heres my specs i got an HP pavillion, processor: AMD athlon 64 processor 3700+ 2.2GHZ, memory: 958MB RAM

Those are not a proper list of specs for the purpose. Among other items not included, you left off the most important part of all for a gaming PC. Compare what you wrote to the amended requirements and you'll see what to add.

Recommended:

* 3.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor (A64 3200)
* 1 GB System RAM
* ATI X800 XT, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series, or higher, video card

Minimum System Requirements:

* Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP/64-bit
* 512MB System RAM
* 2.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor (XP 2200)
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
( ATI Radeon X800 GTO, NVIDIA Geforce 6800 GT )
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included)
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse

P. S. (Added in edit) I answered at 7:26 AM, CST, and may have missed one possible conclusion. The game does require the REAL existence of an actual video card, one made by either AMD (ATI) or nVIDIA, one designed for running games. Such a card does not steal any main memory for its use.

However, instead of 1024 MBs of main memory, your PC has a very odd amount, as though you have some awful old Intel chipset video chip that needs 64 MBs for itself, and then a couple of MBs extra get used up somewhere else. You will need to buy and install a real graphics card, if you have a desktop PC there (I am not going to waste my own time looking up that one on HP's site).

thanks! anytips on a good card to get? im not that good with computers i usally play consoles, but i wanna play TES on PC for mods

Depends on your budget. Also, I'd up the total amount of RAM as well. If you've got a 64-bit OS, I'd recommend upping it to 6 GB if you've got the budget. Any more than 6 is usually overkill that is not really needed much...

If money is no object, then an Asus Mars II is pretty much at the top. You could go with an AMD GPU, but, in my experience, Nvidia generally has the better offerings even if they are a bit pricier. With Nvidia, the GPUs are numbered as follows:

x80(0)/x85(0) and x60(0) are the main gaming cards. x90(0)/x95(0) are the dual GPU cards, which are generally worse than having two of the x80(0) card. This is where the Mars II comes in. Asus basically said screw it and threw two 580s on the same card and ran them at full speed ahead. As a result, it burns all the others. Now, it's also the most expensive card at ~$700 or so. It's also hard to find. It was made in limited quantities and I'm not sure if there are any left to buy separately or even in a new rig from a company that takes requests.

What that means for the current generation of cards:

Mars II > GTX 590 > GTX 580 > GTX 560 > GTX 480

For AMD's offerings:

6990 (dual GPU card) > 6970 > 6950 (can be made into a 6970)

For AMD, I have no clue about their other offerings.

Oblivion is TES4, and six years old, about like the PC you have. Skyrim, the TES-5 game, doesn't run well on a single core CPU such as an A64 3700. We will also need to know whether that PC is definitely a PCIe machine. AMD and its partners kept supporting the old AGP video bus longer than Intel and nVIDIA did. If you have the AGP video add-in slot, you cannot buy any nVIDIA card that will be at all useful in this game.

No matter whether you have AGP or PCIe video add-on options, you will need a new power supply. A six year old HP will have had only a 250 watt PSU, unless it was a so-called "slimline", in which case you need three things, the video card, a decent power supply, and a normal sized and shaped tower case. After six years, a 250 watt PSU will have deteriorated to only having 133 watts now. Some of the slimline cases had only a 200 or 225 watt PSU, and it is a proprietary sized power supply, difficult to upgrade.

P. S. Note: I calculated the Slimline PSU, from 225 watts, down to 119 watts in six years, then wrote that as the 250 watt current capacity, instead of an actual 133 watts (edited up above, now).

Well, that would explain why I couldn't find much about the CPU...
In that case, you may need a new computer in general. If you plan on being up to speed with being able to play newer games, then your case is most likely too small for any of the cards that will help.

AFAIK, when the skinny cases were initially released, and I'm not enough of a readymade brand fan to be sure when that was, they didn't sell particularly well. I started building my own PCs before any kind of a Pentium, even a Pentium 1, existed. I think the best anyone could get then was an Intel 386-20. The last PC I didn't build from scratch that I've had was 1997, I think.

I could be wrong on this one, but I think the prebuilts just started using larger cases within the past couple years. They were using cases somewhere in between a mid-tower and the one under it or something.

Though, most of my machines tend to be the equivalent of Frankenstein's lab with the parts all hooked together with very fine knitting >_>

If I were you I would probably go and ask your question in this TECH thread.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1328500-the-community-tech-thread-no-111/

It livens this forum up a bit, though

As noted, computers and I grew up together (well, I had a decade on the digital variety). I've been in on the whole thing. The first two "tower" PCs were PS2s with 386s in them, back in 1987, Model 50, Model 80. I was already building my own 286-based PCs at the time. Before towers, the PC cases were horizontal, wide, and deep from front to rear. Only the 8 bit hobby computers were in smaller cases than that. The original Tower PCs were on pedestal bases, & were designed to sit on the floor, so the air intakes were moved (or in one case, eliminated) away, from below the front lip of the facia.

It was only later that the Mid-Tower was born and intended to sit again on the desktop. At some point in the 00 decade, Dell, HP, and Sony were all producing very cheap PCs that had no video bus at all, and were intended to have only the onboard chipset video for minimal graphics capability. The PCs of that type were often in a "Mini-tower", but all of the towers prior to those continued to be comparatively deep from front to rear, with room for a "full-size" add-on card of whatever variety, Audio, NIC, Graphics, etc

The only Mini-Tower from HP I ever had apart needed a "riser" extension in a single PCIe slot that had three slots in it to mount the add-on cards in the same plane as the mainboard. It was one of those with no video bus at all.

When PCIe came along, the cost of video bus circuitry was comparatively cheap, while AGP had been complex and costly, so the parsimonious trend of omitting video busses entirely came to an end, but about that time, the "slim" tower that was equally happy sitting upright or horizontally was introduced. It required "half-height" add-on cards, also known as "Low Profile" cards. It also had a reduced size of power supply. Compared to the original (1981) IBM-PC enclosure, the slimline was a newcomer, and quite tiny. They tend to have very poor cooling capacity.

I understand that. I should've clarified that I was talking about 2004ish, give or take. I did used to have an old IBM. That thing was a monster it was so large. But, like I said, I tend to grab parts and throw the wiring together with or without a case. Been doing this for over 15 years and it works like a charm. Though, you do have a problem when the dog chews through the main power connector...

Ah, but now we're getting into something else. We're getting into history. On that note, I miss the old Mac crash screen from around the early 90s or so. You know, the face. That was a nice one...