Oblivion PC tweaks

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tony4704

Senior member
Jul 29, 2003
336
0
0
anychance the links to the vids can be reposted...bandwidth is exceeded on the links posted
 

paradoxiq

Junior Member
Mar 30, 2006
2
0
0
Two things to start:

1. Long time reader, first time poster. 'Lo all.
2. Great thread.

Two points to contribute:

1. There were a few comments about Bethesda's rendering engine, and several opined that the team should have licensed an engine. They did indeed license a 3rd party engine. They used the same engine they used for Morrowind, albeit the latest and greatest incarnation. For Morrowind, they used NDL's NetImmerse engine. That tech was rechristened Gamebryo a couple of years ago. For those who are keeping score, several months ago, NDL was bought by Emergent Game Technologies (who began life as Butterfly.net). Gamebryo is a very mature engine, used in a ton of titles, and Bethesda is pretty much the deepest developer with it.

2. There were a couple of silly comments about some kind of Microsoft conspiracy concerning the sabotage of the PC version in favor of the 360 version. :roll: Normally, I'd steer clear of this kind of nonsense, but as a producer, I have to offer an analogy. This is akin to suggesting that I would sabotage my child's education to make one school look better than another. These guys worked on this project for almost five years. The franchise reaches over a decade back, all on the PC before Morrowind, and represents the majority of the company's revenue. I can't contemplate sabotaging something I'd spent that long on for such a trivial thing.

Rants aside <g>, many thanks for posting the PC tweaks ... made a big difference! :thumbsup:
 

jim1976

Platinum Member
Aug 7, 2003
2,704
6
81
Originally posted by: paradoxiq
Two things to start:

1. Long time reader, first time poster. 'Lo all.
2. Great thread.

Two points to contribute:

1. There were a few comments about Bethesda's rendering engine, and several opined that the team should have licensed an engine. They did indeed license a 3rd party engine. They used the same engine they used for Morrowind, albeit the latest and greatest incarnation. For Morrowind, they used NDL's NetImmerse engine. That tech was rechristened Gamebryo a couple of years ago. For those who are keeping score, several months ago, NDL was bought by Emergent Game Technologies (who began life as Butterfly.net). Gamebryo is a very mature engine, used in a ton of titles, and Bethesda is pretty much the deepest developer with it.

2. There were a couple of silly comments about some kind of Microsoft conspiracy concerning the sabotage of the PC version in favor of the 360 version. :roll: Normally, I'd steer clear of this kind of nonsense, but as a producer, I have to offer an analogy. This is akin to suggesting that I would sabotage my child's education to make one school look better than another. These guys worked on this project for almost five years. The franchise reaches over a decade back, all on the PC before Morrowind, and represents the majority of the company's revenue. I can't contemplate sabotaging something I'd spent that long on for such a trivial thing.

Rants aside <g>, many thanks for posting the PC tweaks ... made a big difference! :thumbsup:


Well first of all, welcome to the forums(at least officially) and thank you for your kind words
As far as concerns "conspiracy" theories, well you make valid points that make sense.
But it's not like they are sabotaging the project if they make a slightly inferior or at least a similar implementation for the PC. More like marketing game it sounds in my ears, to promote their console.. PC users will always be here no matter the unrighteous returns they get for their investments .. Microsoft has the power to "affect" a company's decisions.
I agree that the majority of PC users don't have X19k cards or G7x high end cards, so this could be one reason that they might have procedeed with the PC project this way.. But they could have added the SM3.0 path for rendering, game is based on SM2.0b. Many said that they implemented SM3.0 shaders for performance but due to some bugs they eventually let it out of the game.. This for example could have helped a lot ..
The majority of the market is console users. So given the fact that Xenos is a "very" good console, they might have based game's GFX with these standards. It would not be the case for the first time, it happened with many games that launched first on Xbox and then were ported on PC platform. We could be headed for a new era, that the majority of the games are coming simulteanously for PC/Xbox platform and they will be based on xbox chip. But these are pure speculations noone really knows what is the truth..
Anyway whatever the case might be, I have to congratulate them for their overall effort. It is a worthy follower of Elder Scrolls series and especially of Morrowind.. Gameplay and graphically wise..
 

paradoxiq

Junior Member
Mar 30, 2006
2
0
0
Some interesting and fair points, Rig.

I think that your observations about the development pipeline (both technical and in terms of production) hit closer to the reality of the reasoning behind these decisions, rather than some notion of intentional sabotage to favor one platform over another (which is what prickled me, and why I made the comment ... and hey, maybe I read those comments wrong).

Ultimately, a game product has to meet creative, technical, and business goals. Everything must ultimately serve the product vision, and concerns like graphic technologies are simply one part of this (albeit an important one). As you likely know (Project Offset looks great, btw!), there are trivial and non-trivial differences between shader versions, cards, etc. that will ultimately affect how assets are created to how the final product can be marketed. Multiple tech paths also means new and exciting ways to use the client's cycles ... unfortunately, it's generally at the expense of other systems. And all of that needs to be tested for, tweaked, optimized, etc., or threads like this one won't be about tweaking for improvement ...

And on that note, I've taken us off topic. A nifty way to introduce myself to the forums! :beer:
 

Drayvn

Golden Member
Jun 23, 2004
1,008
0
0
Ive been looking through the .ini files for Oblivion...

Cam across a bUse30Shaders or some other... doesnt seem to actually do something but they have a SM3 path there.
 

jim1976

Platinum Member
Aug 7, 2003
2,704
6
81
Actually I have seen that and it might be true.. More stuff to investigate..
My whole rendererinfo.txt

Renderer Device Information:
Radeon X1900 Series
ati2dvag.dll
RenderPath : BSSM_SV_2_B
PSversion : 300
VSversion : 300
VStarget : vs_2_0
PStarget : ps_2_b
PS2xtarget : ps_2_b
maxPS20inst : 512
3.0 Shaders : yes
Image space effects : yes
Nonpowerof2textures : yes
FP16ARGB blending : yes
FP16ARGB filtering : no
High dynamic range : yes
Bloom lighting : no
Refraction : yes
2.0 hair : yes
SLI mode : no
Water shader : yes
Water reflections : yes
Water displacement : yes
Water high res : yes
Multisample Type : 0
Shader Package : 16

I need to do some more tweaking and test these out.. It seems though that there might be some shaders that could make use of SM3.0 eventually (probably the filtering of shadow maps or use of dynamic branching). PS/VS versions are SM3.0 but PS/VS targets are SM2.0b..
 

Drayvn

Golden Member
Jun 23, 2004
1,008
0
0
Originally posted by: jim1976
Actually I have seen that and it might be true.. More stuff to investigate..
My whole rendererinfo.txt

Renderer Device Information:
Radeon X1900 Series
ati2dvag.dll
RenderPath : BSSM_SV_2_B
PSversion : 300
VSversion : 300
VStarget : vs_2_0
PStarget : ps_2_b
PS2xtarget : ps_2_b
maxPS20inst : 512
3.0 Shaders : yes
Image space effects : yes
Nonpowerof2textures : yes
FP16ARGB blending : yes
FP16ARGB filtering : no
High dynamic range : yes
Bloom lighting : no
Refraction : yes
2.0 hair : yes
SLI mode : no
Water shader : yes
Water reflections : yes
Water displacement : yes
Water high res : yes
Multisample Type : 0
Shader Package : 16

I need to do some more tweaking and test these out.. It seems though that there might be some shaders that could make use of SM3.0 eventually (probably the filtering of shadow maps or use of dynamic branching). PS/VS versions are SM3.0 but PS/VS targets are SM2.0b..

Yea as you can see its choosing to use the rendering path of SM2.0b rather than SM3 even tho it says it can... which is wierd, i have no clue why they wouldnt use SM3...

And the fact that nVidia cards dont have SM2.0b, which gives an upper hand to any card since the X800 because they use SM2.0b and all nVidia drivers all the way up to the 7900 can only use SM2.0a or plain SM2 for VS (PS is at SM2.0a).

As an Example with my 7800GTX
Renderer Device Information:
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX by TweaksRUs
nv4_disp.dll
RenderPath : BSSM_SV_2_A
PSversion : 300
VSversion : 300
VStarget : vs_2_0
PStarget : ps_2_a
PS2xtarget : ps_2_a
maxPS20inst : 512
3.0 Shaders : yes
Image space effects : yes
Nonpowerof2textures : yes
FP16ARGB blending : yes
FP16ARGB filtering : yes
High dynamic range : yes
Bloom lighting : no
Refraction : yes
2.0 hair : yes
SLI mode : no
Water shader : yes
Water reflections : yes
Water displacement : yes
Water high res : yes
Multisample Type : 0
Shader Package : 13

So theoretically if SM2.0b is either used for enhanced graphics or performance, wither way the ATi cards from the X800 are getting a better experience compared to its counterpart the 6800s.

P.S. Whats the difference in shader packages? Is this different because of the graphics card or what? If anyone has a 7800 or X1900 or any other card so we can compare if these packages vary?
 

RobertR1

Golden Member
Oct 22, 2004
1,113
1
81
Well, I picked this game up yesterday and played it last night. As others have noted, the screen shots don't do it justice. The game is beautiful in motion. I'm out of the sewers and ran up the market place but I have only 50 gold

At 1920x1200 with 4xAAA and 16xHQAF, the game is playable for me with the occasional slide show. I think anything above 30fps is plenty fine for such games. I'll turn it down to 2xAAA this weekend and see how that works.

Now, how do I get a damn horse!? walking sucks......

 

poopygood

Senior member
Apr 14, 2002
818
0
0
does anyone have a mirror for Joker's vid caps?

I want to see them but his bandwith has been exceeded...
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
I like this mod

RAR

Place "menus" folder in C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data for a more PC centric look. e.g. way less scrolling inside menus and better maps!!!!

Details inside PIC

Here are INI mods I found best above and trolling other places OP Maybe you should edt

INI file in my docs..

1. uGridDistantTreeRange=15
Raise to increase area in which LOD tree billboards are drawn - looks quite nice doubled if your comp can take it.

2. uGridDistantCount=25
Raise to increase the number of LOD tree billboards drawn - looks quite nice doubled if your comp can take it.

3. Fix low-resolution distant landmass textures have been called 'soup' on the official forums.

uGridsToLoad = 9 or 7 (default 5)
uExterior Cell Buffer=100 (default 36)

Grids must be an odd number. It can be higher, 11+ for e.g., but this starts to cause odd effects like water disappearing and hovering mountains. Fun. The Cell

Buffer will raise to match, as grids influences the minimum number of cells loaded. Loading times increase, but it's well worth it.

There are a few side effects to the grids tweak: firstly, water reflections sometimes go astray where landmass meets water, but it's not too common and easily

ignored. Secondly, and more importantly, more memory is needed for the cells. Fortunately this is easily fixed with the following tweak, which also happens to be one

of the key performance boosters:

iPreloadSizeLimit=104857600 (default 2621440)

The value is in bytes. If you have a 1G or less machine and this causes troubles, set it to 52428800.

4. bAllowScreenShot=0
Set to 1 to allow the PrintScreen key to take screenshots.

5. bFull Screen=1
0 = windowed, 1 = fullscreen

6. Water

bUseWaterReflectionsMisc=0
bUseWaterReflectionsStatics=0
bUseWaterReflectionsTrees=0
bUseWaterReflectionsActors=0

Set these to 1 to allow these kinds of objects to reflect in water. Performane hit!

7. fDlgFocus=2.1000

Raise to pull camera back some in dialogue - I use a value of 4 or so.

8. bForceFullLOD=0

A value of 1 forces foreground trees to always render at the highest detail - I haven't found this to be a huge performance hit for the visual benefit, your mileage

may very.

9. iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure=2

Raise to allow more unique grass types per terrain texture - 4 should be enough to let you see everything possible.

10. More blood
The essence of every fight, and the marks of your hard won victories, blood is limited to 10 decals and disappears after 10 seconds. Don't they know that blood

stains?

fDecalLifetime=1200.0000 (default 10)
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=500 (default 10)

Sets 20 mins and 500 decals. Decals use up ah heck all memory, so this is a simple and effective tweak.
Note: if you enter the Video settings in game, fDecalLifetime will be reset to 10, so don't go in there!

11. Skip Intro
SIntroSequence=

12. moves the status bar down ... this is good.

CODE
[Interface]
iSafeZoneX=20
iSafeZoneY=20
iSafeZoneXWide=20
iSafeZoneYWide=20

to

CODE
[Interface]
iSafeZoneX=5
iSafeZoneY=5
iSafeZoneXWide=5
iSafeZoneYWide=5

Game Prefs

1. Turn off grass shadow for 5% more performance

2. Turning off Vsync will give ~30% more FPS all things being equal. Works very well with nV Drivers Dx "max frames render ahead" of 0 you'll get 35% more FPS! Granted some tearing now....
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
Been doing some testing. Turning off Vsync will give ~30% more FPS all things being equal. HUGE impact for some reason. I went from 25 FPS in heavy grass to 35 FPS!

 

5150Joker

Diamond Member
Feb 6, 2002
5,549
0
71
www.techinferno.com
Originally posted by: Zebo
Been doing some testing. Turning off Vsync will give ~30% more FPS all things being equal. HUGE impact for some reason. I went from 25 FPS in heavy grass to 35 FPS!


Zebo, have you tried DXTweaker? It enables triple buffering for D3D so the fps hit isn't nearly as bad with vsync turned on. However the program is still a bit buggy and the game crashes sometimes when fast traveling.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
I'll try it. What about triple buffering inside nV driver?

Edit: In reference to post about Setting render ahead from 3 to 0 .. Doesnt always help... I found the nV Drivers "max frames render ahead" of 0 does'nt do anything with Vsnyc on helps with vsync off by about ~5% ...

EDIT2: JOKER DXTweake "requries- .Net Framework 1.1" so I won't be trying it after all.
 

jim1976

Platinum Member
Aug 7, 2003
2,704
6
81
Zebo thanx everything that you mentioned about tweaks is given in the links I have in my original post.. But I edited it to put some more that you mentioned..
 

RobertR1

Golden Member
Oct 22, 2004
1,113
1
81
Is there a guide to beginners? I've never played RPG's before and this is a lot to learn
 

Jeff7181

Lifer
Aug 21, 2002
18,368
11
81
Can someone mirror the better water mod? The piece of ****** site it's hosted on takes 2 minutes to load a page and ****** up every time I try to log in to download the damn thing.
 

professor1942

Senior member
Dec 22, 2005
509
0
0
Don't bother with that UGridsToLoad tweak as it introduces new bugs (getting stuck in the map and bouncing up and down). The new LOD texture mod works great though.

 

beserker15

Senior member
Jun 24, 2003
820
0
0
not sure if it's been mentioned here but reading on the elder scrolls forum, ATI ppl, turn on 6xAA! Somehow it runs just as good as 2xaa, sometimes even better...and it looks way better!. I've tried it with my x800gto2, my friend with an x800pro said it works, even my friend with a 9800pro!.
 
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