Framerate issues / stuttering in TES:Oblivion

busfahrer

Hi,

I recently got a new box: i7 860, 4 GB DDR1333, HD5770, WinXP32.
I installed The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. No matter how low I set the graphics, in one of the first scenes, when two rats come storming at me (just an example, in other scenes as well), the game starts to microstutter, without the fps actually really dropping. The environment in this special case is a narrow dungeon, so there really isn't that much to be rendered, or to be loaded in the background.
Can anybody imagine what the source of this problem might be? The game is patched to 1.2.something (most recent non-expansion patch I found). I have don't have Windows file indexing and background virus scanners active. The disk is freshly defragmented. I tried both the 9.x and 10.x releases of the ATI drivers.
I know Oblivion is a demanding game, but it's also 4 years old and my box isn't really that bad.
Perhaps I'm too sensitive, but with that kind of microstutter, the game is unplayable for me.

Oh and I also have Hyperthreading disabled in the BIOS.

Any suggestions or comments are welcome!

Greetings,
busfahrer

Jubal77

Nevermind.

Fats

Feel free to turn Hyperthreading back on, it's much better than the old P4 Hyperthreading and shouldn't cause any problems.

Unfortunately, you've run into an Oblivion problem and not a hardware one. There are some fairly complicated mods that have popped up to deal with it, but I've never used them personally.

busfahrer

Fats wrote: »

Feel free to turn Hyperthreading back on, it's much better than the old P4 Hyperthreading and shouldn't cause any problems.

Unfortunately, you've run into an Oblivion problem and not a hardware one. There are some fairly complicated mods that have popped up to deal with it, but I've never used them personally.

I tried both OSR and Streamline, to no avail.

GrimReaper

busfahrer wrote: »

Hi,

I recently got a new box: i7 860, 4 GB DDR1333, HD5770, WinXP32.
I installed The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. No matter how low I set the graphics, in one of the first scenes, when two rats come storming at me (just an example, in other scenes as well), the game starts to microstutter, without the fps actually really dropping. The environment in this special case is a narrow dungeon, so there really isn't that much to be rendered, or to be loaded in the background.
Can anybody imagine what the source of this problem might be? The game is patched to 1.2.something (most recent non-expansion patch I found). I have don't have Windows file indexing and background virus scanners active. The disk is freshly defragmented. I tried both the 9.x and 10.x releases of the ATI drivers.
I know Oblivion is a demanding game, but it's also 4 years old and my box isn't really that bad.
Perhaps I'm too sensitive, but with that kind of microstutter, the game is unplayable for me.

Oh and I also have Hyperthreading disabled in the BIOS.

Any suggestions or comments are welcome!

Greetings,
busfahrer

You're using 32bit XP? How much ram does the gfx card have? Can't totally remember this, but isn't there an issue if you have a high ram gfx card and 32bit windows whereby a lot of system ram becomes un-addressable?

I'd get 64bit windows on there, get win7 x64 on there.

EDIT: I'd also make sure speedstep or whatever Intel is calling it these days is disabled in the bios. (amd call it cool'n'quiet, essentially it automatically lowers the cpu frequency to reduce power usage and heat output.. it can play havoc with some games)

busfahrer

For future reference, using the "Quiet Feet" mod did the trick. Thanks Zyrxil!

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1999

Alecthar

Good to hear, but Reaper's right that you should be looking to get a 64 bit OS. The lack of drivers/program compatibility issues that used to plague such OSes are now largely a thing of the past, and your computer definitely isn't making the most of the RAM you're using now.

busfahrer

Alecthar wrote: »

Good to hear, but Reaper's right that you should be looking to get a 64 bit OS. The lack of drivers/program compatibility issues that used to plague such OSes are now largely a thing of the past, and your computer definitely isn't making the most of the RAM you're using now.

I know that, and I tried Win7 64. But the first 3 or so games I tried all gave me problems that I didn't have with WinXP 32, with no advantage in exchange, so I'm currently dual-booting. In XP32 I can only use 3 GB of RAM, but the only game I know of where the "recommended" system configuration even has 3 GB is Just Cause 2, most other games have 2 GB recommended.

I will probably switch in due time, but not today 8-)

Alecthar

I'd argue that the advantage is that you don't have to dual boot. I'd be interested to know what games you were having trouble with, and what, if any, steps you took to resolve those issues.