DGramma Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 Hi guys, I have two questions I'd like to ask you.The first one isn't really an issue, but more than something I'd like to do, but since it's anyway a technical thingie, I thought this would be the best section to post it. I have a quite low end notebook (P4 @ 2.6GHz, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128 MB of RAM, 512 MB of RAM memory, Oblivion's installed on an external USB2.0 7200 RPM Hard Disk).I can play very smoothly at 800x600 with small textures, distant LOD, only actors' shadows, bloom effects, shader 2.0, grass disabled (but I could even keep it enabled, it's just that been a marksman, that small loss of FPS makes me miss too often). Surprisingly, I can get decent FPS even if I use large textures. And I love it. But if I'm in an exterior cell, every 10 steps the game freezes because it needs to load new stuff. That makes it a real pain, forcing me to go back to small textures.Now, I've looked in some tweaking guides, searching what I'd like to do, but I didn't find anything. Therefore I think it's not possible. I'm asking here as a last hope:I would like to set the game so it uses large textures only for actors (and maybe all those items affected by the Havok system), while leaving all the rest of the world with small textures. That'd make my days in Oblivion look a bit better, while not affecting at all the speed. Is that possible? The second question isn't really something I care about. Besides, Morrowind had this same problem.My notebook has a nice hardware volume control, which I really like to use. Oblivion (and Morrowind, and Full Screen Videos on Winamp, for that matters) doesn't allow me to use it. The only thing that makes Oblivion different from the other two is that it doesn't even display the OSD. I'll try to explain myself better: when I use the volume buttons, an OSD appears on the bottom of the screen, telling me the value. While on Morrowind and Winamp it appears, on Oblivion it doesn't. I can live without it, inner game's Audio controls are enough. I was just wondering, why? Thanks in advance for any answers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sticky Mick Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 Hi Can only help with your first problem, I'm afraid.Have you tried a program called Oldblivion? It allows older hardware to run Oblivion at a decent pace. It's still very much in development but I found it ran very well on my GeForce FX5500, I was getting somewhere in the region of 15fps in the Blackwood and 25-30 in interior locations with reasonably high settings at 800x600 (I now have a 6600GT so I now play the original Oblivion.) Might be worth giving it a try. Not such a good idea to run it from an external USB drive. They're still not on a par with internal IDE, and Oblivion really needs a gig or more of RAM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DGramma Posted September 1, 2006 Author Share Posted September 1, 2006 Thanks, I'll try that. Now that you mentioned it, I had heard of it somewhere before. As for the external hard drive, my notebook's internal one is terribly slow (4200 RPM). Believe me, I know I lose a lot having to pass through the USB cable, but it's faster anyway. And the RAM... I thought many times about adding some, but you know, with notebooks it's everything so complicated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sticky Mick Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 Yeah, most notebooks are produced with energy saving in mind. A proper gaming laptop could quite easily set you back £2000 :wacko: If you do a Google for your machine you should find some specs on the RAM and whether it can be upgraded. Go shopping with that info and it makes life easier. I've also recently discovered that the ATI Mobility is replaceable in most laptops, but these are mainly the high-end jobs like Alienware etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DGramma Posted September 2, 2006 Author Share Posted September 2, 2006 Unfortunately, my laptop's brand isn't a famous one, therefore upgrading it is quite difficult. Besides, lack of money isn't really helping me, so I always thought I'd stick to this one for both work and gaming, and as soon as I can I'll buy a nice desktop. Anyway, I tried Oldblivion, and wow, did that impress me! I tried it with large textures, it looks almost like vanilla Oblivion with large textures, and I got a huge boost with FPS (10-20 higher than vanilla with SMALL textures) and loading times (shorter than vanilla/small). I really couldn't believe what I was seeing. Of course, there are some bugs (like the light sometimes looks odd, the conjuration magic effect appears as a big black cylinder, and the ranged shock attack doesn't appear at all), but besides that, it really is one the most impressive graphical fixes I've ever seen. Thanks a lot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sticky Mick Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 You're welcome ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cryocry Posted September 8, 2006 Share Posted September 8, 2006 Yeah, most notebooks are produced with energy saving in mind. A proper gaming laptop could quite easily set you back £2000 :wacko: ... There are gaming laptops? Wow... I would have never guessed... well, not in this time period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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