Hardware upgrades for modded Oblivion

[liscoe]

Hi,
Looking for some advice regarding improving the performance of Oblivion.
My specs are
Q6600 2.6Ghz
ATI 4870 1024 Mbytes
4 gig DDR2 6400 RAM
Gigabyte 775 Intel P45 MBoard
On board sound
Windows 7 64

I have Oblivion running with about 100 mods including Quarls Textures, AEWVD, better cities, FCOM and various other graphical and gameplay mods.

I assumed that my current spec would be able to handle the game but have been disappointed... Framerates are as follows
Indoors- 30-80fps
Outdoors- 10-15fps
Walking around town- 5-10fps

Given that I've spent uncountable hours modding the game I want to be able to play it properly! Was wondering what in my system was the bottleneck and how to resolve it. My options are:
1.) Graphics- I am assuming that the bottleneck is my gpu. If so would it be better to crossfire my 4870 with another or purchase a new 470 or 6870?
2.) Processor- due to the large number of scripts that the mods run could the bottleneck be my cpu? However framerate is fine indoors so I doubt that this is it. My options in this case are to overclock or upgrade my whole machine to an i7 which I'd rather avoid.
3.) RAM- would more RAM help?
4.) Sound card- I've heard that getting a hardware based sound card improves fps as it will take the load off the cpu (only if the cpu is the bottleneck obviously).

Thanks for the help in advance!!

 

[Nirreln]

Yes getting a sound card will help, but since you have Windows 7 you'll need to install OpenAL. And overclocking your cpu will help as this where Oblivion really needs most of it's power but since it can't make use of multicore cpus there's not much you can do. Also I recommend going to the official forums for more advice. http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/forum/23-oblivion-hardware-and-software-issues/

 

[liscoe]

So you are suggesting that the problems I am having are cpu related then? I've installed streamline and all the ini fixes and this hasn't helped. When I reduce the 'actor fade' this doesn't seem to help either, added to the fact that my fps is fine indoors I was thinking that it was my gpu that was the bottleneck- what with all the texture mods etc... Need to make sure before I spend £200 on the wrong piece of hardware!

 

[SHAQ]

I would monitor your vram and ram usage first as it's possible you are filling it up with texture mods. They both go up outdoors I have noticed and that could be part of the reason. Have you raised the ugridstoload variable? I noticed that drops performance by a bunch and a faster CPU won't help much with that. I use it on FONV on my rig and it still drops below 30 fps.

 

[betasub]

You don't mention your res, but I assume with Quarl's you are pushing the limits of your 4870's memory, especially in towns with all the different building textures.

I think you should make saves of suitable test areas for benching, and try over/under-clocking the CPU, or tweaking some of the mods that have major effects on performance.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

If Oblivion is like Morrowind then draw/view distance hits the CPU hard, which is probably one reason why indoors performs the best.

 

[lavaheadache]

100 mods ?!!? I would think somewhere along the way something is causing a major problem. A 4870 should annihilate oblivion. I know mine did when I had it and I was running Qarls texture pack 2560x1600 4xaa

 

[Leyawiin]

Its the script intensive mods (CPU) that are killing your performance. Overclock your Q6600 a decent bit, but even that won't help in some situations. I know for a fact Better Cities will choke almost any CPU. FCOM introduces a lot of scripting for the new enemies and enemy behavior out in the world. QTP3 Redimized really doesn't hurt a good GPU that much (and your current one should be up to the task).

Basically, you need to take stock of your mods and test them. Go for the texture mods that don't introduce any scripts first. Test your performance. If it seems O.K. activate and test all the others one at a time until you hit a really bad one. Decide whether you can live without it and move on to the next. What you're looking for are ones that affect NPC and creature behavior - those are usually the killers. Mods are fun, but I learned through trial and error what I could actually get away with and learned to live with the limitations.

 

[NoSoup4You]

Not the fastest cpu in the world, I'd at least OC it to 3.0Ghz and see if it makes any difference whatsoever. Or perhaps it's a Gamebryo engine limitation...

 

[Duwelon]

I was playing Oblivion recently too, with Qarl's, OOO, and a few other mods. The biggest performance killer for me by far was OOO. I ended up uninstalling it because it made the game unbearable in the same ways the OP described. Not only was there was frame rate lag outside and in cities, but hard drive thrashing was much, much worse with OOO for some reason.

Xeon 2.66 (Q6700 equiv) @ 3.6ghz. 5870 and 4 gigs 'o ram.

 

[Scooby Doo]

OOO is pretty cpu intensive.. along with multiple companion mods

 

[JimmiG]

100 mods ?!!? I would think somewhere along the way something is causing a major problem. A 4870 should annihilate oblivion. I know mine did when I had it and I was running Qarls texture pack 2560x1600 4xaa

Oblivion ran quite well with QTP3, Better Cities and Unique Landscapes on my Radeon 4850 512MB and Phenom I. On my current system, it runs great, but I don't have 100 mods.. mostly the previously mentioned ones plus Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and a few smaller mods.
It's definitely possible that some mod you have is not playing nice...

Also, try Streamline:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10400

It can automatically adjust visual detail settings depending on your FPS. Works great for Better Cities, because you don't need such a great viewing distance in cities. You can also have a higher target FPS for combat if you want. But even without it, you should be getting at least 20-30 FPS outdoors.

 

[Concillian]

As others have said, try adjusting things to see the effect.

Gather rates with
- CPU underclocked, video default
- CPU underclocked, lower resolution
- CPU overclocked, video default
- CPU overclocked, lower resolution

This will highlight the issue before you buy hardware.

Most likely it's CPU and realistically an i3 @ 4GHz is probably a better option for Oblivion than a Q6600 @ 2.6 GHz due to the game not taking advantage of the extra cores. Unfortunately i3 are slightly crippled in comparison to i5, even in single threaded performance, so i5 can be a better choice if you can spend the extra. You don't need an extreme mobo to get decent performance, and can get i3 + mobo + RAM for $300 ish or an i5 750 / 760 for a little more and sell your existing stuff on FS / FT. Socket 775 stuff still sells pretty well.

 

[SZLiao214]

Overclock your cpu. I have a g0 stepping and it goes to 3.6 pretty easily. If you don't have an after market cooler you might want to look into getting one as it will be a cheaper upgrade compared to the others.

 

[kmmatney]

As others have said, your system should totally handle Oblivion (its quite old now) so it has to be one of the mods. I just downloaded a HUGE mod pack, which I;m sure has the mods you are running, so I'll see if I take any hits. I'm running at 1920 x 1080, though.

You should have enough RAM, and the cpu should be OK, although overclocking the cpu and video card will help. Didyou ever mention the rez you want to run it at?

 

[taltamir]

I would monitor your vram and ram usage first as it's possible you are filling it up with texture mods.

AFAIK oblivion graphics mods eat up ram and vram... so I will definitely star there.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

It's definitely the combination of lack of dedicated sound card + lower clocked CPU. The GPU is fine, even for QTP3 (which, btw, you should be using QTP3Redimized, not the original). Your most cost effective upgrades will be a sound card (remember you will need OpenAL to make use of it) and either a CPU upgrade or OC, depending on your budget.

As a comparison, I'm able to run ~240 mods (+ extras merged with Wrye Bash) including QTP3R and additional texture packs, FCOM, and still manage to hit 15-20fps in the cities, 20-30's in the countryside, with the exception of particularly hard-hitting areas such as the IC docks. e8400 @ 4.05 + GTX280 + 8GB DDR2 + X-fi Titanium

Your mod list will also need to be checked out, although I recommend you do that at the Bethesda Oblivion Mod boards (http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/forum/25-mods/). We don't bite

 

[liscoe]

Thanks for all the help guys, from what I gather from all the advice it's most likely to be my cpu that slows things down. So the first thing to do would be overclock and see if this makes any difference. Also I'll buy a soundcard and see if this takes some of the load from the cpu.

I do have streamline installed (although haven't used it to set the level of visual detail in relation to fps) and am running the game at 1900x1200 widescreen. I've attempted to change the resolution to test but this crashes the game. I am using Quarls redimized.

I've downloaded rivatuner and will run some tests to confirm the bottleneck and then attempt to resolve it. Sound card and overclocking most likely.

One last question- if overclocking my Q6700 doesn't help, would it make sense to purchase a Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 3.0GHz (I can get a second hand one for £150) or should I just spend a lot more and upgrade completely to an i5... Can't really afford it though!

Once again thanks for all your help, one day I'll get the game (and mods!) working perfectly!

 

[liscoe]

Right I've run rivatuner to get some stats in order to work out where the bottleneck is...

And I am confused- if you look at the image below it doesn't look like either the cpu or gpu are maxing out and yet my framerate only gets above about 5-15 when inside a building when it rises to 40-60 (see spikes on graph).

I've not been able to get vram usage due to the fact that I am running windows 7.

Not sure now whether to overclock or upgrade!

Help appreciated

 

[SolMiester]

Looks like the 4th core is taking all the hit, non multi-threaded game....so yeah, OC that CPU....its the same as mine...9 x 333 is too easy for 25% increase!

 

[taltamir]

I am not sure about win7, but in earlier versions thread bouncing caused all CPUs to show very similar percent usage...
aka, a single threaded app on a quad core will make all four CPUs show 25% use, because the thread was bounced between all cores multiple times per second.

IIRC windows 7 actually differentiates between cores and threads (aka, HT), and has less thread bouncing than before. But I don't know if it is enough to cause what he is seeing or if something weird is going on... anyone else who knows more mind chipping in with some insights?

 

[RussianSensation]

Not sure if the soundcard would make that much of a difference. I would expect at most 5-10%? Try overclocking the CPU to 3.4ghz+ first and see if this helps before spending $ on a sound card.