Processor-Centric Tweaks

[urthman]

I think that the processor is the bottleneck for Oblivion on my system. I have:

 

AMD 4200+ X2

2 GB Ram

NVIDIA 8800 GT

Windows XP

 

Running Oblivion with Ultra High settings except for grass shadows (off) and self-shadows (off), 1024x768, HDR, and 4xAA (set with Rivatuner), I get 40-90 FPS indoors and outdoors it's around 20-30 in some places, but drops into 8-12 in places like the harbor of Anvil. It seems to be other characters (NPCs and monsters) that give me the biggest drop in framerate (and rain, of course).

 

I'm not willing to try turning the draw distance down, but the other graphics settings (including turning off HDR!) don't seem to make a huge difference in my framerate, so I'm guessing the processor is the bottleneck here. I'm also running FCOM and a bunch of other mods, so there's probably a hit there on the processor.

 

I've done all the .ini tweaks recommended at tweakguides.com.

 

Any suggestions for what else to tweak to try to get a little better performance in the areas with a lot of stuff / characters going on?

[Varus Torvyn]

I've got a really great answer for you, but you'll probably want to start fresh with a standard INI file instead of the tweaked one you have now: but that's your choice.

 

I took advantage of some of the tweaks in this topic on the Bethesda "Oblivion Hardware & Software" Forum, named "Strange thing about threaded Oblivion". To get the best and most out of this, you'll want to read through as much as possible, as the discussion is very thorough.

 

Link: Threaded Oblivion

[urthman]

Wow, Varus. That thread looks really promising!

 

I was also wondering, are there particular in-game settings that might make more a difference than others? I would guess that something like shadow smoothing is more of a video-card saver, (I think I experimented with that one and didn't see much benefit from using the sharper shadows). But would dropping the texture detail a notch or reducing the number of rocks and trees be more likely to help? I guess I should just methodically try everything, but it would be nice to have a smaller list of stuff that's more likely to make a difference.

 

Thanks again for the link to the .ini thread!

[Varus Torvyn]

One thing that will speed up your game a bit is to trim your graphics settings down some. For myself, even though I could max it out, I just let Oblivion set my card (Ultra High). HDR is on, but not AA. It's a little easier for me, because Oblivion recognizes my GPU.

 

There are so many Meshes & Textures files in this game, and every one you call up has to be loaded into RAM, translated into commands the GPU can understand, then the CPU feeds data to your GPU. If you run Oblivion at less than max settings, then the GPU finishes the display faster, thus the CPU gets to feed the next batch of data to it that much faster.

[urthman]

By "trim" do you mean change the settings from "Ultra high" to "High" in the launcher? Or is there something more specific you'd recommend. Or do you mean just try turning off AA?

 

I tried the .ini tweaks mentioned in that thread (vanilla .ini + ithreads set to 0 + the setting where you double the amount of memory allocated for textures) and it is definitely smoother and gave me a bump of maybe 2 or 3 frames per second in one of the really slow areas I've been using for testing (the docks of Anvil at night with several charactes carrying torches). Great tip. Thanks.

[Varus Torvyn]

By "trim" do you mean change the settings from "Ultra high" to "High" in the launcher? Or is there something more specific you'd recommend. Or do you mean just try turning off AA?

 

I tried the .ini tweaks mentioned in that thread (vanilla .ini + ithreads set to 0 + the setting where you double the amount of memory allocated for textures) and it is definitely smoother and gave me a bump of maybe 2 or 3 frames per second in one of the really slow areas I've been using for testing (the docks of Anvil at night with several charactes carrying torches). Great tip. Thanks.

 

I mentioned the word "trim" because some people are of the opinion that you have to run every game with "pedal to the metal" graphics settings. Such is not the case. Oblivion was released in 2006, and it recognizes (for example) nVidia 7-Series GPUs. I'm running a 7800 GTX, and Oblivion IDs it right away the very first time I boot it after a driver update, and auto-sets the game to Ultra-High.

 

Some might disagree, but imo Oblivion looks great at Ultra-High, HDR on, and AA off. It goes without saying that if you run Oblivion at these settings vs. Maxed-Out, the GPU finishes tasks faster, which in turn helps keep the rest of your hardware at optimum speeds.

 

You can get a good idea of the immense task a GPU has by looking at how many files you have in the Bethesda folder. The task increases the more mods you have loaded in.

 

Check out how large your folder is with the "Properties" function. I've got old files compressed, but even with that, my Bethesda folder is 7.4 GB in size, with 1,012 folders and 23,541 files.

[catmagnet]

Actually you can check if the cpu is really the bottleneck with XP itself. (The following may not be 100% correct, I have to translate 'backwards' from a non-english-version) Go to 'system control' then 'management' then 'performance', there you can configure all kinds of things to watch and log. Probably only works on XP pro though, really don't now if that's included in the stripped down version. If you have difficulties finding that it's probably due to me messing up the translations.... you may want to look for help on a technical support board. Another option is to download process explorer from sysinternals and keep it opened on a second display.

[nosisab]

Albeit the CPU is a bit outdated you have pretty impressive results even without tweaks at the sets you stated at the first post. I didn't follow the link pointed by Varus Torvyn yet and maybe what I'm to say here is covered there, but...

Was found one annoying issue that heavily affects fps being related with the sound instead graphics itself. It happens when the game load and reload the sound file to each leg of each creature around (seems NPCs doesn't triggers the issue). You can try the "quiet feet" mod (or something like this, the mod's name) that eliminate those sounds, inaudible most of them anyway. It's a compromise of sorts and, for me, a worthy one.

 

Edit: with those fps I would try changing the screen resolution to 1280x1024 or 1152x864 and maybe reducing AA to 2x if it becomes an issue and FPS is down bellow 20. Larger screen resolution is better than trying to force AA high, but I think at least 2xAA is a must have. With your video card, graphics itself will fare just well at higher screen resolution and even texture resolution isn't the first concern here, toward performance.

[nosisab]

Sorry for the double post, but I think a new one is better than extending the former.

 

About the threads options in the .INI file, it is something anyone with a multi core CPU shall do. Without it only one core will be used by the game. Just keep in mind Oblivion wasn't optimized to multi core, and so the benefits aren't "top", yet they are more than enough worth editing that file.

 

The advantages in so doing mustn't be measured with few tests or looking only at the FPS at some point. multi threading will be highly dependent over the program code itself, and at some places with heavy scripting and other CPU demanding calculations it will shine, at others it may do near nothing to help. The same is valid to the complexity added by mods, and in a few cases may be more an issue than a bless. Yet the benefits greatly surpass the troubles.

 

Edit: using the opportunity to say nothing of the said will help if Windows itself isn't enjoying the multi core advantages. Anyone in doubt can Open the "Device Manager" under "Hardware" accessed by the "System" icon on the control panel or properties of the "My computer" desktop icon in Windows XP.

 

There expand the "Computer" and look if the "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" is present. If not google the web to seek the procedures to enable it for the CPU brand of yours.

[Varus Torvyn]

Sorry for the double post, but I think a new one is better than extending the former.

 

About the threads options in the .INI file, it is something anyone with a multi core CPU shall do. Without it only one core will be used by the game. Just keep in mind Oblivion wasn't optimized to multi core, and so the benefits aren't "top", yet they are more than enough worth editing that file.

 

The advantages in so doing mustn't be measured with few tests or looking only at the FPS at some point. multi threading will be highly dependent over the program code itself, and at some places with heavy scripting and other CPU demanding calculations it will shine, at others it may do near nothing to help. The same is valid to the complexity added by mods, and in a few cases may be more an issue than a bless. Yet the benefits greatly surpass the troubles.

 

Edit: using the opportunity to say nothing of the said will help if Windows itself isn't enjoying the multi core advantages. Anyone in doubt can Open the "Device Manager" under "Hardware" accessed by the "System" icon on the control panel or properties of the "My computer" desktop icon in Windows XP.

 

There expand the "Computer" and look if the "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" is present. If not google the web to seek the procedures to enable it for the CPU brand of yours.

Nicely worded, well said. My PC had all of that preset, so I didn't have to worry. I checked in Windows Task Manager and the Device Manager, and XP SP3 (even SP2 when it was current) had automatically recognized the multi-core CPU. I've got a split graph window for CPU usage on the Performance Tab of the Task Manager. Nice visual aid for checking the load spread on cores.