A Guide to Optimizing Oblivion for Performance and

Quality.
By LewisDTC
So you bought Oblivion, that amazing open-world RPG, and now you want to play
it, but find that when you install it, you put in the disk and run it, to be met by Mr
Potato Head telling you his sons are dead, and now you have to escape a playdough prison at 18fps
Does this sound like your experience?
Here is (Hopefully) somewhat of a solution, LewisDTCs Guide to optimizing
Oblivion. Read on, children
This Guide will be separated into a number of sections:
Simple Changes Changes that can be done easily, in game, and with minimum
effort. These should be done if you would just like to Tune Up your performance.
Intermediate Changes Changes that may require a little more effort, but will
hopefully give a better result than just the simple changes.
HARDCORE changes No, they arent HARDCORE, but they are some more
advanced changes that can squeeze some extra power out of Oblivion.
Beautification Some nice ways to improve your game without making it bleed
performance too much.
For best results, and to not get confused by my amazing lack of structure when
writing, you should start with the simple changes and work your way down.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You will need the oblivion script extender for intermediate
and HARDCORE changes, so get it here:
http://obse.silverlock.org/
And make sure you know how it works before moving onto those.

Ok, Ready children?

Chapter 1 Simple changes.

Lets run through what you can do to make Oblivion run a little better, with
minimum loss of quality.

Step 1 Resolution
These settings determine how almost EVERYTHING looks in game, so its
important to get this right. Firstly you should know the resolution of your screen,
open up Oblivon and look at the resolution selection tab under Options.
Find yours (Or the closest Oblivion has to it) and choose the one DOWN from
that. Why? This allows you to play with higher quality settings, without having to
render so much more for a larger screen size. By only lowing it by one level, you
keep your graphics pretty high too.
HINTOn REALLY old computers, consider lowering it by two settings.
Step 2 Textures.
Again, these settings determine how almost EVERYTHING looks in game, so its
important.
On all but the most doomed, hopeless machines (Pre Windows XP) you want
Textures set to Medium at a bare minimum. Aim for High if you can, as this
will be the biggest graphics boost of all the settings, and its worth taking a hit to
say, your lighting quality, to have this higher.
Step 3 Shadows.
Off. Yep, Off. All settings slid right down to minimum. After youve done this, if
your computer can handle it without bleeding too much, turn on Tree Canopy
Shadows and Shadows on Grass. Not vital, but it makes the outdoor look a LOT
better. All other shadows can remain on zero quality though.
Step 4 Specular Distance.
Slide this right down. Its used for Smoke, Fog and some Magic effects, and isnt
all that great or noticeable, so take it right down. Putting this above 25% has a
major hit on my framerate, so keep it down, at nothing if possible.
Step 5 Distance Rendering.
Distant Land should be turned on unless it makes your performance bleed.
If you can turn them on without too much of a performance hit, also have
Distant objects and Distant trees turned on.
Step 6 Fade Distance.
These are important too; have them too high, and your performance will suffer.
Too low, and the game gets a lot more like an episode of Ghostbusters, with
people, monsters and swords appearing randomly in front of you. I let streamline
manage most of these (Ill cover this later) but aim for at least 50% for Tree,
Actor, Item and Object fade settings.

Step 7 Water.
Water should be on medium if possible, its playable on low but you will lose
some quality. The performance difference between Low > Medium is much
smaller than the difference between Medium > High.
Keep reflections turned on unless it makes your computer cry, and feel free to
turn of refraction and ripples for the sake of performance, they arent all that
noticeable.

OVERVIEW:
In order of importance:
1. Texture size
2. Resolution
3. Distance Rendering
4. Fade Distance
5. Water
6. Specular Distance
7. Shadows

Chapter 2 Intermediate changes.

So, we played with the settings, go back onto oblivion, see how it plays
any better? Nope? Carry on then

Step 1 Game Booster.

Download Game Booster:
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html
Run this before starting Oblivion. Game Booster closes / suspends all non-vital
processes and frees up memory for Games to use.
Step 2 Oblivion Stutter Remover.
Download the Oblivion Stutter Remover mod:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23208
I honestly have no idea HOW this mod works, just that it DOES indeed work.
Increases overall performance slightly. Simple.
Step 3 Streamline.
Download Streamline:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10400
This is a type of Holy Grail for Oblivion performance. It automatically adjusts
your settings for the situation (EG, you enter a battle and your game slows down:
it turns down you settings to speed it back up.) and periodically clears used
memory to speed up well everything.
Step 4 Low Poly Grass.
Download Low Poly Grass:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5434
Think about it, if you can play with 50 pieces of grass on screen, but not with
100, why not lower the quality ever so slightly and have the 100 without any
performance hit? Its a basic mod, but it makes a huge difference if you cant live
without grass (like me).
Step 5 Oblivion Crash Prevention System
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22282
If my game crashes, I call it poor performance. With this installed Oblivion
crashes significantly less; which means more time playing and less time
rebooting. It doesnt affect framerate or anything however.
Step 6 Defrag.
So its not a difficult step, but it can be time consuming. Instead of windows basic
defrag utility, I recommend AUS Logics Defrag. Its about 10x faster on my
system, and gives you a readout of performance increases. Download it here:
http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/download/

Chapter 3 HARDCORE changes.

No, they arent hardcore, but if you want to push your game that little further
after the previous steps, and you dont mind getting a little technical, try these

Step 1 Oblivion.ini tweaks.

Go to C:\Users\(You)\Documents\My Games\Oblivion
(This could differ on certain operating systems) and open Oblivion.ini in wordpad
or notepad.
You will see something a little like this
[General]
SStartingCell=
SStartingCellY=
SStartingCellX=
SStartingWorld=
STestFile10=
STestFile9=
STestFile8=

ect ect
This is the file oblivion reads for settings that usually cant be changed in game. I
could go through and list every possible change in the .ini file, but somebody
else has already done it, and probably much better than I would too, so visit:
http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_8.html
for details on this.
Step 2 Streamline.ini tweaks.
I hope you installed streamline, as this section is about tuning it for better
graphics while maintaining performance.
Go to: C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\Streamline\INI Files
And open SL.ini in notepad or wordpad. You should see something like this:
;
=====================================================
====================
;;
;;
Streamline 3.0 INI File
;;
;; Profile Name:
"Streamline 3.0 Default"
;; ------------------------------------------------------------;; Profile Author: Jaga Telesin (jagatelesin@gmail.com)
;; Profile Date:
June 9th, 2007
;; INI path:
\Data\Streamline\INI Files\
;;
;; Profile Details: Balanced profile - for use on all computers
;;
;; Developed on:
AMD64 FX-53, 2x512mb Corsair
;;
ATI x800pro, 2x36gb SATA Raptor RAID0

;;
;
=====================================================
====================
Look through it for these key settings:
set SLfpsmon.High
to
30 ; Highest desired FPS (top of range)
set SLfpsmon.Low
to
20 ; Lowest desired FPS (bottom of range)
By settings these to 30 and 20 respectively, we are giving the game a little breathing
space, telling it that, at a push, we would be happy with 20 fps if everything else is
perfect. Since this is just for exploring, and usually you will see at least halfway between
these, it give a good looking, smooth game.
set SLv.maxVLOD
to
75 ; Highest desired level of detail (%)
; -Default: 100
set SLv.minVLOD
to
25 ; Lowest desired level of detail (%)
; -Default: 0

Here, we basically tell the game that even in performance-heavy areas, we still
want some detail, but we dont mind sacrificing some to achieve better
performance if needed.
set SLv.setDetail
to
1 ; Detail
(1=on, 0=off)
set SLv.setGrass
to
1 ; Grass density, range, etc
set SLv.setTrees
to
1 ; Tree detail, range, etc
set SLv.setLightShadow
to
1 ; Light & shadow number & range
set SLv.setObjects
to
0 ; Actors, objects & items distances
set SLv.setTerrain
to
0 ; Terrain (disabled, distant terrain only)
set SLv.setWater
to
1 ; Water details & reflections
set SLv.setClpDst
to
0 ; Allow Clip Distance (low-end PCs)
Look at this closely, this is what streamline is allowed to change in your settings
to focus on performance or quality (whatever your lacking at that specific
moment)
set SLv.setObjects is set to 0, so streamline will leave this how YOU set it.
Why is this off?
So we dont get the objects, people and monsters appearing from the nonexistent mist directly under your nose effect.
By doing this, Streamline will leave you being able to see things from a distance,
and focus on changing less important details (Grass, Tree detail, lights ect) to
achieve better performance.
Ok, try Oblivion again, and see how it goes. Still not working? Then Im stumped.
Sorry
Ok, I said I wasnt guaranteeing anything, but this SHOULD hopefully get you a
smoother game, without compromising quality too much.

Chapter 3 Beautification changes.

Hopefully by now, your game should be performing better. If thats the case, then
here are a few ways to improve how it looks, may as well use that performance
eh?

Step 1 Qarl's Texture Pack 3 - Redimized

Download it here:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?
view=oblivionmods.detail&id=3813
Quarls texture pack was once for high spec gaming units only No More!
This Reduced and Optimized version gives 90% of the quality with only 10% of
the performance hit.
Step 2 Natural Enviroments
Download it here:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2536
Better environments, wildlife AI, Weather, birds, insects just a beautiful mod
that has little effect on performance.
Step 3 Symphony of Violence
Download it here:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13987
Ok, it doesnt make the game LOOK any more beautiful, but it certainly SOUNDS
better, new sounds for weapon and Armor effects; give it a go.
Step 4 Leviathan Soulgems
Download it here:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?
view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2685
Soul Gems anyone who played Morrowind will miss how beautiful they looked.
This mod brings them back, and they look great!
Step 5 Alluring Potion Bottles
Download it here:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=33531

Maybe a little too flashy for some, but really, these beautiful models are at LEAST
100% better than the bright pink potion bottle, and some difference between
potions is nice too.
Step 6 RedBag Fog
Download it here:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?
view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=6379
Tweaks the fog in game to be heavier, more realistic and can also result in a
performance boost to boot.
Step 7 Additional Races DTC
Download it here:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?
view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=6387
Couldnt miss a chance to put in a little of my own work? Seamlessly introduces 7
new races into the game, all fitting with Lore, Looks and Balanced skills /
abilities. Do me a favour have a look?
Legal Stuff:
/disclaimer
This guide was written by, and is intellectual property of LewisDTC. Feel free to
post it wherever you like, on one condition: Leave this Legal disclaimer attached
to it. If you modify this document and then repost it, add to the disclaimer
explaining what changes you made. I dont want people complaining that I broke
Oblivion because of something I didnt even write.
Also, if this does break Oblivion, your computer or your love life (Or anything
else) I take no responsibility. You have been warned.
/end disclaimer
Enjoy the game people!
LewisDTC