I'd like some help optimizing Oblivion to run at its best on my system without sacrificing much visual quality. When I'm out in the wilderness, throw as much grass and trees at me as you want and my frame rate stays up between 50 and 60, but near NPCs (especially in cities) I get a drastic drop.

I am using a bunch of graphics enhancing mods, most of which don't impact FPS at all. However, I just installed Better Cities, and now I'm looking at between 15 and 25 FPS in cities. I was expecting that, I know that is a beefy mod, but I'm hoping there are things I can do to make Oblivion take full advantage of my particular hardware to hopefully get in-city FPS up to between 25 and 35 where it is more playable.

Here is my setup:
CPU: Intel i7 quad-core @ 2.8 GHz
GPU: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1GB
RAM: 6 GB DDR3

I'm using Streamline, but I can't say I've noticed it working much (game still stutters, didn't notice increase in FPS) so maybe I botched the install somehow. I'm looking for mods or .ini tweaks or other methods of increasing FPS, hopefully without sacrificing much if any visual quality.

Got any tips?

Using the "right" settings for Streamline can help a bit, as well as Oblivion Stutter Remover - but neither (unless you use Streamsight, I guess) will actually *increase* your FPS, but simply make the game smoother and playable instead. Indeed, the default cap on FPS in OSR is 30. So, not very high. But sufficient, for most people, if it doesn't dip too much lower.

Better Cities can be a pretty savage hit. Have you tried the FPS patches that come with it (but are optional)? Also, some people have found certain areas of it particularly demanding, like maybe the Market District of the IC, or the waterfront there, or whatever else. The mod is, um, modular, so you might be able to pick and choose for a better result.

I have quite a similar setup (same graphics card, even) and I wouldn't say the FPS are that great. But then, I have (literally!) hundreds of mods installed and active.

What other mods do you have installed?

Oh, and what resolution do you play at? It's always going to be more demanding, the higher that is.

Thanks for the reply. Let me answer those questions for you:

I followed the Streamline instructions exactly, and tried to tweak the .ini file for the best performance increase for my needs. I have noticed that it doesn't do its job of adjusting graphics to match a set framerate very well. In less intensive areas of cities I can stay within a good range of 25-40 FPS, but when I hit one of those really intense zones (like the IC market district) I can drop to around 18 and stay there. My minimum FPS in Streamline is set to 25, but I have noticed that even at 18 FPS I have detailed reflections, textures, and view distance. Could Streamline be unable to reduce detail because I have texture replacing mods installed? I guess that is my first issue, because I can live with lower graphics in cities if I can keep the good stuff when I don't need the extra performance. I would hate to reduce the graphics for the whole game when a lot of times I can play it no problem, you know?

Better Cities is really cool, and adds a lot to the game. I would rather not exclude certain areas, but it's an option if I have no other choice. I have the latest patches (both official and unofficial).

I have several mods installed, and I can list them all if you really want, but for now I will only list the ones that might affect performance in order to keep this post from getting too long.
> OBGE (I usually only use the GodRays and Depth of Field effects which don't seem to drop my performance, I rarely use SSAO since It looks bad in fog or rain)
> Qarl's Texture Pack 3 Redimized
> COBL (not really using much of that at all)
> Ethereal Eyes
> Natural Faces + Facial Textures by Enayla
> Enhanced Water
> Alive Water
> All Natural Weather
> Full Landscapes LOD Texture Replacer
> Noise Replacer
> Animated Window Lighting System

I doubt the LOD texture replacers affect things since I only have severe slowdown in cities.

I play at my TV's native 1366x768 resolution. I am thinking of lowering that and turning off Vsync to see what that does for me. I'm not really willing to lose HDR.

The fact that exterior environments don't give me much trouble leads me to believe that my CPU is what is struggling when in cities. I found this that might help optimize Oblivion for my processor:

(from TweakGuides.com)

"Multithreading Tweaks:

bUseThreadedBlood=1
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
bUseThreadedTempEffects=1
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1
bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1
iNumHavokThreads=5
iThreads=9
iOpenMPLevel=10

All of the above settings seem to relate to the use of the GameBryo engine's multithreading capability. Multithreading splits tasks into 'threads' where possible, and runs them in parallel across both cores of multi core or HyperThreading (virtual multi core) CPUs to improve performance. Note that raising the values of the iThreads, iNumHavokThreads and iOpenMPLevel settings very high doesn't automatically mean it uses that many threads - it all depends on how many threads are actually possible based on the information being processed. Experiment with these variables but if you experience problems reset them back to their defaults."

How would I set these values to make the best use of my i7? It has 4 physical cores each divided into 2 virtual cores for a total of 8 virtual cores.

Well, if you have a bunch of other mods that utilise AI, or are heavy script-wise (also, if they add lots of critters, even under the water where you can't see them, for instance), these can impact FPS big time, especially in places with lots of people (e.g., cities). Looking at that lot though, no, *they* shouldn't be too taxing for your setup, at all. You can't really go much higher anyway, without resorting to Crossfire, f'rex.



At best, those settings are said to do nothing whatsoever. I tried them ages ago, and yeah, they didn't seem to do anything.


And your resolution is a fair bit lower than I would've expected, with that hardware. :shrug: Not sure what you could try. Maybe just uninstall/deactivate each mod that's a possible culprit, in turn. Or, next time you install Oblivion (should you choose a clean start some time) you can always try adding one mod at a time (of any kind, graphical replacer or not) and test FPS after installing each one...? This is what I recommend, but I realise it's at the very least a bit inconvenient, and possibly just a total PITA. Best way to tell for sure, though...

Oh, and it's always worth keeping in mind that Oblivion's engine is, quite simply, very far from optimal. Fallout 3, though built on the same base engine, is much smoother, even with more eye candy added, at higher res, with more AI/scripting, etc. Other games are even better coded, in this regard. Something to remember - hardware can only do so much for this game, basically. My CPU and GPU are overclocked, and my OS is optimised for playing games (when I want it to be) and yet, I still have to watch mods, their settings, and so on.

So are the only people who can enjoy Better Cities people with gaming rigs costing thousands of dollars? That's annoying. Too bad the makers of this mod (talented as they are) didn't come up with a less demanding version for the average gamer. I will keep messing with it I guess, try disabling different things, etc...

This was the last mod I was planning on installing before starting a real playthrough, so it's a shame that it puts my computer over the edge. Oh well, can't have everything.

EDIT: Oh yeah, any ideas why Streamline doesn't seem to be able to drop my graphics to improve performance? I have not seen it change my graphics yet, even when they stay below my set minimum for many seconds.

Hm. Did I miss it, or did you not indicate either way, whether you'd already tried the FPS patches included with the BC download, or if you'd tried them, whether they did anything much?

That won't make any difference to the game. It only uses 2 cores at the most, and not very well at that. Awhile back there was some discussion about getting better performance by restricting core use to only one. The results noted by various people were pretty inconclusive, but overall it did seem indicate that you are better off with just a single core for the game.

I'm assuming they are working. I followed the readme exactly, and compiled each of the three sections of Better Cities into OMODs. As part of the installation of the main one, it asked whether to install the FPS patches and I said yes. I will go see if I can find evidence of them anywhere.

I'm also going to try to disable all of the extras (statues, wall guards, etc...) that are possible to disable and see if that helps.

Another question (the one about Streamline still stands), I read somewhere that redoing OMODs with little or no compression improves performance slightly by making the files easier to get at. Is there any substance to that?