Seemingly Random FPS Dips

[gstark1]

Hi, I'm experiencing FPS issues seemingly at random. My system runs a pretty steady 25-30 FPS both indoors and out, but at times it drops to maybe 2-3 per second it seems for anywhere from a few seconds to some undetermined point upon which I just load my last save..let's say "minutes"

 

I've found I can usually get the game to respond properly again by a combination of tabbing out, accessing the in-game menu, and / or accessing inventory. I've noticed these issues when talking with shopkeepers, fighting, walking, running for my life...like I said, random.

 

System Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ (2.60Ghz)

4GB RAM DDR2

Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT (512 MB)

HD - 89.7 GB Free

Running Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit

 

Here's my mod order using BOSS (also running OSR):

 

 

Oblivion.esm

Oscuro's_Oblivion_Overhaul.esm (OOO 1.34beta5 Full)

Mart's Monster Mod.esm (3.7b3)

Mart's Monster Mod for OOO.esm (3.7b3)

Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp

UOP Vampire Aging & Face Fix.esp

Oblivion Citadel Door Fix.esp

DLCShiveringIsles.esp

Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch.esp

Purge Cell Buffers - Loading.esp

Living Economy.esp

Living Economy - Items.esp

Crowded Roads Revisited.esp

Oscuro's_Oblivion_Overhaul.esp

OOO-Map_Markers_Stock.esp

Mart's Monster Mod for OOO.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Shivering Isles.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Diverse Imperial Armor.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Gems & Gem Dust.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Hunting & Crafting.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Looting NPCs & Creatures.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Less Bone Loot.esp

Mart's Monster Mod for OOO - LessReaversInGates.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Safer Roads.esp

Mart's Monster Mod for OOO - NoReaversInGates.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - No Undead Rise.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Safer Quest Locations.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Dungeons of MMM.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - More Wilderness Life.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - City Defences.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Friendlier Factions OOO.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Diverse Runeskulls Loot OOO.esp

Knights.esp

Knights - Unofficial Patch.esp

Mart's Monster Mod for OOO - Knights .esp

Harvest [Flora].esp

Harvest [Flora] - Shivering Isles.esp

Quest Award Leveller.esp

Quest Award Leveller - Knights of the Nine.esp

MidasSpells.esp

No psychic guards v1.2.esp

CombatFPSOptimizer.esp

Oblivion XP.esp

OOO-Level_Stock.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Resized Races.esp

[GFX]_Initial_Glow-all.esp

SaddleBag.esp

NoLoad.esp

Enchanting_and_Spellmaking-6322.esp

 

 

Any ideas? Never noticed these FPS issues playing Vanilla, so I'm pretty sure it's a mod issue somewhere. Thanks in advance.

[Hickory]

A frame rate dip in Oblivion is par for the course, particularly with large overhaul mods, texture packs, hi-res clothing/armour mods, etc. Also, if you have a mod that purges the cell buffers, every thime you re-enter that cell Oblivion has to re-load the entire meshes and textures. creating stuttering and fps drop. I think those kind of mods should be avoided, unless you have a very low end system.

[gstark1]

A frame rate dip in Oblivion is par for the course, particularly with large overhaul mods, texture packs, hi-res clothing/armour mods, etc. Also, if you have a mod that purges the cell buffers, every thime you re-enter that cell Oblivion has to re-load the entire meshes and textures. creating stuttering and fps drop. I think those kind of mods should be avoided, unless you have a very low end system.

 

Yes, I can see how having large mods would cause a dip, but I'm experiencing random FPS drops. For example, walking through a ruin, killing some bandits, FPS is at 30. I go around a corner, kill one bandit, then BAM single digit FPS, can't aim, another bandit running at me (in stop motion animation lol). This is very typical. Or talking to a merchant, buying some stuff then BAM, mouse won't move smoothly, can't click very well...

[Hickory]

That is strange. One thing that should not be overlooked is your Windows security. In other words, scan for any malware, viruses etc., and clean out your temporary folders. If you're ABSOLUTELY sure that Windows is clean, then try disabling any and all FPS optimisers and start a new game. You don't have to stick with the new game, but it's an important troubleshooting step, so that you can rule out any save game problems. If you still get issues with optimisers disabled, then you need to go through all of your mods in the same way -- go to stock Oblivion, if that's what it takes. Hopefully, you will discover if, and which, mods are causing your problem -- don't forget any OBSE/OBGE plugins, too.

[MorpheusDruidic]

Id get rid of Purge Cell Buffers - Loading.esp. Imo thats just going to force a loading screen every time u go through a door or a cell needs to load preventing a instant cell transition, Besides you can do it yourself in the console or set it in the Oblivion.ini without a extra script constantly running. Purging cell buffers is also known to cause more stuttering then performance gain (Stuff that WAS loaded..will have to load again). You also have 4gb of ram..YOU DONT need to purge your buffers ( why purge 256mb when 3gb is still free?) if anything you need Oblivion to allocate more available ram.

 

Enter your console, Type TDT, Type Setdebugtext 13, now pay attention to how much Texture memory is being used. if the value is over what your video card has on it Oblivion will stutter (i used to use a 512Mb 3870, and right after the texture usage went over 500, it would stutter, my new 1GB card fixed that :thumbsup: )

 

Also if you have excessive drive activity this can also cause Oblivion to stutter. Even a Anti-Virus's Resident shield going through your Oblivion directory can cause performance loss. Id also run a full scan of your system as the mouse not responding is just plain wierd, or its a $20 wireless combo in which case you get what u pay for :wallbash:.

 

A nVidia 9400GT is also a pretty low end card and probably cant even tottally utitilize all 512Mb. Ive had 3 Video cards with DDR2 on them and i hate them all. Seems cards these days need DDR3 or better if you want any real perfromance out of them. Size doesnt matter as much as the speed (keep your mind out of the gutter at this point :sweat: ) and the memory bandwidth of your card is a whopping 12Gb/sec. (modern cards are doing 70Gb/sec and high end cards go 250Gb/sec)

[gstark1]

Id get rid of Purge Cell Buffers - Loading.esp. Imo thats just going to force a loading screen every time u go through a door or a cell needs to load preventing a instant cell transition, Besides you can do it yourself in the console or set it in the Oblivion.ini without a extra script constantly running. Purging cell buffers is also known to cause more stuttering then performance gain (Stuff that WAS loaded..will have to load again). You also have 4gb of ram..YOU DONT need to purge your buffers ( why purge 256mb when 3gb is still free?) if anything you need Oblivion to allocate more available ram.

 

Enter your console, Type TDT, Type Setdebugtext 13, now pay attention to how much Texture memory is being used. if the value is over what your video card has on it Oblivion will stutter (i used to use a 512Mb 3870, and right after the texture usage went over 500, it would stutter, my new 1GB card fixed that :thumbsup: )

 

Also if you have excessive drive activity this can also cause Oblivion to stutter. Even a Anti-Virus's Resident shield going through your Oblivion directory can cause performance loss. Id also run a full scan of your system as the mouse not responding is just plain wierd, or its a $20 wireless combo in which case you get what u pay for :wallbash:.

 

A nVidia 9400GT is also a pretty low end card and probably cant even tottally utitilize all 512Mb. Ive had 3 Video cards with DDR2 on them and i hate them all. Seems cards these days need DDR3 or better if you want any real perfromance out of them. Size doesnt matter as much as the speed (keep your mind out of the gutter at this point :sweat: ) and the memory bandwidth of your card is a whopping 12Gb/sec. (modern cards are doing 70Gb/sec and high end cards go 250Gb/sec)

 

Removed the Purge mod.

Did the TDT and Setdebugtext 13. Inside Horn Cave Still Pools, hit a FPS lag. Memory was 153.47, FPS was 21. Lag died off after a few seconds. Going to defrag tonight, see if that helps?

[MorpheusDruidic]

Defrag should help and is actually 1 of the most important things to do with Oblivion performance and modding it. ( I defrag Oblivion everyday myself)

 

Im not saying this is the problem but it very well may be, But combat fps optimizer may zap some performance out too while it make changes to your graphics heres a quote i got from the mod:

"The changes of the settings will not be set immediatly when a fight starts. It can take up to 10 seconds.

This was done to not warn players too early that an enemy is approaching"

(Im going to guess that this would kill me in my game after i hit a undead with a weapon with turn undead, combat ends for 2 seconds, combat begins again, in the meantime i highly doubt that fps optimizer would keep up with that without causing more harm then good)

 

Imo running extra scripts to boost performance is counterproductive. It may very well boost the combat fps, but it probaly only does that AFTER it saps fps while it makes the changes. Streamline would probably be a better choice, but you will have to configure it to get it to run how u want.

 

Operation Optimization (optimizes the meshes in Oblivon) on the other hand actually does reduce the workload on your pc same with Oblivion Script Optimization (Optimizes Scripts forcing them to do fewer calculations)

 

As Hickory said dont overlook your security, every single pc i have ever fixed for a friend/customer has had at least 7viruses and holes in the firewall. Full scan with Malwarebytes or Avira (AVG is bunk imo especially the new version that deems World of Warcrafts launcher a virus..)

I dont know where "the best" firewall testing site is i just use Shieldsup to make sure im "stealthed".

Also never overlook how hot your parts are getting as this too affects performance especially a hot gpu.

 

And im still goin to rag on that graphics card which i believe to be your biggest issue. I would never mod on a card that doesnt at least get 5.9's. Keep in mind a higher model number does not necessarily mean better card. For Example a ATi HD3870 will blow away a ATi HD5450. Im sure nVidia engages in the same crap marketing. Ive also recently tried Vanilla Oblivion on a Geforce 9200 GT 512Mb (that card is 1 model down from yours) and lets just say im not going to be recommending such a card to any1 soon (A 256Mb ATi 3450 owns it, neither of which i deem as playable at max settings on a 1980x1200 screen). If i were you id be looking for a card with a GDDR5 Memory interface or at least GDDR3 (Not DDR3, theres a difference). Video cards are not all that expensive if u know how to shop for them and i could pick up a card that gets a 7.3 Win7 score (Obviously 5.9 capped in vista) for $80CAN. They only get expencive when u buy top model + brand new series (or the computer store rips you off which they try to a lot).

[gstark1]

Thanks for the insight. I'll remove the Combat FPS Optimizer and see if there's any improvements.

 

My PC is clean. I've scanned it several times with Malwarebytes (updated) and Super Antispyware (updated) and checked the settings with HiJack This! (I work as a system admin, I've got more experience than your average user ;) ) I do use AVG, tempted to disconnect my PC from the network and turn off the AV and see if I get any better results. I use PC Tools Plus firewall and the hardware firewall built into my router...probably not the most secure, but decent for a home user.

 

Hot GPU may be an issue. Did notice last night tinkering about that the fan on the GPU feels a little sticky.

 

Yes, the card is crap, but at the time I had $50US and no working card (except for the onboard one...ewwww). I'll see if I can get myself an early Christmas present if nothing else works.

[shotgun188]

Pfft you are lucky I taught a g210 was better than a 9600 because it was newer so nvidia is gay.

[MrJim]

I yhave a 9400GT and it uns fine, it's nothing special but it is pretty much bullet proof. Could be that your fan needs a clean out.