Alright, I have once again found my way back to Oblivion (Thanks Steam Summer Sale), and am working on compiling my mod list, and updating mods stored on my hard drive, but have a question. Before, when I owned Oblivion back in the day, I couldn't run any of the Graphical Enhancements, due to a weak computer.

I was curious if there are any Graphical Mods that I won't be able to run with my rig:

Win 7
4 GB RAM
AMD Athlon II x3 435 [2.90GHz]
Radeon 5770 [1GB]

Are there some, yes. And even if it could I still wouldnt recommend it.


One I do recommend is QTP3 Readymized. Also, Better Cities mods. They make the vanilla cities look dull and empty, and with them they are much much nicer.

An extra 2Gb of RAM would be helpful, but hardly necessary (just so you can make sure you can take full advantage of the LAA patch if you intend to mod the hell out of your game).

Anyways, your base hardware looks quite solid, so I would say go hog-wild.

The only graphics mods you won't be able to run are MTAEVWD (and really, no one can run this).

Also, if you want an alternative to the cities for less of a performance impact, try Open Cities Reborn. It really helps make the cities fit the classic medieval theme a lot better.

Thanks to both of you for the additional information. I will be sure to check out your recommendations. I am going to have to do a bit of research (more so than I thought). Back when I was playing, compatibility was a joke, and most graphical updates interfered with each other (IE unique landscapes, better cites, etc). Also I need to see if a group of modders ever cleaned their mods, but that is another topic entirely.

If you load up on hi-res replacers, for landscapes, clothing, armour, weapons, architecture, clutter, plants, creatures, and so forth, sooner or later you will find that 1GB is not enough VRAM. I speak from experience here.

So my advice would be, only use what you really think will drastically improve your game. Others, maybe pass on, until/unless you pick up a 2GB+ card.

Also good to know, right now I am just rummaging thru the nexus to see what replacers I am gonna use. I probably won't get around to actually installing anything tonight. It has been a few years since I was last playing this, and most of my replacers and mods are grossly out of date.

There are some pretty good replacers that are standard resolution and thus no more a performance drain than their vanilla equivalents. Bomrets Detailed Normals, for instance is a definite improvement and can safely be added to just about anyone's installation. Just be sure to install it early so that any specialized high-res stuff you want will overwrite it. I'm also happy (or at least content) with standard res color-map replacers for cave interiors and Ayleid Ruins (both external and internal). On the other hand, my avatar spends the bulk of his time traveling Cyrdiil's highways. I therefore sprang for high-res roads and cobblestones, knowing I'm be seeing them at close range quite often. I made a compromise with grass (the free-standing stuff rather than tiling), installing one of the low-poly grass packs. The degradation is obvious at close range, but one gets used to it, and it lets me extend the distance at which grass becomes visible without a bad performance hit. Quantity over quality wins out for me in this case.

Darker Regal IC is possibly the gold-standard for specialized Imperial City texture replacement. Imperial City Relaoded is a fine alternative. There are others. I use a mixture of Regal and Reloaded.

-Decrepit-

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37375

Shameless plug

Thanks again for the recommendations, and the advice on load order. That was something I had issues with back when I first owned Oblivion on the PC. I am actually using a few "install guides" as a point of reference as well, but all of the advice has been very helpful, and thank you again.