Qarl's TP3 and Really Textured Normal Maps. Which to choose?

[weltall]

I just found the RTNM and installed it, and the game did look different as it removed the flatness of the game, but this is the first time I bothered to "think" what normal maps are. As I am guessing unlike Qarl's TP3, RTNM does not add any new textures. The reason I am looking into this, is because a friend has quite an old computer, and I was wondering if this would be useful for him, in case it does not affect the FPS as much.

[d181sp1]

I've used both just to see what the RTNM looked like. On an older rig use that. It's pretty well done and I can't say anything bad about it. Another one to consider for his rig is Jarrod's texture mod. It looks very nice but if I recall it's just ground textures, trees, fences, rocks, etc. I don't see why you couldn't install RTNM first and Jarrod's over it and have a drastically improved Oblivion on an older rig. If it's still too much, just do the RTNM and he'll still be stoked. I reckon a good rule of thumb is if he's running the game on high but only sporting 20 fps, stick with just RTNM and it'll be good to go still.

 

On a more powerful one with a solid graphics card you want Qarl's. Something to keep in mind though is that if you are using a lot of texture replacers and VWD mods you should give serious consideration to the Qarl's Redemized mod instead. I've been running that for years now and the version with "least reduction" or something worded like that is 97% as good as Qarl's normal release. Benefit is it uses a good chunk less of your VRAM, allowing you to run more texture mods, of which I have a lot. I've heard it said that you want a decent amount of system ram too but I don't know if that's true or not. There are about a dozen spinnoffs of Qarl's with reduced this and pifii'd that and optimized fuzzy wuzzy's and I'm a graphics and mod junkie and have tried several of them and having done so, still recommend Qarl's Redemized above all of them. It's got three levels of reduction and even the "most" option looks a lot better than a stock Oblivion.

 

Later

[d181sp1]

Look up a site called TOTO, (Total Oblivion Texture Overhaul- or some such) by dev/akm and spend some time looking and reading about options. Both of the mods you are interested in are featured there along with some more that you'll likely find interesting. He's not updating it anymore but as Oblivion is an old game, it's not an issue. He's got some mods on this site too.

[weltall]

Thank you so much for the reply d181sp1. Especially for pointing out TOTO. I have seen that site before, but honestly I thought it was just another texture pack, and never paid much attention. It looks like a really great guide in modding Oblivion. I am going through it right now. My friend used RTNM and he said the game just looks awesome now. I also mentioned to him Jarrod's texture mod and he said he will check it out too. As for me, Redemized is the one I use. I tried to use the normal one, ubt even if my 4870 has been really powerful even with newer games, its the 512MB version, and it is not really happy when I push it more than it can go. Well thanks again. Time to go through TOTO and see if I can make Oblivion even better.

[d181sp1]

Happy hunting.