My FPS started dropping to 10 when I play my character, no matter what cell I'm in whether interior or exterior. I have tried everything from loading small textures to reducing shadows and all the other fixes and .ini tweaks, but nothing, absolutely nothing brings it up above 10. Then I created a new game, and my FPS was in the 30's in the dungeon cell! Both with and without my normal extensive mod list, the FPS was good in a new game.
Could there be something in my saved game data that is bringing the FPS down?

That would seem reasonable. however, something else you need to consider is, until you get into the sewers, the game isn't really taxing your machine all that much.

Try renaming your oblivion.ini, and let the game generate a new one. see if that helps.

I don't know if it's so universal as an .ini problem now because I have just tested Ob again with both of my kids' characters, and they are getting good fps on the same setup, mods and machine. I am pretty sure it has to be with my save games.

EDIT: I just loaded an old save from about a month ago. The FPS is great! When I load any save after that on my character, it svcks. wth?

How many hours on that particular save?

233 hours are on this save. I have repaired the Abomb on Wrye Bash, but it didn't work.

Did you make any changes between the save that works, and the one that doesn't? Maybe post your load list......

Yeah, plenty of mods have been removed and added since then, but the old save I wrote about earlier works perfectly with my current LO. Still, I unloaded many of those mods individually and there was no improvement. I had also upgraded OBSE to the newest version, but reverting back didn't help either.
The console FPS counter constantly stays at 10, no matter the stutter I run into, but when I put FRAPS on it, it says the FPS is about 4-6. Something is stopping the console counter from accurately showing the FPS.
I don't want to have to lose all the hours I got on this character, but this is driving me crazy!

Gotta be a mod conflict...... No clue which ones though.... Gonna request this get moved to the mods forum.

HeyYou,
Thanks for moving my topic, but I'm not sure this is a mod conflict. The same load order with the same mods works perfectly with all my old saves, all my daughter's saves, and all my son's saves. It is only the saves that I've made within the last month or so that are affected. Prior saves are not affected despite the same load order. PLUS, I've tested the mods, taking them off a few at a time to see if there's been improvement, but there isn't.
The only problem concerning a mod that I see is that if I turn one certain mod off, then I can no longer save my game--the game crashes when I save. Maybe the two problems are related, I'll have to test more. The particular mod in question is Septim Mansion, but I have altered it to include portals to my various homes, such as Dark Tower, Ancient Towers, Castle Seaview, Millstone Farm, etc. For Dark Tower and Ancient Towers, I copied the interior cells into Septim Mansion.

I want to clarify that the Septim Mansion mod is an excellent mod that I have found no problems with. My troubles with it are purely of my own creation by merging it with certain other mods.