i have a Intel core 2 quad cpu Q8200 @ 2.33GHz i run other games perfectly fine but i recieve constant performance hickups especially on horseback. its kind of suprising bethesda keeps using this engin when it cant support new computers with more then one core. so are there any mods that can use 2 or more cores?

Mods can't change the way the game engine works. But the engine can take advantage of several cores, to some extent.

Skyranger's investigated the possibility of utilizing multiple cores as part of OSR, but so far it looks as though all that can be unloaded to the second core amounts to 1% or something of the total processing, so it wouldn't do much. And I wouldn't call it surprising... Oblivion was released when dual core CPUs were still somewhat of a luxury. Fallout 3 does have multi-core support.

As Oblivion was originally designed for Multi-core Consoles, it`s a shame that the PC Version can`t use more than one Core.
If TES V stays the same they can keep it for them selfs.

Increasingly, modern multicore CPUs tend to possess a "Turbo Mode" - even though, uh, that is rather retro... hehe; never mind... - wherein the clock goes up when usage of multiple cores goes down, to whatever extent has been decreed.

So, you might have a new quad-core (from Intel or AMD) that, when only using 1 or 2 cores, revs up and disables fully half of its cores. Best of both worlds, so to speak.

Assuming TES V actually happens at all, and isn't a MMORPG, it would be safe to say that many PC gamers are likely to have some well-suited CPUs. And then again, it might be a totally new engine, so... either way.

I would have thought you can use some sort of command to utilize both cores... guess not.

How processor-dependant is Oblivion anyway?

heavily. these days most GPUs are enough to run it very well, so it's pretty much entirely CPU bottlenecked, especially when adding mods that add npcs and creatures to the world.

oh..
We'll I was considering getting a new PC soon. My current one is 3GHz Dual core, but I was looking at getting something with quad core but more like 2.3GHz. I'd also upgrade my graphics card, but looking purely at Oblivion, is this is a bad choice for CPU?

For Oblivion, it would be, as clock speed for a single-threaded process is more important. It would be good for fun stuff like recalculating spreadsheets, though!

As already stated, the only reason Oblivion doesn't support multiple cores is because the vast majority of PC owners had single-core CPUs when Oblivion was released. Now that nearly all PC owner's have some sort of multi-core CPU in their PC, providing multi-core support isn't a problem. So why would Bethesda decide to make TES V use only one core, especially considering that FO3 supports multiple cores?



I read somewhere (I think the UESP's home page) that TES V is definitely NOT going to be a MMORPG.



That is correct. On the other hand though, I've heard that the Intel Core i# line of CPUs (not sure about AMD's latest CPUs) process code more efficiently than the Core 2 line, to the point that a Core 2 CPU needs a 500MHz overclock to match the performance improvement of a 200MHz overclock on a Core 2. According to that logic, a 3GHz i7 will process Oblivion's code better than a 3GHz Core 2.

I changed my CPU from Q6600 (which was clocked at 3.2ghz) to Core i7 860 and it feels much smoother even at stock clocks (2.8ghz) than Q6600 at heavely OCd. Especially Unique Landscapes are much smoother now (I'm using the same GPU still).

If there were a mod that utilized all cores, it wouldn't be an oblivion mod. Instead it would have to be a modification to how multiple processors handle single processes... You'd have to break up the process into processable chunks then route them to the processors, then get the results and put them back together in a meaningful way... That would be a nightmare...

Good luck!

And just in case you find the multicore tweaks for the oblivion.ini and get your hopes up... they don't actually seem to work. If they do work, they don't actually give a performance increase so they may as well not work.

Is the i7-860 worth the money over the i5-750? I have no interest in a multi-GPU setup, so the X58 chipset is far away from my interests.

I think not if you don't get one incredibly cheap or trading the current i5 for i7. i5s are almost equal in gaming performance vs. i7s(atleast for current games). Especially in single GPU systems.