If this kind of questions is not meant to be posted here, please forgive me. Also, I imagine my English may sound somewhat strange. I would be grateful it if you could be patient.

I have been suffering from a stuttering problem whose cause I can't find. I was wondering if someone could share information. Any help would be appreciated.

I suppose my computer does not have enough power to handle Oblivion, but I managed to well optimize my game thanks to lots of very useful mods like "Quiet Feet", "Short Grass"...etc. Now, FPS reaches 25 - 30 even outdoors including heavily grassed area. FPS even in combat keeps 15 - 20 and I can enjoy the game at all.

However, somehow, my game ocassionally stutters terriblly. The decrease of FPS is nearly 20, so my available FPS temporarily becomes 3 - 5 for about 10 seconds. Once the stuttering takes place, it intermittently apprears everywhere. Even when my character only stops and faces a wall without doing anything, the decrease of FPS occurs ocassionally. The time from starting Oblivion to the stuttering is only 15 minuites.

First, I thought it might be related to my video card or sound card, and tried lowering resolution, disabling several visual effects, and turning off sound, but, it was not solved. Of course, at that time, FPS increased a little, but the terrible suttering was not gone.

Second, I thought the cause might be loading stuttering of my HDD. However, when the stuttering comes, my computer is not accessing HDD.

I checked some other possbilities. - Disabling mods, deleting unnecessary save files, defragmenting HDD, re-installing Oblivion. However, the problem still remains.

If there is anyone that has experienced the same problem and knows the solution, I wondered if I could have information? Of course, I would appreciate any help or suggestion.

As of now, I wonder if this problem might be related to CPU?

<My System>
CPU : Pentium 4 3GHz
RAM : 3GHz
VIDEO CARD : GeForce6800
VIDEO RAM : 256M
SOUND CARD : Sound Bluster Audigy 2 ZS

<Mods installed now>
Black Screen Fix
Female Armor Pack
Low Poly Grass
Magic Effect Dim
No Refraction Spells
Optimaized Distant Land Max (75%)
Quiet Feet Max
Short Grass
Spells No Lighting
Colour Map
Companion Share And Recruit
Dark UI
Illumination Within Revised
Introxicant Improvement
Actors In Charge
Adrenaline Oblivion
1st Alchemy Companion Julienne (mine : perhaps, not related to the problem)

Thank you for your patience.

perhaps it's due to overheatingof the power supply

This is the right place to post this. And your English is excellent.

Check the size of your virtual memory. Then check to see that nothing is overheating. Be sure all fans are working and the air channels are clear. especially if you have a fan on your video card. Some video cards are made to slow down if they get hot. A weak or failing Power supply can cause pauses or even reboot the computer - caused by a drop in the +5volt supply.

Sometimes another program running in the background can cause that kind of slow down. The computer is looking at the other program and ignoring Oblivion for a second. This can also cause CTD problems. The indexing service is bad about doing this - disable indexing if you have it turned on. - A MS update turned it back on on my system, it drove me nuts for a couple of days. The HD was constantly running.

Although I didn't see it in your mod list, I have also seen stuttering caused by streamline 3.1. The older version works better, 3.1 is a beta that may never be finished as the author has left modding.

If everything else checks out, look to your video card. 6800 is a little old for Oblivion. I use a 7600GT/256 and it sometimes has problems keeping up. Be sure you have the latest drivers. Try disabling both HDR and AA. It won't look as good, but may run better.

Thank you very much for your helpful advices. I checked my system again, and everything seems to be getting better.

@Dezdimona.
Thank you very much. Probably, overheating is one of the cause. I entirely had overlooked it. Your advice reminded me.

@Bben
Thank you very much for lots of helpful information and all the trouble you have taken. I checked each possibility that you told me, and found my problem to be related to the overheating of the power supply and video card. I tried touching the back of my computer when the game started stuttering. It was much hotter than I had thought. The problem may be caused mainly by heat.

I had been careless enough to neglect keeping my computer clean. I opened my computer and removed dust, and took off some USB-devices in order to save power. Then, I ran the game to test the result. The heat reduced and the game got quite stable. Although it still stutters a little, yet there is a huge decrease in the degree, frequency and length of the stuttering. The stability of my game has been considerably improved. I appreciate your helpful advices.


I am not very familiar with the computer system. When I added 2G of memory, I disabled the virtual memory completely. Would it be better to enable at least some amount of virtual memory? I am sorry for this basic question. My computer works on XP.


I had never heard of that before you told me. Thank you for the information. MS seems to do "good" job. I had better be careful. I will check the setting everytime a MS update tries to mess up my system.

Again, I am very grateful for your kindness, Dezdimona, Bben.

If your FPS is reasonable and you do have stuttering issues chances are the memory is being flushed very often. The main causes are things that increases the VRAM loads (or RAM), such as high textures resolutions, high screen resolutions, high shader levels, alpha blending and so on. What in streamline may cause issues like this is the memory purge feature. Since your FPS is reported not being an issue, Streamline may be freeing more resources it should. You can try forcing lower (but playables) FPS. Try everything you can to lower memory loading. Disable Streamline purging memory at cell changes, reduce the autosaves it can do, etc...

If you have a Nvidia card you can try increasing the Maximun Pre-render Frames options in the driver control panel (it's default is 3, sometime ago several people recommended it being reduced to lower mouse and keyboard lag issues, but the cost was increased stuttering. Experiment with values from 1 to 5)

good luck

PS: Streamline was developed to help low end cards, Yet it can be useful with the more powerful ones of nowadays its defaults may harm more than help. So to use streamline with modern hardware those defaults must be changed. I use it but mainly because of the quick save slots, and disable or hinder most of it's features.

PS2: Windows memory paging does wonders at increasing stuttering to intolerable levels (as fragmented files do too), but since you report the HD being idle this doesn't seems yours problem's reason.

PS3: Useful beyond Oblivion issues is creating Custom virtual memory file, in contiguous space of fixed length, preferably in another HD your windows is and more preferable yet, the quicker one. Fragmented C: is often forgotten and mainly if this virtual memory space is fragmented the cost in performance is severe. To do so, navigate to the properties of the My computer. You'll find several tutos explaining how to do it across the Internet.

The problem has been solved finally. It proved to be the overheating of my video card, whose fun was out of order. I apologize for my carelessness troubling you all, and I really appreciate your kindness. I am going to describe my report.

@Nosisab
Thank you very much for lots of helpful advices. Thanks to your suggestion, the available FPS in my game has increased more, and it allows me to play more comfortably. I tried each method you told me, which certainly brings a decrease in stuttering.

Although everyone's advices helped me to reduce the frequency and length of the terrible stuttering, yet it remained a little. When the first stuttering came after I set up my game according to your advices, the resolution was 1280*1024. I immediately quitted the game, and set the resolution the lowest, and re-started the game, but the stuttering was not gone, which told me that it was not caused by the setting of Oblivion.

I opened my computer and watched the fan of the video card. It seemed to work at all, but not well. For it was unbelieavably hot. I recalled Bben's advice.



I turned off the air conditioner in my room and had the video card blown by the electric fan (which we human use). Then, the stuttering had disappered, and has never come back again, even though the game is being run for more than one hour.

I am writing this message in the cold room like a freezer. I find myself somewhat insane, but it is also really satisfying to me that the problem has been solved finally.

Thank you very much again, Dezdimona, Bben, Nosisab.


@Nosisab

I tried that and my game is improved. Thank you for the information!


I had tried to create custom virtual memory before. - Providing huge files, defragmenting the HDD and setting it up. I found it difficult to have it work well. As of now, it is disabled, but I will try creating another again, checking tutorials on the internet.

Again, I am so thankful to you all!

Edit : misspells corrected

it was no trouble at all.We enjoy helping others out!

glad the issue cause was found and now can be dealt with.

Thank you for your kind word, Dezdimona, Nosisab