[List] John's List of Graphic Mods for Mid Range Rigs

[Johnn123]

So many of us, including myself love shiny graphics, but don't have beast rigs to handle them! This list will give you the necessary links and mods to download to make Oblivion look good, and perform well on a mid range rig. Check these screens out:

Chorrol

IC Door

Cheydinhal

Not bad eh? Those were taken using an ATI Radeon HD 5470, which is by no means a strong card, just a mid range card

So lets begin! Download and install in the order listed.

Step One: GFX Card Tweaks

This step really helps out. Using these tweaks you can force some real good looking graphics into your game with only a minor performance hit.

1) Open your GFX card panel properties

2) Move Anti-Aliasing up to 4x (The highest your card allows)

3) Move Anisotrophic Filtering up to 16x (The highest your card allows)

4) Set Mip mapping to performance (This gives you some mip mapping with out a gigantic performance hit)

Step Two: World Textures and Replacers

The textures are the most important part of this list. Replacers are also important, but the textures are what will make this look good for ya.

1) Download and install Lush and Gaudy Landscapes, as well as its Architecture counterpart. This can be interchanged with other texture replacers, such as Corepc's textures, but this is my personal favorite. It works well and gives good performance since the textures are only 512x512 in size, the size of standard vanilla textures

2) This is the most imperitive download. Download and install Really Textured Normal Maps. These normal maps adds huge amounts of detail to the game, and give the good "bumpy" feeling you see in my screens.

3) Download and install Insanitys Imperial City. This texture pack is the only other architecture texture pack I will recommend to download. The Imperial City contains a lot of low res textures that cant be fixed through normal maps or higher anisotrophic filtering, and IS's wonderful high res retextures here are the best IMO.

4) Download and install IS's Snow Texture Replacer.

5) Download and install Amp's Cavern Textures.

Step Three: Body Replacers and Race Additions

Lets face it. Oblivion's default body is just hideous! Following these steps we can make them much more purty! Many things wont be linked due to graphic content.

1) Download and Install Roberts Male Body v5, as well as the stock clothing and armor replacer.

2) Download a female body replacer of your choice. There is ALOT of them, so look around and make your pick. I'm using HGEC myself, with its stock clothing and armor replacer.

3) If using HGEC download and install Ozmo's high rez skin textures

4) If using HGEC download and install HGEC Robert's feet.

5) Download and install Vanilla Hair Replacer.

6) Download and install Scripted Argonian Feet, Khajiit Paws as ability, Big Dunmer Ears, Nice Teeth and New Argonian Face.

7) Download and install Slof's Oblivion Beasts Improved. It adds claws and spikes to the Argonians and whiskers and nails to the Khajiit.

Thats all I have installed, but look around there is tons of other replacers out there, some you may like more than these

Step Four: General Replacers and Improvers

We all know that somethings in Oblivion just look plain low res.... and awful. These replacers should help to cure that

1) Download and install Forge New Textures.

2) Download and install Improved Book Background.

3) Download and Install Better Scroll Background.

4) Download and install God Statues.

5) Download and Install Way Shrines Improved.

6) Download and install Isathars Normallmapped Cobwebs.

7) Download and install Improved Signs.

8) Download and install High Res Hay Bail Textures.

9) Download and install Necromancer Banner Retexture.

10) Download and install Improved Fires and Flames.

11) Download and install Improved Skulls, Bones and Ironworks.

12) Download and install Better Thatched Roofs.

13) Download and install Unique Signs. Install this after Improved Signs. Thanks to Greenie for this suggestion!

Step Five: Critters

Yes we do need to something about the bestiary. Sure everyone of them wants to kill ya, but that dont mean they can't look good!

1) Download and install ALL of TheMythofStrider's Creature Retextures. His are the best out there, be sure to download at the highest res possible. Don't worry it wont kill your frames!

2) Download and install Slof's Horse's. Sorry I cant find a link at the minute, but search around it should be around. These horse textures are just awesome!

Step Six: Weapons and Armor

One modder made a whole ton of high res replacements for the vanilla weapons and armor. I think you can guess who that is (IS).

1) Download and install all of Insanity's Improved Armory. High res vanilla weapons and armor for everyone! I'd link ya but that would take a heck of a long time so just follow the links in his thread! Everything there is a must for your install

There ya have it, don't think I forgot anything so enjoy! You'll notice alot of textures haven't been replaced with this list. The trick here is Really Textured Normal Maps. It gives the detail high res textures do with the performance hit. So now that you've done everything on this list what are ya waiting for? Get playing!

Edit: I did forget a few, but theyve been added in

Edited July 28, 2011 by John

[greenwarden]

Great topic, John! I have an older 3870, and I use quite a few mods on your list without any performance issues.

Now it's time for me to plug a lesser known mod that I think should be on that list: Unique Signs. I wasn't interested in higher resolution versions of vanilla's sign designs, I wanted a true replacer, with new designs. That's what Unique Signs is, and it's wonderful. I promote it every time I see a topic about improving Oblivion's look. It doesn't touch every sign in the game, so I'd install Mikal33's mod first, then Khavaz's Unique Signs for the best of both.

Anyway, wanted to add my two cents! Carry on!

[Johnn123]

Ive never seen that mod before Greenie thank you! I'm downloading it now and i'm gonna plug it into mah list

[InsanitySorrow]

Ooooh I sees my stuffs in teh list

Got nothing good too say, so carry on

[Johnn123]

Ooooh I sees my stuffs in teh list

Got nothing good too say, so carry on

Oh you

[donnato]

Any load order tips besides the signs?

[Johnn123]

The order theyre listed in Don Ill add to the OP

[donnato]

Kinda figured that John but I had to ask. Thank you for this.

[Johnn123]

Your welcome Don, hope ya enjoy it!

[StarX]

Great list, John. And you put a lot of effort into it. Some good recommendations in it.

I'm not a big fan of the "Lush and Gaudy" mod, makes it look like a Sonic the Hedgehog landscape. I like my game dark and gritty! But that's a personal preference.

[Johnn123]

Great list, John. And you put a lot of effort into it. Some good recommendations in it.

I'm not a big fan of the "Lush and Gaudy" mod, makes it look like a Sonic the Hedgehog landscape. I like my game dark and gritty! But that's a personal preference.

Well thank you Starx, much appreciated! There is an option in Lush and Gaudy Landscapes for the dark feel you like

[Johnn123]

I hadnt noticed this had been pinned, thanks to whoever did that!

[InsanitySorrow]

I wonder who that was?...

[Johnn123]

I wonder who that was?...

I kinda thought it mighta been you

[InsanitySorrow]

Damn, caught again

[Tigersong]

1) Open your GFX card panel properties

Where would I find that in Windows 7?

[Johnn123]

Should be in your tool tray in the bottom right, it will either be Catalyst Control Center if you have an ATI card or the nVidia version if you have an nVidia card.

[dubious]

Giving your recommendations a try, and I notice the 'Lush and Gaudy' is superceded by the author's newest 'Lush and Gaudy Floriana Gloria'. The description says, in part:

The average resolution of the textures is triple that of Vanilla Oblivion. 2048x2048. The harvestable crops and flora are mostly just double the res of the Vanilla ones. There's also a medium resolution version which is mostly 1024x1024, and is comparable to Vanilla Oblivion in terms of performance. And, just to be really fickle, there's even a Low / Vanilla Res version which is mostly 512x512.

Have you tried it, and if so, do you still recommend the Low/Vanilla Res (512x512) version over either of the others for moderate cards?

[Edit: Any comments on the patches there as well?]

[Edit2: Missing Links:

'Wayshrines Improved' has a version with the texture path fixed to be relative instead of absolute to 'Program Files' tree, but it's got a separate download page (linked).

Slofs' Hive (Her website)

Slofs' Horses

'Oblivion Beasts Improved' seems to have evolved to a resource pack 'Claws for Demons'

Her website seems to have limited bandwidth, so recommend using any of the listed alternates available.]

-Dubious-

Edited April 22, 2012 by dubious

[nilmaboy]

Hi John,

Thank you for this thread. I now have some Idea what my Rig can do.

My Card is An ATI HD 5700. With 4GB RAM. This I assume means I should be running mid range textures.

Only question. Do I still install QTP3R before installing the big texture replacers, or just use those in you list?

With respect.

James. :cookie4u: