Oblivion Slow FPS - Is this normal? Help.

[Nexus Set]

quick question: can i just install a 32bit OS event though my processor is 64bit ??? lol very noobish i just never wondered ;p

quick answer: yes. but I'd take bben's advice too if I was in your spot. :)

[edumazieri]

I get it about the memory usage. I will upgrade soon BUT,

 

why does it run on a very smooth fps (at least 40) everywhere, except when the NPC is IN FRONT OF ME.

 

i mean, if i turn my back to the npc, it gets back to 40 lol or 60 most of the time. or even much more.

 

the ONLY THING IN THE WHOLE OBLIVION WORLD that ever causes my fps to drop are npcs.

at least, drop below 30.

 

it does seem like a graphical related thing much mroe than a memory or cpu one (maybe cpu, but how?)

 

 

 

i have some background processes, but no antivirus etc, nothing that would suck up too much ram or processing.

i mean, if it was sucking off cpu or ram... i would get slow down on the whole game, and not just when facing some stupid npc.

[edumazieri]

btw, even dead ones. so its not AI related i believe. also, animals too. so maybe it isn't related to "face gens" or whatever else oblivion does to humanoids.

 

also one last note;

 

i had oblivion on this same pc a few months ago, and i do remember slow downs, but not really the same ones from now.

i mean, i could run through an entire dungeon at very good fps. and kill 30 enemies in one screen.

[bben46]

There is no one magic answer to speed up your system. It could be any of a lot of things - such as a newly acquired virus or spyware that you haven't caught yet.

 

As to why NPCs? They are the most FPS intensive things in the game. When you 'see' an NPC, the game has to start calculating what that NPC will do in the next few milliseconds, and have a set of movements ready to go. Dead NPCs are not static objects, they are still NPCs and the game expects them to move just as any other NPC.

 

Have you tried the suggestions in the article yet? If you have a separate sound card did you shut off the on board sound in the BIOS? Have you tried backing off on the video settings to see if there is any effect?

 

Have you gone through the vista part of the Tweak Guides yet - most of that will apply to Win7 also. Have you gone through the video card settings in the Tweak Guides? or have you jumped straight into the game tweaks without optimizing both your system and video first?

 

Tweaking is not an exact science. :wallbash: Every system and game is different and will require a different solution. :rolleyes: Every mod you add or remove can have an effect, small changes in the load order can have an effect. Even updating some entirely unrelated program can affect things like FPS in the game. (Skype or Vonage come to mind)

 

Be patient and keep trying things - It's always the last thing you try that works. :thumbsup:

[Nexus Set]

Oblivion has no problems running on 2GB RAM on a 32bit OS though, just so you know.

[bben46]

When I first started playing Oblivion, I was on an XP Pro 32 bit sys with 2 gig of ram. Adding just one more gig - without changing anything else, made a dramatic difference. Especially in combat with multiple opponents.

With 4G and Win7 x64 it is even better.

[edumazieri]

@bben

 

well i DO believe there is a magic answer because my friend over there has 60fps and everybody else does.

i think... something is wrong at this exact one thing and that is causing all the mess.

 

 

about your guide it is very good, but i did go through all of it. the possible causes that i have tested:

 

SOUND: no, i tried those mods like quiet feet, and actually tried disabling sound altogheter. no help.

 

VIDEO SETTINGS IN-GAME: no, it does enhance a little of my fps running with the LOWEST POSSIBLE ones but still, major slow downs (10-15 fps) with more then 5 npcs on my front. and probably the only reason it enhanced the fps was because of the Actor Fade, meaning less npcs on my screen.

 

VIDEO SETTINGS ON NVIDIA CP: i dont use any of the Forced things in there, except for vsync, and yes i did try disabling it, enablingi n game, enabling both, etc, all the possible combinations in there i tested. or maybe not. but i don't know which one will help, because as far as video settings are concerned, none of them seem to affect my FPS AT ALL. so its like, i run the game at same fps using FULL GRAPHICS (full res, full AA AA HDR whatever) than with low textures, and etc. its like... something at those stupid npcs bodys is causing the fps, and not any other setting.

 

INI TWEAKING: tried most of them. stuff for multi threads, actor settings (these i tought would work), tried running in win xp compat mode...

 

MODS: disabling or enabling them has little to no performance impact. with them or without them is the same. and i have LOTS of them.

I tried one today but i guess it didn'twork and it would really be helpful. It deletes corpses of npcs making it so only 5 are possible in each cell (or something). well...

 

SYSTEM STUFF (DRIVERS, WINDOWS..): my system does run every game pretty well. intensive ones. Batman Arkham Asylum, SHIFT, etc etc etc. so i guess if some stupid virus or process was killing my performance... it would CERTAINLY kill those games too. so its an OBLIVION specific thing.

only thing not yet tried is FORMAT, lol, but i'll leave that for last.

 

 

 

 

anyway.

i did all that. i'll be looking around the .ini file today... seeing if i can disable something crappy about the NPCS...

 

but it pisses me off that its this little thing thats killing all the game for me ;\

[edumazieri]

well i'll think about the RAM but... just doesn't sound like that is the matter.

 

i mean how come EVERYWHERE in the world is a perfectly nice FPS and its like. 90% worse with npcs in front of me.

dead or alive or moving or whatever. i mean, just turning my back to them is enough for 10-15 fps to become 60!!!! its cracy ¬¬

[MikeHibs]

quick question: can i just install a 32bit OS event though my processor is 64bit ??? lol very noobish i just never wondered ;p

 

Yes, you can install a 32-bit operating system on a 64-bit processor.

Just about all modern processors are 64-bit, for desktops.

64-bit processors are rare on laptops.

[Illiad86]

^ sry, lol, but wut? All modern processors are 64 bit...the only way a laptop would not have a 64 bit processor is if you had one from 2002 or earlier. 64 bit processors have been out since the 60s technically, but weren't made mainstream until 2003. Remember the Athlon 64?...omg so godly :D

 

you needs more RAM surely, hun. Windows 7 uses almost 1GB of RAM just sitting there. That leaves you with a GB to play Oblivion with...and I believe it uses about 2GB...so when you are out of RAM, it starts using your paging file, which is on your HDD, and that's slow.

 

My grandma has Win7 64 with 3GB of RAM and that's not enough...The Sims 3 uses a horrible amount of RAM (I think the stupid game has a memory leak) and the game drags down.