*official* Oblivion Thread - Technical issues

[AnandTech Moderator]

This thread is intended for technical issues.

The other Oblivion thread is to be used for comments/brag & moan, etc.

All other threads besides these two will be locked.

It may help to list the system specs, including OS and driver rev.'s

 

[PingSpike]

I am wondering if anyone has tested oblivion with 2gb of ram versus 1gb and what the outcome was? The game loads pretty quick for me with 1gb...would more ram allow me to display more things in the distance? I know of course 2gb is better then 1gb...but I just want to see something showing the tangible benefit.

 

[40Hands]

I want to know if everyone crashes when they shutdown the game. I rarely have a clean shutdown without it crashing at the very end with a partial black screen still visible.

On a better note I have had very few in game crashes (to desktop). Only about 2 or so with ~43 hours play time.

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: BroeBo
I want to know if everyone crashes when they shutdown the game. I rarely have a clean shutdown without it crashing at the very end with a partial black screen still visible.

On a better note I have had very few in game crashes (to desktop). Only about 2 or so with ~43 hours play time.

mine goes in spurts. sometimes i'll get 2 or 3 errors on exit in a row, then it will close normally for a while.

no rhyme or reason that i can tell.

btw, thanks mods for the tevh support thread.

now we need a "mods & pics" thread

 

[imported_Imp]

Biggest pisser right now is the total system lock-up that I get about 50% of the time when trying to load a saved game from the main menu. No, the saves aren't corrupted, they work as many times as I can mash F9 without overwriting them. CTDs are far and few between, but at least they don't kill the whol system:|. My guess is that the freeze is related to some ass of a mod checking script. I tried my first mod a week ago, and whenever I activated the data files, it wouldn't load at all. Couldn't load a single game until I disabled it, and after that, still had to put up with the 50% rate. Also, I doubt my install is screwy, I posted this on the official forums, and apparently a few others also have this issue. Freezes as soon as I click yes, now where's that patch...

Yep, get the send error thing upon exit whenever I put in a couple hours. Closes properly if I keep it under 2-ish.

 

[starwars7]

I was wondering if someone could explain what Vsync does?

I've heard you can get some more FPS if you turn it off.

Also, what does shadow filtering do?

I'm asking because I have a 7900 GT with a dual core AMD processor and I'm trying to get as close to max as I can. Right now it is running with everything full, but it glitches every few secondes if its raining in a busy area of town. Or if I have a number of enemy around.

I've already got the coolbits fix going.

 

[rise]

this should help you some with control panel settings

good shots of different shadow filtering.

 

[professor1942]

Originally posted by: BroeBo
I want to know if everyone crashes when they shutdown the game. I rarely have a clean shutdown without it crashing at the very end with a partial black screen still visible.

On a better note I have had very few in game crashes (to desktop). Only about 2 or so with ~43 hours play time.

Yep, that's about the same for me, crashes about half the time on exit...

 

[microAmp]

Originally posted by: professor1942

Originally posted by: BroeBo
I want to know if everyone crashes when they shutdown the game. I rarely have a clean shutdown without it crashing at the very end with a partial black screen still visible.

On a better note I have had very few in game crashes (to desktop). Only about 2 or so with ~43 hours play time.

Yep, that's about the same for me, crashes about half the time on exit...

Same here pretty much. Was going at 100% crash on exiting. Updated my video card drivers and reinstalled sound card drivers (lost sound a couple of times after video card driver update).

Now it seems to be 50/50 crash on exit.

 

[starwars7]

Originally posted by: rise4310
this should help you some with control panel settings

good shots of different shadow filtering.

Thank you for the links!

Anyone have info on Vsync? (Its a selection in the options pannel)

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: BroeBo
I want to know if everyone crashes when they shutdown the game. I rarely have a clean shutdown without it crashing at the very end with a partial black screen still visible.

Same here.

Originally posted by: Imp
Biggest pisser right now is the total system lock-up that I get about 50% of the time when trying to load a saved game from the main menu. No, the saves aren't corrupted, they work as many times as I can mash F9 without overwriting them. CTDs are far and few between, but at least they don't kill the whol system:|. My guess is that the freeze is related to some ass of a mod checking script. I tried my first mod a week ago, and whenever I activated the data files, it wouldn't load at all. Couldn't load a single game until I disabled it, and after that, still had to put up with the 50% rate. Also, I doubt my install is screwy, I posted this on the official forums, and apparently a few others also have this issue. Freezes as soon as I click yes, now where's that patch...

Yep, get the send error thing upon exit whenever I put in a couple hours. Closes properly if I keep it under 2-ish.

User-level apps shouldn't be able to cause complete system lockups. Based on past experience, I'd blame ATI or nVidia. Make sure all your drivers (for all your hardware - video, sound, chipset, etc) are up to date?

 

[nJett]

vsynch on means your FPS won't exceed the refresh rate of your monitor - off means your FPS will go as high as your video card can pump it out. Most people turn off vsynch, some people prefer it on because they see tearing (parts of the image are shifted slightly) or find it's smoother. I've never seen tearing except in screen shots and don't feel any difference in smoothness personally - I don't have Oblivion yet so things may be different in it, but in every game I've ever played so far this is how it's been.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Imp
Biggest pisser right now is the total system lock-up that I get about 50% of the time when trying to load a saved game from the main menu. No, the saves aren't corrupted, they work as many times as I can mash F9 without overwriting them. CTDs are far and few between, but at least they don't kill the whol system:|. My guess is that the freeze is related to some ass of a mod checking script. I tried my first mod a week ago, and whenever I activated the data files, it wouldn't load at all. Couldn't load a single game until I disabled it, and after that, still had to put up with the 50% rate. Also, I doubt my install is screwy, I posted this on the official forums, and apparently a few others also have this issue. Freezes as soon as I click yes, now where's that patch...

Yep, get the send error thing upon exit whenever I put in a couple hours. Closes properly if I keep it under 2-ish.

If your game looks like it's frozen while loading try hitting the tab key once (just tab) and see if it continues loading. Works for me a lot!

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: Imp
Biggest pisser right now is the total system lock-up that I get about 50% of the time when trying to load a saved game from the main menu. No, the saves aren't corrupted, they work as many times as I can mash F9 without overwriting them. CTDs are far and few between, but at least they don't kill the whol system:|. My guess is that the freeze is related to some ass of a mod checking script. I tried my first mod a week ago, and whenever I activated the data files, it wouldn't load at all. Couldn't load a single game until I disabled it, and after that, still had to put up with the 50% rate. Also, I doubt my install is screwy, I posted this on the official forums, and apparently a few others also have this issue. Freezes as soon as I click yes, now where's that patch...

Yep, get the send error thing upon exit whenever I put in a couple hours. Closes properly if I keep it under 2-ish.

I've had this happen only in one spot and it occurred only when I entered a door, exited it, and then saved and tried to enter again. It would freeze. I was able to reproduce it in the same spot about 5 times.

Mine almost always crashes when I exit the game.

I have also had one hard crash that occurred as I was saving that caused the ocmputer to reboot plus the save was corrupted. When attempting to load via the "Continue" button, it would make a comment that the save file is 1.00 and the game is 1.25, and that loading could cause issues. If I went into the "Load" menu and then hovered over the bad save, the entire game would crash.

 

[starwars7]

Originally posted by: nJett
vsynch on means your FPS won't exceed the refresh rate of your monitor - off means your FPS will go as high as your video card can pump it out. Most people turn off vsynch, some people prefer it on because they see tearing (parts of the image are shifted slightly) or find it's smoother. I've never seen tearing except in screen shots and don't feel any difference in smoothness personally - I don't have Oblivion yet so things may be different in it, but in every game I've ever played so far this is how it's been.

Great thanks!

You guys have any other tweek's for a 7900 GT or general Oblivion tweeks?

I'm tryin to max my settings as well as I can.

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: BroeBo
I want to know if everyone crashes when they shutdown the game. I rarely have a clean shutdown without it crashing at the very end with a partial black screen still visible.

On a better note I have had very few in game crashes (to desktop). Only about 2 or so with ~43 hours play time.

I got the same problem too when exiting the game to the desktop, not the main menu. I rarely got an occasional crash during gameplay.

 

[LiekOMG]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
I am wondering if anyone has tested oblivion with 2gb of ram versus 1gb and what the outcome was? The game loads pretty quick for me with 1gb...would more ram allow me to display more things in the distance? I know of course 2gb is better then 1gb...but I just want to see something showing the tangible benefit.

I upgraded from 1gb to 1.5gb, and the difference has been minimal at best. First of all, more ram will NOT increase your framerates. All it will do is prevent the game from paging to your HDD. I've noticed that after a 6 hour gaming session, windows shows that about 1.2gb of RAM has been used, so the extra ram does come in handy. However, in a 2 hour session, memory usage never seems to exceed 800-900mb. Basically, if you find the game runs acceptable for you now, then just stick with 1gb.

 

[Whitecloak]

I have 2 GB RAM. My system is gpu-limted and the total mem usage rarely crosses 1 gig.

I get crashes when I exit the system. This could be due to the nvidia beta drivers which I am using.

 

[rise]

anyone hear anything about a patch yet?

 

[43st]

I tried someone weird last night. I deleted my oblivion.ini file just to see how a stock .ini would compete against my highly tweaked .ini. I was using a method of save-as with the .ini and I had, what I thought, tweaked an awesome performing config. The stock .ini that the game created performed about 7 FPS better.

When in doubt simply backup your original and delete the .ini file. The game will make a new one and it may be better performing. BTW, I'm using the texture replacement mods.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: rise4310
anyone hear anything about a patch yet?

I read an interview with Pete Hines yesterday. They said they were working on one, but he gave no timeline whatsoever. Additionally, a few forums members at elder scrolls have claimed people from bethseda have PMed them in regards to bugs they posted about.

 

[PingSpike]

Thanks DOACleric and Whitecloak. I'll just hold off on the memory then, this game seems to want graphics horsepower more then anything...what else is new?

 

[rise]

seems to use alot of cpu cycles too as seen here. likes the dualies

so the PMs to the forum members didn''t elaborate at all? this game is in deperate need of a patch. i don't have any stability issues aside from the error when closing. but seeing people say its fairly stable when it crashes avery few hours is sad. i'd be PO'd.

 

[Bushwicktrini]

Originally posted by: BroeBo
I want to know if everyone crashes when they shutdown the game. I rarely have a clean shutdown without it crashing at the very end with a partial black screen still visible.
.

Yeah this is very annoying and I have up-to-date drivers

Originally posted by: PingSpike
I am wondering if anyone has tested oblivion with 2gb of ram versus 1gb and what the outcome was? The game loads pretty quick for me with 1gb...would more ram allow me to display more things in the distance? I know of course 2gb is better then 1gb...but I just want to see something showing the tangible benefit.

I was wondering this also casue I went from 1.5gb ddr 333 to 1 gb ddr400 and I have noticed my whole system seems slower

and is their a way to alt-tab out of this game?? alt-tab doesn't work nore just pushing the windows key

 

[Capt Caveman]

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Tweak Guide