Bethesda's Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivionis an iconic RPG game that I always regretted not playing.

When it first launched in 2006 on PC and Xbox 360, I was fresh out of college, broke and living in a flatshare with just my trusty PS2 for entertainment.

By the time its sequel, Skyrim, came out I had a gaming PC capable of playing modern games and quickly fell in love with the latest installment.

I spent countless hours in Skyrim – yet despite hearing nothing but praise for Oblivion, I never got round to playing it. I was left feeling like I was missing out on an essential bit of gaming lore, especially given the many memes that emerged from the game.

So, when Bethesda surpised us all by announcing – and releasing – Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, with new graphics and quality-of-life improvements, I was excited to finally give it a spin.

With overhauled graphics courtesy of Unreal Engine 5 and advanced ray-tracing lighting, I was also keen to see how well this remake of a nearly 20-year-old game could run on the world's most powerful gaming GPU (and one of the best graphics cards ever), the Nvidia RTX 5090 at 8K.

Kan det køre i 8K? Efter at have lanceret spillet Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, tjekkede jeg grafikindstillingerne og bemærkede, at den maksimale opløsning, der var tilgængelig, var 4K (3840 x 2160), selvom min skærm har en native opløsning på 7680 x 4320. Dog fandt jeg ud af, at hvis jeg satte spillet til Borderless-tilstand, kørte det i den opløsning, jeg har sat i Windows, hvilket tillader spillet at vises i 8K. Opløsningsboksen bliver grået ud i Borderless-tilstand, hvilket først fik mig til at tro, at opløsningen var låst til 4K, men jeg bekræftede, at det faktisk kørte i 8K.

Med alle grafikindstillinger sat til 'Ultra' og uden brug af opskaleringsteknologier som DLSS, spillede jeg i åbent landskab, hvor jeg mødte flyvende monstre og deltog i kampe. At køre Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered i native 8K uden opskalering gjorde, at selv et high-end grafikkort som RTX 5090 havde svært ved at følge med, med et gennemsnit på omkring 21 billeder i sekundet. Dette resulterede i en langsom, rystende oplevelse, især når jeg angreb flyvende fjender som Imps.

På trods af det lave billedfrekvens skal jeg give kredit til RTX 5090 for i det hele taget at kunne køre spillet i så høj en opløsning. Spillet, baseret på en næsten 20 år gammel titel, ser stadig ret godt ud visuelt, og at opnå spilbar ydeevne i 8K viser GPU'ens råkraft.

Det er tydeligt, at PC-gamere i stigende grad er afhængige af opskaleringsteknologier som DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) for at forbedre ydeevnen ved høje opløsninger, selv med flagskibs-GPU'er. Disse værktøjer forbedrer billedfrekvensen ved at gengive spillet ved en lavere opløsning og derefter bruge AI til at op skalere billedet, hvilket hjælper med at bevare den visuelle kvalitet.

For eksempel, da jeg aktiverede DLSS sat til 'Balanced', steg billedfrekvensen fra 21 fps til omkring 47 fps, hvilket gjorde spillet meget mere glat og fornøjeligt. Selvom nogle mindre visuelle artefakter opstod—såsom et stort refleksion af mit våben i vand—er disse almindelige med Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion og kan ofte løses ved at justere refleksionsindstillingerne i spillet. Samlet set gør brugen af opskaleringsteknologier gaming i høj opløsning mere gennemførligt, selv på kraftfuld hardware.

Selvom afvikling ved 47 fps i 8K er en betydelig forbedring i forhold til de 21 fps, jeg oplevede, da jeg spillede nativt, opfylder det stadig ikke den 60 fps-grænse, jeg anser for essentiel for en glidende spiloplevelse i 2025.

For at forbedre ydeevnen skiftede jeg DLSS til 'Performance'-tilstand, hvilket prioriterer højere billedfrekvenser over visuel kvalitet. Dette gjorde det muligt for mig at spille Oblivion med et gennemsnit på 59 fps, hvilket fik spillet til at føles meget mere glidende og responsivt. Dog blev nogle visuelle fejl, som let ghosting omkring bevægelige planter, mere mærkbare.

Selvom disse problemer ikke er spilafbrudende, foretrak jeg alligevel at bruge DLSS i 'Balanced'-tilstand, selvom det betød et lille fald i billedfrekvens.

Heldigvis findes der yderligere justeringer, jeg kan prøve for at opnå både fantastiske grafik og højere billedfrekvenser i 8K uden at gå på kompromis med den visuelle kvalitet for meget.

Frame gen – why the hate?

By using an Nvidia-capable GPU with DLSS, I could also enable the Frame Generation feature in Oblivion's settings.

This feature again uses AI – this time to generate an image and insert it between two frames rendered by the GPU. If implemented well, this can give a boost to the framerate, as more frames are being shown per second, without any noticeable drops in quality.

I say 'if implemented well', because when the feature first started appearing in games a few years ago, the generated frames were sometimes all-too obvious, leading to a blurring effect that put me off from using the tool for a few years.

Since then, Nvidia has worked with game developers to improve Frame Generation, and I've found recent implementations to work a lot better. It's still a controversial feature among some PC gamers, however, who argue that these are not 'real' frames, and by relying on Frame Generation game developers are not bothering to optimize their games for PC.

I'm more of the opinion that if a feature works well, makes playing games more enjoyable and there's no noticeable downside, then I don't care that much if a frame is real or not.

Having said that, when the results are disappointing, I'm not going to be a fan – and I do share concerns that a reliance on tech such as DLSS and Frame Generation to smooth over poor performance and optimization would be a worrying trend.

With Frame Generation on, DLSS on Balanced and graphics preset to Ultra, I was able to get Oblivion running at 82fps at 8K. This big leap again improved the overall feel of the game, and running through fields and fighting Imps was a joy.

Those small graphical imperfections kept on nagging at me, however. When a game is blown up to 8K on a large (for a monitor) 55-inch screen, any imperfection also gets magnified.

So, with the fps overhead that Frame Generation gave me, I set DLSS to Quality, minimising the amount of upscaling needed to reach 8K and hopefully removing those graphical issues.

The result was indeed a cleaner picture, but with a drop in frame rate to 70fps. Still impressive and well above the 60fps I aim for (and with almost all 8K TVs maxing out at 8K at 60Hz, any benefit of going over 60fps is limited).

Finally, I decided to try out Oblivion with Nvidia's latest feature, which is exclusive to RTX 5000 series GPUs such as the RTX 5090: Multi Frame Generation (MFG).

This is the next evolution of Frame Generation, with the GPU using AI to generate up to three extra frames for every 'real' rendered frame. I've been very impressed with this feature in previous tests, and wanted to see how well it worked with Oblivion.

There's no built-in support for MFG in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remasteredat the moment, but you can enable it via the Nvidia app for Windows 11.

With MFG enabled, I loaded Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered and was treated to frame rates of 117fps on average. Seriously impressive stuff, especially as although the RTX 5090 was now generating three times as many frames, there was no noticeable impact to graphic fidelity compared to when I was playing with standard Frame Generation enabled.

Afslutningsvis fandt jeg ud af, at spillet Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered kan spilles i 8K-opløsning med Nvidia RTX 5090, især når man bruger funktioner som DLSS og Multi Frame Generation. Men på grund af teknologien eller den nylige remastered-udgivelse af spillet var de visuelle artefakter forårsaget af disse funktioner ret mærkbare og forstyrrende. At skifte tilbage til 4K-opløsning, hvor RTX 5090 håndterer spillet glat i native 4K uden at være afhængig af disse forbedringer, eliminerede disse problemer. Det understreger, at 4K stadig er den ideelle opløsning for den bedste spiloplevelse. På trods af bekymringer er avancerede teknologier som DLSS, MFG og lignende løsninger fra AMD og Intel ikke blot hurtige løsninger – de er udviklende værktøjer, der sigter mod at forbedre ydeevnen, samtidig med at de opretholder den visuelle kvalitet.