SureAI

Hi, just downloaded Nehrim a few days ago and have been enjoying it so far but I've been having some issues with FPS despite having a fairly powerful PC.

My specs are:
AMD Phenom II 965 Quad-3.4GhZ
ATI Radeon 5850
6GB Ram
Windows 7 64-bit

Indoors my FPS seems to be fine and stays around 60 FPS (v-sync enabled) with no real issues even during combat. Outdoors is a completely different issue. Depending on where I am my FPS is generally anywhere from 15-40 though generally lower especially during combat/if I'm riding my donkey (yeah, I'm a newb). In combat in an average wooded area near the start of the game I'll generally drop to ~20 FPS and sometimes a bit lower. Also while I'm running around sometimes the game will randomly get a bit choppy or freeze for a second or two and its pretty annoying.

Earlier I reached Stonefield and found the worst constant FPS I've had so far, its hardly playable at this point.
http://www.xfire.com/profile/moarxx/scr ... #106914628

My current settings in-game are:
1600x900
4x Antialiasing
V. Sync enabled
View Distance: 100
Distant Landscapes, Buildings, and Trees Enabled
Tree detail: 85
Actor visibility range: 20
Item visibility range: 23
Object visibility range: 29
Grass visibility range: 34
Interior shadow visibility range: 50
Exterior shadow visibility range: 30
Self shadow: off
Grass shadow: off
Canopy shadow: on
Shadow quality: high
Specular lighting: 100
HDR: Off
Bloom: On
Water detail: high
Water reflection: on
Water displace: on
Window reflection: on

I've tried messing with some of the settings but nothing has had a very big impact (disabled shadows entirely, turned off distant trees, etc.).

I don't have an exterior mods for Oblivion/Nehrim, just the latest patches for both.

Also I feel like I should mention that a few months ago I tried modding my Oblivion (I bought it off Steam a while ago and hadn't played it) but got frustrated after a while due to ending up with mediocre framerates. At the time I had the following (and possibly a few other mods) installed:
Unofficial Oblivion Patch
FCOM
COBL
Qarl's Texture Pack
Natural Environments
Unique Landscapes (all)

Any help would be appreciated, hopefully this doesn't come down to Gamebryo being horribly optimized for my hardware

Turning off anti-aliasing in Stonefield doesn't seem to increase my FPS at all, its still 11-16 when standing in the square watching the 2 soldiers fight.

I really have no idea of what's causing this.

Maybe you could try some of the advanced options you can choose within the Nehrim launcher.

I'm using the Steam version of Oblivion so I'm forced to launch it through Steam (and the Oblivion launcher). Will changes made in NehrimLauncher.exe (even though it can't actually launch the game) still effect the game?

Went ahead and tried it anyways, the first time I changed the settings and hit accept followed by "Start Nehrim" which just took me to an Oblivion launcher with faded out buttons. Upon launching the game via Steam it tried autoadjusting my settings according to my PC and set me back to Very Low. Launched the game, fixed it all, went back into Nehrim Launcher settings but this time I hit Accept and then launched Oblivion via Steam.

I loaded my game in Stonefield (in the square watching the 2 guards fight) and now as opposed to the 14-15 FPS I'm getting 8-10.

I enabled Multithreading, Dual CPU using, HDD using, and 2GB Memory preload.


edit: Went back in and disabled Dual CPU using (since I have a quad core) and launched again, didn't notice any change in performance (multithreading still enabled).

After playing a bit more it seems as if my issue is related to outdoors npcs. My fps is fine in dungeons with multiple npcs (bats+Bone flayers for example) but my fps drops quite a bit when fighting mutiple npcs outdoors. Same goes with npcs in towns, the bigger the town, the more my fps drops. My actor view range is set fairly low and I tried disabling npc shadows but neither seemed to fix it.

Do you have onboard sound? That might be the issue.

Unfortunately, yes. I'm just using whatever comes on a Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P though I am using a USB headset (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... sair%20hs1).

I'm fairly sure that the drivers are updated, just updated those a month or so ago. Though I've been advised by a few people to possibly try the default W7 drivers since the Realtek ones have given me issues in the past (hence why I'm using a USB headset).

edit: Link to the motherboard - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128392
Onboard audio is Realtek ALC888

Onboard audio is not a matter of outdated drivers; it's a matter of suck.
The only way to kill those lags is to use a "quiet feet" mod, which stops the sounds of NPC's/creature's feet from playing. It's these sounds that cause many lags in battle. There is a quiet feet mod for Nehrim, although I don't remember where. As an alternative quick solution you could also pull the "Effect sounds" down to 0 in your settings.

I'll try that out, I was thinking of doing it but figured it wasn't the issue since my FPS is fine indoors.

edit: Just tried turning footstep volume and effect volume down to 0 and didn't notice any increase in performance. Still getting <20 FPS just standing around in Giliad. Also cannot seem to find the Nehrim version of quiet feet.