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Does Oblivion Work on a Netbook?

Bethesda's "Elder Scrolls" games are among the most popular fantasy RPGs available. The graphics, especially in the latter games in the series, have impressed gamers and reviewers, though this does come at a price on PCs. Although Bethesda released "Oblivion" years ago, some computers, particularly netbooks, still have difficulty running the game. There are plenty of netbooks available that can run "Oblivion," and with a little checking, you can see if yours has what it takes.

Video Game Requirements
- Playing a video game on a computer instead of a console like the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3 requires that your computer meet specific requirements to play that game. Most game developers list minimum and recommended requirements. If your computer meets the former requirements, you will be able to play the game, but you'll probably need to turn down most or all of the graphics settings, which means the game will look less impressive. If you want to run a game on a netbook, you should look at the minimum requirements; no modern, visually impressive game will run at its recommended settings on a netbook.
Checking Your System
- The easiest way to check your system is through an automated process, like "Can You Run It?" at systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/. You can select "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" from the drop-down menu at the site and then click the "Can you run it?" button, and after getting your approval to run an ActiveX process, the site will check your computer for you. If you want to manually check your system against the minimum requirements, click the "Start" button, type "dxdiag" in the search text box and press "Enter." This brings up the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, which displays all the information you need except your available hard disk space in the "System" and "Display" tabs. To find your free hard drive space, click "Start," then "Computer"; there you can check your drives by selecting them.
Oblivion's Minimum System Requirements
- "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" requires you have at least a 2-gigahertz (GHz) Pentium 4 processor. Most modern netbooks have processors at least that fast, though a few netbooks do not. If you have a processor with multiple cores, you probably can run Oblivion even with slightly less than 2GHz, but the game will not run smoothly. You also need at least 512 megabytes (MB) of RAM and 128MB of video RAM. All modern netbooks have the former, and nearly all have the latter. Although often netbooks use "shared" RAM, your video card specifications will state how much RAM it has. Lastly, you need at least 4.6 gigabytes (GB) of hard drive space. All netbooks have this initially, but you should check to see how much space you have left.
Oblivion Video Settings
- The simplest way to adjust the "Oblivion" graphics settings is to select "Options" from the menu when you run "Oblivion." This is the menu before the game begins; it displays "Play," "Data Files," Options" and so on. In "Options," you can select a setting like "Very Low" or "Low" to make the game run more smoothly. You may want to experiment a bit to see what works best on your computer. For more technical options, select "Options," then "Video" from the in-game menu.
Improvements to your Netbook
- Some netbooks allow you to upgrade the system RAM, but there are practically no netbooks that allow you to upgrade anything else. You should check your netbook's documentation or contact the manufacturer to find out if you have any upgrade options. To help "Oblivion" run smoothly, you should close out all other programs, and if you have any automated processes, like Windows Update or virus scans, you should make sure those do not run while you play the game.

Computer Games