Processor question.

[I Darken]

Hi guys.

 

First of all Oblivion runs smoothly. In every aspect actualy. I had a problem earlier today and with background images showing up when playing and since that occured (1 week ago i noticed a small FPS change since these images flickered in my screen) Now theyre gone I do not notice any changes in framerate and maybe im just wrong and the werent any changes. They looked very small in the first place. But I just played the game on my friends computer with a equal system but with a better processor.

 

This is my system >>

 

Silverstone TJ07

4GB PC1000 from kingston

Asus P5E motherboard

Intel core 2 duo E6600 @ 3,11GHZ

ATI HD4870

Soundblaster X-fi Extreme gamer

Asus Lightscribe DVD drive

And 2x640GB Samsung F1 drives in RAID0

And I have windows XP SP2 as operating system.

 

I would only like to know if the CPU causes any bottlenecks. Because my friend I know get better framerates then I do with a HD4850 with a clean install (No mods) It's a slight difference though in FPS and stuttering compared to my frends rig. and I just want to make sure it's the cpu and not something else.

 

If you guys think it's something else please tell me. Its not that I care about my friend getting higher scores. But if it's not the processor I know I can tweak things up.

[Ethre]

Nice system. Makes me jealous. :)

 

Now, to clarify that I understand you right -

You:

1. Earlier today had a problem where background images were lagging, but that went away

2. Noticed that your framerate was dropping very slightly about a week ago

3. Played on your friend's computer and had better framerates,

 

And

4. Your friend's computer has a nicer processor, a 4850, and he does not run mods.

 

Correct on all four counts?

 

So you were wondering if your CPU could be causing bottlenecks?

 

Short answer: Yes, it can.

Long answer: Its possible, but I don't think that your issues were due to processor. If anything, they sound like normal variance across the game world. Especially if you are using any mods which extensively modify a location, you will notice some pretty significant fps changes across Cyrodiil. Can cause some minor lagging too. This is also true if you are using large texture packs (ie QTP, etc) or high detail LOD replacers.

So basically I don't think you have anything much to worry about. You might want to think over your mods/additions a bit more, and try tweaking your settings some, but I don't think you should need a new processor.

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

Additional note: Its also possible (although not likely) that your issue is actually due to your CPU - not the clock speed, but rather the TLB bug in e6600s. I think its very unlikely that this would be the case, but I noticed you hadn't updated to SP3 yet, and so figured that you might not have installed the tlb patch either. I wouldn't think it would hurt anything to patch it, and if by some chance this is your issue, then that should fix it.

[Varus Torvyn]

Seems to me you have a decent CPU. What's happening with other hardware can make the CPU wait, however. No matter how fast your CPU is, it can't send data to other components on your motherboard until they tell the CPU that they are ready for data.

 

1. Trim your graphics settings back. GPU will finish actions faster, thus in turn the CPU feeds data to it faster. There's a lot of graphics files in Oblivion - they have to be loaded into RAM, translated into graphics card commands, then fed to the GPU. Games don't have to be at or near max settings to look good.

 

2. Make use of your Windows Task Manager - Close unnecessary programs you don't need to run while gaming. More memory resources freed up for the CPU, and fewer calls between the CPU, hard drive, and RAM.

 

3. Take advantage of Windows tweaking utilities. For example, there's a XP tweak to always unload DLLs when closing an application. Frees up a lot of resources.

[I Darken]

Ethre.

 

He has no mods. So that's correct. But to compare my system I benchmarked by looking how well the game runs on my computer with no mods aswell. And what I forgot to say is that oblivion runs overall a bit better on his machine. There was a small notice in framerate. Maybe not even worth paying attention to. But tweaking your computer for a videogame is always fun and usefull. And I had to know about the speed of my processor anyways. Clearly it's not causing it if it does it wouldnt be worth upgrading.

 

Im going to try install SP3 and the several tweaks mentioned. I do run on clean boot and some XP tweaks.

[Ethre]

Wait, I can almost guarantee you do NOT have PC1000 for your ram. Would mind checking and seeing what you actually have? DDR2-1200 by any chance? What's your friend using? The minor difference might be due to memory timings (latency) or frequency if you're noting using DDR2-1200, and he is. Even if you have identical ram, yours could perform slightly less effectively due to your CPU OC (remember adjusting the multi? This affects the RAM too).

 

So what multi and fsb are you using?

 

Yeah, I know that sounds illogical, but believe me - it can (although not necessarily is) be true.

[Javalin]

I had that problem earlier last week.

 

 

Here are what can cause it.

 

 

I found that it took a simple defrag to fix it.

 

 

If you often Alt + Tab out of the game, it can cause problems like that. IF it happens again, Alt + Tab the game, Minimise any other windows you have open, and then go back into the game.

 

 

Make sure you check your hardware compatibility too. That can cause slight problems also.