Ok first of all my rig is pretty decent, and i've even tried with ZERO mods.
I have a Phenom 965 , AMD 5850, 4gb RAM (@1600)
Yet around PC's and just those "certain areas" I get stuttering or low FPS (well not super low, but dropping down from 70 to 40 or so).
Especially walking around in the wilderness....the loading and stuttering just breaks the immersion severely....

Is this just "normal".....I have streamline, and a few mods but nothing major, and i've tried it without mods?
I considered maybe getting an SSD....but would it help much? or is this just 'how it is'?

Has anyone ever got oblivion to run smooth for that matter?
This is on a FRESH Windows 7 install too.

edit: I heard theirs a 4gb enabler or something? does that actually work?

I don't see mention of Oblivion Stutter Remover (OSR). That utility can go far to reduce certain types of stutter. You'll want to experiment with its heap-replacement feature. No one mode seems to be ideal for every individual install. Checking out its thread in the Mods forum should give you an idea of how to install and configure it. Requires OBSE of course, but if you don't already use OBSE that too is a super easy install.

I asked about SSD here a while back. Replies weren't enthusiastic enough for me to consider it a must-have. Things might have changed.

To an extent what you suffer "is" normal. Oblivion's game-engine is old. It does not take full advantage of modern multi-core CPUs and the latest high-end GPUs (or multiple GPUs). Still, properly installed and configured utilities can go a long way to made Oblivion smooth-running and stable. The in-game Options menu sliders can help reduce stutters/lag too, so long as you don't mind trading image quality and/or eye-candy for better performance. 40FPS should not worry you. Oblivion runs smoothly at that rate. Heck, OSR caps FPS at 30 for me. (This can be overridden if you prefer a higher cap.) I normally don't notice "lag" until the very low 20s, and it's not bad until I hit the teens...which is blissfully rare. Stutters are another matter, but I can get those at any FPS.

That 5850 should run the game fine. I thought long and hard about getting one when I assembled my current computer last year. Ended up going for a GTX470 instead.

Aye, Oblivion.exe can be flagged as LAA (large-address aware). Yes, it "can" help, though don't expect miracles, especially with "only" 4gb ram. At the very least it should do no harm so long as you use a 64-bit variant of Windows. (Don't bother with it if yours is 32-bit.)

Mine is 64 bit indeed. im not familiar with this LAA? care to explain?

and the stutter I talk about that bothers me is more of when your walking in the wilderness and you get the sudden dip into 20-30 fps, or especially when fighting an NPC fps always drops.

Oh, sorry. Saying Oblivion.exe has been made large-address aware (LAA) simply means it has been 4gb enabled.

I thought there was a 4gb enabler patch or something? or is that not needed anymore?

Here is the LAA patch. It only helps with stuttering in a round about way, don't expect miracles from it. Mostly, it allows extended play time before CTD due to running out of memory.

Well first of all, you're not getting 70 FPS unless you're using an older CRT monitor with a higher refresh rate. Your graphics can never be displayed at a faster speed than your refresh rate. If you're using a modern LCD monitor, pretty much all of them have been set to 60hz, so you'll only be getting a max of 60 FPS. It may say 70 FPS, but not all of those frames are actually being rendered onscreen. Secondly, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a framerate of 40 FPS, it's perfectly acceptable. You're just being nit picky by expecting more. I can get smooth gameplay even if gets as low as 20 FPS.



For the most part it's just how it is. The stuttering is being caused by your texture files being loaded up from your hard drive. A SSD will help quite a bit though, it's the fastest hard drive out there right now and should smooth things out quite a bit. Another option is to have 2 SATI drives linked into a RAID array. That's considerably faster than a single 7200 RPM SATI, which is most likely what you have now. Another option is to get a single 10,000 RPM SATI drive.

I might look into getting a 10,000 RPM HD.......but with SSDs I dunno if that is a wise investment.

SSD are still quite expensive for the amount of space they have available. Your best alternative though would probably be a RAID array rather than a single 10,000 RPM. I haven't looked at any specs at all but I strongly suspect that two 7200 's linked together will give you better performance than a single 10,000 RPM. Or better yet, link two 10,000 RPMs. Each one doesn't have to be that large either since their space will combine. The only stipulation is that they both have to be the same size and speed. Having them be identical in every way wouldn't hurt either. Your motherboard also has to be able to handle a RAID array as well, otherwise you'll need to get a separate card in order to make it work. Most half-decent motherboards these days already have that capability built into them though. If you look in your manual, it will give you some info on it if it does.

as was mentioned oblivion stutter remover helps out in alot of situations where stutter arises, especially areas with sudden fps drops. cap your fps at 60 first in the ini and test it out. If it works fine, great, keep it that way. If you still notice stuttering, set the max fps to 30 and see if that helps. (i recommend 60 & 30 because those two will work best with a 60hz refresh, which most flat panels have) Changing the heap in stutter remover can lead to undesired side-effects, like enemies traveling through walls and other stuff. Best to keep it vanilla as far as that goes.

The game will stutter when you are traveling (especially so when youre moving faster, because it has to stream whatever graphical elements in the cells you're entering as well as scripts and such that much faster as well). In dungeons you should not notice stutter at all.

Hope that helps, I got rid of all my stutter issues in this manner. (besides one that the mod "frostcrag reborn" added because of a sound plugin it was using for OBSE, just deleting that sound plugin got rid of the annoying regular stutter in this case)

Good Luck!