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7800GT + Oblivion = #$#*&@$(!!!!

G

giantpinkbunnyhead

Diamond Member
I am at the end of my chain.

Oblivion runs like crap on a machine that should run it well.

I have an Opteron 165 with slight OC to 2.25 GHz.
eVGA 7800GT OC, that was OC'd up to 500/1.17 GHz.
2x512 MB OCZ Plat Rev. 2
DFI LP mobo
running 84.25 drivers from nVidia

that's the basics... this rig runs all the latest games just fine but Oblivion just kills it.

What I noticed one day was that, standing in an open field with all options on high, my FPS was a paltry 18. Turning off the grass sent the FPS way up to 55! WTH about the grass is slamming my system so hard?

The following day, I got a steady 21 FPS with OR without grass turned on...

Now I can't seem to get above 25 FPS even with EVERYTHING on medium or lower. I'm only running 1280x1024! Some days I get 50 FPS with everything on high except grass; other days I get 25 FPS with everything low. On occasion my FPS has hovered at 7 or 8.

I've tried everything... I've set "Frames to Render Ahead" to 0, 1, 2, and 3... no change ever. I've had VSync on and off. I've undone all the OC's on the card and the CPU. I've reinstalled the game. I've tried various .ini tweaks that "supposedly" help. But quite often... nothing works and my gaming experience is hardly any more impressive than my brother who is running this game as well as I am on a 3200+ XP and a 9800 Pro.

Do I just not see somethign painfully obvious with my setup, or does Oblivion simply HATE the 7800GT card? I feel like I shouldn't ever have to dick around with 15 FPS on this machine, especially if my settings are all dialed down on 1280x1024.

I guess this is more of a rant than anything... Every other game runs very fast. Quake 4 flies on max settings at 40-50 FPS constantly. Even FEAR ran better on max than Oblivion runs on medium. I was about to buy a 7900GTX to try to speed things up, but if NVIDIA is at fault then I might actually switch to my nemesis and get a 1900XTX.

Any thoughts?
 
Damn. If you're getting that low FPS with your rig... which is well beyond mine (I'm at 1280x1024 BTW) then I've got another mark under the "NVIDIA + Oblivion = crap" category. Now that I think about it... I don't think I've seen anyone complain about Oblivion who uses an ATI card...
 
You have any other programs running while you're trying to play Oblivion? Another program may be eating up CPU cycles like crazy and fps goes down.

I only have a 3000+ but I remember for some reason my Azureus went to 100% CPU usage and while trying to play games the fps was really low.

Try this:
Start Oblivion then alt-tab out to windows and open task manager and check the cpu usage of the programs running...if something else is eating lots of CPU cycles, then that could be the reason for the erratic fps. Recently my "svchost.exe" has been randomly going to 80-90% cpu usage so I have to kill the process to play games.

Also make sure you have dual core drivers...i dunno, just putting some thoughts out there.
 
You're not alone. I'm at 1600x900 (1680x1050 was too demanding) with HDR on, everything else as high as can be. I was barely at 15-20FPS out in the open, indoors it sky rockets to 100+... makes sense, no grass indoors. 😛

I used some of the performance tweaks mentioned and boosted my performance to 18-25fps when outdoors. I put an order for a 7900GT, so that should help! 🙂
 
It must be an nVidia thing. When running the game on my system I have never had to be bothered with slow framerates. The lowest framerate is roughly around 30fps. This is at 1280x1024 with no AA and AF. HDR is on and the settings are higher than the highest default settings. The tree and grass distances are maxed out using the sliders. The object and actors view distances are also bumped above the default settings, but not maxed out on the sliders. Soft shadows are enabled with high quality shadows, but self shadowing is not since it looks bugged. Click the link my sig for system specs.
 
I run at 1600x1200 ultra high settings and HDR and I get better frames then at 1280x1024, which is kinda odd. and I have a x1900xt with a 3700+
 
Might want to consider more ram... a gig is a bit low for a lot of the games that are coming out these days. (Seems like newer games are performing substantially better with 2 gbs)
 
Originally posted by: Atlantean
Might want to consider more ram... a gig is a bit low for a lot of the games that are coming out these days. (Seems like newer games are performing substantially better with 2 gbs)
Click to expand...

Doesn't seem that true for Oblivion though. I use the "Performance Monitor" on my G15 keyboard and it rarely gets over 40% (and I have 2 gigs, so doesn't go over a gig).
 
I got 7800GT SLI and an opty 165 (default) and the game runs ok execpt outside (with grass). Turning off most of the nonessental shadows (self and grass) seems to help. Third person seems to slow it down quite a bit (but I dont use it). In the end I still play it, even though it is slow in certian outdoor areas. I remember the old morrowwind being much the same way with the video cards that were out at the time when it was released.
 
I play the game on a 6800gt on a rez of 1280x1024. I turn the shadows off, no aa or af. Hdr is on. Definetly get a slowdown with grass. I put everything else at defaul settings but i turn the fade out all the way up.

How do you get a framrate read for it?
 
The game was made to run on a ATI 500 series card. I can imagine why some Nvidia cards would have a harder time with the title.
 
Originally posted by: blatherbeard
I play the game on a 6800gt on a rez of 1280x1024. I turn the shadows off, no aa or af. Hdr is on. Definetly get a slowdown with grass. I put everything else at defaul settings but i turn the fade out all the way up.

How do you get a framrate read for it?
Click to expand...

press the console button (`) and type tdt
 
Originally posted by: Sonikku
The game was made to run on a ATI 500 series card. I can imagine why some Nvidia cards would have a harder time with the title.
Click to expand...

😕

you mean the X1 series?
 
Originally posted by: thilan29
You have any other programs running while you're trying to play Oblivion? Another program may be eating up CPU cycles like crazy and fps goes down.

I only have a 3000+ but I remember for some reason my Azureus went to 100% CPU usage and while trying to play games the fps was really low.

Try this:
Start Oblivion then alt-tab out to windows and open task manager and check the cpu usage of the programs running...if something else is eating lots of CPU cycles, then that could be the reason for the erratic fps. Recently my "svchost.exe" has been randomly going to 80-90% cpu usage so I have to kill the process to play games.

Also make sure you have dual core drivers...i dunno, just putting some thoughts out there.
Click to expand...

He has a dual core, when i used single core what u posted was totaly true, now with a dually u just dont care any more what u have running in the background (considering u can play games while dual priming 😛). And yea the amd dually drivers are a MUST, fixed up most of the issues my dually had with games.
 
Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
He has a dual core, when i used single core what u posted was totaly true, now with a dually u just dont care any more what u have running in the background (considering u can play games while dual priming 😛). And yea the amd dually drivers are a MUST, fixed up most of the issues my dually had with games.
Click to expand...

You can play games without a performance hit while priming??? Damn..makes me wanna go dual.
 
Originally posted by: thilan29
Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
He has a dual core, when i used single core what u posted was totaly true, now with a dually u just dont care any more what u have running in the background (considering u can play games while dual priming 😛). And yea the amd dually drivers are a MUST, fixed up most of the issues my dually had with games.
Click to expand...

You can play games without a performance hit while priming??? Damn..makes me wanna go dual.
Click to expand...

Yup... unless you're priming both cores. Once you go dual... you'll never wanna go back. If I had a dime for every time I saw somebody fly onto this board and proclaim "Holy crap dual core rocks!" after upgrading, I'd be very very rich.


So back to topic... after the replies, it seems the game just runs slow to begin with, what with all the effects, especially the grass. I'm going to upgrade I guess... now I'm stuck between X1900XTX or 7900GTX. I don't like the noisyness of the X1900, but I don't like that I can't use AA with HDR on the 7900. The jaggies drive me crazy!! I figure either card will probably keep Oblivion above 30 where I'd like it... no more of this 11-12 FPS crap.
 
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