I'm having some odd graphics issues I can't deal with. I had to reinstall my game cause I messed up while installing some mods (ironically to enhance my graphic experience), and uninstalled it all the way and deleted all folders to get a clean start. However, when I reinstalled the opening videos and the intro (with the King and all that) is extremely choppy, like it stutters unbelievably much, which it didn't do the first time I ran a clean install. This carries over to some serious stuttering in both graphics and sound (sounds like there's some start/stop going on) even during gameplay, which makes it unplayable.

I have installed the GOTY edition and even tried installing the unofficial patches, which didn't help.
I've tried installing in a different folder (not Program Files), which didn't help.
I tried installing some other graphic enhancer mods, which didn't help.
I tried the lowest in-game video settings, which didn't help (I ran on highest settings throughout during the first install, which ran beautifully smooth).
I tried fine tuning the graphics in my Nvidia Control Panel, which didn't help. I read a bunch of tweakguides to try and understand what it all does and lowest graphics/highest performance didn't work either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if it's just to tell me how I get back to my original settings where it ran some nicely during my first install. If I can get there I'll stay away from mods and just play the game.

It's not a hardware issue as I have a i3 CPU, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 8600 GTS video card (not the newest thing I know, but it worked and is more than par for the requirements).

Thanks!

So I reinstalled once again, reduced all settings to absolute minimum, both in-game and in the Nvidia control panel. That made the intro run smooth and the start of the tutorial ran really well too. When I came to the point where the blades are ambushed by those red cloaked fellas it got real choppy to the point where it actually stopped and the battle progressed in bits and chunks. When I went to fight the rats and goblins it ran pretty well and I was only having problems when I encountered 2 or more enemies at the same time, which I will obviously be doing quite a bit, so I still need to figure this out.

I then slowly increased and tested all the settings up to where I'm running at my desired settings and with the same results: Still choppy in battle, and I haven't even seen the outdoors scenes with grass yet, but I can only imagine. It's also slightly choppy in 3rd person view, but I can live with that for now.

Then I started adding expansions (shivering isles/knights of nine) which seemed to slow it down a bit. Then I added the unofficial patches, and the Landscape Texture enhancers and QarlsTP3 mod. As an added bonus I now can't take screenshots...

No one?

Well since reducing everything to minimum helped the issue that lets you know where you stand. Adding graphic enhancers or replacements is just going to nullify this progress. QTP3 especially the full version is a resource hog. So until you get your game running smoothly I strongly suggest you remove QTP3 entirely. Later on if you can add graphic enhancers and such I suggest QTP3 Redimized, there are many different options that are not as resource hungry as the full version. But of course that should be last, after you have a decent running vanilla game.

I have to start by asking the most basic questions. Are your drivers up to date and did you properly install and configure them? I.E. Running a driver cleaner in safe mode to fully remove old drivers and remove old registry entries with a registry cleaner. How often do you do routine maintenance on your PC? Such as defragging your files, especially after doing large installs and removals this is very important. Files get scattered everywhere and can hinder performance. So those are the first things I suggest, cleaning drivers, updating drivers, and defragmentation.

Also how many and what type of mods do you have? Mods can be resource hogs and the more you add the more noticeable it becomes, especially with overhaul mods, texture replacers, and things like Unique Landscapes, Better Cities, etc.. Posting your load order would be good. Give us some more info and we can better understand the problem.

Try deleting your oblivion.ini and let the game make a new one for you. Oblivion is VERY sloppy with it's uninstall and a lot of things get left behind.

Thanks for the input guys.

I've got this puppy installed on a brand new 128GB SSD, so registry and defrag is a void subject. All my drivers are freshly installed, but I'll go through them again to make sure I'm not missing any recent updates.

What baffles me here is that I'm seeing the same problem no matter if it's a clean install or if I have mods installed. It still grinds to a halt when multiple people are in battle (I don't even have to be involved). I understand that the more mods I have it will impact the performance. I have a few like ren's beauty pack, some extra gloves and robes and a few others that only add items, not any specific texture heavy stuff. Then I have QTP3, LandscapeTexture (3 kinds), NoiseReplacer and then the unofficial updates and official expansions.

I did delete my .ini file after I uninstalled. I deleted all folders related to Oblivion.

The trouble started when I first started throwing in mods and the whole thing crashed on me. I then uninstalled and decided to be careful and add one mod at the time to see if they impacted the game, however, before installing any mods on my 1st fresh install I ran it just to make sure everything was ok, and it was most certainly not. It does seem like something remained from the original install that made it crash, but I can't imagine what. I've reinstalled 3 times since and the same thing happens every time.

I can try a registry cleaner, which I've never heard of before, so if you can recommend anything that would help I'd appreciate it.

Thanks.

You might want to check to make sure you don't have some kind of conflict between the game's graphic settings and your card's global settings. I ran into a choppiness problem once when I was messing around with settings, and had my card's settings overruling the game's control of antialiasing.

I did mess around with the global settings and made them overrule the game settings, but that shouldn't matter as long as my video card can handle it. After all this I did remove my video driver and uninstall the game, reinstalled both and made sure the setting were application controlled. I'll double check again tonight and make sure it's alright.

Could also be a background process interfering. Sounds like processor overload...... What all else is running in the background?

I've ran it right as Win7 started up with nothing else open. Typically I have Live Messenger, Winamp, possibly Chrome and Kaspersky running. I really don't think it's a processor thing as it's brand new i3 which should outperform and game requirements and the game did fine when I installed it right out of the box about a week ago. It wasn't until my first re-install this started to happen.

Try killing off some of the background processes anyway..... Oblivion doesn't really take advantage of multi-core processors..... its all about clock speed. Try doing a http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796, and see if that helps at all. (yeah, that's for vista, 7 should be pretty much the same.)

What sound chip does your MOBO have ?? -- sounds like it could be a sound issue or driver conflict - try turning off the music in the ini file and see if that helps ! (the battle music starting and stopping can cause this type of problem on some systems)

Good suggestions, I'll try that. Thanks guys.

This makes me believe something was left behind when you uninstalled Oblivion that is hindering your performance. I mentioned earlier about cleaning registry entries. http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner simple and free program will help remove old registry keys. Or if you are comfortable editing the registry yourself you can navigate to (Start > Run, enter REGEDIT), browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Bethesda Softworks and delete the Oblivion subkey. Always make a backup before deleting anything!

So try that. I know doing another install is somewhat time consuming but it's what I suggest. The trick is to make sure you completely remove Oblivion before reinstalling so nothing is lingering behind. Good luck!

Thanks, that's my suspicion as well as it keeps buzzing and stuttering when I enter menus and building and combat in spite of 3 reinstalls. I'm actually to the point where I'm seriously considering formatting my SSD just to clear everything out, but your way sounds a bit less intrusive =)

I tried updating my sound driver but it was already the latest version. Shutting down all background applications didn't make any difference either.

I keep hearing noises about some flavor of conflict with win7, and some onboard sound chips.... I do not know what the resolution, if any, is though. Might try googling that, and see what you come up with. (if you are running 7.....)

I finally resolved the problem: I formatted my entire drive and reinstalled Vanilla and it runs nicely now. Bummer of a solution though.