Oblivion PS3: Runs/Loads faster, looks better, GETTING Shivering Isles

[Zenien]

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/762/762108p1.html

Fans of the Elder Scrolls series have always loved the flexibility the franchise afforded them during their adventures, but when the eagerly awaited Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released last March, even they were astounded by its depth. Players could literally choose their own adventure within the massive game, which offered over 200 hours of play. Characters could be customized in various ways, and it was easy for gamers to make powerful magic users, fighters, thieves or other classes as they attempted to close the gates of Oblivion. For PC and Xbox 360 gamers, it was a match made in RPG heaven. Fortunately for PS3 owners, Oblivion will soon be descending upon the system. We got the chance to play the latest build of the game today, and we came away with new impressions from the land of Cyrodiil.

Apart from the initial scale of Oblivion, which was simply huge, Bethesda Game Studios augmented the adventure with eight downloadable plug-in features. Items like the Horse Armor download seemed much more of a minor adjustment than a significant addition to the gameplay. Others like the Orrery or Mehrunes' Razor provided separate locations for players to battle through, collecting experience and valuable items. Unlike the PC and 360 versions, the PS3 edition will not feature all eight of the currently available plug-ins for the game. They may find their way to the PlayStation Store at some point in time in the future, but they will not be added into the version as a "PS3 Collector's Edition" or a special copy of Oblivion. Instead, the title will only include the recently released Knights of the Nine side quest, as you attempt to recover lost artifacts of the Divine Crusader and restore glory to the order of warriors.

PS3 owners will get their own taste of Oblivion this March.
Players of the PC or 360 version of the quest know that only those characters who don't have any infamy associated to their name can begin the pilgrimage to start the Knights of the Nine quest. However, there have been a few changes made for the PS3 version. Characters can now immediately set out on their pilgrimage to the Wayshrines of the Divines as soon as they exit the sewers at the start of the game (which served as a tutorial). This immediately lets you bypass having to track down the rumor about the attack on Anvil Chapel and start on your quest for righteousness.

The PS3 version of Oblivion isn't a simple port of the game either, although players who have picked up the 360 version will be very familiar with the control scheme. For one thing, the PS3 version has been optimized to take advantage of the Cell processor and hardware that the system offers. As a result, the game runs a lot faster than the 360 build. Entering dungeons or buildings results in a load of 3-5 seconds, compared to the 7-10 seconds or longer for the 360 version of the game. Similarly, the amount of framerate drops or hitches that cropped up in the wilderness as you accessed a new area on the 360 have been substantially reduced on the PS3 version. There is a plan to completely eradicate these issues as the game nears release, as well as fixing a number of bugs that were present in the other builds. Kiss the item duplication glitch goodbye.

Visual textures are much sharper in the PS3 version of the game.
The visual presentation of Oblivion has also been significantly enhanced. While it was a beautiful title on the 360, far off environmental details often displayed low resolution textures. This has been fixed with new shaders dedicated to rendering the foreground cleanly with sharper details, so rocky landscapes now have craggy appearances instead of smooth, non-distinct surfaces. While there is still a fair amount of pop-in that occurs (which can't be helped due to the size of the world), the draw distance is farther than the 360 version. As a result, screens from the PS3 version should approach those from high end PCs running Oblivion, which is an impressive feat. We'll have more on Oblivion soon, but for now, check out these new screens.

Gamepsot

The real enhancement is in the visuals, and (to some extent) the loading times. The game seemed to have a slightly smoother and more consistent frame rate than it did on the Xbox, though the difference wasn't enormous, and it seemed to us that the textures looked just a tad bit sharper. More obvious (and confirmed by Bethesda) was an improvement to the game's texturing over large distances. Remember how the original Oblivion had a line set an arbitrary distance in front of the player beyond which ground textures turned into kind of a muddy mess? That's all taken care of now, thanks to a new custom pixel shader. The effect is only noticeable outdoors--though it's more accurate to say the effect is not noticeable if you've never played a previous version of the game--but it's a nice addition nonetheless. (this effect will be present in the 360 version cera Shivering Isles)

 

[Zenien]

The Truth about the PS3 version​

February 8, 2007 - When we posted our preview of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, we talked about the various improvements that had been made to the PS3 version, such as the optimized load times and enhanced graphical presentation thanks to new pixel shaders that displayed sharper details. We also pointed out that while the Knights of the Nine side quest would be included, other downloadable content would not initially be included in the game. Needless to say, this information spawned a host of rumors on the boards and across the Internet. To separate the fact from the fiction about Oblivion on the PS3, we went directly to Pete Hines, the VP of Public Relations and Marketing at Bethesda Softworks for the true details behind the game.

Rumors were rampant about the reasons behind the lack of downloadable content. Other websites have reported that the justification behind the missing missions and features was due to technical limitations of the console. According to Hines, nothing could be farther from the truth. There were two specific reasons behind why items like the Orrery and Mehrunes's Razor will not be included within the PS3 version of the game. First of all, there was a concern about the balancing of the game and initially giving players access to a thieves den or a wizard's tower immediately at the start of the game. "There was no good way to incorporate these features into the game as soon as it started because it didn't make sense," Hines said. While he didn't rule out the possibility of some of these side quests or features making it into the game, it wouldn't necessarily be as soon as the game hit store shelves.

In fact, the other reason why the downloadable content for the PS3 version of the game isn't included isn't solely because of the technical limitations of the system. Instead, it's because the designers haven't actually tested the PlayStation Network Store and the mechanisms for delivering content to systems. Considering that the development team has been spending a large amount of time making sure that the game transitions over to the PS3 well without the numerous bugs or glitches that plagued the PC and 360 versions of the game, working on the store was definitely a low priority on their list when it came to dedicating additional resources to that feature. But it is being worked on, and it will be coming at a later date.

So what about the shaders or optimizations? Rumors were released stating that everything in the PS3 version of the game would migrate over to the 360 or the PC, which kicked off a screaming match on boards about which version was ultimately better. According to Hines, the shader functionality that would re-render the low-res textures would inevitably make its way to the 360 build and PC in future updates. However, certain optimizations that take advantage of the system's hardware will remain exclusive to the PS3 version of the game.

We'll have more on Oblivion as it's released.

 

[Deleted User]

THANK YOU. That's all I asked for, some meat behind what you were saying and not all the lip service. But really to the topic, they said it "seemed" that the textures were a bit sharper, and that the framerate was just a little more consistent. That's not something huge, and it should be expected with the fact that it was in development longer than the X360 version.

 

[WhatsHisFace]

The Xbox 360 version gets the LOD upgrade when the Shivering Isles comes out. IGN's the only site reporting better visuals and a better framerate (WTF?) at the moment.

 

[Zenien]

And Gamespot. It's more accurate to say that 1UP is pretty much the only major site not reporting it after hands on.

 

[Havok83]

thanks, thats great news. I havent jumped onto the Oblivion bandwagon and dont know whats the big deal about the game. Im really not an RPG fan but I did convert into a FF fan after X

 

[Fading]

I have Oblivion, but for PC. It honestly is a good game, but it gets repetative quickly. I really enjoyed it, but after a bit I lost interest and haven't picked it up since.

It really feels like a single player MMO tho and has some decent storylines.

 

[Zenien]

I like Oblivion, but it's not something that I'd own. It's great for the novelty but wears thin fast. THough I hear the PC version with mods is basically the only way to go.

 

[Deleted User]

I like Oblivion, but it's not something that I'd own. It's great for the novelty but wears thin fast. THough I hear the PC version with mods is basically the only way to go.

I'm sure with Shivering Isles Oblivion will be at least somewhat closer to what it should've been when it was released. They just made the environment way too monotonous, and the enemies really weren't that wide-ranging either.. it was just alot of same-old, same-old. I'm hoping that SI will change that for me.

 

[Zenien]

Yeah SI looks like a breath of fresh air. I might get Oblivion again just to play that area.

 

[JM0087]

This explains the recent rumors.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/762/762882p1.html

 

[Zenien]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=158200&site=cvg

Aspect Ratio
(The cursor position is the same in both shots)

PS3:

360:

Anisotropic Filtering
PS3:

360:

Another thing to add to the list, the PS3 version has anistrophic filtering.

 

[Havok83]

thanks for the pics. The PS3 version does look good. Im thinking of checking this game out but if and when I do it will be the PC version. It seems as if its best suited for there

 

[Zenien]

SO the FUD about the PS3 not having enough ram for downloadable content is not only directly shot down by bethesda, but the PS3 version has sharper textures.

 

[Fading]

Wow, the filtering made a heck of a difference. The road looks much clearer on PS3, and the background of the 360 version seems to have some kind of repeating texture deal going on where the PS3 version doesn't.

 

[Spidey17]

Is SI gonna be on the the PS3 version? I'm just a little confused because my GI didn't mention the PS3 when they showed SI.

 

[Zenien]

SI will be on the Playstation store at some point, but after SI hits XBXLive.

 

[Spidey17]

From the title, I thought PS3 players would get SI out of the box.