NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - 24" Widescreen Gaming

Along with testing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion at CRT resolutions, we also tested the four video card configurations at the native resolution for a 24" widescreen LCD because this is becoming an increasingly popular choice among gaming enthusiasts. This game is incredibly stressful, so we found that we had to lower the in game details in order to maintain acceptable frame rates.

We used the same range of testing scenarios as were used in the previous section of this review. The frame rates displayed below relate to the most stressful of the three benchmark hotspots that that we used - the scenario with heavy vegetation on the walk up to the first Oblivion gate outside Kvach.


Again we were impressed by the way that the GeForce 7950 GX2 performed in Oblivion. Even at the 1920x1200 native resolution of a 24" widescreen LCD monitor, we were able to leave most of the in-game detail settings at their maximum setting. Again, we found that we had to lower the shadow detail, but we were able to leave grass shadows, tree canopy shadows and shadow filtering at the same settings that we used when playing Oblivion on the 7950 GX2 at lower 4:3 resolutions.

The Radeon X1900XTX was not faster than the GeForce 7950 GX2, but because of its more advanced feature set, we were able to play the game at more immersive settings. This included 2xAA, using the sacred Chuck patch. We also left High Quality Anisotropic Filtering enabled too. If we disregard the fact that the Sapphire Radeon X1900XTX was running with 2xAA, both it and the BFG Tech GeForce 7900 GT OC SLI were playable using the same in-game detail settings.

We had to lower the in-game details a bit further for the BFG Tech GeForce 7900 GTX OC. The fade details were set about three quarters of the way along the sliders, with the exception of draw distance, which was left set to the maximum. The shadow details were lowered quite considerably, but we were still able to achieve smooth gameplay with tree canopy shadows turned on.