Better cities or Open cities reborn? : IV - Oblivion

» Mon May 02, 2011 10:54 pm

The game spreads the load across the multiple cores because that is what the processors are designed to do. Keeping core usage low decreases power drain and keeps the processor cool.

Oblivion is simply unaware that it is not making full usage of the processor. To put it in very layman terms, what is 100% usage for a single core processor is only 50% usage for a dual core processor, but Oblivion does not understand that. Half both cores at half-usage is equivalent to having one core at full usage, and that's all Oblivion can discern.

Once again, this is a very watered down explanation and I may have glazed some facts, but it should give you the general picture.

Also, the processor models do not matter, they were used only for descriptive embellishment to help with understanding the idea. Pentium 4s are most commonly single-core processors, whereas the Core IX and Core 2 models are most commonly multi-cores.

hmmm... It just makes more sense to me that if more than one core are sharing the work load of the same process... The result would be that the process targeted should run smoother because less work load is stressed on a single core. Kinda like Raid0 carries boosted performance as well as SLI/Crossfire. Components working together to fulfill the same task. This is my very layman interpretation. But it seems logical.

» Mon May 02, 2011 9:34 pm

Perhaps we should open a new thread specifically for debating Open Cities' supposed performance hit instead of dragging every thread with OC in the title off-topic? (By the way, allow me to NOT volunteer)

I know, I'm guilty as charged, but really guys, this is getting ridiculous.

» Tue May 03, 2011 2:18 am

Actually I wasn't aware that the Xbox is a 3-core processor.

Yes.. 3 core proc capable of 6 threads. Basically a 3 core proc with HT. But I don't know what AMD calls their Hyper Threading technology....
What might blow your mind to know (If you didn't already...) PS3 has an IBM 8 core processor!!! Ever wonder why games look way better now than on console release date?
Those consoles actually have some pretty beefy hardware inside.

» Tue May 03, 2011 2:12 am

I'll butt out if this noticing that Arthmoor is somewhat, uhm, unbalanced. Accusing people of lying and insanity is beyond the pale IMO.

Hypocrisy is not very becoming either. Maybe you should take a cue from others who don't spend their time attacking other peoples' work with flat out wrong information and they won't get angry with you and provoke bad feelings.

What might blow your mind to know (If you didn't already...) PS3 has an IBM 8 core processor!!! Ever wonder why games look way better now than on console release date? Those consoles actually have some pretty beefy hardware inside.

Yep. I think they're called "cell processors" or something. Rather advanced stuff for a home entertainment console. Also generally why PS3 outperforms the XBox in any objective test you could conceive of.

The irony here is that it's taken PC the last 5 years just to catch up to that kind of raw power. Only just now are we seeing consumer level 6-core processors becoming common, with 8-core processors not far behind.

Also, if you want a really striking example of how much multi-core optimization can do, play Fallout 3 on maxed settings with insanely large texture packs. The game shows no signs of even sweating it, much less the outrageous stutter we're all familiar with in Oblivion.

» Tue May 03, 2011 11:18 am

The primary reason consoles have such powerful processors is to alleviate the fact that they have abysmal GPU hardware inside, as far as I can tell. But I digress, if I could put one of those things in my PC, I'd certainly do it.

» Tue May 03, 2011 2:01 am

Hypocrisy is not very becoming either. Maybe you should take a cue from others who don't spend their time attacking other peoples' work with flat out wrong information and they won't get angry with you and provoke bad feelings.

I've merely said that OCR affects performance and that it can be significant for low end computers already close to the edge performance wise. :shrug:

» Tue May 03, 2011 5:04 am

I think the point you're missing, willingly or not, is that what you're claiming is demonstrably untrue. I shouldn't need to repeat the fact that it's been proven such by most everyone who has actually taken the time to try the mod rather than repeat 5 year old rumors that never had any basis.

I'm sure you wouldn't like it if someone showed up and started spreading crap about your work that wasn't actually true, would you? I think I deserve enough leeway to be able to defend against what I KNOW to be false.

» Tue May 03, 2011 9:31 am

And yet it's true. :shrug:

» Mon May 02, 2011 8:05 pm

To save Arthmoor the hassle of quoting this:

Rumors continue to persist about Open Cities being an FPS killer. In and of itself, Open Cities will not represent a significant hit to your gaming performance. If you are playing the stock game, with stock graphics, go run around near the Imperial City, then around Chorrol. Measure the performance you get. Add Open Cities, and perform the same test again. The Imperial City will remain unchanged, and your trip around Chorrol will see a minimal impact of 3-5 frames. In other words, if your system is low end, it'll still feel low end after installing Open Cities. If you have a midrange to high end system, installing Open Cities will not be a noticeable drain on your resources.

The problem most people have is that they're not playing in a stock configuration. They load up a bunch of graphical enchancers ( guilty as charged! ) and a ton of graphically heavy mods, all at the same time. So suddenly trips around the Imperial City are a bit sluggish, and that trip around Chorrol is bogging things down. In the process of adding mods, they not only activated huge memory sinks like QTP3, but also activated a large set of LOD mods, FCOM, 18 quest mods, a lighting overhaul, a weather overhaul, and higher quality sound files. So when the game slows down, it takes all of two seconds of "OC is an FPS killer" and people believe it, because, by coincidence, removing it results in what they think is smoother play. However, removing any one of the other elements would have done the same. Bog the system down with enough stuff, it will buckle. There are tradeoffs to be had. I am aware of how this may sound, but in the grand scheme of things, Open Cities is not the FPS killer everyone says it is. Do yourself a favor and be objective enough to try it first and see for yourself before believing some random forum poster. The vast majority of the negative attention was from 2006. We're entering 2009. The mod has been trimmed and polished a lot since then. Systems have also evolved considerably at the same time.

That said, there may be some additional load placed on your game if you install the new Outer Districts module. Sjors has provided me with some updated collision optimized meshes to use for the large walls and towers that enclose the two districts. Without them, there was significant lag while in the Arcane University and slight lag while in the Prison. After the optimized meshes were installed and tested, the lag is all but gone and it's about as smooth for me as it is to be in the closed versions of these districts. That does not mean however that your experience will be the same. These districts are made up of large high detail meshes. A low end machine struggling with the Imperial City in general is going to have trouble here as well. Midrange PCs may see some significant additional lag. Higher end PCs should notice little if any difference, but this will depend greatly on both your CPU and GPU. Visible images tax the GPU. Collision meshes tax the CPU due to the Havok physics involved. Be prepared for some tradeoffs. The Imperial City has always been and will likely continue to be a resource hog whether or not you fling them open to the world.

I have already confirmed for myself quite well that performance issues around Chorrol for me largely disappeared when UL Chorrol Hinterland was removed from the equation. This is evidence in favor of the above.

» Tue May 03, 2011 3:52 am

Can we please go back on topic?

I have just bought a spanking new graphics card and I would like to try either BC or OCR. I tried them briefly before but my pc was not good enough to run them well. I am not really sure which is better or what the pros and cons of each are. Which of them requires more computer horsepower? I don't know whch mod makes the most radical changes to the cities. I think there is also Open Better cities which may be worth trying. Any advice?

The graphics card will not make much of a difference. Oblivion is mainly CPU bound, thanks to the poor programming. If you like pretty cities, try BC. If you like logical city layouts and Morrowind style cities, try OCR.

I wouldn't recommend Open Better Cities though. BC itself is a performance killer. The Open Cities version will make the game unplayable, especially if you are running Unique Landscapes and/or RAEVWD.

» Mon May 02, 2011 8:53 pm

And yet it's true. :shrug:

No, it's not, and evidence proves you wrong on this. I had a nice long rant all ready to go, then Firefox crashed, so I'll take it as a sign I should just stop feeding the.... well... you know.

Back on topic, I think it's pretty obvious what I'd recommend, but then I'm probably biased having been the one who made one of the two things being looked at

All I'll say is look at the facts. Don't base things on the opinions of people who haven't actually used it.

» Mon May 02, 2011 9:33 pm

Adding my two cents worth.

Open Cities Reborn (OCR) performance: Performance is fine. However if the region around the town causes a performance hit for you, such as having one of the Unique landscape mods, extra LOD mods (like RAEVWD) etc., then, as the city is open, you will probably receive some of the hit as in those areas. Unlike with closed cities where you are entirely removed from that performance hitting area once within the city.
So it is not OCR than causes the hit, the cities themselves aren't excessively draining, little if anything more than the original cities at any rate.

Bananasplit Better Cities (BBC): Some of them are somewhat more performance heavy than vanilla, but should cause no real issues with a halfway decent rig.

All and all "Horsepower" I don't think is really an issue. Instead check them both out (using BAIN installs in Wrye Bash makes this incredibly easy to do) and see which you prefer.
I have been a long time BBC fan and user, but chose to switch a little while back to OCR, and am liking it very much. Each have their own charms, so just see which appeals to you the most.
I haven't checked out BBC since it added its new Open City versions; that might be worth looking at while you are at it.

» Tue May 03, 2011 3:17 am

So. Cores. Yes, the Xbox 360 has a CPU with a 3-core die, and each core has two virtual hardware threads, and the cores are IBM Power architecture variants clocked at 3GHz. The cores are symmetric - they can each do the same things. If you know how to exploit this, this does indeed give large performance benefits over a single-threaded task.

But therein lies the rub - exploiting single cores is something that has to be designed in from the outset, and doing that effectively is surprisingly hard. What you have to remember is that Bethesda only had actual 360 hardware to work with for the last six months of development so it is entirely likely that they weren't able to exploit it fully in the time they had available. There is evidence they intended to (OpenMP settings in the ini file) but it may have been something they never got working in time for release.

» Tue May 03, 2011 3:06 am

Can we please go back on topic?

The graphics card will not make much of a difference. Oblivion is mainly CPU bound, thanks to the poor programming. If you like pretty cities, try BC. If you like logical city layouts and Morrowind style cities, try OCR.

I wouldn't recommend Open Better Cities though. BC itself is a performance killer. The Open Cities version will make the game unplayable, especially if you are running Unique Landscapes and/or RAEVWD.

Better Cities also offers a small number of new quests and several new NPCs to liven the cities up (lots of new AI packages), along with several new buildings, and an entire new docks at Bravil and a harbour at Leyawiin. However for people with weak computers, unoptimised meshes, and/or a really heavily modded game, their computers will struggle with BC. OCR on the other hand should have minimal impact as it doesn't add anything like as much content, and at least for some of the cities, keeps things well spaced out (based on screenshots, I have yet to see it in-game except for the original OC Leyawiin Reborn).

If you want bigger cities with more citizens and some brief quests, look to Better Cities (which also offers the option to toggle the cities Open).
If you want the original cities but better laid out and Open, look to Open Cities Reborn.
If you want the original cities Open, look to Open Cities Classic.

And if you are enjoying fairly low FPS right now, don't bother trying BC, just go straight to OCR or OCC.

» Tue May 03, 2011 11:06 am

Well to reply to the Arthmoor/Arkngt dialogue ....

I cannot run OCC or OCR with FCOM - it is too much. But what is meant by it depends on the hierarchy of wants and what you the mod user consider more important. If content adding overhauls are more important then OC is too much. If having an open continuous world is more important than an orgy of new content with expanded AI then FCOM is way too much.

Absolutely FCOM hits the fps harder than OCC, OCR, or BC ... maybe OBC would hit harder.

So it is no wonder that Arkngt can't run OC and neither can I because FCOM is the hog in the load order.

I can run OC in a TIE game or other single or maybe two overhauls tops type game, but not 4+ overhauls.

But again it is about prioritizing what is more important. For me the issue with OC is the amount of patches - between it and UL that is half a load order.

» Mon May 02, 2011 11:40 pm

Well to reply to the Arthmoor/Arkngt dialogue ....

I cannot run OCC or OCR with FCOM - it is too much. But what is meant by it depends on the hierarchy of wants and what you the mod user consider more important. If content adding overhauls are more important then OC is too much. If having an open continuous world is more important than an orgy of new content with expanded AI then FCOM is way too much.

Absolutely FCOM hits the fps harder than OCC, OCR, or BC ... maybe OBC would hit harder.

So it is no wonder that Arkngt can't run OC and neither can I because FCOM is the hog in the load order.

I can run OC in a TIE game or other single or maybe two overhauls tops type game, but not 4+ overhauls.

But again it is about prioritizing what is more important. For me the issue with OC is the amount of patches - between it and UL that is half a load order.

Yes, this matches what I said, that you can't judge a single mod's impact on FPS by adding it to an already modded game, only by adding it to an unmodded game, as the impact on FPS could be exacerbated by the combination of existing mods running alongside.

» Mon May 02, 2011 11:31 pm

I recall one upon a time [censored]ing and moaning about OBC killing my game and not at all willing to look at how FCOM and every one of its patches were as big (or bigger) an impact.

I recall that really tried the patience of Mr. Vorians.

So to the OP - prioritize your wants and that will give you the answer.

Even with a souped up rig having all mods in all directions will be a slideshow at best.

» Mon May 02, 2011 11:45 pm

You can get away with larger overhauls (or at least ones with MMM involved) by setting the spawn rates really low; I have them set at the next level above Vanilla spawn rates in my MMM/OOO game and don't get to much of a performance hit out of the overhauls.

But listen to Psymon and Vorian's here; you can't have everything, so prioritize.

» Mon May 02, 2011 9:43 pm

Wow, that's a lot of opinions. I think I touched a raw nerve by having a topic called Better cities or OCR. I suppose it was predictable that it would cause a blazing row about performance issues. Still, you have provided a lot of information and I know much more now. Thanks for all the comments.

» Mon May 02, 2011 11:10 pm

The topic title wasn't an issue, it's merely widely differing opinions on how OCR and OCC and the original OC affect performance and FPS. When a mod author sees the same comments over and over about their own mod which he/she disagrees with, it gets very tiring having to respond over and over that they disagree.

» Tue May 03, 2011 1:30 am

I prefer OCR over Better Cities. My computer didn't run Better Cities well, and I just felt that it added a bunch of fluff that didn't matter to me. Looking back, I'm not even sure why I installed it, considering that I got basically what I saw in the videos.

For me, OCR is similar to vanilla, but with fewer loading screens. Obviously if you've played the game before then you'll have to adjust to the new layouts of some of the cities, but that's a minor convenience issue. Plus really it's not an issue at all if you consider that your character isn't supposed to know the city layouts automatically anyway.

About that other thing...
When I was new to mods, I tried Open Cities (classic) and I felt like it slowed down my game quite a bit and promptly removed it. I'm pretty sure I also recommended that others not use OC if they could not run Oblivion with good frame rates. This may have been a mistake, considering that I was a modding noob.

Fast forward a few years (during which I gain a lot more experience using mods, creating mods, and using Oblvion modding tools), and now I find that my frame rate with vanilla cities and my frame rate with OCR is the same except for one situation: when I'm inside a city, next to the outer wall, and facing the wall. I trust that you will only spend a minimal amount of time kissing the wall, therefore I say try OCR without worrying about frame rate problems. But if you don't like it for whatever reason, go ahead and remove it. No biggie.

» Tue May 03, 2011 10:27 am

Arthmoor - You are very aggressive, calm down. From Bananasplit Better Cities own readme:

"Better Cities adds a lot of items in each and every cities and Districts. This cause the game to lower you FPS to some very low level though 12+ FPS in town should be playable without any issues. Please don't inform us that this mod affects your FPS, we don't need to be told this."

Also Intel processors have been out powering the Playstations 3 Cell processor for many years now and IBM have produced other processors have been superior before the PS3 was released. Cell processor in the PS3 is made of 8 processing cells with one disabled and one reserved for the OS, it runs a target speed of 3.2Ghz. However since it's a gaming console the most used component is the graphics processor, which has less performance than the XBox 360 (which is older than the PS3). Now the Cell processor can fold very fast but general processing activities it's not as good as a CPU in most computers. Crysis came out 4 years ago and that can not be played on a PS3 or XBox 360 on any decent setting.

» Tue May 03, 2011 6:43 am

I'd appreciate it if you'd stop telling me to calm down, especially when you see fit to try and correct me with information that has no bearing on OCR in any possible way.

I will not sit idly by while people are spreading deliberate misinformation about one of my projects. I wouldn't expect anyone else to either if someone is doing the same about their project.

As Vorians has so keenly put it, I'm pretty sick of hearing it after all this time.

» Mon May 02, 2011 8:04 pm

I use both OCC and OOO (and RAEVWD to boot, sans city architecture) and perceive the same performance (very good compared to my previous older rig, fluid frame rates and no stutter) around and within cities as I do anywhere else on the overworld (except the waterfront district for hell knows why, screw that place). I would say it is likely to be the same for all contemporary rigs. However, I can also honestly believe older system users when they advance that they feel a drop in performance on their end. After all, objects are added. But allow me to add that only a couple years ago, when people saying rate drops in Open Cities were common and led to the mod's persistent rep, we lacked such tools as OSR or, say, commonplace mesh optimization. Everything is way cleaner, lighter and optimized nowadays than merely two years ago. Ultimately, I posit that in the current state of things OCC/OCR's impact on one's perceived performance should average at non-existent to negligeable, and if we feel like nitpicking the same could be said of any medium to large scale mod anyway.

» Tue May 03, 2011 9:13 am

The Waterfront is one of life's mysteries. Even in straight vanilla Oblivion that place seems capable of crippling rigs. Doesn't even seem to matter if you're looking toward the dock area or away from it. It just bogs, and there's no explainable reason for why. I guess I should be glad that I don't get the crashes there people talk about, but I do feel the sting of the area bogging down hardcoe even with LOD info disabled. And I was just running my roommate's guy through something there on a straight vanilla install and watched it slow to a crawl - with hardware almost equal to my own. Makes no sense.