Equipment; 360 xbox on 51” plazma. TV is set auto so it will play at what ever input is sent to it. The 360 is set at 1080p. GOTY oblivion.
Problem (or not): smaller items like fauna, NPCs, animals, camps etc only show up on screen when getting within 20 or 30 yards (hard to tell in game but looks like a good duck shot range)even in towns. Larger things like castles and large monuments show up farther out.

Lots of inconsistent stuttering, especially when on horse back.(I had the game installed on my hard drive and after removing it and just playing off the disk it did run noticeably smother but not a lot).

This is the only game I have that does this.

Is this normal or is there something I can do about it? I've searched a lot and haven't found any usable reference to this phenomenon. Almost forgot, I did the "A" button on start up to clear the cache and it did seem to help the loading times.

Also on a side question can the unofficial patches be used on the GOTY version or the 360?

Things popping onto the screen is a function of the view distance. It is set lower on the consoles as it reduces the load on the hardware not processing those items. Not sure if you can change the view distances (poke around in the Options of the Launcher). Loading times are longer on the 360 than on the PC, but I don't remember them being terrible, just something to wait for.

No, you can not use mods on the console versions of these games.