PC:  This is the first time I've actually laid eyes on the game, aside from the previous batches of screenshots and video clips. We ran it on Dan's machine, since mine decided to start my week by crapping out on me. He has a Dell XPS Gen 4 with a GeForce 7800GTX, 3.4GHz P4, 2GB of PC3200 RAM and some SATA hard drives. It runs fast. Oblivion auto-detected the settings at Ultra High, albeit at 1024x768, with no anti-aliasing. Bethesda recently announced that the PC version of ES4 cannot have both HDR and AA, but it looked quite nice with just HDR. Load times are faster on the PC, but the visuals are about equal. The 360 version of Oblivion does both HDR and AA and runs natively at 1280x720. If you have a 360 and a video card that's less powerful than a 6800GT or Radeon X850, I would recommend getting the 360 version. As with Morrowind, Oblivion is a demanding game.

Xbox 360: In populated areas or environments with large amount of geometry, the framerate definitely drops off. However, at no point does it become unplayable, it's just not as smooth as lurking around underground dungeons. Regardless of framerate, Oblivion is so far displaying some of the best visuals on the Xbox 360. Even with the low resolution textures in the extreme backgrounds, the sheer amount of visible land when wandering outside is a sight to behold. While trekking across Cyrodiil's fields it's impossible not to notice object pop-up. It happens frequently, with grass and smaller objects appearing at a distinct radius around your character. Like the sometimes sluggish framerates, this in no way diminishes the playability of the game.