Advantages of a 64 bit OS

[tonkrogerio]

Let me start off by telling you that I am not the most PC literate person on my block o_O let alone in the world lol, Now that we got that out of the way you might forgive my next few newbie questions.

 

I am fairly new to PC gaming, having only gotten my PC last Christmas, and i can run Crysis on my PC on max settings (including the DX10 mod) pretty smoothly.Which is why I get confused when i mod my Oblivion with better cities, qar's 3, FCOM and a few other mods and the darn PC starts struggling like it has a cold.

 

Max system specs:

I7 920 (OC'd to 3:20GHZ)

6 DDR3 Ram

GTX 275 (apparently its a better version, it was about £50 more than the standard, bought online)

Windows xp 32

 

So i guess my question is, is my card just not good enough for modding Oblivion with Qarl's, etc, or is my xp 32 crapping all over my system?

 

Problem is, I downloaded FCOM super pack to try it out and my game still slows down to 25fps at points. This is without any additional mods like BC and Qarls or UL :(

 

I have read an article that told me that a 32 bit OS will have to share the max 3GHZ om ram with the GFX card, could that be the problem? is my game using so much ram that it can't shove more of my card's V memory in?

 

Also, will swamping to Windows 7 pro make a big change in my modded oblivion? will i be able to run mods like open better cities or see everything distant (something i wouldn't even dream of attempting right now), how much extra FPS do you think i would gain and would i virtually eliminate the stuttering? (i can eliminate all the stuttering with fcom supper pack thanks to the ini changes, but frames are still bad in places like Imperial city water front :()

 

Please, I am kinda lost here and i would really appreciate your help, letting me know the advantages of 64 from 32 bit on oblivion or just telling me that my system is simply just not good enough would greatly help :)

 

Thank you for your time.

[Smooth613]

Short answer. Comparing two games on different game engines is pointless, especially totally different genres. In the end there is just so much more going on in Oblivion that has to be processed it's a resource hog. Heavily modded Oblivion can bring even the latest greatest hardware to a crawl. So no you're not going to get a great increase by going to 64 bit OS. Yes you will be able to utilize an extra gig or two of RAM, but again you'll still have stutters and FPS loss when a lot of things are happening at once, especially in a close proximity. Want more FPS? Reduce the number of mods. Use lower resolution texture packs. Turn your settings down. Oh and it's poorly optimized out of the box to start with. That's about it.

[bben46]

Whoever sold you on 6Gig RAM for a 32 bit OS was a real salesman. It can't use all of that RAM.

A 32 bit WinXP system can only use about 3.25Gig of RAM total. And Oblivion is limited to 2Gig total.

 

By going to a 64 bit system, You will be able to use all 6 Gig of ram, but not for Oblivion. (There is an expanded memory fix that allows more RAM on a 64bit system though)

 

If I remember, a 64 bit can theoretically address up to 16 BILLION Gig of ram. But the most I have seen actually usable on a Windows7 system is 'only' 128 Gig.

 

Oblivion was designed to run on a 32 bit XP system, so they never considered the memory limitation to be much of a liability. And it wasn't a problem on the vanilla game with the typical video card of that time. If you go back and read some of the early reviews, the reviewers were blown away by the graphics and smoothness of the game. The high resolution mods and adding so many things with mods is what bogs it down.

 

There are a lot more advantages to using a 64 bit OS for than the huge amount of RAM it can work with. But most aren't going to make your game run much better as it was not designed to take advantage of things like multiple processors, bigger word size and multi threading.

 

My own experience in running Oblivion on Win7 x64 has been it is more stable, and a little faster. Hopefully the next generation of games will make better use of the 64 bit architecture.

[tonkrogerio]

lol at bben's answer, yeah i was aware of the limitations due to ram in 32 bit but i wasn't sold my PC by a sales man, i got all my gear online and my mate made it for me, unfortunately due to money i couldn't afford a better os so i thought i would get it later, this might very well be later :P

 

On the other hand, I have seen people commenting on youtube etc about the mods they have on their oblivion and how well they run the game, most people who comment end up having a worst system than i do (downgrade gfx from mine, etc. Usually around the same CPU though) but they all have 64 bit, i wouldn't dare run my game with see everything mods cause my pc would die :(. Made me wonder if it isn't because my game is heavily modded and it is taking away ram resources when my gfx card is supposed to be doing some work nether.

 

I guess theoretically when my PC wants more ram it steals it from the gfx card and when it wants more vmem it steals it from my ram making the game struggle for fps and ram ALL the time, (IE: for example, if the game needs 1.5g ram then it is only using 400MB of Vmem) if this is the case then it certainly explains why people with weaker PCs are able to run BC, UL, FCOM and the see everything mods without going under 15fps

 

In said instance i expect that if i upgrade then i will be able to use my gfx card's full power and it should theoretically raise my frame rates a good bunch, would this be an accurate description or am i missing something?

[tonkrogerio]

UPDATE:

 

Well, i have upgraded to windows 7 and the 4gb patch. I am getting much better fps, around 5 to 20 frames more o_O is this natural?

 

Frames did rarely hit 25 for brief periods in IC water front but most of the time it was at a constant 30+.

 

Around 40 to 70 to be exact

Edited October 20, 2010 by tonkrogerio

[Megatarius]

That's pretty good. I use the 4 gig patch as well, and I actually don't notice a lick of difference, but some people do. I don't use Quarl's, but I do use Really Almost Everything Visible When Distant, and that will choke any machine. (I deleted a lot of the stuff that mod uses, like all the little rocks. Who cares about seeing that from a distance?)

 

Also, you should know that Oblivion can't use more than one core. That newfangled i7 might as well be a Pentium.

[tonkrogerio]

yeah i changed the ini to allow multi processor but didn't see much diff :S

as for the RAEVWD, isn't there a tone down version of it? meh, don't mater to me as i get around 70 to 90fps in most parts outside, its inside cities or at the ports that my fps starts to drop. how much fps do you think that will eat up and how do i delete stuff?

[Megatarius]

Wait a minute. You were able to allow more than one core in the .ini? What did you change?

 

I don't know if there's a toned down version of the visible when distant mod, but here's how you can make one yourself:

 

Download and install RAEVWD. Download and install Tes4LODGen.

Before running Tes4LODGen, go into your Data folder and delete some files.

I'm not on the right computer, so I can't tell you exactly right now, but they are in the Meshes folder. Look under architecture, look under Dungeons. You're looking for files that have the _far phrase in their names.

They have a naming convention that takes some time to learn, but is worth it.

For instance "smrock" is probably small rock. These are useless and just eat up framerate. Delete all those. The wording might be different. I forget.

Runestone is the hestra and doom stones. Keep if you want to see those from a distance. Small Rune Stones are the little rocks that surround the Doom stones. I delete them.

Also, a lot of the fort and Aylied Ruins _far.nif files are stuff like statues and doors. These are not necessary. The statues especially eat up frames. The fort ruin meshes contain small rock walls that are like knee high. They look really good up close but are pointless from a distance. Deleting the distance meshes for doors and stairs will not really cause any problems. Just leave the main buildings intact.

You might want to open each one in Nifskope to see what it is. Sometimes you still can't tell, so be careful. I accidentally deleted part of the Aylied Wells, and now they look like hovering rings from a distance. (Their tops are separate from their sides.)

I like to keep farmhouses, piers, bridges, runestones, wayshrines, Aylied main buildings and fort main buildings. I don't care about seeing fences, signs, rock walls, rocks and boulders, and cave entrances from a distance.

Even with all that trimmed out, I'm still pretty laggy outside. I just go with it. I like what it looks like and I like being able to see what's in the distance.

 

Good luck. :thumbsup:

[tonkrogerio]

What!!! with your PC i was expecting you to kill oblivion o_O

here is a link for the ini changes but it wont do much, you might however be able to get less stuttering by tweaking the ram stuff in the ini if you didn't already know :S (same page). http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1081188-guide-how-to-smooth-pc-oblivion-fps/ (scroll down to "Oblivion .ini File Tweaks")

 

 

PS i heard that you can put down the visibility of things when far away in the ini and that increase the fps a lot but its ok cause the mod covers it so you wont need it in the ini as much, if you need it i can look it up and find it for you.

 

PPS, are we allowed to change the topic this much? o_O