Hello

I'm digging up an old bone here..

I've heard other people in the 'distant past' say that Oblivion is set to only process the ai of 20 npc's at once by default.. I then heard of a mod which changes a global in Oblivion and allows more to process..

As far as I know I never used that mod, and yet I have a battle scene which involves around 65 npc's, and over a short period of time, they *all* process their ai.. (yep.. takes a little while sometimes)

My question is I guess, is the information about the '20 npc' rule false then?

And further more, have any of you guys run mods that run like 40 npc's or more in a loaded area *and* you are not using that mod which changes the global to allow more processing... and you have no issues (apart from taking a little time to get them all going at once)?

I could use your input on this, on the edge of the release here, and so far my testers say all is well.. but this has been a lingering question in my mind..

(I am aware of the fact that apart from all of this, ai processing is also based on ones puter specs)

Cheers!

I've never heard of such a limit, but if there is some way to alter how many packages can be run at once, then it'll be on this page here. Try 'Shift-F'ing for Package or AI. Package only has 2 that I can see, but none look completely relevant. There's loads of AI related settings, but I didn't find anything solid.
It might make sense that they impose a limit, but I'm not sure whether they have. The game has to think about AI's constantly to see who should be doing what and where. As far as I know, they don't just run when viewed in a cell, since find and ambush (etc) AI's run even when they're not in that worldspace or cell.
If all of your play testers say it's working fine, then it should be working fine in most cases. I wouldn't worry too much about this apparent AI limit if I were you!

Good luck!

There is no sort of hard-coded limit, but rather a few points where there is a consistent and sudden degradation regardless of system. It is these points that I and most others treat as a limit on the number of active actors as going beyond them can just make everything within that area slow. While there are ways to get some additional wiggle room within these limits (using creatures or instanced actors, disabling AI of non-important actors, using one of the processing mode functions) they are not always something which can be implemented. And, as you said, there is a part where the hardware of the person makes a difference, so some consideration is needed for those with lower spec systems.

The general rule of thumb when none of these tricks are used is:
8 (12) actors in combat before noticing a lag in reaction times
10 (14) actors in scene before noticing a lag in package initiation time

*Creatures use slightly less processing than NPCs, their limits are in parenthesis.

Anything after that point will still be noticeable, but to a greater or lesser degree based on system and scene complexity. Ultimately it boils down to how much processing lag is acceptable within your scene. It's certainly possible to go beyond these points without significant problems, but nearly every instance of this requires some special scripting or tweaking to handle the scene. But, the issue is not to make a scene work for one or two people, but to make is consistently functional. A while back someone managed to get a reasonably detailed battle between 80 NPCs using most of the tricks out there, but was left with something that wouldn't work in most practical situations and required someone with a same or better system to get a similar effect.

But the main thing is that with modding very little is etched in stone. It may not always work the way you want, it may not always work right, but most of those "rules" can be bent or broken when needed.

There is the setting INumberActorsInCombatPlayer, which limits the number of active combat mode. This and a few others are changed in MMM.

First off, sorry about the late response, got caught up with Rl stuff and nearly forgot I posted this..

Thanks for the responses




I hear you. I just discovered the variable for total actors in combat, oddly enough I have never changed this value and everyone works (or a few dont randomly) of 65 some actors.. wierd




Nice post there

Read everything, good stuff.

"A while back someone managed to get a reasonably detailed battle between 80 NPCs using most of the tricks out there"

That was .. me :foodndrink:

I ended up reducing the amount of actors to 65, and it's much more stable now, along with a 30 second or so delay before the fight actually starts while the player is in the lineup, which makes all the difference in letting everyone get their ai processing.




Thanks m8 :0 Indeed after doing some searching I found the mod (MassAi) that directly modifies this, and located the same variable in there. Again tho.. I never changed this value, and dont run MMM nor OOO (I think it was said that OOO changes it too)..

I want to just change it in my mod to 65, but I'm a little concerned I may cause issues for players later on whom still have my mod active once they are done with the main quest line, and doing other things with other mod's..

I guess if I am getting up to and more than 65 actors to go into combat without changing that setting, then as long as others have no issues, I should just leave it alone.

Just one of those.. Hmm what happens when after x number of people have played thru the battle and had only 20 actors in combat due to that setting, and everyone else standing around.. and then it's too late.. not like everyone will want to go back thru the whole quest line just to see the battle work right after I add in that game setting change.. kind of a one time shot here..

Again, I guess the best approach right now is just leave it. I certainly shouldnt make a change that could potential cause players problems further down the road when it is likely not needed and things are fine so far without it.. (I hope..)



Thanks again