Is This The Correct Forum To Talk About BASH and Other Tools?

[Striker879]

You are off and running (and with those two as some of your first installs you'll be gaining experience like my guy did with his Alteration, spamming the Shield spell to gain the skill advances he needed for level-up).

 

Level 10, Strength and Endurance at 100 ... this guy is rockin'.

[hlipp]

It sounds like you're running the OOO mod. Is there a good place to find information about it? The URL referenced on the Nexus mod page for OOO as having a good Readme returns a 404 Not Found page.

 

One of these days I'll actually play the game!

[Striker879]

No I don't use any overhauls on this playthrough. Once I get my new machine built (still accumulating pieces for it) I intend to run Maskars Oblivion Overhaul (MOO). My current machine needs a bit more in the RAM and graphics department to comfortably run mods that add more NPCs, especially something like MOO or OOO that are adding NPCs who are bent on killing you. In my opinion the advantage that MOO offers over OOO is that it's a new mod, designed from the ground up to be customizable via INI files to suit your own preferences.

 

Before you get too far down the road of adding mods you need to confirm that the game runs properly after you've exited the sewers. The tutorial dungeon doesn't give you a good read on how the game will react to your current load order in the outside world. Make your before the exit save and then exit and make another save just outside the sewers. Cross over to Vilverin and bonk the bandits on their heads and confirm your body replacers are working. Go to the Imperial City Market District and see how your machine/load order likes having lots of NPCs around. The wilderness and IC Market District (especially during the day when there's lots of activity) are your prime mod testing territories ... a save made in each will help speed up the process.

[hlipp]

The setting determined when I first played the game was Medium. I've got 8GB of Ram, an Intel Core i3-4130 CPU @ 3.40 GHz, and an Intel® HD Graphics 4400 card. To figure out graphics, I right-click on the Desktop, then in the context menu click Screen Resolution then Advanced Settings, and the ensuing window shows the following:

Total Available Graphics Memory: 1792 MB

Dedicated Video Memory: 0 MB

System Video Memory: 0 MB

Shared System Memory: 1792 MB

 

I'm not sure how to interpret this. Apparently the game has up to 1792 MB of video memory at its disposable (which seems like a lot), but does it have access to all of it, or just some of it? This was something I had set aside to research at some point. I'm not a computer hardware whiz, but just thinking this through, it seems obvious that when the game is playing, there IS NO OTHER video that can be displayed on the screen, so why couldn't the game use ALL of the 1792 MB of video memory? Perhaps there is some cap below the maximum of 1792 MB, above which the game can't access. Perhaps this cap, if one exists, can be adjusted? These are things I just don't know at this point.

 

Edit: I'll probably exit the sewers before installing any other mods at all, and see what the everything looks like. OOO sounds like a good mod, but I'm getting the impression that all I'll be doing with it is getting killed. Is there some option in the game where you can reduce the difficulty? I've been reading some comments suggesting this, but not specifically how to do it.

Edited December 11, 2014 by hlipp

[Striker879]

The Intel HD Graphics 4400 is an on-board grahics solution (as opposed to a discrete or separate graphics card that goes into a slot on the motherboard). It doesn't have memory dedicated for it's exclusive use like a discrete card, it shares the system RAM with the CPU. If the CPU needs lots of memory the graphics suffers (and vice versa, but it's usually the graphics that takes it on the chin). Having 8GB of RAM total will alleviate how often and how bad, but won't eliminate the problem.

 

Best that you can do is prepare your machine before playing. Shutdown all unnecessary programs and processes before starting the game. I've seen advice to use a utility called GameBooster to get as many as possible shutdown, but I have no experience with it (I'm always on a desktop machine with a discrete video card).

 

This also makes it even more imperative to exit the sewers and see how the game handles ... the closer that test is to just the vanilla game the better your baseline will be once you start adding mods. Make sure to use these three scenarios in all tests ... an outside area with lots of grass and trees (these settings can be tweaked in the game menus and in the INI file), a battle with more than one opponent (here Vilverin fits the bill for a low level player, and is right across from the sewers ... fight both at once, the test isn't can you survive it's does your machine handle the load) and finally the IC Market District during the day time when it's busy.

 

Having a save in each of these scenarios makes testing much simpler. The hill on the road going up towards Chorrol starting at Fort Nikel is a pretty good grassy spot and there's trees just at the top of the hill (and usually the bandit that spawns near the top of the hill doesn't spawn until you've been past the spot once or twice). Don't fret about things like watching your skills for level-up and stuff like that (ya, I use the vanilla leveling system and micromanage). My testing sessions often take on a just have fun look ... one of the things I like to keep track of as I'm adding mods is how stable the game is. You add mods you get more crashes, simple as that. The longer test sessions allow me to get a feel for current stability, giving me a frame of reference for when I add the next mod. I nearly always know which of my mods affects stability. Yes it takes me longer than most to get my game set up to my liking ... I do micromanage more than my level-ups.

 

- Edit - I'm not sure how well your machine would handle it, but MOO offers a vast range of tweaks via the INI file, including more than one aspect affecting difficulty.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Striker879

[hlipp]

I downloaded the installers for three Game Boosters, one from IOBIT, the other two from RAZOR (version 4.1.59.0_1, the other 4.2.45.0). I'll do some research on user experience with these products later. It sounds like I could really use one of these utilities, especially for mods like OOO and MOO. I'm going to follow your advice about testing the game as it plays now with the mods I have (OCO v2 and the body replacers). It seems like it's been forever, but I'm actually going to start playing the game! I can't thank you enough for all the help and advice you've given me. I know much more now than I did a few days ago.

[Striker879]

No trouble ... kept me busy doing something besides playing the game. Weather this time of year doesn't scream out "Get yer butt outside and do something" if you know what I mean.

 

Play enough to get a really good feel for the base game. OCO v2 and the body replacers don't add much in the way of demands on your machine (a bit larger texture size than vanilla for the bodies and a few more polys on the meshes). As you add mods and test you'll have a good idea how each affects your own machine, which is far more relevant information than how things work on someone else's machine.

 

Have fun and don't be a stranger.

[hlipp]

It really hit home what you said about game performance. I can imagine that it takes a lot of computing power to handle multiple character situations. I'm going to start a thread on game boosters later on today to see what I can find out about them and determine which version is considered best. Would I be correct in assuming that my system as it is now wouldn't take much of a hit with mods that don't involve characters? Mods that improve the environment but that don't add quests and characters, like Natural Environments, for example?

Edited December 11, 2014 by hlipp

[Striker879]

Any mods that improve the game graphics will be a "test and see if it works" situation. NPCs and quests will add to the workload, but that is mostly handled by modern CPUs without too much difficulty. Graphics will always be your bottleneck.