Random Oblivion lagging.

[Omastar]

This is really weird. It seems as soon as I installed my new 8800GTS, I started seeing really bad frame rate drops in Oblivion. Here's one example,

With all settings turned up near max, HDR enabled, no AA, 16x AF, I'll load a save game in Cheydinhal, I think, then I head into the woods toward a fort, roam around inside for a while, come back out and my frame rate outdoors is just shot to hell! Before I went in the fort, I'd get about 51-85 fps outdoors, walking through grass, rendering a lot of objects on screen. After I come out of the fort, I'm seeing more like 13-30 fps.

This type of thing has happened more than once. It even happened to me while in the Ancestor Moth's Temple and after killing a few Blind Priests, my FPS dropped to like 40, whereas it was sailing along at about 87 fps before. I mean, getting frame rates that low in caves suggests that something is askew.

I've defragged time and time again and it's still happening. It's weird because I'll be getting great frame rates outdoors, then after I enter a building and step back outside, my originally great frame rate has now dropped into the teens.

Should I axe the 16xAF? Reinstall the game/drivers?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Modzilla]

delete the ini and cfg files that are in the folder where the oblivion save game folder is. then restart oblivion and let the game detect your hardware, and it will create new ini and config files. Sometimes this works. You'll have to redo all your ini changes...

[Omastar]

Alright, thanks. I am running a few mods, however I haven't manually edited the .ini itself so far.

Do you think a memory leak is possible here?

Oh, and BTW, Mod, I suspect you may have an answer here as well: I've read about the various bugs surrounding Fort Grief (see the UESP Wiki's description), and sure enough as soon as I went on the quest to save Aleron or whatever the guy's name is, and entered Fort Grief, I couldn't get back out, even though I had the Real Fort Grief key. So I'm pretty much stuck. I presume the quest won't update unless I leave Fort Grief legitimately (none of that MoveToImperialCityTalosDistict command stuff). Any ideas?

[ex2cib]

go back in the fort and look to the gate on your immediate left, it would have been locked before, but the key opens it, then turn the handle, i think that opens the gate up outside

[Omastar]

go back in the fort and look to the gate on your immediate left, it would have been locked before, but the key opens it, then turn the handle, i think that opens the gate up outside

I'm saying I've done this quest (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Caught_in_the_Hunt) and I've killed Kurdan and gotten the real key to exit Fort Grief, but the gate won't open, it only says "The gate is opened elsewhere" just like it did entering Fort Grief. However, the lever in the ground is outside the gate, so I dunno how to get out. Are you saying there's a similar lever in the ground in the actual fort?

[Soulburner]

After my 8800GTS gaming experiences so far, I'm gonna have to point the finger at the drivers. Dark Messiah runs awesome so I know the hardware is plenty capable, but I cannot seem to get Titan Quest running right. It actually ran better on my X800XL 256. Imagine that - a 2 1/2 year old card actually ran the game smoother than the 8800GTS 320. It was more stable, too...

[denmason]

Oblivion is just a HEAVY GAME. There isn't very many people out there that can run this game with everything turned up and have it run smooth. You can tune and tune and tune, but you are still going to lag somewhere in the game. I know a few people that have built systems just for playing Oblivion. They have the top of the line stuff, big bucks this and that, and have spent many hours fine tuning.... only to have it lag. What can you say? Get used to it??
Oh yeah..... AXE the 16xAF and turn off the V-SYNC, it will cap the FPS at 60. Don't worry about FPS.... you're eye's can only see about 30 FPS. This game, at the moment IS the most CPU intensive around. You might try turning the resolution up nice and high and keeping the AA to 4. My little rig runs the hell out of this game, and yes... it does lag here and there, but it is still very playable. I don't have any problems with any other games at all at highest rez. Just don't expect your rig to do too much work with Oblivion, no matter what you got. Here's a good read:http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

[ex2cib]

I'm saying I've done this quest (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Caught_in_the_Hunt) and I've killed Kurdan and gotten the real key to exit Fort Grief, but the gate won't open, it only says "The gate is opened elsewhere" just like it did entering Fort Grief. However, the lever in the ground is outside the gate, so I dunno how to get out. Are you saying there's a similar lever in the ground in the actual fort?


yes, walk back into the fort, go immediately to the first gate on your left, the gate was previously locked, but since you now have the fort grief real key, you can open the gate. There is another of those turn levers like there was on the outside, turn it, and the gate will open on the outside. if you still can't find it, let me know and ill go take a screenshot on a map with the room circled for you

[Soulburner]

Oblivion is just a HEAVY GAME. There isn't very many people out there that can run this game with everything turned up and have it run smooth. You can tune and tune and tune, but you are still going to lag somewhere in the game. I know a few people that have built systems just for playing Oblivion. They have the top of the line stuff, big bucks this and that, and have spent many hours fine tuning.... only to have it lag. What can you say? Get used to it??
Oh yeah..... AXE the 16xAF and turn off the V-SYNC, it will cap the FPS at 60. Don't worry about FPS.... you're eye's can only see about 30 FPS.
That is a load of bull. Leave the Vsync on to smooth the game, so what if you are stuck at 60fps??

[Omastar]

I have vsync off, but as Soulburner said leaving it on creates noticeable tearing when you move around in the world and your frame rate can jump from 100fps to 50fps, leaving you with a less than 'smooth' experience. I enabled vSync just to see what the results would be, and normally where I'd drop to about 65fps with it off in a city, I'd instead see about 32fps with vSync on, so I'm not really a big fan of it.

Also denmason, you're absolutely wrong about Oblivion lagging with the highest end hardware (I'm thinking 8800GTX SLI and a QX6700). Oblivion will stutter when loading an area, sure, but that's a function of your hard drive(s), not your video card(s) and/or processor(s). I'm sure this would be fairly nullified if you had Oblivion installed on a solid state drive. If you're gaming at 1280x1024 like I am, 8800GTX SLI would allow you to max the sliders, max out AA and so forth without ever 'lagging' (which I take to mean a barely playable framerate, on the order of 20fps). I mean, if my Oblivion install weren't botched with old .ini and .cfg files as Modzilla said, I'm sure I'd see decent framerates with sliders maxed. In fact, I know this to be true. I can play the game for a while with maxed sliders, never dropping below about 30fps while walking around the forest surrounding Hackdirt, but the game ALWAYS FREEZES/CRASHES! It points either to a driver issue with Oblivion or just the accumulation of old .ini/.cfg files, or a combination of both and possibly more factors.

G80 did a lot for Oblivion where G70/G71 fell short, so don't tell me I'll still get crappy frames at the res at which I game, even assuming I had $1200 worth of video cards.

[Soulburner]

There should not be a big hit when using VSync. Have you tried Triple Buffering? It can sometimes help. I haven't found a game yet where I can play without it, the scanning lines really bug my eyes and give me a headache after a short time. It wasn't as bad on the CRT though.