Let's Play: The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion

Welcome to another Let's Play. I tell you: this was really huge. I haven't too much time to update this blog, so for this Let's Play i worked more than a week (for about 1 hour a day). Anyway, Oblivion is the fourth episode of "The Elder Scrolls" saga. It has been just released the fifth episode called "Skyrim", and it seems it works well too (see LinuxGameCast blog by Venn Stone for more infos). Maybe this is one of the best RPG ever created, with wonderful landscapes, astonishing textures, a really deep main plot, a huge map and a lot of secondary missions. If you are designing your own game and would also like to have wonderful landscapes where characters can freely roam, game design courses at a graphic design college can teach you how to create a realistic visual representation of a geological terrain. So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to "Let's Play: The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion"!!!

A hard choice!

Yes, this time IT IS a hard choice. Not only this game works on Crossover Games and PlayOnLinux/Wine, but it is also a GameTree Linux supported game. Anyway, i tested the 1.2.0416 version of the game (latest official patch), and i decided to leave Chakra because i don't use it as main OS and sometimes it doesn't work as i expect so it makes me waste a lot of time. I tested the game on Ubuntu 11.10 64-bit and Windows 7 64-bit.

The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion on GameTree Linux:

Well, as i said before, Oblivion is one of the supported games of GameTree Linux, so i tried it. I found out that the game works really well, it doesn't need a lot of tweaks to run and it is playable and enjoyable. BUT... HDR is not supported. I tried with several graphic options but if i set HDR and start a new game, i see a grey fog and nothing else. So the combination of Bloom and AntiAliasing is the best choice for you. With that, the game runs and it is very smooth. There are a couple of tweaks needed for this game to be ran: you have to use a noDVD crack and you have to change the line "bUseJoystick=1" to "bUseJoystick=0" into "/home/yourusername/Documents/My Games/Oblivion/Oblivion.ini" because of a mouse problem. So:

- Can be patched to 1.2.0416 version.
- HDR doesn't work.
- Needs a noDVD.
- Change the line "bUseJoystick=1" to "bUseJoystick=0" into the file "/home/yourusername/Documents/My Games/Oblivion/Oblivion.ini".

The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion on Crossover Games:

The game can be installed, and with some tweaks it runs almost perfectly and smoothly. HDR works, but it needs some register tweaks: in particular, you have to add some lines into the windows register. Some videos can't be skipped, so i suggest to rename them so the game can't read them and it will skip them automatically. It needs a noDVD crack and the same bUseJoystick tweak showed before. So:

- Can be patched to 1.2.0416 version.
- HDR works perfectly with some tweaks (see below).
- Add some strings into "HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Wine -> Direct3D (create this new key)" inside the windows register (start a new program -> regedit): "OffscreenRenderingMode" setting it to "fbo", "Multisampling" setting it to "enabled", "UseGLSL" setting it to "enabled" and "VideoMemorySize" setting it to "256".
- Needs a noDVD.
- Change the line "bUseJoystick=1" to "bUseJoystick=0" into the file "/home/yourusername/Documents/My Games/Oblivion/Oblivion.ini".
- Go into your Oblivion installation directory, data/video folder, and rename "2k games.bik", "bethesda softworks HD720p.bik", "game studios.bik" and "Oblivion Legal.bik" as you want.

The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion on PlayOnLinux (1.3.36 Wine version):

Same as Crossover Games, but it doesn't need any register tweak, and sometimes audio stops or game crashes (rarely). So:

- Can be patched to 1.2.0416 version.
- HDR works perfectly.
- Needs a noDVD.
- Change the line "bUseJoystick=1" to "bUseJoystick=0" into the file "/home/yourusername/Documents/My Games/Oblivion/Oblivion.ini".
- Go into your Oblivion installation directory, data/video folder, and rename "2k games.bik", "bethesda softworks HD720p.bik", "game studios.bik" and "Oblivion Legal.bik" as you want.
- Rarely sound stops or game crashes.

Talking about performances...

First of all, my hardware:

agp_aperture_size: 256
cpu: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 955 Processor
cpu_ghz: 0.80
distro: Ubuntu 11.10 oneiric
kernel: 3.0.0-14-generic
machine_bitness: 64
memory: 3960
soundcard: HDA ATI SB at 0xfbcf4000 irq 16
soundcard_driver: ALSA Version 1.0.24
videocard_direct: True
videocard_driver_version: 4.2.0 NVIDIA 290.10
videocard_manufacturer: NVIDIA Corporation
videocard_ram: 1024
videocard_type: GeForce GTX 550 Ti/PCI/SSE2
x_version: X.Org X Server 1.10.4

Yeah, talking about performances... Performances are quite good even if this is a heavy game with heavy graphics. Things change when choosing HDR or Bloom+AA, and i made some tests for it. These are the results:











You can notice that Gametree Linux, unexpectedly (the program has not been updated since a lot of time), provides great performances for the game, but as i said, HDR doesn't work. How bad. So if you want to use HDR (real-time light effects) you must use Wine or Crossover Games. Of course inside buildings fps are higher than outside because of less textures, less objects and less lights. In this case, Crossover Games works better than Wine.

The conclusion is this: if you are not interested in HDR, then you must choose Gametree Linux. If you are interested in HDR, i suggest you to use Crossover Games. If you are interested in HDR and you're not a Crossover Games customer, you can use PlayOnLinux/Wine, remembering some rare crashes and less performances. This is YOUR choice!

Installation:



This is the Crossover Games installation process. It takes about 9 minutes (including downloading the patch, patching the game and tweaking registers).
At the end of the installation:

- Download and apply the patch (http://www.bethsoft.com/eng/patches.php)
- Download noDVD crack (http://dl.gamecopyworld.com/?c=725495341&d=2007&f=tnttesn2!rar)
- If needed, start a new program and add these lines to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Wine -> Direct3D (create this new key)": "OffscreenRenderingMode" setting it to "fbo", "Multisampling" setting it to "enabled", "UseGLSL" setting it to "enabled" and "VideoMemorySize" setting it to "256".
- Go to "/home/yourusername/Documents/My Games/Oblivion/" and change the line "bUseJoystick=1" to "bUseJoystick=0" into the file Oblivion.ini.
- If you want to skip intro videos, go into your Oblivion installation directory, data/video folder, and rename "2k games.bik", "bethesda softworks HD720p.bik", "game studios.bik" and "Oblivion Legal.bik" as you want.

Now you can adjust some options running "OblivionLauncher.exe" and then play the game running "Oblivion.exe" (or just use Crossover Games shortcuts).

Running:



That's all. Feel free to send me an email or leave a comment if you got some problems or if you just wanna ask me a question. I will always answer you!