DrCthulhu Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 I seem to be having a fairly common problem, where, when in combat and when striking and enemy, killing them, or sometimes being hit, the game freezes for a second or 2. This is a pretty annoying problem, as it occurs for nearly each and every enemy I fight. i am running a pretty modded game, with stuff like QTP3, Frans, and numerous others. My FPS is fine in most cases except for this problem. This has occurred before I added any mods. My first action was to install and download streamline, thinking its dynamic FPS changing would sort it out. It didn't. Then I heard that this is sometimes caused by footsteps on integrated sound cards. I'm using an integrated Realtek one. I installed QuietFootstepsMAX to fix it, and it didn't. I installed GameBooster to see if the added RAM or CPU would help. It didn't either. I have updated my graphics and sound drivers, even the driver for my headset. I have tried running with the in-game master volume on 0 and this still occurred. I'm wondering what exactly is causing this, and if there is any way to fix this, preferably without something drastic like disabling all music and sound in game, if this is indeed the problem. I might get a new sound card if it itself is the culprit, but I want to save that as a last resort. Any help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fonger Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 preferably without something drastic like disabling all music and sound in gamehave you tried this as a simple diagnostic yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrCthulhu Posted June 22, 2011 Author Share Posted June 22, 2011 preferably without something drastic like disabling all music and sound in gamehave you tried this as a simple diagnostic yet? I tried setting all volume levels in the in-game sliders to 0 and I don't believe it had an effect. I'll try setting the sound, music, and hardware acceleration in the ini to 0 separately and all together and see if that helps any. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrCthulhu Posted June 22, 2011 Author Share Posted June 22, 2011 Turning HWSoundAcceleration to 0 seemed to help a little bit, probably not really though as when I had sound, music, and it all off, the lag was still there whenever I hit an enemy for the first time, sometimes on consecutive strikes, and it's pretty bad when I deal the killing blow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rinoaff33 Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 How good is your processor? It might be good by reasonable standards, but if it gets its power from using multiple cores...Oblivion doesn't use multicore, which means that one powerful single-core will work better. Just a shot in the dark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrCthulhu Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 (edited) How good is your processor? It might be good by reasonable standards, but if it gets its power from using multiple cores...Oblivion doesn't use multicore, which means that one powerful single-core will work better. Just a shot in the dark. It's an Intel Duo E7200, 2.53GHz. Not great, especially since Oblivion doesn't use multithreading, but it does the job, and my GPU seems to do most of the heavy lifting besides. Really, in the scenario I keep replaying to change settings and see if they work, I'm in a dungeon and go to a few rooms of skeletons. Sometimes when I hit them it freezes for a second, and it seems to occur more often when I kill them. I figure, since my FPS is fine and there's no other stuttering, it must be something to do with the combat, some sound or something. Thing is I've tried it without any sound or music, and it didn't fix it. Edited June 23, 2011 by DrCthulhu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rinoaff33 Posted June 23, 2011 Share Posted June 23, 2011 (edited) It probably IS the processor then (or is likely to be part of the problem) - I have a quad core with only 2.8 ghz per core (recommended is 3.0 ghz single-core) and I lag really bad when necromancers start conjuring up stuff, or if I'm in certain outdoor areas. This is despite my GPU being able to run the Mass Effect games and Champions Online at max settings without hiccups. Rarely will you need to upgrade a computer's stock sound card except in extreme cases or if you're working with audio/music. Did you try the ini sound/music disable like fonger suggested? I assume that the game still loads sounds even if the volume is at 0 unless you explicitly tell it to disable it. You might want to try resetting your mp3 codecs - they're known to conflict with Oblivion and cause freezing or slowdowns when changing tracks or playing sounds (look it up on the unofficial elder scrolls pages). Edit: Would also like to add that I also lag if I look down a long path, i.e. the main road in the Market District, since installing Streamline 3.1. Yay for crappy framerates. Edited June 24, 2011 by rinoaff33 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrCthulhu Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 (edited) It probably IS the processor then (or is likely to be part of the problem) - I have a quad core with only 2.8 ghz per core (recommended is 3.0 ghz single-core) and I lag really bad when necromancers start conjuring up stuff, or if I'm in certain outdoor areas. This is despite my GPU being able to run the Mass Effect games and Champions Online at max settings without hiccups. Perhaps it is my CPU, and really, I'd love to get a new one, but I just find it strange that I can run around with these high settings, outdoors or indoors, with a horde of bandits or skeletons chasing me, and the game only decides to make a fuss when something actually gets hit. It's really a problem with the tutorial dungeon, now that I remember, because it slows down everytime one of the guards kills an assassin. Did you try the ini sound/music disable like fonger suggested? I assume that the game still loads sounds even if the volume is at 0 unless you explicitly tell it to disable it. I have gone into the ini and set the music, sound, HWSoundacceleration all to 0. The problem persists. You might want to try resetting your mp3 codecs - they're known to conflict with Oblivion and cause freezing or slowdowns when changing tracks or playing sounds (look it up on the unofficial elder scrolls pages). I had the KLite codec pack installed, and when I read about codecs having an issue with the game, I uninstalled it to see if it helped(it didn't.) I'm unsure of how to reset all my mp3 codecs or all of my codecs together, most help I found online seemed to be for XP(I'm on Vista.) Does someone have a guide or program I could use to do so? Edit: Here's my DxDiag, if it could help: http://pastebin.com/AFJiqWim Edited June 23, 2011 by DrCthulhu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrCthulhu Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 I'm starting to think you were correct in saying that it's my CPU. I've tried playing at different resolutions, and the lag occurs at all the ones like 1440x900(my native resolution), and it seems the highest resolution I can play without this happening is 1024x768. It's really disappointing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrCthulhu Posted June 23, 2011 Author Share Posted June 23, 2011 Let this be a lesson to all those consumed by FPS Greed and Resolution Lust: Turning on a bunch of really high settings in the Nvidia control panel for a game you heavily modded to look better can cause some unfortunate FPS issues. Yeah, I just disabled some settings I had set for Oblivion, like absurdly high AA and Ambient Occlusion, and now the lag is completely gone. I'll take my time, nice and slow, to see what settings it can or can't handle. I'd like to thank everyone who posted in this thread offering help, you guys rock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts