Help with Better Cities + Distant Buildings

[nicktheduke]

Hi all. As some of you might know, I am trying to work on a modding guide for Oblivion. Unfortunately, I've hit a wall.

I am trying to maximize performance as much as possible. I know Better Cities will drain FPS in cities and that's ok. That isn't the problem. The problem is the buildings added to the Imperial Isle exterior from BC.

Lemme caveat first... In order to gain as much FPS as possible, I am using this mod: http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/25052/?

With this mod enabled, you can toggle off Distant Buildings and Trees but keep the illusion of Distant Land. It works. It's great. I get 40+ FPS in exteriors if not more. Here's some screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/IhY1M

However without Distant Buildings enabled, I have massive pop-ins from the buildings added by Better Cities on the Imperial Isle which you can see here: http://imgur.com/a/pUc1O

Basically, buildings from Better Cities Imperial Isle are not showing up until I enter cell and walk up to them. Only then does a very large building pop up immediately in front of me when it wasn't there a second ago. It's very jarring. The only way to fix this pop-in seems to be enabling Distant Buildings. However, I get a massive framerate drop doing this from 40+ FPS to 15-20 FPS. It's really bad. I have tried TES4LL, TES4LOD, etc. I increased ugridstoload. I decreased ugridstoload. I disabled OR's framerate manager.

So it seems Better Cities seems to require Distant Buildings in order for the buildings on Imperial Isle to load before I enter the same cell. Why? I do not know. I can see vanilla Imperial City. I can see buildings from other mods before I enter the cell while I am walking up. I can see objects/bridges/trees surrounding the buildings from BC. But for some reason, BC requires me to load the entire Tamriel landscape surrounding me in order for one of it's buildings to magically appear before I am right in front of the wall.

In theory, if I'm standing in the middle of the game's 5x5 grid and I move in any direction by one square, then a new square should be generated in front of me ahead of where I'm standing, correct? But the way the game is acting, the new cell isn't generated until I enter another 5x5 grid which causes a massive pop-in from buildings that weren't there a second ago. Lemme try to illustrate...

Here's how the game in theory should work: http://imgur.com/k9HfrGO

Here's how the game is acting: http://imgur.com/MJqG32e

The game isn't loading the BC buildings in the next part of the grid ahead of time until I'm outside of initial 5x5 grid. There has to be some way to fix this since other buildings/objects surrounding building appear before I enter new cell. The only fix is Distant Buildings enabled, but my framerate drops to 10-15. Without it, my framerate is amazing at 40+.

Is there a fix or workaround for this problem? Would love some input. Please help!

For more info, check the last page of my progress journal here: http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1601170-help-with-ultimate-oblivion-mod-guide-2016/

[bevilex]

Hey,

 

For which buildings the "pop-in" appears ?

Don't know if it will be useful, but I had a similar issue with the Arictocratic District added by BC. When running the wizard for installing BC with WB, you have the option to see the new aristocratic building added by BC. Disabling this option solved the pop-in problem for me (for this specific building).

Edited April 20, 2016 by bevilex

[nicktheduke]

Damn. You almost gave me hope! I had been installing manually through Wrye Bash so I double checked using Wizard and saw the option you mentioned. Reinstalled. Then I was told to reset everything. So I deleted ini. Deleted DistantLOD folder. Checked to make sure correct textures and meshes and _far nif files were loading through TES4LOD. Regenerated. etc etc. Rinse and repeat.

Unfortunately it seems the only way to view buildings added by BC before entering the same cell is through having Distant Buildings and BC's VWD plugin enabled.

I'm so bummed.

[bevilex]

So if I understand well you have an FPS issue, that is why you disabled distant building.

I am not an expert of this, but did you try " Evenstar CW LOD", this mod is more FPS friendly that RAEVWD.

[nicktheduke]

Isn't that LOD replacer for vanilla? Is it compatible with Unique Landscapes and other landscape mods?

[bevilex]

As long as you run TES4LODgen, there should be no problem.

[nicktheduke]

As long as you run TES4LODgen, there should be no problem.

 

If you can, could you take a second to explain TES4LOD + TES4LL vs. these pre-generated low poly LODs like Colourwheel and Optimized Distant Land?

Or link me to an explanation?

[bevilex]

I am not at all an expert of this ^^ this is what I understand (with my simple english):

there is no vs, they work together. TES4LOD uses your modlist to generate LOD for new objects (for your UL, or windmills mod ...)

And, as you said, Evenstar CW LOD is a pregenerated LOD for vanilla, more fps friendly than RAEVWD

I play with that, on my Oblivion (heavily modded, 250esp) and get decent fps

[nicktheduke]

I am not at all an expert of this ^^ this is what I understand (with my simple english):

there is no vs, they work together. TES4LOD uses your modlist to generate LOD for new objects (for your UL, or windmills mod ...)

And, as you said, Evenstar CW LOD is a pregenerated LOD for vanilla, more fps friendly than RAEVWD

I play with that, on my Oblivion (heavily modded, 250esp) and get decent fps

TES4LOD = textures

TES4LL = meshes

 

That's what I've always thought. Evenstar CW LOD replaces the meshes?

[bevilex]

Evenstar CW LOD replaces textures and meshes

Edited April 21, 2016 by bevilex