OBGEv3 vs Oblivion Reloaded

[KoderOne]

Hi guys,

 

I recently started the long and tedious journey that is Oblivion modding. Havin modded Skyrim before I didn't think that it would be so difficult and time consuming. In part because most of the guides that I find online are as outdated as some of the mods are.

I'm not an absolute N00b and I familiarized myself enough with the basics and tools needed for Oblivion modding. I'm at the the point where I'm PyFFI'ing my meshes and cleaning dirty edits from esp files. I know to run BOSS and how to make a batched patch. I'm even using version control (TortoiseSVN) to keep my modding organized and entirely reversable. Just so you know where I'm coming from. I know enough to get vanilla Oblivion with QTP3 up and running with all unoffical Patches and some fixes and optimizations. I get 25-35fps on my Thinkpad X220 with intel hd 3000 graphics, with 4x AA and HDR. I have yet to experience any CTDs after hours of gameplay. I will post a detailed guide on how I achieved this when I'm finished with my project.

 

Back to my question:

Now I wanna do something for the appearance and I'm absolutely clueless on which to prefer, OBGEv3 or the newer Oblivion Reloaded. Honestly, I couldn't find any discussion or article that answered this question satifactory to me. It's mostly very technical discussions between mod creators that go into detail about the technical differences. I'm more interest in how these result in my overall game.

 

What I know now is this:

- OR is supposed to be the successor of OBGEv3.

- OR claims to be faster and more efficent.

- However OR also claims to NOT be OBGE (How this goes along with the first point I have no idea).

- OR also says that it's not backwards compatible with previous OBGE versions anymore.

 

So which one to use now? Logically I would prefer OR over OBGE since it claims to be an improvement in terms of overall visual quality (can't really tell if that is true even after seeing both mods in action on youtube). However the part about backwards compatibility gives me headaches. What if I run into mods that were out before OR and haven't been maintained ever since? <-something that I suppose will happen quite a lot.)

 

All in all I don't necessarily want the most high end FX, I don't want the most beauty or performance out of the game if I trade that for compatibility issues or maybe some visual bugs. I'd rather have slow ugly graphics in my game than a broken one, because it totally breaks my immersion when I see objects flickering, being discolored or other weird stuff. I also want the best cooporation with the mods I'm going to use. I guess what it all boils down to is this: which one is more reliable and approved?

Here's a small list of some of the essential stuff I'm planning to install:

 

Bomrets Texture Pack for Shivering Isles
Landscape LOD Textures by Xerus
unique landscapes
Natural Environments, Natural Environments Enhanced Weather
Animated Window Lighting System
Better Cities
Detailed Terrain, Detailed Terrain: Unique Landscapes pack
HG EyeCandy
Robert's Male Models
Oblivion Character Overhaul 2
Ren's Guard Overhaul
Oblivion XP
DarNified UI
Color Map
Map Marker Overhaul
Symphony of Violence
Oblivion Stereo Sound Overhaul
Sounds of Cyrodiil
OOO

I'm really hoping to get this solved as actually it's pretty much blocking my progress on this. Yes, I could just install them both and try them out, but with complex graphic overhauls like this it would be very time consuming to test for all the differences.

 

[CHASE6]

Hey,

 

OR is great. If you notice any oddities after installing, they can probably be fixed through either the ini file, in OBSE Plugins, or the each component's ini file, in the Shaders folder. Furthermore you can tweak OR to your preference.

 

Good luck!

[Surilindur]

Oblivion Reloaded is more than just visuals, as it features a memory purger and the option to set a target framerate for it to try to achieve by hiding LOD meshes or near objects (configurable through ini). Also it has AA and soon AF available, and it is incredibly easy to use and customise. It is pretty lightweight even if you use all the effects available, but if your gpu cannot handle all the effects, you can easily disable any of them using the ini files. And also customise all the effects using inis.

 

The thing about it being OBGE 4 but not being OBGE is, if I recall correctly, that Alenet started crafting it from OBGE code, but at some point he had reached the stage where he had completely redone it and it was basically just not OBGE anymore (I think he said there was no OBGE code left, not sure). So it is basically built from OBGE 3 but it is sort of rebuilt completely now. Compatibility is mostly just for shaders, as none of the OBGE 3 shaders work with OR, or at least that is how I understood it. And I do not remember seeing a 'normal' mod that requires OBGE 3 and has shaders for it. But if you choose OR, keep an eye out for shader mods that might conflict with OR. Most mods should not have any shaders.

 

I would recommend Oblivion Reloaded, unless there is a very good reason to use OBGE 3 instead. :)

 

Edit: And check your mods for shader compatibility. Especially the terrain one. Just in case. The following might cause issues with OR: conflicting shaders, water mods, OBGE 3, Streamline and, surprisingly, the OR skin shader out of the box (makes skin too dark for me, but it can be customised).

Edited August 8, 2015 by PhilippePetain

[KoderOne]

Thank you very much!