FPS in Oblivion/Oblivion Tweaking (w/ Optimized Oblivion File from Ketxxx! Pg. 20)

[Ketxxx]

the first "cool" heavy armour you will encounter is steel some light armour looks pretty cool too like the elven and glass armour. just wait until your eyes are fulled with the daedric armour it looks the shit

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

But I'm not good with heavy armor, it's not my main attribute, and I go really slow w/ it. Will it get better if I use it more?

 

[Ketxxx]

yes. as u get more skilled with it your speed will increase, eventually to the stage of as if u wernt wearing it at all once u become a master in heavy armourwhen u wear it it wont use space in your inventory, you will be able to move fast, and it offers better protection over light armour. however light armour has its plus side too, when your a master with that u get a 50% armour bonus when wearing all light armour.

 

[DaMulta]

LOL I turned on auto-walk and have been sneaking into a wall for the past few hours. Talk about some easy level ups in that area.

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

I heard about Glass Armor too. It's supposed to give full invisibilty right?

How do you do Auto-Walk?

I'm such a noob at this game...for now.

 

[Ketxxx]

autowalk is Q, and glass armour doesnt give u full invisibility u can enchance an item to give u a chameleon ability tho.its completely useless however. even while im sneaking using the ring of khajit (35% chameleon) im still seen like i wasnt using chameleon.

 

[Ketxxx]

medium vs high texture quality

i done this for comparison and to help iron out "stutter". first pic is medium and 2nd high. notice how medium looks kinda like absolute crap? well dont be so quick to judge, look how close up i am to the surfaces to see the difference, its also arguable that a modded driver with better image quality in mind and performance (such as dhzeropoint for nvidia and omega for ati) will bring a large portion of that lost quality back, as all in all, medium textures just look largely "unsharpened". im gonna install dhzeropoint and take 2 more screens for compare.

 

[Ketxxx]

well installing the modded drivers doesnt show much, quality is better over std drivers, but still not as good as while using large textures, ill see if i can make some tweaks in the ini file. one thing i did notice tho is a 5 FPS increase with medium textures, not earth shattering, but perhaps useful to thos really struggling for FPS.

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

5 FPS can be the difference between playable and unplayable to those whose video cards can barely handle the game, or for those who have too high settings.

 

[Solaris17]

this is a very good tweak guide. as long as you keep it on topic and as long as it goes the course of modding oblivion i will stickey it.

 

[DaMulta]

I want to upload a 9 meg pdf, its too big......(Hint, Hint)

 

[Ketxxx]

possibly subjective, but after enabling coolbits under additional direct3d settings, if you set max frams to render ahead to 20 you should be able to squeeze a few more fps out of your cards.

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

Isn't CoolBits only for nVidia cards though?

this is a very good tweak guide. as long as you keep it on topic and as long as it goes the course of modding oblivion i will stickey it.

And thanks Solaris! Big thanks!

 

[Ketxxx]

Textures

Done some more detailed analysis. I decided to move the texture quality screening indoors as arguably this is where it would be most noticable. To ensure 100% accuracy I picked my place and saved the game to ensure I got two absolutely identical positional screenshots. The only difference is texture quality, both screens are at a resolution of 1280*1024, 4xAF (modded drivers, 4x looks like 8x) with HDR, but due to photobucket resolution limits ive had to downscale to 640*512. If anyone wants the original bitmaps i have them. I challenge anyone to be able to tell the difference between medium and high quality textures. The difference really is that negligable.

 

[Canuto]

The one above is high quality?

 

[Ketxxx]

ill let you try and fathom that one out

 

[Ketxxx]

heres a new oblivion ini file.

changes:

had another bash at making oblivion take screenshots
grass density increased, but tweaked - you shouldnt see much fps change.
your character should now level up without having to sleep and "meditate"
customised resolution with HDR - should be a nice balance between visual quality and getting rid of jaggies without AA.
optimised memory usage to make it more friendly on systems with 1GB RAM.
further shadow optimisation

let me know how she plays

notes: HDR should automatically disable and revert to bloom for those of you on X800 series cards.

still to come:

making bloom act a lot more like HDR. im not a photoartist or the like tho, so anyone that has customised bloom lighting already to look a lot more like HDR et me know and ill use them settings, saves folk having to have yet another "bolt on" via esp files.

 

[15th Warlock]

possibly subjective, but after enabling coolbits under additional direct3d settings, if you set max frams to render ahead to 20 you should be able to squeeze a few more fps out of your cards.

The max frames to render ahead tweak for Oblivion has been tested extensively, and most ppl found that actually setting to 0 reduced mouse and keyboard lag/stutter a lot, and made mouse movement a lot more fluid in menus for ppl with slow nVidia cards or even Ati cards. Please note that this tweak will not produce a higher framerate per se, it will only reduce mouse/keyboard lag in some systems.

Tweakguides however, indicates that on HT/Dual Core systems you should not set it at 0, as the gamebryo engine Oblivion uses seems to have problems of multi core systems if you don't let it render more frames ahead, actually making it slower on such systems. The tweak guide for Oblivion indicates that these systems should set the max frames to render ahead to 2 or even 1 at the least.

For Ati users experiencing mouse/keyboard lag who would like to test this tweak try the following:

For ATI users, you can adjust the 'Flip Queue' setting which is the equivalent setting to the one above by installing and using ATI Tray Tools. The same values apply to both cards.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_13.html

Btw, I've noticed that the title from this thread has been edited to encourage ppl to download a tweaked .ini file. While I applaud Ketxxx for providing new Oblivion users with pre-tweaked Oblivion.ini file that would in theory save them a lot of time editing this file, I strongly discourage ppl from actually downloading and using this file.

Unfortunately, no two systems are the same, lots of ppl posted their "tweaked .ini files" when Oblivion came out in the Hardware and Software section of the Official Elder Scrolls Forum, in hopes no doubt of helping new users. However, this practice was discontinued as it was found that using these files would actually cause lots of instability and bugs in many systems.

This is because each user should tweak its system according to its hardware confguration, and, altough many .ini tweaks are universaly accepted to be helpful on all systems (like iMinGrassSize, or Shadow Texture size tweaks) both memory and CPU tweaks as well as others should be configured individually for each system, as not all of us share the same memory size, and there are settings that may help HT/Dual Core systems that may not have been included in certain .ini files, or even worst, if these settings were in fact included, it would actually create instability issues in systems with single core procs or no HT support.

I strongly recommend the ppl should read all of the tweak guide for Oblivion so they can optimize their systems as best as posible:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

I would like to also suggest to change the thread title accordingly, so new ppl looking for tweaking its game won't download the file.

For ppl who already downloaded it, I suggest you erase it and use a backup of your original .ini file, and then tweak it your self with the help of the tweak guide for Oblivion, or even by trying the many tweaks found on this very thread.

I really have to apologize to you Ketxxx, for making this suggestion, trust me, I appreciate your efforts for posting this file, as I'm sure a lot of ppl do here, but it may be causing more damage than help actually, even though I know in my heart you have the best intentions by providing this pre-tweaked file for new users.

Hope this helps, and enjoy your Oblivion experience

 

[Ketxxx]

Dont get all obnoxious because I'm doing a tweaked ini file. As has been made rather clear, though I will go on record and say it outright due to this, the ini file is being tweaked with BOTH kinds of systems in mind (ATi and nVidia) and also with the fact some users will have 1GB memory and not 2GB. I have also done my own extensive testing with max frames to render ahead, and have conclusive results that show setting this in the 0-20 region will squeeze a few more frames. I have also tested both cordless and PS\2 keyboards and mice to test for perhipheral lag, and none have been encountered.

Its also worth your attention I have said to NOT use this ini file unless your using the official patch, and the fact that this ini file actually contains VERY few entries which are system specific, the ini is 99.99% game engine ONLY. I cant be bothered to read all your post properly as its long and likely just harps on from what I gathered, so I'll close with there have been ppl who have tried the original ini file, there may have been more but I only noticed one post, and that user stated it worked fine. If I was not producing an ini file in mind of varying types of systems, dont you think he\she would of had issues?

 

[15th Warlock]

Dont get all obnoxious because I'm doing a tweaked ini file. As has been made rather clear, though I will go on record and say it outright due to this, the ini file is being tweaked with BOTH kinds of systems in mind (ATi and nVidia) and also with the fact some users will have 1GB memory and not 2GB. I have also done my own extensive testing with max frames to render ahead, and have conclusive results that show setting this in the 0-20 region will squeeze a few more frames. I have also tested both cordless and PS\2 keyboards and mice to test for perhipheral lag, and none have been encountered.

Its also worth your attention I have said to NOT use this ini file unless your using the official patch, and the fact that this ini file actually contains VERY few entries which are system specific, the ini is 99.99% game engine ONLY. I cant be bothered to read all your post properly as its long and likely just harps on from what I gathered, so I'll close with there have been ppl who have tried the original ini file, there may have been more but I only noticed one post, and that user stated it worked fine. If I was not producing an ini file in mind of varying types of systems, dont you think he\she would of had issues?

Please read the whole post, and please don't take it personally, really didn't mean to post this info as a personal attack on your efforts, quite the contrary, if you read my whole post you'll notice that

About the tweaking for both systems, yes, as I pointed out there are tweaks that will work for ppl with both brands of video cards (and please note that in my post I didn't mention specific graphic card related issues).

What I mention though, is that there are some memory tweaks that will help ppl with only 1 GB of RAM as you say you included in your .ini, while there are tweaks that will greatly enhace the performance for ppl with 2GBs of RAM, like "uInterior Cell Buffer", "uExterior Cell Buffer", "iPreloadSizeLimit" or "bPreemptivelyUnloadCells" which may have different values for ppl with more RAM.

There are some other tweaks that improve the framerate on HT/Dual core systems, like "bUseThreadedBlood", "bUseThreadedMorpher", "bUseThreadedTempEffects", "bUseThreadedParticleSystem", "bUseMultiThreadedTrees", "bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen" "iNumHavokThreads", "iThreads" and "iOpenMPLevel". While this may improve performance on some systems, they will also cause instability in other systems as well, dunno if you included them in your .ini, but that's precisely my point, some ppl may be loosing the chance to have better performance if you didn't, but at the same time, some will have instability issues if you did, you get me?

About the max frames to render ahead, I've read many threads on the Hardware and Software Issues section of the Official Elder Scrolls forums, and most of them agree on what I posted above, in fact, don't take it from me, take it from the tweak guide for Oblivion if you want:

This tweak gained prominence as being the first major performance tip discovered and widely circulated for Oblivion. After much testing, and based on what I know, I can hopefully provide some genuine guidance on how this tweak works, and what setting to actually use. This is an important tweak if used correctly, you just need to be aware of what it does, as abusing it can also cause problems and reduce performance on many systems.

The setting in question is called 'Max Frames to Render Ahead', and it is usually hidden from the normal Nvidia Forceware Control Panel options. To enable it, I recommend using NVTweak 1.71, since NVTweak is easier to use to enable/disable this option (compared to Coolbits) and has other functionality which can come in handy. Run NVTweak and tick the 'Additional Direct3D' box, then close NVTweak. Now go into your Forceware Control Panel, and under the 'Performance & Quality Settings' item you will find a new item called 'Additional Direct3D Settings', click on it and you will see this option.

You can find out more about how to use NVTweak on this page of my Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide. You will also find more information about the 'Max Frames to Render Ahead' option on that page, as well as other hidden options for the Forceware Control Panel. For ATI users, you can adjust the 'Flip Queue' setting which is the equivalent setting to the one above by installing and using ATI Tray Tools. The same values apply to both cards.

Basically, the Gamebryo engine (discussed further below) seems to have an issue which means it can saturate your CPU and/or Video RAM with pre-rendered frames (whole screens ready to be displayed). On most systems this results in very noticeable mouse and/or keyboard lag, even when your FPS is reasonably high enough not to usually suffer from this (e.g. 25-30FPS+). By reducing the maximum number of frames to render in advance, you reduce this bottlenecking effect and hence significantly reduce or remove the mouse lag.

However, here's the important part: this is not a tweak for improving FPS as such. The general recommendation to set 'Max Frames to Render Ahead' (or 'Flip Queue') from its default of 3 down to 0 will actually reduce performance on many systems, particularly Dual Core or HyperThreading CPUs. Secondly, even on single core systems, you may notice reduced performance in certain areas. So on balance I strongly recommend setting this value to 2 to start with, and if you still have mouse lag, dropping it down to 1. Remember, not all mouse lag is due to this setting: in areas where you have very low FPS (i.e. below 10-15FPS), you will get lagginess - this occurs in virtually any game where your FPS drops down to the low teens or single digits. You will have to consider changing other settings to increase overall FPS.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_13.html

Anyway, as I mentioned, I know you're doing this for the greater good of many users, and I appreciate it, it's just that in some cases it may cause more harm than good, read this quote I found at the tweak guide for Oblivion for an example:

The most common request from people playing Oblivion is for a 'pre-tweaked' .ini file which contains all the optimizations required to make the game run well. No doubt people are wanting the same thing from this guide. My answer is that unfortunately no such thing is possible. Using other peoples' .ini files will only lead to instability (i.e. crashes) and/or graphical anomalies, since many of the entries are designed specifically for each system's capabilities, and can't just be swapped with others unless they have an almost identical system, and similar visual quality vs. performance preferences.

I recommend that you use the listing above to wisely administer only a few tweaks at a time in your Oblivion.ini file, testing them out to see how they perform on your system. I have provided my recommendation where I feel a tweak can generally be applied to most systems. I strongly advise against using other peoples' .ini files, but in the end it is obviously up to you. As with all my other guides, I can only point out that there is no 'one size fits all' .ini file, as many of the choices are up to peoples' tastes as to the performance vs. visual quality trade off, as well as your graphics card's hardware capabilities.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_10.html

As I said before, I apologize to you for pointing this out, please don't take it personally, in fact, I appreciate the time and effort you invested in your .ini file, but I also know that after reading this post you'll fully understand my point of view.

Peace

 

[ace80]

As long as people know to back up their origonal .ini file first then theres no reason not to try these mods. If they dont they should know better.

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

Well, what's the problem that others are getting w/ keyboard lag? Mine is working perfectly fine, and no keyboard/mouse lag at all.

And also, Ketxxx, the first picture seems darker in a way. If you look at the wood to the left, the first is darker.

 

[Solaris17]

hey ket thnx fpr the updates on that .ini keep it up this is wounderfull would you optimize by special request for o say my sys..?

 

[Ketxxx]

i could do, but on your 9800pro settings must already be kinda low... then again even lower settings looks pretty ok. before anything can really be done id need a rough average FPS your system gets in oblivion.

 

[Ketxxx]

Please read the whole post, and please don't take it personally, really didn't mean to post this info as a personal attack on your efforts, quite the contrary, if you read my whole post you'll notice that

About the tweaking for both systems, yes, as I pointed out there are tweaks that will work for ppl with both brands of video cards (and please note that in my post I didn't mention specific graphic card related issues).

What I mention though, is that there are some memory tweaks that will help ppl with only 1 GB of RAM as you say you included in your .ini, while there are tweaks that will greatly enhace the performance for ppl with 2GBs of RAM, like "uInterior Cell Buffer", "uExterior Cell Buffer", "iPreloadSizeLimit" or "bPreemptivelyUnloadCells" which may have different values for ppl with more RAM.

There are some other tweaks that improve the framerate on HT/Dual core systems, like "bUseThreadedBlood", "bUseThreadedMorpher", "bUseThreadedTempEffects", "bUseThreadedParticleSystem", "bUseMultiThreadedTrees", "bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen" "iNumHavokThreads", "iThreads" and "iOpenMPLevel". While this may improve performance on some systems, they will also cause instability in other systems as well, dunno if you included them in your .ini, but that's precisely my point, some ppl may be loosing the chance to have better performance if you didn't, but at the same time, some will have instability issues if you did, you get me?

About the max frames to render ahead, I've read many threads on the Hardware and Software Issues section of the Official Elder Scrolls forums, and most of them agree on what I posted above, in fact, don't take it from me, take it from the tweak guide for Oblivion if you want:



http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_13.html

Anyway, as I mentioned, I know you're doing this for the greater good of many users, and I appreciate it, it's just that in some cases it may cause more harm than good, read this quote I found at the tweak guide for Oblivion for an example:



http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_10.html

As I said before, I apologize to you for pointing this out, please don't take it personally, in fact, I appreciate the time and effort you invested in your .ini file, but I also know that after reading this post you'll fully understand my point of view.

Peace

I never said I did memory tweaks to "greatly enhance performance" in fact I said I did memory tweaks to be kinder to systems with 1GB. There are numerous acceptable compromises that can be used, and to say oblivion by default in its ini is very unbalanced is an understatement. its light on graphical rendering in most instances and top heavy on shadows. You need to understand while there are indeed variables that are system specific, there are also a great number of variables in a system that are generic, to the most part they are the system settings that get modified, while the rest are game engine specific, and have absolutely no bearing on the system outside of what the GPU is told to do. Any major changes are always listed, and changes like dualcore support id never implement simply because the game engine can only technically support it, and I dont feel like introducing DC support then having to fix all the bugs where bethesda fucked it up. I have no intention to keep pointing out the universally generic, so i'll end with each to their own, either choose to not use the ini, or choose to use it based on the fact you know i wouldnt do anything to the ini to make the game go awol.