Oblivion and my HD

A

apcor

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
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I am having alot of stuttering in oblivion and cant seem to pinpoint the cause. I have a thread in general gaming about what I have done so far. Some searching has pointed to a possible cause which I am thinking may be my HD. I have heard that because Oblivion is such a big game a fast HD is recommended.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_3.html If you care to read it just scroll to "In-Game Lag/Freezes/Stuttering"

My Question(s) are does anyone think my current HD which is about half the speed of a raptor could be the cause of the stuttering. If so which one should I get? (WD1500ADFD or WD1500AHFD).

Would appreciate any help
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Is it constant stuttering or just when you're moving between areas? If it's constant you're probably out of memory on either your video card or system. If it's when you're loading areas it's likely your HD.
 
It is constant but varies with frame rate. When frame rate dips below 55 ish I get stutter. 55 or above and I am clear. Not sure what that means though just an observation (also resolution matters nothing- stutters at 800x600 just as 2560x1600).
 
Could be your harddrive, i would normally say your computer would be doing it but a 4800 should be more than enough for that game. Could try defragmenting your harddrive also and see if that helps out any with it.
 
download hd tach and run a benchmark on your harddrive, anything under 30mb/s should e too slow for the game, i'm guessing the wd should give you about 40-50 sustained.
 
Is your drive pretty full? As it gets filled up, they get slower.. also, it reads the fastest at the front of the drive, and slower toward the back.. Oblivion might be installed in the back. I think Norton has a tool to "optimize" where programs go, or there might be other software packages out there that do it...

I generally try to leave at least 20% of my drive space free, otherwise it tends to slow to a crawl. Check your swap settings too.. maybe it's swapping?

Running hdtach (google it) is a great way to see how slow your drive gets as it goes to the outside of the tracks
 
Drive is about 65% free space. Where is the swap file settings?

flint338 said:
Is your drive pretty full? As it gets filled up, they get slower.. also, it reads the fastest at the front of the drive, and slower toward the back.. Oblivion might be installed in the back. I think Norton has a tool to "optimize" where programs go, or there might be other software packages out there that do it...

I generally try to leave at least 20% of my drive space free, otherwise it tends to slow to a crawl. Check your swap settings too.. maybe it's swapping?

Running hdtach (google it) is a great way to see how slow your drive gets as it goes to the outside of the tracks
Click to expand...
 
Drive is about 65% free space. Where is the swap file settings?
Click to expand...

my computer, right click, properties..
advanced tab at the top
performance button
advanced tab at the top (again)

swap settings are in there.

I keep my swap at 2.5g (with 2.0g of ram) and it seems to work okay. I used to run with 0 (zero) swap because I was tired of programs swapping in and out, but I did run into some out of memory issues.
 
Sorry did not know it was the same as page file - set to 3070mb (recommended by windows also heard it should be 1.5 times your ram)

flint338 said:
my computer, right click, properties..
advanced tab at the top
performance button
advanced tab at the top (again)

swap settings are in there.

I keep my swap at 2.5g (with 2.0g of ram) and it seems to work okay. I used to run with 0 (zero) swap because I was tired of programs swapping in and out, but I did run into some out of memory issues.
Click to expand...
 
apcor said:
Sorry did not know it was the same as page file - set to 3070mb (recommended by windows also heard it should be 1.5 times your ram)
Click to expand...

oh yeah.. my bad, "swap" is more of a linux term. Sorry. :)

what's your memory usage like? do you have any other programs/apps running while playing..?
 
Only thing is d3d overrider to force triple buffering and nv control panel. All other programs disabled.

flint338 said:
oh yeah.. my bad, "swap" is more of a linux term. Sorry. :)

what's your memory usage like? do you have any other programs/apps running while playing..?
Click to expand...
 
Getting 52.6 MB/s

oplin said:
download hd tach and run a benchmark on your harddrive, anything under 30mb/s should e too slow for the game, i'm guessing the wd should give you about 40-50 sustained.
Click to expand...
 
Try turning off Vsync altogether ? Even with triple buffering I think vsync makes things feel laggy and juddery.
 
Your harddrive isn't the problem if it's getting that speed, something needs to be fuxed with your video card settings or drivers. Try uninstalling your vid drivers and reinstalling them see if that helps. Vsync is also something good to try, i've run this game on a system probably 10x as slow as yours and it ran fine but at like a quarter the resolution not being laggy at all. Good luck with it, going to be a frustrating battle.
 
I have tried disabling vsynch. Does not reduce stutter and adds tearing. No way. I doubt there is anything wrong with drivers. I do use driver cleaner & cab cleaner. BTW I am running FEAR EP at 2560x1600 max settings and it runs like a champ without a hiccup. This is unique to Oblivion. I know this has something to with loading textures because I can drop the view distance down 50% and the stuttering goes away (makes the game look horrible though).
 
Go look for those dual core drivers on the AMD website, dual-core optimizer or something like that. It could be one of those CPU timing issues. I don't remember having a problem with oblivion on my system but it's worth a shot. Disabling an anti-virus to test probably wouldn't hurt either. Also try setting the video settings to default. Just to make sure it's not some odd setting playing causing problems.
 
Tried all that - AMD driver, hotfix, optimizer no effect. Have no antivirus - usin AVG and all services are disabled. Setting the options to default puts resolution down to 640X480 that is really not necessary with my system. Again I can run FEAR max settings / max res without a stutter. Oblivion may be a bit more intense but not that much more.

Anarchist4000 said:
Go look for those dual core drivers on the AMD website, dual-core optimizer or something like that. It could be one of those CPU timing issues. I don't remember having a problem with oblivion on my system but it's worth a shot. Disabling an anti-virus to test probably wouldn't hurt either. Also try setting the video settings to default. Just to make sure it's not some odd setting playing causing problems.
Click to expand...
 
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