4GB RAM

[feygan]

No doubt this has been asked a thousand times before, but I can't find anything online about it in detail.

 

So to ask one very quick question, is there anyway to take advantage of 4gig of ram running vista 64 OS for oblivion?

[Varus Torvyn]

No doubt this has been asked a thousand times before, but I can't find anything online about it in detail.

 

So to ask one very quick question, is there anyway to take advantage of 4gig of ram running vista 64 OS for oblivion?

 

Oblivion is a 32-bit program, so it will only operate within the maximum memory limits that a 32-bit app can use. You would have to have an Oblivion written in 64-bit code to take advantage of more RAM.

[nosisab]

Yes, mainly with Vista64 that uses lots of ram for itself, and more if you take into account all the processes running in the background. But the extent of the advantages depends on so many factors to be answered in general terms. For the game itself Varus Torvyn is correct since the thread's number is limited in the ini file and by the somewhat ancient engine not being optimized to make good use of multi-core CPUs.

 

The kick answer is: the most RAM the OS can and have to manage, the better... most of the times...

[feygan]

So in short then, all i can do is have as much ram as possible so that vista can use all it wants for background processess and still leave over 2gig for oblivion?

[bben46]

I found this a while back, Maybe there is something in it that will help. Use at your own risk.

 

 

Begin Quote

Follow the instruction and use the programs included in the mod to allow Oblivion to use up to 3gb of memory instead of 2gb.

 

Reports of the effects and benefits of doing this have been a mixed bag. Some notice no difference, some claim better performace, and others claim worse performance.

 

NOTE: This was not created by me. I found this online. All credits go to the original creators.

 

NOTE 2: I have this working with OBSE v16. Just leave the edited Oblivion.exe file name the same name and load Oblivion through OBSE_loader.exe.

 

Editted by Chimera.

Originally by unknown source for S.T.A.L.K.E.R CTD issues.

 

 

****** VERY IMPORTANT: IF YOU ARE USING AN x64 OPERATING SYSTEM:

****** SKIP THE "DIRECTIONS" SECTION.

 

Introduction:

 

This is for intermediate to advanced Windows users.

Follow the instructions carefully...the risk is minimal, as long as you backup your Oblivion.exe.

 

This will enable Oblivion to use over 2GB of memory in the application space. It uses conventional tools using a batch file so everyone can see nothing suspicious goes on.

This tool will automatically set the header in the Oblivion.exe so that it can address more than 2GB memory.

Normally XP will only address up to 2GB memory for applications and 2Gb for the kernel.

If we add a boot.ini switch /3GB, then XP is allowed to address up to 3GB for applications.

But unfortunately only applications that are enabled with "IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE" header can utilize more than 2GB of the space.

 

I highly recommend you look at some official information here at microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platf...PAE/PAEmem.mspx

 

_________________________________________________________________________

 

Directions:

 

First you need to tell XP/Vista that it can use more than 2GB of RAM for applications.

Manually edit your boot.ini file by adding " /3GB /Userva=2900" to your boot.ini (no quotes).

Your boot.ini is normally read only and you will need to change that temporarily while you edit it.

To do this, right-click the file and untick "Read Only". After editing the file, restore the Read-only status.

To Edit it manually you can find it on the root of your system drive or

go to system properties/advanced tab, settings under 'startup and recovery' section, then hit edit.

 

Mine looks like: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional" /FASTDETECT /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /3GB /Userva=2900

 

Yours maybe different, the only thing you should change is add " /3GB /Userva=2900".

 

____________________________________________________________________________

 

Now for the tool to enable Oblivion to use more than 2GB...

 

*** Important: First make a backup original of you Oblivion.exe, by renaming the copy to Oblivion.exe.original ***

 

The tool will add the "LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE" header for you to your executable.

Copy Oblivion.exe to this folder.

Doubleclick startme.bat then the menu walks you through.

1) Hit the A key to add the large address header.

2) Press any key to continue.

3) When back at main menu hit 'V' to output the headers in text so you can see the values.

4) Now you can check to see if it is enabled. Scroll to the top and look for section "FILE HEADER VALUES". Look for a line in that section that says "Application can handle large (>2GB) addresses". It's the tenth line down in that section. If you see that line then the executable is now enabled for >2GB, you are done.

5) Copy the enabled Oblivion.exe back to your Oblivion folder.

6) To avoid any strange issues with future patches, I suggest you rename your 3GB capable Oblivion.exe to something else like Oblivion3GB.exe, then make a shortcut to it on your desktop. In the meanwhile, keep the original where it belongs and you will avoid any possible patching or online issues.

 

 

At anytime if you want to remove the large address header then you can restore you original backed up exe or use the app and use the Remove function and it will remove the header. Once you run ® to remove the header you have the original exe back, the MD5 hashes do match.

 

 

No strange side effects have been witnessed, but glad I can play some big games now.

[nosisab]

good finding, bben. Now to get advantage from the augmented RAM, one may want to look at the Tweak guide site for the several ini entries that can benefit from it.

 

This will be a try and retry process most of times, yet I think the related to threads numbers wield the more promising results, by meaning of more scripts being run together and the likes. Graphics related entries must be thought carefully because they may traduce in more strain to the whole system (where I think the bad performance reports came). Actually, is in the equilibrium CPU-Videocard capacities and usage where better setups will be achieved. Being able to identify what is bottlenecking the system more, would be a big help.

 

Anyway these are things that should be attempted by power users only.