GameBanshee Forums

When I formatted and reinstalled my windows xp some time ago (I did it mostly because I wanted to see how Oblivion would work on a fresh system), I noticed a real drop in fps in Oblivion for example. Other games I've played so far weren't too demanding (I am playing Fable:TLC now which runs well). I saw a post on somewhere in this site that you should not update your hardware drivers unless you need to, and that's exactly what I did-I updated my video card drivers (btw I have nvidia GeForce 6800GT ) to some 91.47 something. I previously had drivers that started with 8 (can't remember exactly ). I just started looking at winxp driver archive at nvidia.com, and noticed only some drivers are WHQL certified, altough when I click on the latest ones for more details, it says the are too. So my question is, if anyone also has nvidia graphic card, what drivers should I use? It would explain why my Oblivion suffered a severe drop in fps on a new system (forgot to mention I also had a lot of tweaks, and mostly all of performance-enhancing mods).

I have an Nvidia card and I use the latest Forceware drivers.

First of all, does this drop in performance occur before or after you updated your drivers? I doubt an older driver will help in improving the performance of Oblivion or any current game (unless you face some serious problems, then it's best to do a clean install of your previous driver). The best way is to always update your drivers to prevent any graphical problems you might encounter when playing newer games (and they will address performance issues when running newer games).

Secondly, Oblivion is known to be a systems hog until it is near impossible to get decent frame rates even on a high-end gaming computer. So, expect very mediocre performance when playing this game. I might suggest turning down some of the graphical options to see whether if it helps in improving the game's performance. Another best bet is to head over to hardware sites and check out the benchmarks for Oblivion to get a better idea on how to tweak your configuration for better performance.

The performance drop occured after I updated the drivers, and I know I can't expect great performance with my system, but what I am saying is that my fps in oblivion are lower after reinstalling the system (and thus updating the drivers). So you're saying I should always update the drivers?

C-K'R[PhoEniX] wrote:The performance drop occured after I updated the drivers, and I know I can't expect great performance with my system, but what I am saying is that my fps in oblivion are lower after reinstalling the system (and thus updating the drivers). So you're saying I should always update the drivers?

Well, by constantly updating your drivers, you will avoid a lot of graphics-related problems but since you said that your performance dropped after updating your drivers, then do a clean install of the older driver. And also make sure your hard drive is defragged. Might helped a lot as well.

Did you also reinstall Oblivion? Maybe the graphical options were changed to default (and heavier) settings.

Generally installing the newest drivers is the best. I don't update my drivers everytime a new update comes out (btw, AFAIK 91.47 is the latest) because I'm too lazy, but when I need to install a card I always use the newest. The only use of older drivers is when programs (read: games) have problems with the newest drivers, e.g.: Rome: Total War wouldn't work with some 84.21, so I installed 77.72 and then it worked.

Yeah I reinstalled Oblivion, but the in-game options were also set to my liking. I did a search on google, and found out that lots of people on some other forums think that latest drivers may not have to be the best. I reinstalled 84.21 forceware drivers and will give it a shot tommorow.

That sounds OK. Btw, when I have trouble with a game, I always check the official support forums first. Usually you can find the solution there.