Looking for advice on system upgrades to help improve performance

[woodtortiose]

Hello,

 

First, a little history. I started playing Obliv about 3 years ago (on the same system I have now), played the hell out of it, and about two years ago I uninstalled and deleted my collection of downloaded mods. I generally played with a pretty full mod list and with lots of experimenting the game was usually pretty stable.

 

I started missing Cyrodil and decided to reinstall and get Obliv up and running again. I had uninstalled because I had explored Cyrodil so thouroughly that I became bored, and I wanted to avoid that this time around by changing the look and feel as much as possible. I downloaded a bunch of mods ('bout a thousand or so), focusing heavily on city revamps/expansions, texture replacers, and added content/towns/quests. I also started fooling around with TESGeckos merging function, and I've got around 400 mods merged into about 40, and my plugin total of about 240 really means 600. Needless to say this is a heavy load for my poor old computer to bear. I've spent a substantial chunk of the last two months testing and debugging these various merged plugins, and although I'm sure that there are still lots of bugs, its relatively stable. The problem primarily is with my texture pack compilation (which includes Qarls redimized). This mod, one of the last that I load, cripples my system. Again, I'm aware that I'm trying to do something above and beyond what Bethesda intended or my computer can handle, but I'm sure that there are systems that can handle it, and if a few upgrades can allow me to play this immensely modded game I've spent two months putting together, than its well worth it to me.

 

Here are my system specs:

 

Dell Inspiron 530

Intel Core 2 Quad CPU

Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 2.40GHz

ACPI x86

3326 MB Ram

32 bit OS Vista Home Premium

NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT

Realtek High Definition Audio

 

 

I guess my questions would be

 

1. Are there any component upgrades (video or sound card, more ram, etc) that would substantially improve performance, and if so what?

2. Are there any tricks/tips to making Obliv run better on a quad core processor? (I'm not terribly computer savvy, and I dont really understand what exactly quad core means)

 

 

I should mention that I'm using the lastest OBSE, streamline, operation optimization, Oblivion crash prevention system, the stutter remover, wrye bash, and obmm. I've looked at the 3gb enabler, but I havent been able to find specific instructions on how to use it with vista 32, not to mention the many conflicting reports as to whether it even works. I'd love advice regarding that if anyone has any.

 

One last thing while I'm here. Does anyone know what would cause the borders to be enabled ingame when they are disabled in the ini? Its no doubt a mod conflict of some kind, maybe someones had the same problem.

 

Anyway, thanks for the read and any help. Cheers!

[Carthean]

better graphics card? yes maybe if you really want to. ram? no i dont think you really need more than 3gb of ram.

 

if you google "oblivion INI tweaks" you can find to tips to help optimize oblivion for multi core processors, to be honest I didnt find any difference but you might.

unfortunatly oblivion wasnt made for multicore pcs for some silly reason so apart from upgrades, but your pc seems to be quite good specs anyway, there isnt really a great way to improve performance.

 

There are also some mods on tesnexus to help framerates if this helps.