Digital Foundry: Oblivion Remastered PC: Impressive Remastering, Dire Performance Problems

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
​



Oblivion Remastered does a good job in thoroughly modernising the 2006 visuals with the latest rendering technology - but the more you play, the more the experience is marred by excessively poor performance. The game has profound CPU problems that make a smooth experience on PC seemingly impossible - even on the most powerful hardware. Meanwhile, the graphics side of the equation is inexplicably heavy on your GPU. There are foundational issues in this game that should never had made it into shipping code. Alex reports.

NOTE: A new patch 'dropped' for the Game Pass version, which bizarrely removed the upscaling options. CPU performance improves by around two percent in our tests, but none of the stuttering is improved.



00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:27 Frame-Times Are Bad
00:03:42 Can You Improve CPU Performance?
00:06:46 GPU Settings Recommendations
00:08:30 Conclusion
 
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They recreated authentic stutter experience from 2006 Oblivion launch! Now available for every PC and console.

damidu said:
horrible remaster, its stutterfest.
engines change, bethesda remains.
Click to expand...

Bethesda stutters + UE5 stutters =

cantspeak-stuttering.gif
 
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- Oblivion (OG) had very poor performance on hardware of it's time.
- Oblivion (remaster) is also similar and has a lot of stutters, even FPS capping will not prevent hitching.
- Bizarrely heavy game on hardware as well
- The lower-end the CPU, the most severe the hitches
- Even on the most powerful consumer CPU, the hitches feel like the game starting and stopping.
- Average of 100fps doesn't feel anywhere as smooth because of the hitching

- Turning off Hardware Lumen and resorting to Software Lumen gives a 35% improvement in performance and marginally lessens the hitching.

- Other setting changes can only have improvement of up to 10% but hitching still remains

- "Somewhat flabbergasted" at the release - Alex

- Some key GPU optimizations from Alex:
- Drop Hardware lumen to Low, 16% improvement
- Rest are bog standard UE5 settings, Dropping from Epic to High can have 30% improvement
- In general they would prefer people to wait for proper optimization via patches.
 
Stopped playing on PS5 Pro until a patch is released. The more I played the more stuttering I saw. Not sure if I said this, but V vkbest you were right. I was wrong.
 
Should run way better but it still plays pretty fine imo. There's mods to help with engine stability and stutters.
 
Yeah its on the back burner. Disappointing as inside the Dungeon at the start gives a great first impression then it all goes to shit.

UE5 is the pits of an engine. No idea why anyone uses it.
 
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Memory is fuzzy but didn't Alex have a problem on his rig not that long ago in a PC title evaluation?

Not saying that Oblivion has no problems but Alex sometimes is oblivious to his own rig problems.
 
Buggy Loop said:
Memory is fuzzy but didn't Alex have a problem on his rig not that long ago in a PC title evaluation?

Not saying that Oblivion has no problems but Alex sometimes is oblivious to his own rig problems.
Click to expand...
the moment you leave sewers, you step into stutterland, its not an "alex" thing
i didnt need to see his graphs to know it.
 
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Buggy Loop said:
Memory is fuzzy but didn't Alex have a problem on his rig not that long ago in a PC title evaluation?

Not saying that Oblivion has no problems but Alex sometimes is oblivious to his own rig problems.
Click to expand...
it is clear that the CPU struggles much more than expected due to its unusual 3+3 CCX setup. that CPU literally stalls for no reason in avowed for example, in places where normal 6 core CPUs actually don't. it just doesn't run games properly anymore. even god of war ragnarok needed special fixing and patching months after its release to get the game go from horrible to poorly on that CPU.

I know that consoles have a similar CPU but I guess APIs there are more optimized to not run into CCX performance problems. I get where he's coming from (console equivalent CPU should not be this bad) but he really should start encouraging people to get a cheap ryzen 5600 upgrade as a minimum. people would instantly feel the relief of getting MUCH higher 1% lows due to no CCX

performance differences between 3600 and 5600 in actual gameplay experience is just on an another level. on average most people look at reviews and think "hmm it's not that good of an upgrade... I will keep my 3600." doesn't help that ryzen 3600 still can get you 50-70 average FPS which makes people think that it is still a decent CPU but then again people don't know more than half the stutters and spikes they experience are caused by the CPU itself and not the game. doesn't help that games stutter all the same (but much less intense and more infrequent) but helps people keep their CPU because they think "well it is not going to solve anything". where in reality something like 5600 just gets the experience to an another level

not saying games are flawless, they do have their spikes and stutters even on highest end CPUs. but I believe ryzen 3600 or 3700x really make the problems seem bigger than they actually are

something like i5 10400 doesn't have the issues that 3600 is having. it is clear that CCX structure doesn't mix well with modern games being highly threaded
 
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Topher said:
Stopped playing on PS5 Pro until a patch is released. The more I played the more stuttering I saw. Not sure if I said this, but V vkbest you were right. I was wrong.
Click to expand...
It's insane. Those consoles were designed specifically for high data streaming and decompression to avoid stalls and hitches, yet that POS engine is giving everyone problems.

I know it's partly a skill issue and Virtuos shat the bed, but almost no game runs well on UE5 and if they have consistent performance, it's at the cost of bad visual settings or IQ. There's no good looking game with high performance running on UE5.

Senua's Saga: 30fps

Wukong: Need frame gen for 60fps and still drops

Silent Hill 2: Bad IQ, mild traversal stutters

Oblivion: Stutterfest, massive fps drops
 
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yamaci17 said:
it is clear that the CPU struggles much more than expected due to its unusual 3+3 CCX setup. that CPU literally stalls for no reason in avowed for example, in places where normal 6 core CPUs actually don't. it just doesn't run games properly anymore. even god of war ragnarok needed special fixing and patching months after its release to get the game go from horrible to poorly on that CPU.

I know that consoles have a similar CPU but I guess APIs there are more optimized to not run into CCX performance problems. I get where he's coming from (console equivalent CPU should not be this bad) but he really should start encouraging people to get a cheap ryzen 5600 upgrade as a minimum. people would instantly feel the relief of getting MUCH higher 1% lows due to no CCX

performance differences between 3600 and 5600 in actual gameplay experience is just on an another level. on average most people look at reviews and think "hmm it's not that good of an upgrade... I will keep my 3600." doesn't help that ryzen 3600 still can get you 50-70 average FPS which makes people think that it is still a decent CPU but then again people don't know more than half the stutters and spikes they experience are caused by the CPU itself and not the game. doesn't help that games stutter all the same (but much less intense and more infrequent) but helps people keep their CPU because they think "well it is not going to solve anything". where in reality something like 5600 just gets the experience to an another level

not saying games are flawless, they do have their spikes and stutters even on highest end CPUs. but I believe ryzen 3600 or 3700x really make the problems seem bigger than they actually are

something like i5 10400 doesn't have the issues that 3600 is having. it is clear that CCX structure doesn't mix well with modern games being highly threaded
Click to expand...

Thought so, thanks for detailing what's happening.

Like I do see the stutter when playing but nowhere near Alex's

Its really starting to irk me that he keeps showcasing these frametime stutters with a rig that is clearly a problem on his end and clearly for anyone on that CCX setup.
 
Gaiff said:
It's insane. Those consoles were designed specifically for high data streaming and decompression to avoid stalls and hitches, yet that POS engine is giving everyone problems.

I know it's partly a skill issue and Virtuos shat the bed, but almost no game runs well on UE5 and if they have consistent performance, it's at the cost of bad visual settings or IQ. There's no good looking game with high performance running on UE5.
Click to expand...
we need ps5 pro pro because unreal engine 5 is shit.
I finished ac shadows on pro. 51 hours and I dont think it stuttered once.... and it looks about 17x better than oblivion remastered
 
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DanEON said:
PC stutters, it will never be fixed, just get used and deal with it just like I do.
Click to expand...
This is hardly a PC only issue though. It stutters very badly on console as well and it's hardly the first Unreal 5 game to do so. Fact is Unreal 5 is just terrible at streaming data.
 
Buggy Loop said:
Thought so, thanks for detailing what's happening.

Like I do see the stutter when playing but nowhere near Alex's

Its really starting to irk me that he keeps showcasing these frametime stutters with a rig that is clearly a problem on his end and clearly for anyone on that CCX setup.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I got a 4090+13900K and I definitely have hitches, but not as bad as even his 5090+9800X3D. With frame gen and Reflex, it's very playable, albeit far from ideal.
 
Zathalus said:
This is hardly a PC only issue though. It stutters very badly on console as well and it's hardly the first Unreal 5 game to do so. Fact is Unreal 5 is just terrible at streaming data.
Click to expand...
Yes, is worse than usual, but I kinda got used to stutters, and I won't stop playing because of it.
 
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I heard a theory that this remastering project was given to the youngling developers to give them more experience. The more I read about the game the more I think it might be true.
 
Ah yea, I recall the other game Alex had issues with on his end, it was the Last of us part 2.
Again, most peoples playing the game didn't have his issues.
 
Gaiff said:
It's insane. Those consoles were designed specifically for high data streaming and decompression to avoid stalls and hitches, yet that POS engine is giving everyone problems.

I know it's partly a skill issue and Virtuos shat the bed, but almost no game runs well on UE5 and if they have consistent performance, it's at the cost of bad visual settings or IQ. There's no good looking game with high performance running on UE5.

Senua's Saga: 30fps

Wukong: Need frame gen for 60fps and still drops

Silent Hill 2: Bad IQ, mild traversal stutters

Oblivion: Stutterfest, massive fps drops
Click to expand...
UE 5.4 significantly improves CPU performance and 5.4/5.5 improve the performance of hardware Lumen. So there is some hope for future titles.
 
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The performance isn't amazing for me, but it's playable and I love Oblivion so I'm probably way more biased due to that.

I'm running it on a 12700K + 3080(10GB) + 32GB RAM. High settings, medium hardware RT and DLSS Performance. I also forced DLSS4 through the Nvidia app to clean things up a bit. It's mostly 50-80fps in the open world and almost a locked 120fps in internal areas. Some areas like the camp near Kvatch can drop to mid 30s which is really strange.

I also used the most popular optimisation mod which may have made things better. I can't say I've noticed a massive change but I feel like I'm having a better time than DF lol.
 
I'm not getting anything near the stuttering issues in that video with a 9070XT + Ultimate Engine Tweaks.

It's annoying but Bethesda letting the community fix their games for them is nothing new.
 
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For the good of the games industry, Unreal Engine 5 needs to go.

Recently, the developers of Crimson Desert hinted that their engine is well optimized because it's not bloated. Well, UE5 is bloated. That explains it.
 
And then they just butchered the pc gamepass version on a friday. Removed performance options
 
Downloaded that UE5 tweaks mod and it fixed my stuttering.

Do better devs. It's embarrassing that I'm having to use mods to sort this shit out.
 
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He said that it's one of the worst performing games he's tested while being at Digital Foundry.

It's probably gonna take months to significantly improve it and probably won't ever be fully fixed. With that said the 30fps performance on the Series X seems fine to me so far. I must not be able to perceptually detect the stuttering.
 
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What a surprise.

it's a good thing i decided to not bother with modern PC games anymore. GPUs are too expensive and games look and run like shit. I started going through my backlog and i'm having more fun. Games look good without artifacts and ghosting trails, they run nicely and i don't need to spend $600+ for a GPU to run them. Until PC gaming recovers i have enough games to pass the time i think.
 
yamaci17 said:
it is clear that the CPU struggles much more than expected due to its unusual 3+3 CCX setup. that CPU literally stalls for no reason in avowed for example, in places where normal 6 core CPUs actually don't. it just doesn't run games properly anymore. even god of war ragnarok needed special fixing and patching months after its release to get the game go from horrible to poorly on that CPU.

I know that consoles have a similar CPU but I guess APIs there are more optimized to not run into CCX performance problems. I get where he's coming from (console equivalent CPU should not be this bad) but he really should start encouraging people to get a cheap ryzen 5600 upgrade as a minimum. people would instantly feel the relief of getting MUCH higher 1% lows due to no CCX

performance differences between 3600 and 5600 in actual gameplay experience is just on an another level. on average most people look at reviews and think "hmm it's not that good of an upgrade... I will keep my 3600." doesn't help that ryzen 3600 still can get you 50-70 average FPS which makes people think that it is still a decent CPU but then again people don't know more than half the stutters and spikes they experience are caused by the CPU itself and not the game. doesn't help that games stutter all the same (but much less intense and more infrequent) but helps people keep their CPU because they think "well it is not going to solve anything". where in reality something like 5600 just gets the experience to an another level

not saying games are flawless, they do have their spikes and stutters even on highest end CPUs. but I believe ryzen 3600 or 3700x really make the problems seem bigger than they actually are

something like i5 10400 doesn't have the issues that 3600 is having. it is clear that CCX structure doesn't mix well with modern games being highly threaded
Click to expand...
I think you are right about the dual CCX CPUs. Ive had a dual CCX Zen+ CPUs and every game stuttered like crazy for me back then, it was unbearable so ive switched to Alder Lake when it came out and suddendly ive barely noticed the stutters (even the UE5 games that people complain about felt smooth to play). Now i have also been using a Zen4 16 core for a while and i feel like it stutters way more compared to what should be my significantly weaker Intel one. (I did try Oblivion there, but this one game is equally terrible on all my PCs, but to think about it a bit more running at higher avg framerates could just make the dips/instability differences more noticeable)

Could just be me, but ive also found default XMPs unstable on the amd side, always needing manual adjustments, which could be another issue. The rigs that Alex is using (specifically the 9800x3d) are performing so suspiciously badly, that i think something is wrong with them.
 
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Abysse said:
For the good of the games industry, Unreal Engine 5 needs to go.

Recently, the developers of Crimson Desert hinted that their engine is well optimized because it's not bloated. Well, UE5 is bloated. That explains it.
Click to expand...

UE5 really struggles with anything open world

Sadly, the accountants love UE5. Its not being picked anymore for its technical marvel that would give you an edge over an inhouse engine, but really because the library and how widespread it is worldwide, it allows studios to go to cheap labour countries and they know the engine and you can save bucks. Epic is selling an ecosystem, not an engine. Sadly a ton of inhouse engines are dying as they move to UE5.

Microsoft going UE5 for Halo while they have ID tech, Forzatech (MS flight sim + Fable now being made on it and they look great) is insanity. CDPR going UE5 when they have REDengine is insanity.

Cyberpunk 2077 overdrive (path tracing) with a huge megapolis open world runs like fucking butter on my rig compared to Oblivion.
 
Yep, it is a stutterfesting shitshow.

I think Witcher 4 might be the first UE5 game that will run smooth, since CDP is actually putting heavy resources into fixing Epic's shit.
 
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Corporal.Hicks said:
I want to know why some UE5 games like Robocop look and run great, while others like Oblivion Remastered stutter like crazy.
Click to expand...

It's due to the amount of data being streamed.
With open world games, there is more data to stream in and out of memory.
And it's not just the process of streaming, as those textures are compressed, usually with something like oodle, it's necessary to decompress on the fly.

And with games that use Denuvo, then it's made even worse, as data also has to be checked. But in the case of Oblivion Remastered, it doesn't seem to be using it.
 
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