Animations are freezing. FPS may be involved.

[Foina]

I'm having a most curious problem.
I don't even how to name it, so I'll do my best to explain.

Kindly, read it all carefully.


234 hours, 11 minutes, 58 seconds. That's the time I played Oblivion, according to my latest savegame. And I haven't had a single problem in all this time (save for 7 CTD's - yes, I kept count of them).

All has been fine up until about 230 hours. Lately I was in Skingrad, talked with some Fighter Guild's members. They pointed me to the goblin caves nearby. I cleaned up Derelict Mine first, then went for Goblin Jim's cave.

Only a few steps into Goblin Jim's cave I noticed something was wrong. Once in a while some sprites from the fire animation on my torch were sticking in mid air, without disappearing - as if time was frozen while I was able to move.
Walking backwards would clearly allow me to spot these fire sprites frozen ahead of me. They would disappear after a few seconds.
If I unequipped my torch all fires in mid air would instantly vanish.
If I re-equipped the torch, for a moment I'd spot a fire sprite appearing were last I was when I unequipped the torch.

With hindsight I'll say that the strange behaviors started right then. But at the moment it didn't look like something to worry about.

So I kept delving into Goblin Jim's cave, fought the occasional goblin, looted their corpse, done the usual stuff you do when you explore a new place.
Nothing was out of order - save for the occasional freezing in the sprites animating the fires on the many torches present in that cave. The campfires too would occasionally freeze their animation.

This would happen whether or not I had my torch equipped.

That cave is on 3 levels. The problem with the fires got worse as I got deeper into the cave. At some point *every* fire animation anywhere I looked was frozen. Some fires would return to animate if I rotated my point of view as to bring them fires to the edge of the screen.
Other times the fires would animate correctly only if I walked while watching them.
Other times again the fires would sporadically play 1 or 2 frames of their animation over 1 second of play.

It all gave me the impression of stuttering, or anyway of something "engulfed".
But the framerate seemed steady. I used the tdt command to make sure. The framerate was indeed steady, and in the high 70s all the time (my screen refresh rate is set to 75 Hz).

After cleaning up Goblin Jim's cave I got out of the place, leaving behind those defective "fires". A quick stop to Skingrad to sell the junk, then I saved and quit.

The day after I resumed play and headed for Fanacasecul, that Ayelid ruins located West-South-West of the IC Waterfront.
Once in the dark of its dungeon I immediately noticed something weird in my spells. That sparky particle effect swirling around your body when you cast any spell... that effect wasn't playing. At all. The spells itself would work, and their sounds would play correctly. Just the particle effects were missing.
I used a few Starlight spells (they last 60 seconds) to lit my way as I fought a couple zombies in the dark corridors. Then all of a sudden I noticed a thick particle effect rising around me. A *very* thick one, and it was the typical Illusion spells' particle effect (Starlight's). They just were *many*, and playing all together, and playing real slow.
Only when I looked down, at my feet, all those effects would speed up their animations.

At that point I tried more spells. None would play the particle effect immediately. The effect would start playing only when I looked down or went up against a wall.

Certain to be having a problem, I save and quit. Then launch the game anew and reload. The problem persists.
I get out of Fanacasecul. I'm now in the wilderness. Two bandits attack me. I dispatch them. It all played fine, smoothly, without glitches, except for my spells' particle effects that wouldn't play at all.
Then I spot a butterfly a few meters on the side. She's flying oddly. In fact she _isn't_ flying. She's frozen mid-air, much like the fire sprites from my torch, back in Goblin Jim's cave.
Observing the butterfly, she occasionally plays the next frame of its animation depending on where I look with the camera.

That's when I perceive that the _framerate_ has something to do with the problem.
When the fps is steady, the animations are frozen. When the fps drops, even momentarily (for example making a quicksave), the animations *do* play, but only to freeze back again once the fps stabilizes to high 70s.

I also noticed a problem with doors and gates. In Fanacasecul there's a pressure plate that you must step onto in order to lower a metal gate blocking your way. If the framerate is high, stepping on that plate does nothing. Only when the framerate drops, does the gate lower, and its animaiton is choppy and slow anyway.

Similarly, the IC Arena Gate (when starting a fight) won't drop at all even after the speaker has given the 'go'. I have to look somewhere that will drop my fps for the gate to play its animation and let me pass through.

Gates activated by the player work the same. In Skingrad there's many small gates to access this or that house backyard. I may click them to open/close but they won't move nor make a sound until I look up in the sky or point to somewhere that will drop my fps a little. Even then, their animation won't be smooth.


This is all I have observed. Everything was absolutely fine (for 230+ hours!) before I entered Goblin Jim's cave. What the hell is going on, and how do I cure it?


Help me, please.

[Hickory]

You are describing the classic symptoms of the ABomb animation bloat. There is an option in Wrye Bash to attempt to 'fix' the Abomb by resetting the counter. Be aware that it is not 100 percent safe, so back up your saves before fixing them.

[Foina]

You are describing the classic symptoms of the ABomb animation bloat. There is an option in Wrye Bash to attempt to 'fix' the Abomb by resetting the counter. Be aware that it is not 100 percent safe, so back up your saves before fixing them.

Really?? Then it's a known thing!

What a relief ;D

 

I was fearing that my savegame was doomed. Writing my post I kept saying myself << figures... this is so peculiar, nobody will even know what I'm talking about. Likely they'll ask which mods I use, what's my system specs, and if I know which end of the keyboard is which -- classic >> :happy:

 

Thank you very much, sir, you've lit me a candle of hope.

May you have a very good day today.

 

I'm off to fetch links and docs on this ABomb thing.

[Striker879]

Another option is Oblivion Animation Fixer (OAF).

 

If you also use OBSE you will see that each save has two files, one with the ESS extension and one with the OBSE extension. You run OAF on the ESS save file. It will put 'OAF_' in front of the file name (so if your original was 'MySaveGame01.ess' the OAF fixed copy will be called 'OAF_MySaveGame01.ess'). The original save game is untouched (OAF works on a copy it makes). You'll need to make a copy of the corresponding file 'MySaveGame01.obse' and then rename that copy 'OAF_MySaveGame01.obse'.

 

Takes longer to describe what to do than actually do it. Whether you use Wrye Bash's animation fixer or OAF you'll still need to run the fix periodically. There is a field near the bottom of the OAF window that's says 'Byte found'. Whenever that gets up to 47 or 48 I run the fix (Wrye Bash gives the same using percent). If I don't check and find it's up to 47 or 48 I can usually tell in-game by the Legion rider's torches ... at 48 you start seeing tiny spark-like effects trailing their torch flame.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Striker879

[Foina]

I found the OAF tool (this afternoon), have used it, and it worked like a charm. Slick, painless, flawless.

 

I was back to report *success*, and post a link to the OAF, but you've been faster :cool:

 

I won't mind that the bug is due to reoccur, since it takes this much to build up. But sure I wouldn't have thought that such extravagant problem could lurk in a game.

I've read a bit about it.

Considering that it's the same for the console version, this bug becomes game-breaking. A broken save on a console is a middle finger rudely waved at the player -- and an embarassing situation for the game developer at the same time. These things normally receive Highest Priority, to the point they hastily cook and release a hotfix just for that.

 

So... how come they _never_ patched it??

And I read that the same thing occurs in Fallout 3 (guess what, I own that too) which was released 2 years after Oblivion. Funny policy from Bethesda :confused:


Oh well. My game works.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Foina

[Striker879]

Unfortunately most game companies have far too many executives who couldn't code a 'Hello world' app (but they do have their MBA). After a few bug fix cycles their overriding attitude is 'well we got your money, which is what this whole exercise was about, so we'll move on ... you're on your own'. They miss the chance to correct problems still embedded in their boiler plate code.

 

I gave a bit of misdirection on where to find the reported problem byte in OAF's dialogue. Look at the value shown in the third box to the right of the 'FixMe' button with the heading 'Byte:' above it. When it get's to 47 or 48 you should also be starting to see artifacts around flames.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Striker879

[Operations2000]

Thanks for pointing out what this problem was called.

Forgot/missed that I could fix it with Wrye Bash.

All seems to be good with the world again now, will certainly keep an eye on the percent in future.