I have been researching a lot about Oblivion's memory usage. I wish I could get it to use more than 2 GB of RAM, but I have a 32-bit system, so the tweaks that you can download won't work. Anyway, I started wondering what mods took the most memory. I know that high textures and overhaul mods are infamous for this, but looking at my Load LIst below, is there anything you can see that would use up a good bit of memory (such as using the PLACEATME command)?
Also, does anyone know how to hide lists or spoilers in this forum? I am completely in the dark on that, but it's probably so easy or obvious that I am going to feel stupid when the answer comes.


Choices and Consequences.esp
Oblivion.esm
MathFunctions.esm
Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items Mod.esm
Francesco's Optional New Items Add-On.esm
Crafting Skill Engine.esm
Cobl Main.esm
MD_Saddle_Master.esm
Qarls_Harvest.esm
Oscuro's_Oblivion_Overhaul.esm
Mart's Monster Mod.esm
FCOM_Convergence.esm
Armamentarium.esm
Kvatch Rebuilt.esm
AFC v2 Core.esm
Toaster Says Share v3.esm
HorseCombatMaster.esm
UnnecessaryViolence.esm
SoVvM.esm
Better Cities Resources.esm
CM Partners.esm
DLCShiveringIsles.esp
Francesco's Optional Chance of Stronger Bosses.esp
Francesco's Optional Chance of Stronger Enemies.esp
Francesco's Optional Chance of More Enemies.esp
FCOM_Francescos.esp
FCOM_FrancescosItemsAddOn.esp
Loading Screens - Vanilla No Text.esp
Natural_Weather_with_darker_Nights_by_Max_Tael.esp
Natural_Habitat_by_Max_Tael.esp
Natural_Water_by_Max_Tael.esp
Symphony of Violence.esp
300_Lore_Dialogue_Updated.esp
Akatosh Mount By Saiden Storm.esp
kuerteeAutoSaveAndTime.esp
Days&Months.esp
Maigrets House Cats.esp
KF Chapel Shop.esp
merchant chest fix.esp
P1DmenuEscape.esp
Immersive Combat Music.esp
BetterMusicSystem.esp
personality_idles4.esp
Pegasus.esp
phinix_master_summon.esp
Q - More and Moldy Ingredients v1.1.esp
Qarls_Harvest.esp
Harvest[Containers].esp
purse of wonders.esp
Living Economy.esp
HotkeyCasting.esp
Map Marker Overhaul.esp
DLCHorseArmor.esp
MaleBodyReplacerV3.esp
DLCVileLair.esp
DLCMehrunesRazor.esp
Adonnays Elven Weaponry.esp
Classic Books.esp
MD Saddlebags v3.0.esp
IC Horse Ranch.esp
Hiyoko_Store.esp
ExnemRuneskulls.esp
Oonas_Outfitters.esp
Thieves Arsenal.esp
FCOM_Cobl.esp
Colourwheels sixy Stock Armor & Clothing Replacer.esp
AncientTowers.esp
DLCThievesDen.esp
ArmamentariumLLVendors.esp
Cobl Glue.esp
Cobl Si.esp
Mart's Monster Mod - Less Rats.esp
Bob's Armory Oblivion.esp
FCOM_BobsArmory.esp
Oscuro's_Oblivion_Overhaul.esp
OBSE-Storms & Sound SI.esp
Mart's Monster Mod - Slof Horses Complete.esp
FCOM_Convergence.esp
ArmamentariumLL4OOO.esp
Mart's Monster Mod - Extra Wounding.esp
ArmamentariumLLMagicOOO.esp
Mart's Monster Mod - Gems & Gem Dust.esp
Mart's Monster Mod - Hunting & Crafting.esp
Adaman Fortress.esp
HauntedHouse.esp
Insanity's Pet Shop.esp
Amajor7 Imperial Furniture.esp
KDQ - Rural Line Additions.esp
Bandit Hideouts.esp
Et in Arkay.esp
BrotherhoodRenewed.esp
GB_Oblivion Tournament.esp
Malevolent.esp
GTAesgaard.esp
Kragenir's Death Quest.esp
Players with Jobs.esp
Kvatch Rebuilt.esp
LetThePeopleDrink.esp
KragenirsDeathQuest-LetThePeopleDrink patch.esp
Servant of the Dawn.esp
M.O.E. - Tools of Kagrenac - The Secret of White Gold Tower.esp
Star Ship Orion.esp
M.O.E. - The Black Sacrament - Night Mother's Ritual.esp
Museum.esp
Zira Horse Showjumping Track.esp
Necromancer Shop.esp
Pats Business Mod---Shop Version 2.0.esp
MannimarcoRevisited.esp
QQuix - Divine Elegance Showroom.esp
Raiders of Cyrodil.esp
MannimarcoRevisitedOOO.esp
Apachii_Goddess_Store.esp
Apachii_Heroes_Store.esp
Frostcrag Spire.esp
Knights.esp
Tears of the Fiend.esp
ElsweyrAnequina.esp
Moriarcis.esp
Natural_Vegetation_by_Max_Tael.esp
Harvest [Flora].esp
DecoratorAssistant with OBSE v1.1.esp
ImprovedSoulgems.esp
Kyoma's Journal Mod.esp
M.O.E. - Lycanthropy and Lichcraft.esp
P1DkeyChain.esp
Retros Fletching and Imbueing.esp
PJs Disco Spell.esp
Toggleable Quantity Prompt.esp
Quest Award Leveller.esp
Cliff_Roleplayingcharacter.esp
RealisticHealth.esp
M.O.E. - Vampire Clan Raelu.esp
Scorn's Vampirism 2.esp
LithiansNatureOfTheBeastModBeta.esp
hilarity_121.esp
M.O.E. - Ethereal State Spell.esp
M.O.E. - Levitation Magic.esp
M.O.E. - Teleportation Magic and Icarian Flight.esp
TeachSpell.esp
Telekinetic Mastery.esp
The Sixth Element.esp
RefScope.esp
MofMagecraft1.7.esp
SetBody.esp
MidasSpells.esp
Advanced Magecraft.esp
Arcane Infusion.esp
ArcaneArchery.esp
RshAlchemy.esp
EFGAddPose.esp
MerchantFriendsBuysStolen.esp
attack and hide medium v2.1.esp
Mart's Monster Mod - Resized Races.esp
Avariel.esp
Druid.esp
CuteElf11.esp
Tabaxi_Race_Default.esp
Smarter Mercantile Leveling - Multi.esp
Legendary Abilities-Reflect MOJ.esp
Grandmaster of Alchemy.esp
Cobl Races TNR.esp
actors_in_charge.esp
Cobl Races TNR SI.esp
ActorsInMadness.esp
Cobl Races - Balanced.esp
Toaster Says Share Faction Recruitment.esp
1em_Vilja.esp
Cobl Races.esp
Get Wet v0.92.esp
UnnecessaryViolence.esp
Banes Fallen Angel Sanctuary.esp
Crowded Roads/Crowded Cities
Extended Chorrol, Imperial City and Skingrad .esps
OblivionScriptOptimizationv1.0.esp
Corean Race.esp
Alternative Start.esp
Zira's Clydesdale Horses.esp
Cydoiil Theme Park
Oblivion Astrology.esp
CompanionTracker.esp
PJs Spell Compendium 1.0.esp
OrderofNibenay.esp
MoreVariedSpellEffects.esp
Level-independent Health.esp
Disguises.esp
Unique Landscapes (all)
Clintmichs Market District Merchants v1.1.esp
Knock Enemies Unconscous.esp
AutoMagicon.esp
DarkBroSanctuaryRebuilt.esp
Side's EAX Control.esp
Bard of Cyrodiil 2.0.esp
DaedricWAR.esp
Undead and Dremora Armies.esp
Location Names With Enemy Tags.esp
Visual Enchantments v1.0.esp
DragonInvasion.esp
Mart's Monster Mod - Diverse Runeskulls Loot G&GD.esp
SupremeMagicka.esp
Realistic Sneak for NPCs.esp
goldweight.esp
Thievery_Normal_Thrill.esp
DandD_Portable_Hole-mod-Ethereal.esp
FastTravelAllowed.esp
SpellDeflection.esp
TryBeforeYouBuy.esp
SM Combat Hide.esp
ME_DAEDRIC_RECON.esp
kuerteeAlternativesToDeathAndReload.esp
CLS-OldFriends-OBSE.esp
Active_Inventory_Spell_1.2.esp
SkillSpecialization.esp
Deadly Reflex 5 - Timed Block with no damage or durability changes.esp
DeadlyReflex 5 - Combat Moves.esp
Vows and Covenants.esp
sr_enhanced_magic_system.esp
SetsunaDummyTraining.esp
kuerteeAttributeAndSkillBasedDamageModifiers.esp
Improved Hotkeys.esp
RealisticForceLow.esp
Colourwheels sixy Female NPCs.esp
Consequences of Evil.esp
Dark Dungeons.esp
SM_EnchantStaff.esp
Millstone_Farm_COBL.esp
Intelligence Overhaul BJ.esp
MiniMap.esp
AudaciousMagery.esp
CLS-Object Renamer-COBL.esp
SM Encumbrance and Fatigue.esp
Ren_BeautyPack_full.esp
BountyReductionOverTime_mostwanted.esp
Imperial Furniture Renovated - Patch.esp
Adrenelin Fuled Combat V2.esp
Cats & Rats.esp
Logical Ingredients.esp
Cats & Rats - Less Rats plugin.esp
ROM Revised Oblivion Mod.esp
SSEE-OOO.esp
SigilStoneSelector-SSEE-OOO.esp
Reaper's The Dark Tower.esp
Brothers Trade Goods.esp
Better Cities .esp
Better Cities Full.esp
Better Imperial City.esp
Class Advantages.esp
OOO-WaterFish.esp
Castle Seaview.esp
Choices and Consequences - OOO.esp
PrimaryNeeds135_2.esp
Going Rogue.esp

Just adding Quarl's Textures can cause TEXMEM to be at 450mbs + on load up

add LOD's and you can get up to 800mb's on load :cryvaultboy:

MMM mod adds TEXMEM as well.

Higher TexMem then Card has = Stuttering , Low FPS

TEXMEM = VIDEO CARD's VRAM Capacity
ex. 1 GB EVGA 250 GTS = 1000mb of space

Vanilla Oblivion on Large Textures = 242mb's stock on load

To add spoiler tags, use "spoiler" followed by the "/spoiler" enclosing them in "[]".

Looking at your LO, I see that you definitely need to BOSS sort these. Do you use Wrye Bash or OBMM? Better way is to to http://tesivpositive.animolious.com/?page=know_how_to#PostYourLoadOrder through those.

Regarding your memory leak question, I don't know enough to answer that.

PS: Do I see a Bashed patch in the FCOM install above? I guess not - you need one to play FCOM!!Please read the FCOM thread to get a proper install and definitely use BOSS - you are bound to have errors if you play with that load order above.

I have the same problem: a great computer setup and only a 32-bit Windows install.

Unfortunately, this is the nature of Oblivion. I have two other games on my system, including another game that won't take advantage of a quad core processor, and both work flawlessly. Only Oblivion has problems ... but I'm using 200+ mods at this point, including Better Cities, Unique Landscapes, FCOM, QTP (Redimized + Reduced), beauty packs, and so on. Even with an above-average processor, and all the performance enhancing mods I can find, I have moments of less than 10 FPS in exterior cells. Interior cells it's a steady 25-30 FPS (using SkyCaptains OSR). After hours of trying, I've never been able to diagnose the particular problem and I've just come to live with it.

I can play for about an hour or so, then my FPS starts to drop and I have to reboot my machine. I don't know what's going to happen when I try to do the main quest and I get to "heavy" parts (the battle in the IC and so on).

If you find a solution, I'd love to hear about it, though.

~ Dani ~

It's important to understand the difference between the video memory which is used up by models and (especially) textures, and the system memory which is used up keeping track of the game world, NPCs, scripts, etc. These are (usually) two completely separate things, and stuff from one doesn't go in the other (again, usually).

Your video memory is part of the stats of your video card, and in a nutshell, it's what determines how high you can set your texture quality without starting to "stutter" every time you make a 90-degree turn. IIRC, Qarl's recommends 512MB of video memory. Try to use it with a smaller video card, and there's not enough room to hold all both the textures you're looking at and the ones you might look at soon: old things have to be swapped out and new ones loaded at the last possible moment, which is the cause of that stuttering. This may also break the rule of separation and eat up some extra system memory; the short explanation is "caching."

Note that some video cards break the rule entirely by using "shared memory," which means they don't have memory of their own in the first place and just svck up part of your system memory. Common offenders are laptops that aren't meant for gaming, low-end PCs from Dell etc., and particularly cheap video cards with words like "Turbo" and "Hyper" in the model name. If you've got one of these, honestly, don't even try to play Morrowind. It's upgrade time.

I honestly haven't looked into what the biggest system-memory hogs are in Oblivion; someone else will have to chime in with that info. But hopefully this post will help you sort things out with regards to what resources are used by texture replacers.

You definitely want to drop Amajor7 Imperial Furniture and the patch and grab the new release of Imperial Furniture Renovated (full version) in about a week's time Your question is very interesting timing wise because I just spent over 10 hours fixing Imperial Furniture Renovated. Amajor7 and I have to use PlaceAtMe to render the furniture, but Amajor7 did the original mod way back in 2006 when they didn't know about the problems that could cause and how to fix it. He was using the old method of moving the disabled object to an unused cell, but that still leads to saved game bloat. I've converted all that to a new function that was added in OBSE 16 and I've noticed that my saved game size has dropped already.

I've only done this fix in the full version though (since it required every script to be modified), but you might find it worth it.

You could use InfoRapid on your plugins (*.esp) to look for PlaceAtMe commands. But PlaceAtMe in itself isn't necessarily a problem - it depends on how it is used. Even for Imperial Furniture it's not a problem unless the player is a heavy decorator, but some people do like to add a lot of stuff, so I felt it was something I should fix. I also know there are players that are using the tent and bedrolls as a portable campsite, so all of those pick-ups and placements will lead to bloat. Basically if a mod uses PlaceAtMe a LOT, then that should be followed up with DeleteReference whenever possible. That's what I've done.

The other thing to look for is a string warning in the OBSE log file. If you see something like this:

Loading strings  WARNING: substantial numbers of string variables exist for the following files (may indicate savegame bloat):    Oblivion XP.esp (82260 strings)

you should contact the mod author. That was from a function that I had copied from the wiki that I was using during debugging. The author of the function didn't destroy the strings. I have fixed it now, but as you can see, it created quite a few strings in my saved game before I caught the error

As mentioned previously, when you are talking about memory, the other factor is not the ram in your PC but rather the amount of g-ram on your video card. Using mods like RAEVWD or QTP 3 redimized will help with memory usage for textures. Personally I use Bomret's instead of any variant of QTP 3, but that's personal preference that happens to cut down on the memory requirements too. Tejon's post above has some very good info about video card memory that you should definitely consider.

It doesn't matter what your OS is. Oblivion is a 32 bit program, and as such can't use any more than 2 gig anyway. You can add a Large Address Aware flag to the exe to make it use more, but that will only allow it to utilize an extra gig. But since it was designed with 2 gig in mind, it's highly doubtful whether it would ever make use of that extra gig to begin with. It would most likely swap out some of your RAM long before you ever reached that point.

There are 3 different resources here: VRAM, RAM, and address space.

VRAM:
as people before have said, don't use QTP3 or that kind of thing if you don't have lots of VRAM on your video card.

RAM:
Your total system memory, typically between 2 and 8 GB. More is better, but past about 3 Oblivion won't get any benefit. Under some circumstances VRAM usage may also effectively be RAM usage, but I think (hope?) that that is unusual.

address space:
Normally Oblivion gets 2 GB of this, but if you use a 4 GB enabler then Oblivion can get up to 4 GB if running on a 64 bit OS. It is possible to benefit from this on a 32 bit OS by enabling the /3 GB option for windows, but this is NOT recommended, as it causes instability with many video drivers. If you are running with the /3 GB option enabled for some reason, I recommend that you reboot your computer at least once a day, as I have observed that issues related to this seem to occur with increasing frequency on longer uptimes.
Normally Oblivion doesn't benefit more than about 2 GB of address space, but some factors can change that. Longer game sessions need more address space than shorter game sessions. Heavily modded games need more address space than lightly modded games. In an extreme case a very very heavily modded game in a very very long game session could exceed the 2 GB limit. Also, some (rare) combinations of mods and load orders cause (or expose) bugs that leak memory, in which case it may linearly need more and more address space the longer a game session goes on, at rates varying from 2 MB to 20 MB per minute for any particular load order causing such bugs. If you have such a bug, no amount of address space can possibly be enough for a very long game session, but having 4 GB of address space might buy you a few extra hours before you have to restart oblivion.exe.
If Oblivion runs out of address space it will make a last-ditch effort to free up some more address space; if that fails (or sometimes even if it doesn't since that code is buggy), Oblivion will crash.

Other performance issues:

heap related:
1. heap threading congestion: This issue only effects users with multicore CPUs, but its impact varies widely even then. Basically, Oblivion sometimes like to allocate and/or free several hundred thousand small memory blocks per second from multiple threads, and due to Microsoft optimizing their critical sections implementation for throughput rather than fairness, one of Oblivions background threads may end up preventing the main thread from accessing the heap at all while this is happening, causing the game to grind to a halt a few hundred milliseconds or even a few seconds. It tends to get worse when LOD mods are added and your moving around in exterior cells at high speeds. It tends to get better when... I forget, something to do with uGrid*, see the RAEVWD performance suggestions. It tends to get better when multithreading is reduced, which you can do by tweaking various settings in Oblivion.ini (though that has performance costs as well). It gets much better when my performance plugin Oblivion Stutter Remover (OSR) is installed and heap replacement is enabled with it, though that can also cause some instability for unknown reasons.
2. heap pool exhaustion: This is usually only a serious issue if you play on Windows XP. If you play on windows XP and play modded oblivion with long game sessions, or heavily modded oblivion even with short game sessions... well, after a while you'll exhaust your heap pools, and it tends to be pretty noticable when it happens... oblivion stutter & FPS suddenly gets really bad until Oblivion.exe gets restarted. If you have this issue the solutions are either play only short game sessions, use fewer mods, upgrade to a later version of windows, or install my performance plugin Oblivion Stutter Remover (OSR) and enable heap replacement with it (which can cause instability, but also improves performance in many situations). The vanilla Oblivion heap occupies about 200 MB of address space, but because of its static pool sizes it may be exhausted by smaller amounts of heap allocations if the ratios of allocation block sizes don't match the expected ratio of unmodded Oblivion. This issue also occurs on non-XP OSes, but is generally pretty subtle when it happens on Vista or 7, possibly even improving performance when it happens.

graphics related:
1. Oblivion does some stupid things with graphics. I haven't figured much of it out, maybe someone else knows more, but it tends to spend a lot of CPU time (not just GPU time) rendering.
2. In some of the same circumstances that heap threading congestion issues occur, a similar issue occurs with some graphics resources and some other resources. This is particularly bizarre because the graphics resources for which this is occurs the most on (often causing the game to grind for a halt for 50-100 milliseconds at a time) can apparently be used simultaneously by multiple threads without causing any problems on most graphics drivers, though Oblivion refuses to do so. OSR improves a numbers of issues involved with this (eliminating the worst offender at a possible (but not actual) stability cost, improving but not eliminating most of the other offenders). Anything that reduces multithreading may also improve this.

audio related:
1. On some sound cards, mainly low quality built-in ones, when Oblivion tries to play many sounds at once it can cause the game to stutter badly. This is often worst when horses or other four-footed critters are walking near the player. In some cases updating drivers may improve this. There are mods to eliminate or lower the sound quality on footsteps to help this.

timing:
1. There is a minor issue with the way Oblivion measures time that causes Oblivion physics to occur at more or less 64 Hertz resolution. When the FPS is pegged at 60 this can create a 4 Hertz beat frequency, which some people notice and are annoyed by. OSR fixes that.

other:
... lots more ...

^ Yeah, I was just about to say all that.. honest :whistling:

Anyhow, the purging options of streamline's streampurge help with some of the buildup Skyranger mentions above, and his OSR works wonders with the fancy memory stuff (all of which goes way over my head).

The PlaceAtMe issue you mention is a savegame bloating problem, not specifically performance/stuttering.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that it usually isn't 1 paticular mod which is causing the problems, but the combination of them all at once. So larger textures, hi-rez skin textures + more NPC (more NPCs means many more scripts running), distant LOD etc etc so uninstalling one of these won't make much difference.

If you're modding you game, just get used to saving often and reload when it ctds

Cool! Thanks for all the input. Let me respond to everyone in turn:

1. A new Imperial Furniture? I'm all over it when it comes out.

2. anithinks, thanks for the instructions. That will be good to know.

3. I do use bashed patch, but I didn't show it here to save space. I also took off my combined mods. Some combine the Extended Cities mods, some combine armor mods, some combine race mods, etc.

4. It's funny you mentioned BOSS because I was having trouble with it for a while, but tonight, it started working properly. The problem started when I began editing conflicting mods (especially the overhauls) with TESEdit. I wanted to take all conflicts out of every mod that conflicted, so I did and I guess it changed the Date Modified on them. Then when I used BOSS, it gave me some error about dates being changed on all these mods. However, I just used it tonight and it seems to work fine. I'm looking at my log now.

5. Dani, when you have played for about an hour or so, Oblivion reaches its limit in RAM, about 2 GB and stops working. There seems to be nothing you can do about that. Also, in some areas, like outside Skingrad or Chorrol, I have low FPS, but I found I can get past this by pointing the camera down to the ground. Look down and FPS goes up slightly because the computer has less images to process.

6.Tejon, first of all, thanks for all the great mods and thanks for the advice. Would you think an Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT good enough?

7. SkyRanger, Thank you for all the information. I just realized that I don't have your Stutter Remover on my current hard drive. That and other OBSE components probably didn't make it over, but I'm sure I copied the OBSE Plugin file...Oh well, I'll put that back on tonight.

8. Torello, for a while I was running all the Crowded Cities mods AND the Extended Cities mods. The cities sure felt like cities, but it was horrible FPS. I've since decided upon just one of the series and that does enough. Thanks for telling me about the placeatme command. It just makes your saves increase in size, but doesn't use extra RAM? I guess I had that wrong. I just figured that since the bloat caused the saved game to load slower, it might also be taking extra memory having all those items/NPC/creatures hanging around in the save.

My problem is a lot like Dani's in that I play for an hour or so and then I'm looking at O-byebye-vion, so if I could turn off certain mods during long sessions, then it might last longer.

There's a new version of Imperial Furniture out already, but the one with the saved game bloat fix should be out in a few days. I have a release thread in this forum that will be updated when it's released. It will also have some major additions that I think people will like

There is a lot of good info in this thread - might bookmark it!

It's an important topic that isn't discussed much, though there was another thread with a lot of good info on it, especially if you don't have a 32-bit system and can use one of the programs that make Oblivion use more than 2 gig. Wish I could remember what it was called...When I find it again, I'll post a link.

It's an important topic that isn't discussed much, though there was another thread with a lot of good info on it, especially if you don't have a 32-bit system and can use one of the programs that make Oblivion use more than 2 gig. Wish I could remember what it was called...When I find it again, I'll post a link.

No shadows, no antialiasing and low resolution -- but it'll be fine. I used worse.

[spoiler

Just testing.

/spoiler]

I am still trying to figure out how to do spoiler tags, so I've been editing this post. As you can plainly see, the spoilers are smarter than me.

you need a ] at the end of your first spoiler and a [ before the second

[ spoiler ] See, any text here [ /spoiler ] << -------- Remove the spaces



http://bbcode.org/reference.php

[ url= http://bbcode.org/reference.php ] BB Code tags reference [ /url ]

Changing everything that is a conflict doesn't sound like a great idea. Most conflicts are resolved by load order. Others resolved with the bashed patch. Altering the plugins themselves to resolve conflicts could do really strange things. For instance, every time you change your load order, you might find yourself having to alter plugins.

Also, you might just plain break the overhauls.