The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Remastered caught everyone by surprise. After all, remakes of 20-year-old games dubbed “Remastered” aren’t a common sight. Off-sourced to a third-party studio, the TES IV remake leverages the Unreal Engine 5, including all its bells and whistles. Consequently, it performs like a drunk hog in rehab. For the optimization guide, here’s the link. Let’s see how the game performs across some of the latest GPUs.
Test Setup
- CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K @ 5.3 GHz.
- Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420.
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE.
- Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI.
- Memory: 16 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.
Oblivion Remastered: 1080p Benchmarks
Oblivion Remastered isn’t very well optimized. The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti fails to hit 60 FPS using Software Lumen, even at 1080p (+quality upscaling):
- The RTX 3060 barely manages 40 FPS with sub-30 FPS lows.
- The RTX 4070 nets 76 FPS, which isn’t a great result for a 1440p card.
- The RTX 4070 Ti pushes 90 FPS with 67 FPS lows.
Hardware Lumen utilizes the RT Cores for more precise ray tracing using ray-box and ray-triangle testing at higher ray counts:
- The GeForce RTX 4070 averages 61.5 FPS using balanced-mode upscaling.
- The RTX 4070 Ti produced 72 FPS and 56 FPS lows.
- The higher-end GPUs approach ~90 FPS amid a CPU bottleneck.
Oblivion Remastered: 1440p Benchmarks
QHD or 1440p eliminates the RTX 3060 and 4060 Ti from the competition. Using Software Lumen and quality-mode upscaling:
- The RTX 4070 averages 60 FPS with 42 FPS lows.
- The RTX 4070 Ti hits 70 FPS with 1% lows of 52 FPS.
- The RTX 5070 Ti yields 85 FPS with 59 FPS lows.
Hardware Lumen requires frame generation even on the fastest PCs for a stutter-free experience. Using balanced-mode upscaling at 1440p:
- The RTX 4070 nets 52 FPS with 50 FPS lows.
- The RTX 4070 Ti approaches 60 FPS with 1% lows of 47 FPS.
- The RTX 5070 Ti finishes third with 75 FPS average and 56 FPS lows.
Oblivion Remastered: 4K Benchmarks
4K UHD is the domain of Tis and Titans. Unfortunately, the RTX 4070 Ti fails to hit 60 FPS even using Software Lumen and balanced-mode upscaling:
- The RTX 5070 Ti produces 63 FPS with 45 FPS lows.
- The RTX 4080 Super nets 67 FPS with 48 FPS lows.
- The RTX 4090 holds the throne with 71 FPS and 52 FPS lows.
Hardware Lumen leaves only two GPUs with averages of over 60 FPS. Using performance-mode upscaling at 4K:
- The RTX 5070 Ti averages 59 FPS with 46 FPS lows.
- The RTX 4080 Super nets 61.5 FPS with 47 FPS lows.
- The RTX 4090 manages 64 FPS with 49 FPS lows.
Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered: VRAM Usage
Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered uses up to 13 GB of graphics memory at 4K “Ultra.” Stepping down to 1440p brings it below 10 GB, while 1080p utilizes up to 9 GB.
Hardware RT reduces the VRAM usage by 500-1000 MB, as does decreasing the graphics quality to high. Unfortunately, this is another UE5 game that demands at least 10 GB of graphics memory.
Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered: Conclusion
The Oblivion Remake runs horribly. There’s no other way to say it. Many recent releases used Hardware Lumen, and they performed substantially better. TES IV Remake stutters and wheezes even using software ray tracing.
