I'm not overly fond of the "What's the good mods" type posts, but I feel the need to make one now because I'm out of the loop on this kinda thing.

I recently upgraded my computer and now I got NO lag issues whatsoever, including (forced through Nvidea console) 64x anti-aliasing and everything Nvidea and I can throw at Oblivion. And I think it can handle more. So, anyone got any ideas what kind of crippling graphics mods I can throw at it to see what it can handle? I'm planning on QTP3, but I have to wait to get a copy of that.

MTAEVWD with QTP3, and running TEs4LODGEN?

Of course, I would not recommend playing with that. I have a very high end system, but I am fine with using QTP3R, and RAEVWD.

The ultimate kick in the (you know) for your PC.

If you'd prefer your game actually remain playable, download QTP3 Redimized, Really AEVWD, the Unique Landscapes mods, and Open or Better Cities, and run TES4LODGen.

Much more reasonable.

Add in the highest res DistantLOD available (textures and normals), several OBGE shaders (e.g., HBAO, the new Bokeh_DoF, and a few others), and the highest res texture replacers for everything you can find (including 4096x4096 skin, etc.) Oh, and Natural Habitat, All Natural, Alive Waters, AWLS, Reneer's Interiors Mod, Open Better Cities, every UL, FCOM (with plenty of options on, especially via MMM)...

And of course, max every setting. Maybe tweak the ini, to go even further...

You could also try forcing AF x16, just for the hell of it.

Just for starters.


edit: And get a nice, 2560x1600 monitor. Eh, if you go with OBGE, why not add ENBSeries to the mix as well, just for extra giggles.

QTP3 + OBGE + RAEVWD (you can exchange that with MTAEVWD if you really want to see your computer go down to its knees, but there is really no point in doing that since RAEVWD is simply better)

You may also want to add mods that are not graphics related, but will cripple overall performance as well. Like FCOM, Better Cities, Unique Landscapes, Crowded Roads. Without a large overhaul and lots of quest mods (and other gameplay and immersion enhancing mods) your game is not complete and if you get decent performance with just graphic mods installed your performance may become unplayable if you add a lot of quest/gameplay/immersion mods on top of it.

Yes, Better Cities, MTAEVWD, QTP3 (Not redimised, that might not have the same quality maybe!), some lovely OBGE shaders, varied other texture packs, and then FCOM, UL, and maybe running Crysis in the background should bring any PC to its knees.

It'd be pretty, though.

Oblivion (modded as recommended) on one monitor, and Crysis (absolutely maxed) on the other?

:angel:

edit: My bet is on Crysis, for higher FPS... any takers?

I'm downloading RAEVWD as I type. Being on dial-up, I kinda have to plan my downloads, but RAEVWD is reasonable (two hours) for what it'll provide me. I'll have a copy of QTP3R come a couple days, so soon as I get that I'll crank it on.

I'm trying to keep Oblivion playable but slather it in everything I could never run before. I busted all my money on the build itself, or I'd be getting two 2560x1600's to go with it. As it stands I'm rather pleased with my 1440x900 monitor though. I've got a 1024x768 over there for extra real estate but it's not exactly super cool, but it's worth having if for nothing more than having an entire monitor dedicated to the CS's panels.

I don't really know what's considered powerful by today's standards, but I'm running two Sparkle GeForce GTS 450's, 4gigs of ram (adding four more soon as I get more moola), quad-core, and I'm just smoking Oblivion on my old settings. Handles all of my mods beautifully.

What is this machine system you are using? Vanilla Oblivion is a piece of cake for my current machine, but I can easily kill my FPS beyond the point of what I call "playable". What processor do you have?

Does crippling a good consumer PC take more than all of RAEVWD+QTP3+ATP+4096LOD Textures+OBGE+AA these days? I don't think I've ever turned on anti-aliasing of any kind or turned up any of the shadow-related settings...

I'm running Win7 64, an AMD Athlon II X4 635 Processor (2.90GHz), 4 gigs Kingston ram, an Asus M4N75TD, and 2x Sparkle GeForce GTS450's. I got what I could for 600 bucks, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. I tested my old Oblivion build with my hardware and had not a lick of trouble ANYWHERE I used to lag, so when I installed my new HDD (the old one was a 40 gig temp, that was dying) I reformatted and now I want to build a game that reflects my newfound gaming power.

I don't know what's considered to be top-notch nowadays, though. I work on computers but it's a rare day I upgrade (I had my last rig for three going on four years), especially on such a scale as I did there. I wasn't aiming for a certain performance height, but I was just getting the absolute best I could afford in my budget. I kinda look at it as a preemptive strike on TESV, and a "I'm gonna pawn Oblivion before TESV" kinda thing.

I'm gonna make a fell swoop tomorrow at college getting all I'll need for this build, so if I can get links posted to all the cool things it will be handy (not for laziness, but so that I can find this page tomorrow and have all the links there).

For what it's worth - and it is, after all, just free, unsolicited advice - I would suggest *not* bothering with dual graphics cards, and instead spending around the same money (or perhaps a tiny bit more, preferably) on a superior single card.

For a lot of games, Crossfire or SLI just isn't optimal. For some, I won't argue that, because it works exceedingly well. However, there's always the chance any given game will either not fully utilise that setup, or even worse, just use one of the cards (yes, this really can happen)... or, sometimes, it'll work but you might be getting some "micro-stutter" in the bargain, or other weirdness.

Anyway, if it's already bought, in effect, or you're happy with your decision, I'm sure it'll all be OK. Just some friendly advice anyway.

I have one GTS 450, running QTP3, a few OBGE shaders, RAEVWD, Better Cities, and Unique Landscapes, and while my FPS can go sub-25 in cities lowering graphical settings makes no difference, some I don't think it's the bottleneck. I do have a Phemon II X2 555 at 3.2GHz, though, so you might feel the hit of Better Cities a bit harder. Not, of course, that non-buttery-smooth framerates particularly matter in cities, but still.

Looks solid, except maybe for the RAM, I'd get about 2 more gigs if you have the cash. Just to make sure you have 4Gb available for the game to munch since Win7 is going to be claiming a decent amount running in the background (If you plan on applying the LAA patch).

You should be able to handle most of what you can throw at Oblivion more or less at once, but a quick word of advice: turn AA altogether off if you plan on using OBGE. You cannot use the two together.

My rig's in my sig, it's about as good as it gets for an XP age gaming PC. My build highlights are:

-Really AEVWD Modular (Ayleid Ruins, Fort Ruins, and High detail castles)
-(In testing) QTP3 Redimized (Dungeon Textures, and a couple of the smaller options)
-Unique Landscapes compilation
-Better Cities (This one is a heavy hitter in places)
-Oblivion Graphics Extender
-TES4LODGen
-All Natural
-OOO + MMM

Gives my computer a good workout to play, but far from being unplayable. I could take it even further, but I really don't see the point. I'm quite satisfied with my build now. Of course, I'm supporting it with a lot of optimization tricks, like LowPoly Grass and PyFFI and Oblivion Stutter Remover.

Optimization tricks are basic necessities regardless of system specs. There's just a certain quirkyness to Oblivion that's always apparent and tricks like that help cut it down.

I thank you especially for giving me a rig to compare with, and what you're running. I plan to pop another 4 gigs in my rig once my college funding comes in, and I don't really see any need for more than that. The 2 gigs on my graphics cards alone is really, really nice, though, and picks up quite a bit of slack I might have from my system ram.

1 Gig, you mean. SLI doesn't allow cards to share memory.

Still, that's double mine, which means you've got a pretty huge amount nonetheless.

Ah. I was under the impression that both cards' full resources were used. Still, it picked up enough slack that I thought two gigs were at work, so I'm still rather pleased with it nonetheless.

Thanks for clearing that up, though. My pater'll like to know that since we're both rather new to SLI.

You want to try and cripple your tough computer but you are on dial up ... that just sounds wrong. Invested more in the hardware huh?

Everyone is of course talking about graphics enhancers and I get that, but what cripples my game is more and more spawn points. Full FCOM I find more crippling than high end LOD replacements and RAEVWD + city mods.

Yeah curious about the dial-up part aswell, didn't even know that existed anymore. It doesn't here anyway.

And yes, I'll second that. Graphic enhancers aren't all that bad alone (though RAEVWD can be quite taxing in certain areas if you go for all options), but mods that add alot of new NPC / mob spawns can slow my game down bigtime. So if using FCOM or MMM etc, go for one of the reduced spawnrate esps, and try to not use too many of the big questmods that adds tons of spawnpoints etc.

Well with the recommendations here I expect to hear back that the computer was crippled.

Just MTAEVWD with OBGE and especially ENB would kill most computers around.

I did test this with my rig once upon a time - QTPIII and the best LOD + an older version of AVWD (forget which probably off TOTO) and mikel plants and a few other things and yes it was a stuttering mess. But I can attain this same goal without even going for visual enhancers purely through content and to that degree FCOM has a bigger impact that QTPIII.

Dialup is not my choice. I live a fair romp from the nearest town, and I have literally been on the waiting lists for cable/DSL for ten years.

I'll likely tear myself a new one with these mods. I'm downloading a chunk as I speak.

Tweaking Oblivion.ini settings can really make a difference too. For example, you can enable more shadows than are available through the GUI, or make blood spatters (decals) last a lot longer. Also, try increasing the four uGridDistant settings - these will collectively increase the number of trees you can see in the distance, which can hurt your framerate A LOT.

Kinda figured it wasn't by choice, I just always get surprised when I hear about people not having cable access - I keep forgetting I live in a very small country I guess.
Atleast with Oblivion dialup isn't an issue except for long download times - and that computer should let you let the play game nicely!

...and you can just plain break Oblivion or make jump over silly bugs caused by bad Oblivion.ini values...

Yep. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS make a backup of Oblivion.ini first, and only make changes if you're 100% certain of what they will do.

Haha!

I have a fairly new system and that would pretty much make the game unplayable for me I guarantee. I thought I could handle everything when I got the system two years ago with a top-of-the-line video card. MTAEVWD destroyed me (although it's not really meant to ever be playable). Even RAEVWD was rough when the LOD was regenerated.

Throw in Open Cities, 4096x4096 texture replacers, QTP 3 Redimized, AFx16, UL, and many more graphics enhancing mods (and there are bazillions of them) and you'll soon find your token of bragging rights squealing to a halt with its petty 1 GB reserve of GRAM. Hell, I doubt 2 GB is enough to satisfy my ultimate Oblivion texture desires and this is like 5+ years after the game was released!

Still I have a reduced set of the above and some more and it runs okay in the teens really with thrashing, but it is "playable."



Running a quad-core i7 920 OCed to 3.4 GHz with 6 GB of DDR3 SDRAM, a 10,000 RPM HDD, and a Radeon HD 4870 1 GB.

Still can't really handle the mods I want to handle. =(

Yeah video cards are "slightly" better nowadays, but I still doubt that even with the top-of-the-line ones would I see perfect play with everything I want. Maybe a 2 GB card again, but those aren't incredibly common.