Extreme Drop in FPS, what is my bottleneck?

[bruschijr]

Hello,

 

First post here... just got oblivion and updated my CPU for it. The game looks great... but I have problems in a particular place.

 

I was hoping to set up my CPU to play on 1920 x 1200 on max settings... with a few things removed that I could care less about. I average these framerates:

 

Outside 47-63

Inside 50-75

Dungeons 35-50

Cities 35-45

 

That's a rough estimate of what I remember using FRAPS.

 

So here is the problem, certain places my game will run at 0 (yes... 0) 1 or 2 FPS.

 

Starting the game I get great FPS, going through the intro I get great FPS.. the problem is in the first sewer part. Going through tunnels in the sewer only... i get terribly low FPS. Other places in the sewer its fine at 30+ or higher. Once i get out of the sewer into the first outside loading zone im in the 60's.

 

I wouldn't care much if this was the only place... but seems as if I go in dungeons the same thing happens in random spots, mainly when going through tunnels in a dungeon, or really small closed areas.

 

Once i get into those zones my fps just go to hell and it takes me forever to move out of it. I can't figure out whats wrong... so here are my mods and cpu specs. I posted here since I have some mods on.

 

Mods:

 

Exem's Body Replacement

Ren's Beauty Pack

Unofficial Oblivion V2 Patch

Complete Armor pack for Exem's

 

CPU Specs

 

EVGA 680i SLI Motherboard

750w SLI PSU

BFG 512 8800 GT OC Video Cards x2 running in SLI mode

E6600 Core two Duo 2.4 MHz

4 GB OCZ Platinum 667MHz Ram (2 x 2GB)

2 GB OCZ Gold 667MHz Ram (2 x 1GB)... so 6GB total

Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS

140 GB Sata 8Mb Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive

 

Settings:

 

1900 x 1200 --- i think that is the number hehe.. 19xx by 12xx something

Ultra High

VSync Disabled

8x Anti-Ailising

Bloom Effect on

Most other effects on in game at max... except for Shadow effects are on low or off. And some distance effects are about 3/4 up.

 

So... if it was a constant low FPS I would understand. The game looks amazing most of the time... unfortunatley I know there are a lot of dungeons and this keeps happening inside them.

 

Here is the wierd thing if i set it to 16xx by 10xx cant remember the exact numbers... same problem... but any less of a resolution and I don't get it at all.

 

But my aim is to play it on the highest resolution my monitor handles.

 

So its on my two highest widescreen resolutions... even if I set graphics to Medium it still does it.

 

So is this a hardware bottleneck? Or something in the game? I did some research and couldn't find anything usefull. Let me know if you need more information.

[batlham]

Well its nice to know that even people with systems 10 times the power of mine, have problems.

 

I have played on stronger systems than mine..and sometimes you just hit a place that the lights or textures overwhelm you.

 

I play mostly on my lap top...

 

Using Streamline helps

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10400

 

you will need obse to run it.

http://obse.silverlock.org/

 

It really can improve things.even on strong systems.

It clears out unneeded cells from memory..and changes your settings on the fly.

You can also change its settings from performance to what it will adjust.

 

 

PS if you require more info or help with streamline....you can send me a message..and I can give you my instant messagers if you wish.

[xenxander]

I have played on stronger systems than mine..and sometimes you just hit a place that the lights or textures overwhelm you.

 

This is most likely the culprit.

 

I sometimes get low FPS while in caves that have unique lighting elements, even if there are no NPCs around, and even if outside (the place where one should experience the lowest FPS), I get good ratings.

 

there's little you can do about it, save lower your settings but *shrugs* it will only happen in those specific places. Lighting textures seem to really demand a lot of muscle, even more so than good PCs can handle.

[bruschijr]

Thanks for the suggestion Batlham...

 

So I tried downloading OBSE, but wouldn't you know, I have the D2D version. So it won't work. I'm gonna try messing with the .ini file from tweakguides.com and see if that helps...

 

So do you think it has anything to do with my CPU setup? Or is it just something in the game?

[damstachizz]

This is happening to me too..as such, i havn't played Oblivion in ages.

my specs are..:

2.2ghz Centrino

2gb of 667mhz ram

200gb 4200rpm HDD

(the 2 above are my bottleneck for most games..)

Nvidia 8600M GT 256mb, Overclocked

 

a few days before this started happening to me, i was running all on full, full res (1680x1050), with 4x AA and HDR enabled (Nvidia Control panel trick)..I would get about 28FPS in the cities, with a few people walking around..

I installed Deadly reflex, and bumped my res down to 1600x1024, so i could run my AA at 8x..about every 2 seconds, it would go down to 4FPS..i was like, WTF how does another 4x AA do that!?!?

So i dropped it back to 2x AA, at 1440x900..Same thing..

This is pissing me off, Because i KNOW my laptop can handle a hell of alot more.

 

Has anyone figured out how to fix this yet? i am getting really annoyed not being able to play Oblivion.

 

BTW, the res i think you are referring to is 1920x1200...

[xenxander]

ew, 4200 RPM hard drive??? ouch, that's slow.

 

I have RAID 0, 10K RPM hard drives... worth every peny ^_^ only thing faster is SCSI drives (which are 15K but a bit 'iffy' to me).

[bruschijr]

Well editing the .ini file did nothing either.

 

I'm going to start back from square one it looks like... gonna go out to the store and buy a hard copy and save the game right before I normally have the FPS drops. 6AM... just waiting for a store to open, heh.

 

A hard copy will let me try that script extender... maybe it's just the D2D version that is causing the problems too. I'm gonna run a bunch of tests later today, if anything worth noting comes up I'll make not of it.

 

Also wierd thing... dunno if its stuff I did in my .ini file or if i dropped my sound acceleration to 50%... but i'm getting occasional lockups now too. LOL... computers.

[bruschijr]

Well some good news.... tested and verified (at least with my computer)

 

Hard copy with official 1.2 patch

 

I went out and bought a hard copy of the game ran it at 1920 x 1200 with 8x AA and Bloom... averaged about 57 FPS no stutters or glitches minus some little tiny ones when i would move the screen all over.

That part I mentioned about the game dropping to 1 or 2 fps... totally gone.

 

So I was happy, I uninstalled it and reinstalled my D2D version, no patches.. since the 1.2 one doesn't work.

 

Same FPS, and guess what... extreme FPS drop rate in those same spots.

Uninstalled that and re-installed the hard copy once more... no problems.

 

So, dunno if this helps anyone who is having issues... and I am in no way a programmer or know much of what I'm talking about. :)

 

Just a point for anyone who is having wierd FPS drops with a D2D version. Thanks for the suggestions everyone. If anyone else has the time to test this out to verify go ahead... although this may just be a computer specific problem.

[ResidentWeevil2077]

That's why I protest the D2D service. It's STUPID, POINTLESS, and most of all, UTTERLY WASTEFUL. If I ever developed my own games, NONE of them would appear on the D2D service EVER. Besides, I can't use the service anyway because A) I don't have a credit card, and B) I don't have high-speed internet. Jeebers, people shouldn't be so damn lazy to go out and buy a hard copy of the games they want :rolleyes: