Here is the hardware I have to deal with:
- CPU: Pentium 4 with HT, 3.2 GHz, 3 Gb of RAM
- Video card: ATI HD 2600 AGP, 512 M of VRAM
- Resolution: 1280×768 in windowed mode
- Graphics options: HDR, Tree Canopy shadows, fixed trees LOD
- Oblivion installed on dedicated SATA 10,000 RPM drive
I want to play with these ‘heavy’ mods:
- Almost Everything Visible When Distant (standard version)
- Qarl Texture Pack 3 redimized
- Unique Landscapes, better Cities mods
- OOO + MMM
- Illumination Within Revived
- City Life + Cats + Dogs
From experience, a comfortable framerate expectation is around 20 to 25 frames per seconds.
To help absorb the load, I installed the following optimization mods :
- QuietFeetMax
- Low tri-poly grass (from RPGBlackDragon, levels s-2).
- Natural weather only (no optional Natural Environment mod, only the weather)
- Enhanced Water (low resolution)
- Texture, meshes and sound .bsa file distributed on three hard drives for load balancing.
I’m also using a performance utility without which I would simply not be able to experience the game in the way I would like to:
Streamline 3.1 beta (20/15 fps target, uGrid settings for Streamsight : 12/12)
The results:
- Anvil docks: 9 to 15 fps
- Anvil city: 10 to 25 fps
- Road from Anvil to Kvatch: 10 to 25 fps
Close to the target framerate, a little bit on the low side.