User's FAQs

From OBGE - Oblivion Graphics Extender

Is this a RELz? Should I download this?

This is a Beta (and hopefully stable) release. It will always be a work in progress and could contain bugs from time to time. If the thought of this scares you then this probably isn't the mod for you.

All shaders are supplied with no documentation of any sort besides what is on the Bethesda Oblivion forum thread or in the shader file itself. Hence there is an element of DIY involved in using the products of this project, especially when it comes to tweaking the settings of the shaders. Within each shader effects file there may or may not be a section at the beginning of the file detailing any variables that you can change, and what they do. You are advised to check there before posting if you wish to tweak any shaders.

Does this require OBSE? If so, any specific version?

Yes, it does require OBSE, and you must use at least v0019, however you are advised to use the latest version available.

Does OBGEv2 require any specific hardware to run?

The shaders are compatible with both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards, although some shaders (marked with "SM3" above) require a Shader Model 3 compliant graphics card to run. Any NVIDIA graphics card that is GeForce 6 Series (released 2004) or newer supports Shader Model 3.0. Any ATI graphics card that is Radeon X1000 Series (released 2005) or newer supports Shader Model 3.0.

How do I get involved with this project?

There are a few ways that you can get involved:

• If you can write shader code, then you can get stuck in making your own effects right away. The shaders can be written in either HLSL or ASM.
• If you can write in C/C++, then perhaps you would be able to help me in my work on the OBSE plugin. I have a github respository so you can fairly easily create a fork and add your own changes. This site also allows you to create your own wiki pages for the project. As I don't speak wiki anyone who can is more than welcome to contribute to it.
• It would also be beneficial if you know anything about low-level DirectX and the OBSE plugin system.
• If you can't do either of these things, you can still contribute support, articles and papers on graphical effects that could be implemented in Oblivion, and whatever else you can bring to the project. Especially cake or ice cream. :cake: :icecream:

I found a bug...

Good for you. If you find a bug, please report it as detailed in the 'How To Report Bugs Helpfully' section above. We can help you more when you explain the problem better.

I cannot see an effect I have installed, and my OBGEv2 log has the line "Failed to load" after the line "Loading shader ()". How do I fix this?

This results from OBGEv2's inability to compile the shader effects you are trying to load. Make sure that you have the DirectX update linked to above installed, and if using a shaderlist, that you have spelled the names of the shaders in your shaderlist.txt exactly as they should be, with the .fx extension. In the case of some effects, you must also have a graphics card that is Shader Model 3 compliant.

ScreenEffects/Realistic Health/OVEP Motion Blur/OVEP Forward Motion Blur or setting bUseLegacyCompiler to 1 causes OBGEv2 to crash. How do I fix this?

If your shader uses the half variable type then OBGEv2 will try to use the legacy compiler. If you are missing the d3dx9_31.dll file then OBGEv2 will crash. You will need to copy over the d3dx9_31.dll from the Extras folder into your Oblivion game folder to fix the problem.

The ordering of the objects on the screen is messed up or the game menu has no buttons! Why is this happening? ;Once I got the effects to work, my AA disappeared? WHY?!?

The method used to expose the information used to read the depth buffer is incompatible with Anti-Aliasing. This is reported to be the case on both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards, although owners of ATI graphics cards can force AA through ATI Tray Tools without problems. The only solution is to edit the OBGE.ini file in your My Documents\My Games\Oblivion folder and change this line:

[DepthBuffer]
bUseDepthBuffer=1

to:

[DepthBuffer]
bUseDepthBuffer=0

This will however cause any effect that uses the depth buffer to stop working properly. This currently includes all the SSAO and Depth of Field shaders and the Godrays, NormalFilterAA and CelShader+EdgeAA shaders.

A shader is listed saying it has multiple effects. What does that mean?

If a shader has multiple effects, it means that it rolls many effects into one file, and gives you the ability to choose which of these effects, or combinations of these effects, are applied to your game. This has the advantage that you can cut down on the number of shader files you have to keep track of. You will generally be able to make these selections by changing variables in the shader.

How do I change/tweak shader settings/variables?

Open up the shader .fx file in a text editor such as Notepad. The variables are found at the beginning of the file, and may be labelled as tweakable and/or commented with information regarding them.

Alternatively, you can alter most shaders' variables in-game using the Support Plugin, though these changes are not recorded in the shader file.

My Godrays is just a searchlight in clear weather.

Godrays are best displayed in cloudy weather types, from 6 to 8 in the mornings and evenings. However, if you get the searchlight effect, you have to edit the shader's FOV setting to match your ingame FOV. An example would be if you play Oblivion with a FOV of 95, you have to edit your Godrays shader file to a FOV of 95. To edit the shader, change the value of "#define fov", near the beginning of the file, to the value of your FOV.

Why do objects in the distant have weird black stuff on them when fog weather is active? ;Using the SSAO shader does weird things to stuff underwater. What gives?

That is from the SSAO shader, and occurs because OBGEv2 does not give any information on fog, so the effects are applied as though there is none. Hopefully this will be fixed in a future update.

SSAO demolishes my FPS; any ideas?

The easiest way to improve your frame rate while using the SSAO shader is to reduce the sample size, and correspondingly increase the sample area. There is a performance version of the shader, that lowers quality slightly in return for a large performance boost, and an alternate version that produces a weaker effect at a fraction of the performance cost. The reason the SSAO shader has such a large performance hit is because it has to calculate information about surface normals from scratch, as this information is not available to access.

How do I get the EdgeAA effect?

The EdgeAA effect is part of the CelShader+EdgeAA shader, to enable the effect change the following variables as shown:

flgEdgeMask = 0;
flgEdgeAA = 1;

Where is the src folder with the source code?

The source is not included in the package. Instead, it is available on the GitHub repository. That means you will always have access to the latest version of the code and people can contribute their own code to the project.