When The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion launched in 2006, it challenged PC hardware with its big open world and shader model three graphics - but the game's performance characteristics have been largely forgotten today. Go back and play it on period-appropriate hardware and it's easy to see that Oblivion had its own stuttering problems. Walking around the game world induced big stutters each and every time a new world grid would load and deload in front and behind the player. History repeats itself with this week's brand-new remaster - and it's perhaps one of the worst-running games I've ever tested for Digital Foundry.
Even if you're running the most powerful hardware around, the stuttering is egregious, dragging down the experience to the point where I really don't understand how this was considered good enough for release. And beyond the hitching, we are looking at one of the most bizarrely resource-intensive games I've ever tested - so even if you're OK with lurching stutter, you'll be turning down the settings just to keep the average frame-rate looking acceptable.
PC Gaming Wiki makes no mention of the performance issues, but the wiki isn't a good resource for a game's "under-the-hood" issues (e.g. frame-pacing and the level of optimization)… due to the research required. DF could be used as a source, but their research may be removed from the page by a PCGW editor ("works fine on my machine").
Can the traversal stutter only be reduced by putting all settings to the lowest (on PC), with no other option whatsoever on the current hardware?
Lowering other settings reveals comparatively insignificant improvements with a massive loss of quality. Reducing everything to the bare minimum, CPU-limited performance only increases by around 10 percent on average, with only a very slight improvement to the stuttering problems and a gigantic downgrade to game visuals. Optimised settings suggest we can end up with a more optimal experience, but that's simply impossible with this game as it stands. I can't quite understand how CPU performance on this one is so dreadful and why settings adjustments help so little. At the lowest settings, the game is not attractive - and is arguably worse in some respects than the 2006 original.
The traversal stutter does not go even on the best components money can buy with settings dialed down to potato. I can just about tolerate it on my desktop, I tried on my laptop out of curiosity and I think I would genuinely prefer to stare at the Windows desktop then try that experience again. I am also aware I am more sensitive to stutters and uneven frame times than many other people, on console I prefer a locked 30 fps to a 55-60 FPS mess. VRR works wonders for me with a lot of games but it does not deal with UE5 stutter so that still leaves the biggest problem unsolved. I am not sure this will be patched again, highly unlikely to actually be fixed, so it will probably need a decade of hardware improvements to brute force it to where it should be.
A key theme through the bad-game half of our list is non-preventable stuttering. In the case of June's Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, this issue is doubly troubling because the same issue burdens the game's original PC version on 19-year-old PCs. Bethesda and porting studio Virtuos did not see fit to "remaster" away the game's long-standing stuttering issues on PC.
If anything, stuttering appears to be worse in this remaster on modern, high-end PCs than on circa-2006 hardware, likely down to Unreal Engine 5's own particular issues in this area layered upon the original game's. Wide-open outdoor traversal feels far too compromised for a game of this vintage.
Worse than that, we're disheartened by the lack of patches and updates to these confirmed issues, with Bethesda issuing its last ES4OR patch in July. The remaster may have been described as a "shadowd rop" when it surprise-launched in June, but with such little post-launch support, the term "ghost drop" may be prove appropriate. We are hopeful for a turnaround of some kind in the near future.
It's one of the few games that genuinely makes me feel sick while playing. How and why it managed to ship in this shape is beyond comprehension....it's a nauseating experience for a game I fondly remember from the Xbox 360 days. This is why I have little to no excitement for any potential Fallout 3 / New Vegas remaster...and also why I care little for UE5 engine games on console.
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Topic: The performance of the Oblivion remaster hasn't even been improved by now?
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