Oblivion and RAM

[Herculine]

I'm preparing to upgrade my PC's RAM from 4GB to 8GB in an attempt to improve general gaming performance and a question or two have occurred to me: what impact do mods have on RAM usage and is there a way to gauge how much RAM a given mod will require?

 

Obviously a mod that includes graphics elements like meshes and textures can have an impact on performance, especially depending upon the size/resolution of these elements. But what about mods that consist only of .esp and .esm files? Does the size of these files or the number of them in my load order have any significant impact on RAM or CPU usage, and if so is there a way to determine which/how many files would create a significant impact?

[Hickory]

Installing more RAM will have little to no impact unless your operating system is capable of utilising it -- 32bit Win Vista will only utilise 3GB, for instance. If you have 64 bit Windows, then installing more RAM will certainly help. However, Oblivion will not know about this extra RAM, but the operating system and your Graphics card will. So, it's not as easy as 'stick some more RAM in and my game will run smoothly'.

 

Regarding the esp and esm question: every esp and every esm will be utilising meshes and textures -- it's what you see on your screen. But obviously, the more meshes and textures a mod uses, and the higher the poly count or resolution, the greater the strain on your graphics card and CPU. It's not about numbers, it's about processing power. Having said that, the Oblivion game engine is very old, and cannot utilise the advanced features of today's CPUs (with their multi cores) and graphics cards, that's why it has a reputation of being a GPU killer.

[Herculine]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Sorry I wasn't more specific in the original post.

 

The operating system is Windows 7 Home Premium. It's RAM capabilites are twice what I'm upgrading to, so no worries there.

 

The Oblivion .exe has been made large-address aware using CFF Explorer.

 

My Oblivion .ini has been modified in several places too numerous to list here to allow the game to utilize up to 16GB RAM and a multi-threaded processor.

 

What I was actually wondering when I typed the original post is: while surfing the net for Oblivion mods, is there a way to look at a mod and estimate how much RAM it might use? Are there any mod-managing utilities that can analyze one's load order and determine approximately the extent of the resources that will be required to run that particular installation?

[Hickory]

No amount of tweaking the ini will allow Oblivion to utilise multi core processors. The game engine was not built to do that. Yes, I know there are entries for multi threads, but that does not translate to multiple cores. The very old Oblivion game engine simply does not have the hardware support for multiple processors. What it uses is multithreading, which uses a single core to process parallel instructions.

 

And the simple answer to your question of knowing how much RAM a mod will use is 'no'. RAM is handled by the operating system, which will always allocate the maximum amount available that it deems necessary.

[David Brasher]

Trial and error. Download and install the mod and see if it slows down your game and is so intolerable that you want to remove it. If your system is weak, avoid things like landscape mods, high-res texture packs, mods with numerous NPCs in one place, and mods with lots of lights with intersecting radii.

[Herculine]

No amount of tweaking the ini will allow Oblivion to utilise multi core processors. The game engine was not built to do that. Yes, I know there are entries for multi threads, but that does not translate to multiple cores. The very old Oblivion game engine simply does not have the hardware support for multiple processors. What it uses is multithreading, which uses a single core to process parallel instructions.

 

And the simple answer to your question of knowing how much RAM a mod will use is 'no'. RAM is handled by the operating system, which will always allocate the maximum amount available that it deems necessary.

 

If that first paragraph is true, why then when I check the Oblivion .exe affinity with the task manager does it tell me that the process is utilizing all three cores of my processor? Is Windows lying to me now, or is the Task Manager mistaken somehow? I'm not trying to be snarky... I'm just trying to get this nailed down.

 

 

 

[Hickory]

No amount of tweaking the ini will allow Oblivion to utilise multi core processors. The game engine was not built to do that. Yes, I know there are entries for multi threads, but that does not translate to multiple cores. The very old Oblivion game engine simply does not have the hardware support for multiple processors. What it uses is multithreading, which uses a single core to process parallel instructions.

 

And the simple answer to your question of knowing how much RAM a mod will use is 'no'. RAM is handled by the operating system, which will always allocate the maximum amount available that it deems necessary.

 

If that first paragraph is true, why then when I check the Oblivion .exe affinity with the task manager does it tell me that the process is utilizing all three cores of my processor? Is Windows lying to me now, or is the Task Manager mistaken somehow? I'm not trying to be snarky... I'm just trying to get this nailed down.

 

 

Windows is not lying to you; you are misunderstanding what affinity is. That is the default affinity state (off) for ALL processes in Windows regardless of what they are. Setting affinity (which you would not normally want to do) restricts the application to the core you set. All that affinity does is queue tasks by level of importance. Affinity can be handy on older applications not designed for multiple cores, where they choke, and so you would assign them to use a single core, to which they are used to. Affinity does NOT make processes use all cores concurrently.

[Herculine]

So if .ini settings, more RAM and multi-core processors don't make any difference... is there anything that I can do that will let me run the game without a stuttery framerate?

 

[Hickory]

Yes there is plenty that you can do, but it comes at a cost ultimately. What you have to remember, as I think I mentioned before, is that Oblivion is an old game and although mod-able, was not really designed to be run with today's high quality meshes and textures. First, learn how to use PyFFI and bsa files. Extract your oblivion meshes bsa (make a backup) and optimise them with PyFFI, then repack them into a bsa (same name). Do the same with with other mods, but ALWAYS make a backup first. Be brutal about what mods you really want to keep, and completely uninstall everything else (and that means removing meshes and textures, too). Don't run massive beauty mods unless you are an avid screenshooter -- mods like Quarls TP3, Hi res texture bodies, even badly optimized house mods will kill your fps. Don't use things like RAEVWD, run TES4LODGen instead. Don't use extra spawning modules in overhauls like MMM, and don't use extra NPCs in mods like CM Partners. Don't keep any mods installed "because you might use it later" -- them more mods installed, the harder the game has to work to keep tabs on everything, and your save game will grow out of proportion, and your load times and transition between areas times will increase. Those are just a few suggestions.

 

I think you get the idea. In short, there is no magic pill. I will say it one last time: Oblivion is an OLD GAME that was never designed to run hundreds of hi-res textures and meshes with massive poly counts.

[csgators]

You would get the best performance boost by focusing on your video card setup, getting an SLI or Crossfire motherboard and powerful cards. If your getting a lot of stuttering and your PC specs are above recommended video is going to make a much bigger difference than your CPU and RAM.