Oblivion: Grass causes a major performance hit

Unknown-One

Unknown-One

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Does anybody else find that enabling grass causes a MAJOR performance hit? I can max out all other settings (even set “uGridsToLoad” all the way up at 11) with the grass pegged to the far left, meaning that grass is completely turned off. If I turn grass on at all things go to crap instantly on my 6600GT, were talking about a drop from the upper 30’s down into the single digits when outside (In city's and inside buildings things are nice and snappy).

Where is this performance drop coming from? I know this game is CPU bound at times, so I’m having trouble figuring out what to upgrade to solve the problem...CPU or GPU?
 
Posts your specs so we can better assess your situation. Going by your "Socket 754 Club" membership you're probably going to have to upgrade a lot.
 
I would blame the GPU for this, a 6600GT just isn't up to the task of redering all that stuff and the grass. The grass certainly isn't a CPU intensive feature.
 
there is an option in the oblivion.ini file to change minimum grass size...it should help the fps some if you change that.

just search for the word grass. i think default is 80 or something. try changing it and see if it makes a difference for you.
 
Oblivion.ini file in \my document\my games\oblivion, sercah for : -

iMinGrassSize=130 (default 80)

A higher value reduces the grass density. Try 150 or 200 for a mid to low end machine
 
spicey said:
Oblivion.ini file in \my document\my games\oblivion, sercah for : -

iMinGrassSize=130 (default 80)

A higher value reduces the grass density. Try 150 or 200 for a mid to low end machine
Click to expand...

I only find that some fields kill my FPS, onces that have nothing but grass everywhere.
 
The single biggest performance hit in the graphics options I've noticed is the view distance not surprisingly.

If you take view distance down just one notch from max on the slider, it also automatically disables another option "distand land" or something like that.

Of course this basically enables and disables the fog effect.
Looks so much better on max, but the fps hit is enormous.
W/ all other options turned up at 1280x1024 w/ HDR it's a 15-20 fps hit outside
for me. :(

I just cant stand that MW fog, even if it 200 yards away.
 
The grass was a major hit for me, but I found that it wasn't the frame rate (20-30fps, which isn't great but isn't exactly slide-show either) that was the problem, it was mouse lag which made it feel more like 1-5fps. The big fix for me was the coolbits render ahead thing as mentioned in the big "Oblivion PC performance" thread. Didn't give a huge fps boost, but got rid of the mouse lag and made the game feel much smoother.
 
Sorry, I should have posted my full system specs in my first post.

Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.4GHz
1GB @ DDR 480
Soundblaster Audigy 2
ASRock K8Upgrade 1689 Motherboard
AGP 6600GT @ 600MHz Core, 1.2GHz Mem


Game runs perfectly smooth with all settings peged, 1280x1024, HDR off, Bloom on, Textures High...but grass has to be off.

HDR takes a nice bite out of my framerates, but I figured tha was because of my 6600GT; the way grass effects performance is a little stranger, and thats why I came here to ask about it. I even tried settings the draw distance for grass to ~2 feet, but it looks like the act of drawing grass alone makes my framerates take a nosedive.

Any ideas?
 
i just disable grass.. imo its not worth it.. if any amount of grass shows frames drop at least by 10-20 frames even if its just a small transparent patch under ur guys feet :/
 
I noticed earlier today on my 7800GT that turning some options up raised my fps from 18-20 to 27-28. The game is needen' a patch.
 
Unless there's a way to fix this through some sort of tweak, I'm looking for the proper hardware upgrade to fix this. From the sound of things, I should be looking into a 7800GS.

Am I right?
 
Unknown-One said:
Unless there's a way to fix this through some sort of tweak, I'm looking for the proper hardware upgrade to fix this. From the sound of things, I should be looking into a 7800GS.

Am I right?
Click to expand...


If you must stick with AGP, yes, but I would reccomend getting even a PCIe board for your current CPU and spending actually a little less on the gfx card and getting a 7800GT, which is actually better.
 
Its not the grass.. the the SHADOWS enable. Because you have grass on.. its trying to cast shadows on all of it.

Turn off you shadows.. leave grass on and problem fixed.
 
Well I couldn't do any grass at the beginning either, but then I turned off AF and now have no problems running with grass.
 
icthus13 said:
If you must stick with AGP, yes, but I would reccomend getting even a PCIe board for your current CPU and spending actually a little less on the gfx card and getting a 7800GT, which is actually better.
Click to expand...
Yea, my upgrade path is kinda screwy due to my choice of motherboard and how much mony I have to throw around. As it is, I could upgrade my video card now OR upgrade my processor to something on 939 and change the motherboard and video card later.


theNoid said:
Its not the grass.. the the SHADOWS enable. Because you have grass on.. its trying to cast shadows on all of it.

Turn off you shadows.. leave grass on and problem fixed.
Click to expand...
I have shadows on grass turned off.


sakurakana1003 said:
Well I couldn't do any grass at the beginning either, but then I turned off AF and now have no problems running with grass.
Click to expand...
I'll give that a try
 
Unknown-One said:
Yea, my upgrade path is kinda screwy due to my choice of motherboard and how much mony I have to throw around. As it is, I could upgrade my video card now OR upgrade my processor to something on 939 and change the motherboard and video card later.
Click to expand...


What I'm saying is keep the proc and buy a motherboard for 754 and a videocard. There are PCIe 754 boards, even one or two that will do SLI.
 
ValeX said:
Woah, I don't see how to turn off/ turn down AF.....I don't see it in either my .ini file or the regular menu, little help? Thanks.

ValeX
Click to expand...
You have to do it through the NVIDIA Driver Control Panel.

BTW, turning it off helped loads! It’s playable now, but still below what I would call smooth. There's no difference between No AF and 2X AF performance wise (8x kills performance with grass BIG TIME), so for the time being I have AF at 2X for what improvement in IQ it has to offer.

I'm still leaning towards a video card upgrade...maybe a 6800GS, allthough for the price I might as well grab the 7800GS for $70 more.
 
Oblivion defaults to no AF at all, I was forcing 8x and had no idea that it would only kill my performance once I had grass turned on.
 
just download the grass mod v2 and you can have all the grass you want with default density with no to little performance hit. all the mod does is shorten the grass which to me is a must because oblivion has the tallest grass in the world.
 
I've got the same framerate problem with the grass. Without it the fps is around 50. With it is around 15 :D

So I've got a GeForce 7600 GT, a very fast card, but almost nothing can help with the grass. I've downloaded the small grass mod v2, but the fps was still terribly low.

So I decided to tweak the oblivion.ini, and changed only one line: iMinGrassSize from 80 to 200, and 'voile', the fps rises...it's around 40-50...

Nah but this isn't the essential part, because visually there's less grass everywhere, and this is baaaad. Is there any patch or driver upgrade which can fix this? I've got the latest nvidia driver, and tried everything out, and I mean everything. the shadows on the grass, the 16xAF, AA, but nothing changed...only the iMinGrassSize solved the problem.

So any other ideal how to make this work with the normal amount of grass?
 
Yes, thats the right mod, but I havent seen much of a performance boost from it. I do like the shorter grass though :p
 
Unknown-One said:
Yes, thats the right mod, but I havent seen much of a performance boost from it. I do like the shorter grass though :p
Click to expand...

Yeah I installed it, and dont see a much of a boost. It does look better though.
 
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