TES IV: Oblivion *spoilers possible*

[Cold Steel]

-.- Even though my computer is up to high standards, i've never played a game this choppy.. I really hope there are ways to improve the performance, otherwise I might as well take it back to the store.

-edit-

After updaying my drivers and searching around on the net for performance tweaks, I still haven't found a way to improve the performance. Can anyone help me out?

specs: Pentium IV, 3,00 GHz, 1024 Mb Ram, Nvidia Geforce FX 5600. Judging by these specs I know I can have way better performance, but I'm no wizkid, so some help would be appreciated.

 

[bapplebo]

Gonna have to find a way to kill the specular maps, it seems that whenever I'm in a rocky place (eg, inside Imperial City buildings), theres a LOT of specular maps used. And it lags me to death.

Level 4 Imperial now, im gonna close my second Oblivion gate~

Whats the next armor after Steel, and where can I get it? Also, weapons? My weapon right now is the Blade One-Hand Katana (can't remember exact name, it was something like Alkirkvichen =D ).

 

[jp]

I got a Dai-Katana now, and i'm part of the Blades guild, with a very cool enchanted armour, awesome.

Gonna be a thief next time.

And Cold, have you set distant landscape off? you can adjust the game to your wishes in the game, distant landscape tends to suck up some peformance, same with bloom lighting and anti alasing (especially Anti aliasing)

 

[Cold Steel]

I got a Dai-Katana now, and i'm part of the Blades guild, with a very cool enchanted armour, awesome.

Gonna be a thief next time.

And Cold, have you set distant landscape off? you can adjust the game to your wishes in the game, distant landscape tends to suck up some peformance, same with bloom lighting and anti alasing (especially Anti aliasing)

I've set most of the settings to it's lowest. And I found a performance booster on some oblivion forum for nvidia, however the game still seems to be complete poop, when i'm inside a building or in a fight, or a lot of lighting going on, like guards passing with torches.

 

[frsrblch]

A 5600, you say? That might be the problem, but you'd think it should at least run on 640x480. I know my 9800 is roughly 4x the power of my old 5200 (according to benchmarks) so I'm guessing its about 2-3x the power of your 5600. I can run on lowish settings on 1024x768. I get lots of choppiness in some indoor places. Multi-level buildings seem to cause a lot of strain on my computer.

 

[kam!]

I have a 9800 pro and for me it runs very smooth at 1024*768 and smooth at 1280*1024 (same settings with some tweaks).
I really love this game. Sneaky+swordfighter+marksman+dark brotherhood=ftw^^

Got one problem though. The game crashes whenever I try to finish a certain quest
(Thieves quest with hiding a bust in a house, ceeps crashing when I enter the house after I've hidden the bust).
Any ideas if there's a patch coming along?

 

[Cold Steel]

A 5600, you say? That might be the problem, but you'd think it should at least run on 640x480. I know my 9800 is roughly 4x the power of my old 5200 (according to benchmarks) so I'm guessing its about 2-3x the power of your 5600. I can run on lowish settings on 1024x768. I get lots of choppiness in some indoor places. Multi-level buildings seem to cause a lot of strain on my computer.

Damn, I always thought Geforce 5600 was pretty good, but from I gather here, it really sucks =/ Got any advice ?

 

[Smith|]

Damn, I always thought Geforce 5600 was pretty good, but from I gather here, it really sucks =/ Got any advice ?

640 by 480, disable grass and all shadow stuff, turn specular distance down, distant buildings and stuff doesn't really cost much performance, but turn it off anyways, turn Vertical Sync (VSync) off ingame, go into the nVidia control panel, click the "Performance and Quality" tab, click image quality and set to "High Performance", change everything else to "Application Preference" and see if this helps.

 

[frsrblch]

Damn, I always thought Geforce 5600 was pretty good, but from I gather here, it really sucks =/ Got any advice ?

Put a clock under it. This technique is known as "overclocking" as you are placing your graphics card over a clock to increase it's speed. Many of the "hardcore" gamers use this process to great effect.

You can also check out this graph to compare your card to others of the next couple generations. I got my 9800 Pro off Ebay last summer for $120 CDN. The good thing that comes out of all these monster cards that ATI and Nvidia are telling us we need is that the cards normal people use get cheaper. You can get a 9800 for almost half what I paid back then. Your other specs look okay, so for a reasonable amount, you can revitalize your computer. Enough to play the latest games smoothly for a little longer at least.

 

[Arthos]

Well, I picked it up and have made a level 5 Assassin, who's focused on ranged and daggers, and is a Dark Brother. Used him to learn the game, for my next character, who's actually a little more important. my axe wielding Argonian Battlemage. Only level 1 right now, but still awesome.I can run the settings at medium, but Need the resolution very low. Oh well, in time... new computer in entirety.

 

[ZeroNightmare]

i parked my horse outside an oblivion gate and while i was killing the monster outside the gate it dissapeared, i figured it would just come back next time i didni quick travel and went along my merry way into the gate. No sooner do i walk out the other side do i see two huge hulking firebreathing lizards standing over my horse next to a lake of lava. So either they dragged it in or it walked in by itself and got killed .

rofl that happened to me too, my horse was inside the gate and got owned

 

[Cold Steel]

640 by 480, disable grass and all shadow stuff, turn specular distance down, distant buildings and stuff doesn't really cost much performance, but turn it off anyways, turn Vertical Sync (VSync) off ingame, go into the nVidia control panel, click the "Performance and Quality" tab, click image quality and set to "High Performance", change everything else to "Application Preference" and see if this helps.

Thanks Smith| The game is very playable now, but what do you mean with specular distance ?

 

[ZeroNightmare]

one of the tips says there are 16 daedra princes each with his own realm of oblivion, i've closed a few gates and i havent fought a deadra prince, has anyone else?

 

[Smith|]

Thanks Smith| The game is very playable now, but what do you mean with specular distance ?

No problem =). If it's playable, don't worry about specular distance. Specular is basically the reflection of light on certain textures, and by adjusting the slider, you limit how far the reflection is rendered to a certain distance.

 

[ZeroNightmare]

heres a guide to curing vampirism

copied from http://www.xboxcircle.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6146

spoiler (highlight to view)

Quest - A cure for Vampires

There are a number of ways to initiate this quest. Here is how I did it: I went to Cheydinhal's Chapel of Arkay, though any chapel should do. Talk to someone in there about a cure. They will start you on the quest.



The first step in the quest is to talk to Raminus Polus about a cure. You can find him in the Arcane University located in Imperial City. He will tell you a bit about it, and refer you to Count Hassildor. You can find him in Skingrad. Talk to his stuard, and then eventually he will talk to you. He will tell you about how he and his wife are vampires, and while he lives with it, she could not, and went into a coma. He needs the cure to get her out. He then tells you about witches long ago who could do it, and about one of them which may still be alive.



You can find the witch along the Corbolo River, which is east of the Imperial City. Here is where the fun begins. Before she will help you, you have to help her. She requests you bring her five empty grand soul gems. Though the task may seem daunting, these are easy to find. Inside each Mages guild, there is a shop. Each shop should have one empty Grand Soul Gem for sell. Buy it, or if your good at thievery, pickpocket it. If for some reason these shops do not have Gems, here are a few more places they can be found, though they will be a bit trickier to get.

Gem One: This is an easy one. Go to the Imperial City Market District. Find the Mystique shop. He has one gem for sale. Four to go.

Gem's Two - Four: Your lock picking skills better be up to snuff now. Head to Arcane University. Best to go at night, you will be thieving. Go inside, and on the first floor there is a chest with three Gems inside. All are Grand gems, but I believe two of them are not empty. Take them all anyways. You can empty them if you have a staff or magic item; otherwise they have a decent resell value. Its a level 5 lock, so your going to have to work at it, but its worth the effort. Make sure no one sees you. Once you get it open, take them all.

Gem Five: Head to the Chorral Mage's Guild. Inside, there is a staircase, and display cases to the left and right. The one to the right looks tempting, three gems inside. None are grand though, save your picks. The one the left has one though. It's another level 5 lock, so good luck to you. Once you get this, you have five, but two probably aren't empty. No matter, the hard part should be over.
.



Go visit Melisande again now. She will take your gems, but you aren't done yet. She says she can probably make the cure, but you need a slew of ingredients. She asks you to find six Garlic Cloves, five Nightshade Leaves, 2 BloodGrass Shoots, The Blood of an Argonian, and the dust of the vampire Hindaril. Below you will find locations to all ingredients.

Garlic Cloves: These are fairly easy to find. Many Alchemy shops, Inns, and Mages Guilds have them. Just work your way from shop to shop until you have six. I don’t have any specific locations, but just going shop to shop you should be able to find all six no problem.

Nightshade: You should be able to take care of all five Nightshade in one go. Go to The Main Ingredient in Imperial City. He should have five. Incase he doesn’t, I was also able to find two in the Mystique shop in Imperial City, as well as in various Mage’s Guild shops.

BloodGrass: This is the easiest part of your quest. Both The Finer Ingredient and the Mystique Shop in Imperial City have four, so take your pick. If you want to find it in the wild, it is all over Oblivion, so find yourself a gate and you should be able to come across BloodGrass pretty quick.

Blood of an Argonian: Melisande gives you a special dagger or this. You don't need to kill them, just give them a good stab and hide so the guards don't nab you. For those of you who don't know, an Argonian is the lizard looking people.

Hindaril's Vampire Dust: If you are at a decent level by now, this should be a breeze. At level 5, this was a cakewalk. Go to the location on your map. It is pretty straightforward navigating your way there. Once inside the cavern, you will have a few things to pick off before you get to your vampire. I ran into a few rats, a few skeletons, and two lesser vampires before I got to him. I made short work of them all. Hindaril was the easiest of them all though. He was sleeping, and I was able to kill him before he even got to his weapon. I made short work of him. If he manages to get to his weapon, he may be more difficult, so don’t bother with sneaking around, just run in and kill him.



So, you now have everything. Take it all back to Melisandre. She will tell you she can prepare the cure, and to come back in 24 hours. This is it. Go enjoy your last night as a Vampire. Feast on everyone you can get your bloody hands on. Then go take a nap. The next day, pay your friend a visit again. The cure will be done. Feel free to drink it. You are now officially cured, but your quest isn't over. Remember the count? Head back to Skingrad and pay him a visit. You will be taken to the place where his wife rests. Melisandre will be there also. After a bit of dialogue, he gives her the cure, but it kills her. He requests you give him 24 hours to grieve. Go back into the Count's Mansion and just wait for 24 hours. Same as before, talk to the Count. He will thank for you putting his wife at ease, and reward you with 500 gold. The quest is now officially complete. Congradulations!


Known Bugs: I have had several reports of Melisandre not accepting BloodGrass. Unfortunately, I do not know what causes this bug, and have been unable to reproduce it. If anyone can figure out what is causing this, please E-mail me.

Some people have been E-Mailing me saying they cannot find Hindaril’s cave. Make sure a Cure for Vampirism is your active quest, and it should point you in the right direction. If not, the name of the cave is Redwater Slough. Hopefully you can find it.

Another bug I have had people report is that when going to take care of the Count, the lady you talk to does not go get the count like she is supposed to. If that happens, go outside, and to your left you should come across the Count’s hidden chamber.


edit: took me the better part of the day to complete that quest....

does anyone else have any trouble with quests as an orc, like with people talking to you? deetsan wont give me they key for the mages guild quest, and i wasnt invited to join the blades

edit: wtf.... an imperial guard just killed 2 imp battlemages, and another imperial guard...

 

[Cold Steel]

Man I'm really having a thrill here, raiding dungeons with a thief while sneaking is awesome. I even got invited to the thieves guild, but I need to find some garden and don't know where it is, which is what i'll be looking for when I get back from work. This game gets a big plus from me.

 

[ZeroNightmare]

its in the waterfront district in the imperial city. tis where the poor people live.

 

[frsrblch]

its in the waterfront district in the imperial city. tis where the poor people live.

Just like reality, there are poor people everywhere. You gotta get them to like you before they'll tell you what to do. I cast my powerful charm spell on them, but you footpads without mad magical skills will likely have to bribe them or win them over with your personality.

 

[ZeroNightmare]

lol dude mages are awsome, i leveld up my "warlock" last night, blunt , heavy armor, armorer, conjuration, mysticism and destruction

lol charm is awsome, lessen burden or whatever, for more weight capacity... alteration to open doors? god its awsome.

 

[bapplebo]

I found a really effective style to use in Oblivion. Archer + Destruction and Summoning skills.

Right now, I run up to a daedra, summon my skeleton, shoot steel arrows from far away, then when he gets close to me, Lightning Touch~

I'm really not comfortable with "pure" mages atm, but my Archermage is really owning.

AND my level 5 Imperial swordsman has a little problem.

[SPOILERS]
For the quest where you have to find the spies outside Cloud Mountain Temple, I found the letter about Oblivion's plans to attack Cloud Mountain Temple. I spoke to Jauffere, and he said to say something to Captain Bard. I do, and this is his exact response.

"I'll trust it to you... the less I know the better."

WTF GIVE ME A KEY TO JEARLS HOUSE GG
[/SPOILERS]

Anyone push the Radiant AI to its limits yet?