Oblivion/Morrowind run awful

Allright, i've been having this problem for over a month now, ever since i bought the games. Im not running any mods. I've been to COUNTLESS forums, and no one has been able to help me, i tried everything people have suggested, and nothing worked. Interestingly, Oblivion and Morrowind suffer from the same problem, they start to slow down around NPCs/during fights with multiple enemies and whatnot, or when two enemies are fighting each other in the wilderness, you get the idea. A good example is the beggining, everything runs smoothly until the king and his men arrive (Oblivion). Also, the Market disctrict in the Imperial City is another good example, when NPCs are walking about. Indoors, my Framerate is awesome, and completely flawless, if i stare at a wall, ill get well over 100 Frames. I've tried going to tweak guides and reading that conflagaration of information, and it didnt help me. I've tried disabling sound in the .ini. file, changing thread settings in the .ini file, and various other things. All of the other games i play perform flawlessly. My computer isnt the best, but i know its good enough for Oblivion...and Morrowind is completely out of the question. People have suggested a disk defrag, yadyadyada... The computer is new, and i do spyware checks and maintain my PC health.

My system: AMD Phenom X3 8550 2.2GHz
Radeon HD 4850
4GB RAM

If all else fails, you can re-install Windows. Wiping the Registry can do wonders.

eerrm.... Well, i performed a clean boot with literally nothing working in the background, and, same deal. Nothing in particular is running in the background. Also, i use CCleaner, and heard it can clear your registry, how do i do that? I only use it for clearing my net cache and keeping my computer up to speed. I DO have norton running , but it has never caused a problem for my other games.

yeah, this is actually the second time i have had my computer, so to speak.. I got it and it was damaged, so i took it to where i bought it and everything had to be replaced, Mobo, RAM, CPU, everything. I remember Oblivion had the same problem. I....eer....got a burnt copy, but once the computer was fixed, i bought the game via Steam. Also, is it possible that when i installed the burnt version some files could have been faulty? Could they have not been completely erased from my computer? They DID replace my HD...but since i was being my impatient self, i did the same thing from when my computer was in its damaged state and installed the burnt copy. Once the offer appeared on Steam, i bought it. I uninstalled the burn of course... Other than that, i cant think of anything, this is almost unsolvable..... The game lags when NPCs are around/talking, or during fights, and scripted events in general. Also, why in the HELL would Morrowind have the same problem aswell??? I mean...look at it! not to mention the system requirements....Pentium 3 500MHz

Oblivion was the only burn. I bought both games on Steam. Also.... When i opened up "msconfig" and changed the number of processors from "1" to "3" i THINK it gave it a bit of a performance boost...while in the Imperial City.. Also, whenever the BSTask count number goes high, its pretty much hit rock bottom from there, the performance if poor all around, no matter what the situation is in the game. I performed a clean boot, and...nothing... Also tried reinstalling my video drivers several times. Its definately a CPU thing, seeing as i can turn the resolution all the way down to 640 x 480 and all low graphical settings, and STILL, it doesnt fix anything...

I'm going to sound like a broken record here but............. there isn't enough video memory on that card to render everything. Your system is offloading or swapping to the hard drive and that's causing a slow down. This a 512 card by chance ? Oblivion is a resource hog. You'll have to turn your settings way down for it.

it runs fine on my computer i dont know what is going on with your system though i never did like the 3core phenoms...

Like i said, i can turn the settings down to the very lowest, and it wont solve the problem. Also, i've seen other people on youtube and whatnot getting good overall performance with the same card. And btw, i've got 2GBs of video memory available, so thats completely out of the question..

hhmm...well, so far only one critical item has been found, it says; Invalid Startup Item: *some type of MRI.exe file* Ill wait for it to finish and start up Oblivion again. Interestingly, its found in the OS directory....

I just wanted to see if anything was using up the memory on you. Spyware's good for that. Go into the devise manager and open up the processor and see how many cores are there. If less than you have right click and do an update on it/them... ... start/right click computer/devise manger... ( upper left ) have you done a windows update lately ? bed for me now. will check thread tomorrow. good luck.

Allright, i performed a Windows Update, and it upgraded Vista to SP2, and...no dice. I can even change the .ini. file settings and enable all multithreaded options, no dice.

It's definately your slow processor.

Um...its definately not, seeing as you need a Pentium 4 to play the game, and i know a guy running it on an Athlon getting much better performance, actually playing the game the way its meant to be played...smooth, and slow? I dont know why you would assume that, but OK. If it was slow i wouldnt be able to run all the other games i play... Let me guess, its too slow for Morrowind? ...pfft. You need a Pentium 3 for Morrowind, in case you didnt know.

There's no way in hell im overclocking my CPU and taking a risk of messing up my hardware. You need cooling for that, in case you didnt know... And its not like im increasing by only 100MHz... Also, clock frequency doesnt determine how good a processor is. You can put an AMD Duron overclocked to 8.0GHZ (lets just say) up against a Pentium 4 with a stock clock of 2.4 GHz, it'll get annihilated by that P4. And according to this: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:System_Requirements any Phenom can run the game. Also, on system requirementslab, i get way past recommended when i testy it for Oblivion.

Allright, Oblivion itself first gave me my "system info" and it was weird. The type 568 processor and whatnot. Now, i just opened CPUZ and its saying number of processors: 1, Threads: 1...... Ok, im scared now, whats going on?

Oh yeah, and Oblivion has always said it doesnt recognize my video hardware....

Open task manager, see what it says

It should have 4 windows, each showing its own cores usage

Go to performance, view,then cpu history, then check 1 graph per cpu

If you can only get one graph, then only 1 cpu is working, which may be the cause of all this. Possibly a mobo bios

EErr...there's just one problem, i've tried getting into BIOS before, and i tried numerous keys, like Delete, Esc ,and the F keys, and nothing worked...

i honestly dont know what to tell you, eerr.... It looks good? Also, how do i check the individual cores. And a little graph is indicating that Oblivion is using 97% of CPU usage, at least thats what i think it is, its the first mini-graph on the left.

Dble click on that mini graph

Look up your mobo, see if there bios replacements, or how to reset your bios, if theres no alternative, or try it first anyways, Did you replace your cpu by the way? Or is it original?

Should be on the site

GL, hope it solves your issue. BTW, while you were on your mobo makers site, did it say whether your cpu was supported?