Is Oblivion Supposed to Look Like This?

[zepplinne]

http://img16.mediafire.com/ff6508f52522db462e2491dcb36712046ab5f3f2bb9b582a74078f1f874776865g.jpg

 

Basically everything is explained in the photo. As you can see, it is an extremely high end system and all in game and system options are set to FULL quality.

 

My question is, is Oblivion actually supposed to look like this out of the box (with no mods, optimization)? It looks terrible! Looking at all the pop ins, texture-less distant landscapes, grid-lines and bad reflections completely ruins the immersiveness of this game, and is frankly, really disappointing because the game does have some very beautiful graphics :(

Edited April 7, 2011 by zepplinne

[BiskmatarCatalyst]

Yes, the game does look like that out of the box. The lack of objects is because full draw distance isn't really that far. Same with the bad textures: things haven't loaded yet.

 

But that's why we have places like the Nexus. That can be fixed to look absolutely wonderful with about an hour of mod installation. Given your system specs, there shouldn't be anything out of your range.

 

The very basics are generally Natural Environments, Quarl's Texture Pack 3, DarNified UI (to fix the stupid ported UI), Animated Window Lighting System, and maybe Unique Lanscapes.

 

I'd be happy to provide more if you wanted. Anyone else here could help you as well.

[Mortrix927]

You can try opening the "options" menu on the start up flash and make sure everything is all the way to the right. This will help somewhat. To make it look really better, you'll need some mods.

Start with:

Natural Vegetation and Natural Habitat by Max Tael. Also, consider All Natural by Arthmoor. Then, Obscuro's Oblivion Overhaul.

Other than that, Yes, that is what Oblivion looks like out of the box. Or straight from steam as the case may be. :wink:

[razorpony]

I would also add that you should go to Oblivion tweak guide and follow all the directions there. It covers everything from optimising your system to editing/adding lines to the Oblivion.ini to increase draw distances beyond what's availible in the settings menu. With your system, it shouldn't be a problem. Then try RAEVWD (Really almost everything viewable when distant) to make all the structures and objects have distant LOD in game.

 

-Razorpony

[MarkInMKUK]

My personal selection to improve the visuals is:

 

One of the imperial city retexture mods - they vary from a very white version to a dark and dirty one.

Qarl's Texture Pack 3 (I use the reduced and redimized version as my system would struggle with the full monty)

All Natural

Natural Vegetation

one of several improved water mods - try them out to check which one you prefer

one of the improved night sky mods

Darnified UI (I use the dark version)

Animated Window Lighting System

some degree of improvement to the "viewable when distant" settings - several levels of mods for this

 

Take a good look through the texture and mesh mods - there are some which patch specific textures or meshes to improve things like tiling on grass. There are "better" grasses and trees available too, but they should be tried one-at-a-time.

 

Remember, if you are going to want to add other mods later, there's a limit to 255 active esm/esp files, so you may want to select mods with just one esp rather than ones with dozens of options in separate esp files. An example would be adding Better Cities and Unique Landscapes, and the myriad compatibility patches for other mods. Visually stunning, but they soon chew up the esp limit. The "All in one" Better Cities takes up far less than the modular version.

 

I'd also suggest texture replacers for the clothing, armour and people, but that's a whole new can of worms...

[Mortrix927]

All Natural comes with Animated Windows Lighting System, so if you get AN you don't need AWLS seperately. (It will make your game fail to launch.) You have to install it with BAIN or OBMM and make sure you answer the questions correctly, though. I also use Darnified UI. Better Cities is also best installed using BAIN or OBMM, as it, too, has many options that may or may not be available depending on what else you have. I also believe Natural Environments is the same program as Natural Vegetation and Natural Habitat-so again, you don't need both individually. Also, save your self some time, and get wrye bash, not only does it help with conflicts it has some tweaks that will improve your game experience in it's own right.

[MarkInMKUK]

It's a little outdated, but there's a good guide here for improving vanilla Oblivion step by step. I suggest read it in conjunction with the suggestions here and try things out step by step.

 

@dallen86 - I hadn't spotted the inclusion of AWLS with All Natural - maybe I have an earlier AN version. I know it has the Natural Interiors system - are you sure you're not thinking of that?.

 

Natural Vegetation is part of the Natural Environments setup, but All Natural replaces all of the other bits with more stable and currentl;y supported versions, Natural Vegetation is the only bit that isn't replaced.

 

I also have Real Lights installed (from All Natural) for indoor lighting realism. I know there are alternatives to this, but I haven't yet investigated whether any are better, and Real Lights seems to be stable

Edited April 7, 2011 by MarkInMKUK

[LFact]

Natural Vegetation is part of the Natural Environments setup, but All Natural replaces all of the other bits with more stable and currentl;y supported versions, Natural Vegetation is the only bit that isn't replaced.

 

It's Natural Habitat, which does not have any suitable replacement yet.

[Mortrix927]

It's a little outdated, but there's a good guide here for improving vanilla Oblivion step by step. I suggest read it in conjunction with the suggestions here and try things out step by step.

 

@dallen86 - I hadn't spotted the inclusion of AWLS with All Natural - maybe I have an earlier AN version. I know it has the Natural Interiors system - are you sure you're not thinking of that?.

 

Natural Vegetation is part of the Natural Environments setup, but All Natural replaces all of the other bits with more stable and currentl;y supported versions, Natural Vegetation is the only bit that isn't replaced.

 

I also have Real Lights installed (from All Natural) for indoor lighting realism. I know there are alternatives to this, but I haven't yet investigated whether any are better, and Real Lights seems to be stable

No, a version of AWLS is included in the All Natural pack, (makes the exterior windows pretty, and chimneys smoke, yes?) but like I said you need to use an installer to get it. [Well, I guess you could do it manually, but then you'd have to know what your looking for.] I was going to say "the latest version of all natural," but I have version 1.0-so obviously not the latest version.

[Eiries]

And don't forget Tes4LOGGen! (If you're okay with using HDR, that is.) Combine that with RAEVWD and maybe some mean LOD textures and you'll be well on your way to a beautiful landscape.

 

-Oh, and Advanced Water Modification is pretty wonderful for water.

Edited April 7, 2011 by Eiries