» Sat Dec 07, 2013 1:38 am Earthling and Augi don't frequent here very much anymore, so I guess I'll pick up the slack - Tig
A workaround has been found for pc users involving hex editing savegames. People using the 360 and the PS3 and everyone looking for a official and permanent fix will have to wait for more word from Bethesda...and it's already been a VERY long wait meaning it's likely not going to happen. They are fully aware of the bug now thanks to a couple very determined community members (Polygon Pirate, ashakanar)...see bottom of this post for recent updates. See the "Temporary workarounds" section of this post for description and links if you're using a PC and be damn thankful to zBobG, RenderFred, and Wrye among other members no longer here that helped provide a fix.
Welcome to the 8th thread regarding this issue. ANY further insight is appreciated.
Here are the previous threads:
Update....Part I - VI are now long gone /1346.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':sad:' />
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=688265&hl=
These 7 threads have ~61,114 (cumulative) views! Who knows how many have looked but merely lurked.
I have sent this post, in full, to gamesas technical support. http://support.gamesas.com/asp/email.asp?sid=033434060506024178102033&pid=1462&pnm=Oblivion&seid=3932&pos=Windows+XP
The problem involves freezing/stuttering of secondary animations such as: fire, spell effects (on self and target), doors/gates/lids, corpse smashers, extentable bridges, traps of all kinds, fog, sparks from weapon impacts, butterflies, fireflies. The climix of the main quest is, by its very nature, affected as well.
Affected animations are sometimes completely frozen or PAINFULLY slow. In the case of doors, lifts, and bridges this can prevent further progress.
Overall framerate does NOT freeze/stutter and all other gameplay elements function normally ie character/npc/creature,tree, water, sky animations/movement, menu navigation, melee and magic combat (the effect of spells {damage health 10 for 2 sec} occur normally but the visual effects do not) all work fine. A high overall framerate is actually associated with a worsening of the problem.
Certain animations that one would predict to be affected are not. These include: the on target effect of the Detect Life spell and the fire animation of an equiped (on yourself or npc) torch. This needs further investigation.
Strange behaviour observed by many/all: the greater the angle between the centre of your point of view (centre of the screen) and the animation in question, the less the freezing/stuttering occurs. Also, the closer you are to the animation the worse the freezing/stuttering is.
All conceivable hardware/OS configurations/combinations, including the 360 and PS3, have been affected, from obsolete to cutting edge.
Possible causes that seem to be NOT universal:
1. Savegame filesize.
2. # of items stored in containers and/or out of containers.
3. Glitch began during xxx particular quest.
4. Number of or type of locations explored. For me it started after exploring Alyeid ruins but others have encountered it without entering any ruins.
5. Use of fast-travel.
6. Constant effects on your character.
7. Savegame corruption. Some have experienced corruption when saving while the glitch is currently active, others have had virtually no obviously corrupt saves in any circumstance.
8. Usage of mods.
If this is indeed a savegame corruption issue then the savegame system in Oblivion is in need of fixing.
Possible causes that seem to be universal:
1. # of hours played. While symptoms have been observed early on by some, virtually all people begin to notice or be hindered by the problem after many (100+ and usually 200+) hours of play with a single character.
2. High overall framerate, as a cause of or symptom of the problem. Without a doubt, the problem is at it's worse when framerate is high. This is likely the most solid lead and is in need of further investigation.
3. Physics bugs. Items jiggling or "resetting" when you enter an indoor location and items falling through the floor. This is less consistent than 1 and 2 but many have reported it.
Oblivion (and Morrowind) was made using the "Gamebryo" middleware. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebryo Could this problem be rooted in Gamebryo?
Temporary workarounds:
Hex editing a savegame (Disclaimer: there is no full official understanding, yet, of what the byte in question does, other than that it causes and cures the problem depending on its value).
Quote of The other Felix: "The saved game files contain a four byte sequence that appears to be be continuously incremented during play, triggering the problem when it reaches a certain value (possibly when changing from FFFFFF48 to 00000049), and with values beyond that increasing its severity. The editing consisted of decreasing the value of the last byte in that sequence by using a hex editor on an affected save. I suspect that the problem will reappear once the 'magic' value is reached again, but that can probably be delayed indefinitely by further editing."
Here are 3 programs that will change the value (listed in order of most used fix) :
1. zBobG's program can be used to examine, as well as fix, the byte http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5127
2. RenderFred's program will modify all saves at once if you so choose http://renderfred.free.fr/oblivion/OBSAF.zip
3. For advanced users, Wrye's program, http://wrye.ufrealms.net/, has, among its many features, a function for resetting the byte.
zBobG's fix and quick explanation of the Float number transition where the the animation bug occurs:
The 48 to 49 transition is just the quick-and-dirty test for the animation bug. That byte is the first of 4 bytes (that you can see in OAF) and all 4 bytes are the binary representation of a Float (a decimal) number. Testing has found that when that Float number exceeds a certain value then the animation sticks. The 49 is just an indicator that the value has been exceeded. The fix, replacing 49 with 40, is just a quick-and-dirty method of easily reducing the value of that Float number.
Don't worry about messing up your game, only that one byte is changed and nothing else in the game is affected, except the animation being fixed of course. You can also fix your game any number of times with no bad effect.
Kivan's discovery with Shivering Isles:
Other Suggestions:
Hot Key switching of weapons and equipment or changing from 1st to 3rd person view, may help temporarily speed up doors opening or aid in slow animation sequences completing.
Casting a spell may help temporarily speed up slow/frozen doors, platforms, etc.
The .ini setting fAnimationMult=1.1 (or higher-default is 1.0) seems to fix it, but causes other issues.
Use tcl (noclip) in the console to fly through/to where you want to go.
Look away from the affected animation.
Reloading a save made before the issue began invariably results in it's re-appearance, usually around the same game/real time point at which it first started.
Here's a (abbreviated) list of questions one of our fellow sufferers put together that may help find a commonality/solution:
1. Do you recall experiencing any other very unusual graphical glitches, physics bugs, etc?
2. What CPU/memory/video card do you have?
3. What resolution/options do you usually use (especially around the time the glitch started)?
4. Any mods that you have installed that might affect this?
5. Anything unusual about your hardware/software/os/configuration/playstyle that most people probably do not/do have?
6. Under what circumstances does the problem seem to be at its worse and least?
7. Please feel free to suggest any other questions you think might be good to ask to help ferret out a common cause for this glitch.
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Some updates regarding getting devs to recognize the problem...read on
/nope.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':nope:' /> It's looking like the bug is here to stay...not even Bethesda knows what to do about it now. PS3 owners are not exempt either apparently:
And just when you thought it was over...
