Oblivion Crossfire Performance

[GetOutOfBox]

NPC AI is what kills framerate. Basically, the meaner your processor, the less of an issue it will be.

 

Agreed, and unclean nifs. I once removed 143 bogus nodes from a mesh I downloaded. Then took a minute or two to Stripify, in nifskope usually don't take all that long to stripify. I was like, wuh!?

 

I take it everyone here is an ATI user? Cuz I would like to know about my 9800 gt, of which I have a matching pair. I have not installed the second, because I could use it in another machine. But I would like to utilize it if I get ANY kind of performance boost.

 

As Oblivion was advertised as being SLI compatible and you see this line in the "RenderInfo.txt" file in the same directory as Oblivion.ini:

 

SLI mode : no (I have a Radeon card, so obviously there's no SLI ;) )

 

one can assume Oblivion is optimized (at least according to Bethseda standards, lol) for SLI and will probably perform better on SLI than Crossfire. Still, video card architecture has changed a lot since Oblivion's time, so those optimizations may now be meaningless and hence Crossfire and SLI could be on equal footing.

[MotoSxorpio]

Eh...I saw no difference. I stuck that other 9800gt in my rig this afternoon...played and played. I went every where, and mostly no difference. I could add a few Grids to load...but eh.

[PhaseVerocity]

I noticed a big difference today. I went through the different profiles and noticed that the Deadrising*.exe profile or deadrising2 gave me 34fps in a spot where I was only getting 11-15fps before using the standard default or alternative afr frendly profiles. I realise this is a little late for you but for anyone else reading this was a good improvement for me. I'm currently using 2 hd6990's in crossfire mode and running with antialiasing 8xEQ and ansotroping filtering 16x. Got most other settings on quality. Modded Morrowind today too and its even more of a b@#$ to render with its directx 8 mode but there are some modders out there that have made big packs and they make the game look pretty impressive. I'd like to see oblivion and skyrim with those sort of graphics.

[NexusKnight]

I know, this should probably be somewhere else like on a Wiki or something but hey...

 

It's interesting that this thread wasn't really continued. Maybe because of the cost of upgrading computer hardware with little promise of greater Oblivion performance. Most experienced players probably increased performance with the usual utility Mods like Oblivion Stutter Remover or Windom Earle_s Oblivion Crash Prevention System or Streamline. Then there's reliable mesh optimisers like Optimised Distant Land Max or Colourwheels LOD Project part01 and low poly grass alternatives like RPG-BlackDragons LowTriPolyGrass. And then there's always a Wrye Bash or Mod option 'Quiet Feet' which are all good performance improving choices I've found.

 

But the biggest performance improvement I noticed was with a RAM increase from 2 - 6GBs (on Win7). There are always 'hot spots' in Oblivion and I found some that were always lagging bad and causing CTDs. With the RAM increase I no longer crash in these areas (or rarley). Because RAM is relatively cheap these days, especially online deals, and because Win7 doesn't have the 3Gb RAM limit WinXp has, I recommend upgrading this hardware first.

 

For those interested in the latest video card performance ratings with Oblivion, I'm using a mid-range MSI Radeon 7850 2-Gb card and I get about a 10-15 FPS increase (outside) over my old Radeon HD 4850 1Gb card (varies greatly tho). I don't have any texture packs - too demanding- I am using Liquid Water tho with over 200 OB plugins including MMM & OOO, RAEVWD, Alive Waters, Fish and more fish paks (my 4850 couldn't handle all these with LW tho).

 

But I'm not getting stunning performance as one would expect of the latest Video technology (at least on my heavily modded game which has ample performance taxing Mods). What my new card has improved, is the visual distance settings and the number of NPC combatants at one time, which has increased the FUN level for me. And of course, visually I get the best resolution on a SONY 32" HDTV at 1920x1080P. I haven't really had this card long enough to give a better overview.

 

Alas, for overclockers, I've heard that Oblivion doesn't work well with overclocked CPU's - single or multi-cores. But I don't know if this processing improvement even decreases performance with OB. What a shame really. But if you play other games that respond well to OC'd chips then your best bet is to use any or all the performance improvements I've named here when you play Oblivion, just to compensate.

 

Anyway, I hope this helps clear up some of the performance questions every new player seems to have with OB, at least concerning the best hardware compared to Modware - I think both are important but Modware is still the cheapest next to RAM that gives the best overall improvement. And finally, I don't claim to be an expert when it comes to hardware or Mod performance boosters, but I do have neary two years playing experience and I think most expert supporters on this site, will agree with my findings - pitch in if you've got some other helpful suggestions/ questions or let this thread die.