"BT: On a further Xbox to PC issue, there has been much talk of ATI's Unified Shader Architecture in the Xbox 360. However, this technology is not available on PCs currently, and will likely not be until at least the release of Windows Vista at the end of 2006. So will this be a benefit to Xbox users that they have it, or will there be no visible difference in speed for PC users? Will the PC version require being patched to make use of this if and when the technology shifts?

GC: The unified shader architecture definitely does help with the speed of shader processing. Plus, it's completely transparent to developers as the optimization all occurs behind the scenes on the hardware side of things. However, we've optimized our shaders so that the overall difference between Oblivion running on the Xbox 360, and Oblivion running on a fast PC with a Shader Model 3.0 card should be slight. We're locking the framerate at 30fps on the 360 so you probably won't see framerate improvements vs. the PC, but you might see a more stable framerate."

"BT: Speaking of physics, the forests look amazing. And it has been rumored that the trees even sway with wind, which got me thinking. Wind is something that is very difficult...it's hard to think of all the subtle interactions it creates. If there's wind that is swaying trees, etc, will there be leaves blowing free? Will it blow your cape, if your character wears one, or their hair? Or change an arrow's course of flight, since you spent so much time in the effort of making ranged fighting more realistic?

GC: The forests and grass do animate differently in response to changing weather conditions. There are also ambient effects to increase your sense of immersion like leaves falling from trees, butterflies flying around, and birds chattering in the trees above you. No cloth physics unfortunately. We found they are a huge sink for processing time and we'd rather spend it in places that really make a difference to the gameplay like AI. Arrows will shoot through the air using physics; arcing based on force and gravity. Wind won't blow them off course however. I think that would really decrease the fun of archery, and you'd start wanting to clutter the UI with things like wind indicators."