A lag.

[archer9]

After a year of not playing Oblivion I decided to play once more this wonderful game. I installed it and pasted in all the mods I used to play. But something weird happens that I have never experienced before in Oblivion. It's a lag. The game kind of stops for a very very short time (Like half a second) and then continues working. And it happens regulary. (Each 5-10 seconds.) You might say that is no big deal, but for me it is, because with time it gets extremely annoying. What could be causing this?

 

Things that I am sure are not causing it:

*Mods. (it doesen't matter if I play vanilla Oblivion or with all mods enabled - the lag persists)

*Hardware (A year ago I played oblivion without this lag, and I haven't changed my PC hardware in any way. I have once reinstalled the OS. I have xp, if it matters.)

 

+kudos for any help/suggestions.

[SkunkMonkey]

If I had to make a guess, I'd say you have a background process that's running and stealing CPU cycles.

 

Make sure you shut off anything running in your system tray that you do not need while playing the game. I disable both my disk optimizing software as well as my A/V software. I'm not going online or downloading files so I feel safe disabling my A/V while playing.

 

Consider visiting Black Viper's Windows Tweaks website. This is an invaluable resource for finding out what useless services you can turn off/disable in Windows.

 

Good luck!

Skunky

[ericazwel]

Try these out. I have had success with Oblivion Stutter Remover to help with lags, jumpiness and, as the mod indicates, stutters.

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23208

 

The tweaks guide is also very good at providing information on optimizing your system and the game.

 

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

 

Hope those help.

[archer9]

@ SkunkMonkey: I always disable all the unneeded processes. Including av software. That can't be the problem. I have aplied many XP tweaks and thanks to that I can run many games on my low-end system which I couldn't by default.

 

@ ericazwel Thank you. I'll try it and inform you of any success. (Although I am already running three or four performance mods.)

 

Thank you for your replies.

 

 

EDIT: Nope, no luck. A little something, that I noticed. The lag happens even when I open the map (where frame rate increases considerably.). What could that mean? It's certainly not graphic issues. Because even if I set the graphics all to minimum (which is ridiculous even for my old rig), the lag persists.

 

I have tried reinstalling the game, still no success. Well... looks pretty hopeless to me.

[archer9]

Well.. I reinstalled the game once again. This time on a different drive. Defragmented hard disc and even cleaned out the dust. Still... no success. Ok, I'm desperate now. :dry:

[Pronam]

Go to your oblivion .ini and set both bMusicEnabled and bSoundEnabled to 0...What then happens then?

Get something like GameBooster to shut down processes for the moment you wouldn't need anyway as you're playing the game.

Anything with HP-software...?

[archer9]

Go to your oblivion .ini and set both bMusicEnabled and bSoundEnabled to 0...What then happens then?

Thanks for this advice. It is clear now that the issue is caused by the sound.

 

Get something like GameBooster to shut down processes for the moment you wouldn't need anyway as you're playing the game.

Anything with HP-software...?

Thanks. Gamebooster seems to have helped a bit. The lag has reduced a little. No, I am not using any HP software.

 

So, is there anything I can do about the sound? Playing with out it isn't quite as satisfying.

[bben46]

If you are not playing on a laptop, get a separate sound card. The on board sound steals clock cycles from the cpu and eats memory from the system RAM. Be sure to disable the onboard sound in the BIOS settings when you install a new card.

 

For game playing you don't need a super deluxe sound card that costs more than your motherboard. A simple low end card will cost less than US$30 from an online store, ( i found one for US$10) even less on ebay. You can probably use your existing speakers.

[archer9]

Thank you for your advice. I will definitely try that.

[ericazwel]

If you are not playing on a laptop, get a separate sound card. The on board sound steals clock cycles from the cpu and eats memory from the system RAM. Be sure to disable the onboard sound in the BIOS settings when you install a new card.

 

For game playing you don't need a super deluxe sound card that costs more than your motherboard. A simple low end card will cost less than US$30 from an online store, ( i found one for US$10) even less on ebay. You can probably use your existing speakers.

 

Holy smokes. I have tweaked, upgraded, defragged, modded, tweaked some more and I still experienced stuttering and lag. I have most of the optimization mods and was close to upgrading my motherboard and CPU. Thanks to bben, I went out, bought a $30 sound card and my frame rate has nearly doubled. As a daily reader of these posts, I'm surprised that this is the first time I can recall seeing anything regarding a sound card. Cheap, and it works. Thanks again, bben. Add another kudo to your collection.

 

azwel