Currently I am using Forceware 84.25. The values for the bUse or bAllow commands are 0 or 1 as far can tell (on or off duh). I have not explored the iNumHavokThreads=2 past those values yet. If you find a sweet spot please share. bAllow30Shaders seems to imply the use of version 3.0 shaders, so if video cards support them, it may be of benefit.

*NOTE* I did however bump up the [OpenMP] variables with a noticeable result, see *EDIT* in comment above.

For reference:
Distance rendering is on as is HDR , and I have VSYNC turned on. I also turned off character shadows as it seems to have a bug.
Indoor and Outdoor shadowing are not maxed but around the middle.
I average around 30-40 fps outdoors which can dip way below 20 when in intense combat.
I average around 40-60 fps indoors which can dip way below 20 when in intense combat.

Use the command tdt in the console to see your FPS.

This game appears to be very CPU limited. When I turn off VSYNC I easily get triple digit fps but not consistently.

I've done alot to my settings already.

Update the drivers?

It's standard 16:10, you just need to tell windows to add it. To make your own just take 1680 - 1440 which is 240. 1050 - 900 = 150. With this in mind you can find any 16:10 resolution just by either adding or subtracting from your 1680 x 1050 resolution. So far 1440 x 900 or 1200 x 750 seem to handle it well.

So, even though the monitor doesn't claim to support 1440x900, you can theoretically add the resolution through the NVIDIA driver, and then it would be available? Interesting.

I hooked my PC up to a 32" LCD HDTV and wow, just WOW. Visually, this game is so awesome. I don't fully understand all that 480i/p 720whatcham'callit, and I had to do some messing around, but I finally found a resolution that didn't cut off any of the screen. I set it to 1776x1000. Remarkably, it seems to be running just fine at that resolution and 4xAA.

How do you display the FPS, or can you?

I do hav a question, even though it's not exactly PC performance. Right now I have it hooked up to my HDTV via composite cables (blue, red, green). My TV also has DVI and VGA inputs. Which is ideal and is there enough of a difference to warrent me going out and buying a new cable (DVI or VGA to VGA cable.) I have a X800XT All-In-Wonder video card, btw.

Damn this game is so much fun.

Oh, thanks for that ini trick to zoom out of NPC conversations. I agree, it was too close and too wierd looking.

If you haven't checked it out already, check out this Unofficial Tech FAQ. It's got some good info and fixes in it.

I did however try iPreloadSizeLimit=2000000000 previously and found no "noticeable" benefit.

Did you notice a difference with bUseHardDriveCache=1? How much memory do you have Edwin?

I posted this in another thread, but since we're trying to consolidate:

To be honest, it didn't do much for me but it did seem to help other folks out. Tried this on your beast, Nim?

Is anyone else getting a massive performance hit wandering around the Waterfront in the Imperial City? I'm dropping to ~1FPS.

Update: Some fresh Arctic Silver 5 on the GPU cleared all the artifacts right up.

Here are some comments straight from an Oblivion developer. They go against some of the settings up above, so if they're working for you then ignore this:

-edit 2-
I will add that I'm not sure if PC users will see much benefit to "bUseHardDriveCache=1" as that sounds like an Xbox360 setting. On the PC you'd be better off letting it use your RAM for caching than your harddrive.

-edit 3-
Edwin, I used all of your INI settings (except the auto-leveling, grabbing sleeping npcs, etc) that effected graphics and it killed my PC. The game was running at around .5 fps (and that's not an exaggeration.. the water would animate once every couple seconds). I don't know what you're running but its way way faster than mine. I'm going through the settings to see which one it is.

Okay, found the one my system didn't like:

iShadowMapResolution=2048

Not sure why, but that setting brought my system to it's knees.

Also:

[Grass]
fGrassEndDistance=3000.0000
fGrassStartFadeDistance=2000.0000

These settings drastically lower the grass draw distance putting a very small bubble around your character where grass in drawn. I noticed a tiny increase in FPS, but I couldn't stand the constant fill in of grass around me. I ended up bumping mine up to 10000.0000 and 9000.0000 respectively to increase the distance at which grass is drawn. I hardly see any grass fill in now. I may have taken a 1-2 FPS hit, but I'll deal with it for now unless I hit a particularly grassy area that hits my system hard.

This game is making it very hard not to want to spring for one them shiney X1900XT cards.

Sorry about that. I concur with your statement about bUseHardDriveCache=1. I enabled it and perceived a slight slowdown due to HD access.
Uuummmm, this is a tasty burger Mind if I have some of your tasty beverage to wash this down with?

Keep the tweaks coming kids.

I just wanted to say thanks for all the tips. I've been too rapt to ever shut the game down long enough to look up this stuff. I really like the pullback for the speech, that helps a lot.

Is anyone else having a framerate issue whenever a non-humanoid creature moves? I think it's an animation or havok issue. The stutter seems to be in sync with the creature's walking animation, which could also be an indicator of that creature interacting with the ground in some way. I see some stuff in the ini related to Havok but am too skiddish to just start meddling. I took a glance at the Elder Scrolls forums but it's so chaotic over there that I don't how anyone could gleen information for all the "please help me" threads.

Thanks so much guys. Anyone has problem getting any kind of voice to come up using X-Fi at full acceleration?