I run, in some ways, a fairly simplistic and trouble-free configuration. No major overhauls. No body replacers beyond plain-old exnem. Only one small add-on armor/weapon pack (Bloodlust Collection). I have no major crash issues, occasional episodes of the a-bomb and usually solvable individual mod incompatibilities and glitches aside.

I do sometimes suffer from what seems to be, so far as I can tell, A.I. overload. This has lead to occasional crashes (mostly in areas with a large number of scripted NPCs) and the forced retirement of Companion Neeshka (whom either contributed to overload or was its most obvious victim.) I'm a quest / world-expansion junky. The bulk of my load-order consists of either elaborate quest mods and those that add new structures, villages, cities or world-spaces. These tend to add a number of sometimes-highly-scripted NPCs, or extend the functionality of already existent NPCs. I plan to add yet more such mods, but worry that A.I. overload might eventually make the game unplayable.

Modders have created utilities and data replacements that overcome many gameplay issues. We have stuff like Oblivion Stutter Remover, Pyffi, and Oblivion Animation Fixer to name only a few. But so far as I know no one has addressed NPC/mob A.I.. About the only thing that comes to mind is Oblivion Script Optimization, now old and discredited. (My one long ago experience with it ended in disaster and quick removal.)

Have I overlooked something? Is there a mod or mods designed to lessen the impact of A.I. overload without also dumbing down NPC behavior, or even allowing improved A.I. (without penalty)? If not, is anyone either working on contemplating one?

Just curious. Thanks for the ear.

-Decrepit-

The only way to do it is to reduce the number of NPCs loaded. Mods cannot make Oblivion process AI packages more efficiently. It a limitation of the game engine. We have to live with it. If your CPU cannot handle your load list, cut it down, and/or slide that actor fade slider to the left.

We NEED a engine update for oblivion!!!

I need a new car... Modders can add on top of the existing engine (see current OBGE thread), changing the actual engine, however, is up to Bethesda.

Hmm...you could try if Oblivion Stutter Remover helps any, as it makes Oblivion to use CPU time more effectively/waste it less, from what I understand.

Without elaborating any more on the subject, I would really give it a try if you aren′t already running it, your game experience will improve in any case.

It is a shame we all have to make the trade off of performance for modded loveliness.

I recall there being mention that some functions could be multithreaded back in an old stutter remover thread, but it's probably too much to hope for. Judging from how much modded Fallout 3 runs on my pc compared to Oblivion, TES V will be modding heaven.

Either that or get a more powerful computer that can handle a greater number. The main issue with AI overload is the CPU. If it's weak then you'll tend to have problems. People need to take a look at the equipment they're working with, rather than hoping for some magic bullet that will allow them to do more than their system can reasonably handle.

I was trying to come up with an on the spot solution, haha... Yes, yes, you can generally spend more money to help the issue too...

Oblivion Stutter Remover is probably the best bet. Setting it to cap the frame rate at 30 will free up resources for the game to spend elsewhere, which almost certainly means it will devote much of that to AI. The only downside is that if you're in an area that can't get to 30fps, you're still going to see problems.

The bottomline is that if he's adding mods that are actually making his computer crash, then he's trying to do far more than his system can handle. He should either back off on what he's adding to his game or look into investing in better gear.

OP here. As mentioned, I rarely crash, prolly far less often than most folk with a somewhat heavily modded game. It's just that when it does, all indications are that it is often caused by AI overload. It's not enough of an issue to fret over now, but since I hope to add many more quests and structures as they become available, I worry about the future. And yes, I use OSR. It makes a big difference in playability. An easily recommended mod!

As to my system, it's no longer near top-of-the-line, but still not bad:

Intel e8500 core2 duo (3.16ghz) with aftermarket CPU cooler (air)
nVidia chip 650 hybrid chipset motherboard (ASUS)
4gb DDR2 800 ram
nVidia 260 core 216 GPU (replaces a fried 8800gts 640)
WD 640 "Black" SATA2 hard drive (x2)
Creative Labs X-fi sound card (Oblivion set to use Alchemy for hardware acceleration)
Corsair 620 watt PSU
Windows Vista 64bit
Oblivion on its own partition (not C: drive) with Oblivion.exe set as Large Address Aware.

This system, in conjunction with OSR and a few other utilities, keeps Oblivion running smoothly except occasional lag/stutter in a few isolated areas such as the Imperial Isles (my most heavily modded Vanilla area) and parts of Elsweyr-Anequina (the one area I run with RAEVWD).

My one regret so far is having to abandon Neeshka. Much to my surprise (I've never been much on companions) I found her company quite rewarding, especially from a role-play standpoint.

In any case, thanks for the input. Keep it coming!

-Decrepit-

If you can afford it, it might be worth bumping the RAM to 8GB of something faster than 800Mhz. That will give the game more room to flex with the LAA. 4GB is a bit restrictive since Vista/Win7 will hog up much of the pool for themselves, and running out of RAM leads to crashes.

I could kick myself for not moving to 8gb back with DD2 was dirt cheap. Alas, such is not now the case. To add insult to injury, my motherboard is very touchy when it comes to filling all four ram slots. (I had to run my four sticks of 1gb DD2-800 as DDR2-667 for over a year before a BIOS update finally let me use 800. Even now I must run with stock DDR2800 timings rather than the enhanced low-latency timings my modules are supposedly capable of.) To be safe I'd want to go 4gb x 2 (rather than 2gb x 4), which is appreciably more expensive. In either case I can't justify the expense. You can bet my next build with house at minimum 6-8gb (depending on chipset) budget permitting.

-Decrepit-

Spreading the memory across more sticks has better performance (and less heat issues). The money is worth it.

Spreading the memory across more sticks has better performance (and less heat issues). The money is worth it.

While the second statement is true, the first one however.. is not. Both Vista and 7 have an awesome memory management, which will reserve spare RAM for applications that have priority. Applications that fall in that category are those that are used a lot (such as browsers, file management etc..) but the best part about it is: once an application needs more than is available, Vista/7 will automatically purge its priority list, and give it to the application that requested it (Oblivion in this case). One of the functions that M$ developed - which actually worked.

soz for the off topic