBox360, which roughly equalled a Radeon X1950 GT (which cannot be purchased new, any longer). I think that the cheapest anything you can find to overcome an XBox graphics quality is probably one of the down-rated (DDR2 RAM, not GDDR3) HD 4650s that are showing up at around $40; Newegg has half a dozen examples -- in fact none of their HD 4650 cards has the correct RAM now..

Thanks for the advice guys. It has really helped.
I definitly think it's time for a new pc anyway, it might have to be sometime near 11-11-11 i think. Will be definitly be getting Oblivion before then though.

Sandy bridge or Bulldozer + Southern Islands = Nice 2011 build