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Post by dogonporch on Jun 23, 2019 15:39:44 GMT
We've been discussing the GameUX.dll Rundll32.exe problem at LoversLab, as well.
The most elegant solution so far has been to simply suspend Rundll32.exe using the Resource Monitor and Admin privilege.
It won't phone home...and it won't hog the CPU...just leave it as a ghost in the Task Manager...your games will load fine...good until next boot.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 23, 2019 17:16:38 GMT
I got a bit more radical and deleted the GameUX references out of the registry. So far all seems to be well and it's nice to no longer have my CPUs being thrashed to death.
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Post by jgf on Jun 23, 2019 22:58:12 GMT
Removing gameux from the registry or renaming its files in the system folder both work. The only issue is if you play any of the default windows games (hearts, minesweeper, etc.) they may not start now; track down the exe and make new shortcuts usually works.
The bat file linked in the thread I mentioned works very well if you hate dealing with ownership and permissions in the system folder ("you do not have permission to change permission"); it will detect 32bit or 64bit system and make the appropriate edits, run it a second time and it will undo the changes. I've used it on Vista and Win7, and heard it works on W10 also; some of my games load in a fourth the time after eliminating this Micro$oft idiocy. (As ridiculous as MS Flightsim does not work well if installed in any Program Files folder because MS Windows interferes with MS Flightsim's normal file operations. And people wonder why I have no faith in autonomous cars.)
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 24, 2019 9:33:31 GMT
Fortunately I've never played any of the default Windows games and I'm not likely to. After removing the GameUX references in the registry my Steam install of Oblivion is running better than ever and now I'm wondering if I actually need to install my new discs that arrived today. I've finally been able to get the graphics settings right so Oblivion looks a lot better with my GTX 960 video card and after a lot of messing around with body and head meshes as well as doing some texture refining I now have Eiolynn looking the way I want her to. I also discovered FRAPS today so I can take screenshots with antialiasing enabled instead of using that messy HDR (whatever HDR is). In everyone of my games Eiolynn has always purchased a house (canal side shack) in Bravil. She actually likes Bravil and spends a lot of game time there. Long ago (or so the legends say) her people lived in this region which might have something to do with her affinity for the city. Shortly before I had to stop playing Oblivion because life happened I'd been working on a necropolis mod. I was finally able to get it so the game would load it as there were no end of missing meshes and all the sound files I'd made had been lost as well. Y'va is not your average dungeon crawl since it really is a necropolis with stone coffins and huge stone crematory urns everywhere. It's also dangerous since the air is largely unbreathable and there are some nasty traps. There are the usual ghosts, and skeletons to be found and the place is full of rats as well. Lots of treasure, but mixed in with it are some powerful magic artifacts that will kill anyone who isn't already of the Undead if they're foolish enough to use them too long. Keys have to be found to open many of the locks and none of them are in easy to get at places. I deliberately didn't use any lighting that made the stonework look pristine white and the whole place has a dirty look to it as if it might be a great place to catch a nasty disease. Lots of work is needed to get Y'va back the way it was, but at least it no longer causes an instant crash should I try to enter it.
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Post by Sniffles on Jun 24, 2019 13:14:44 GMT
We all have our days, especially as the years creep up on us; with enough years you can always blame anything on a "senior moment". George Carlin's take on that: "I look forwards to sitting down at the dinner table and suddenly yelling, "Who are you people? And where's my horse?""
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Post by blockhead on Jun 24, 2019 13:32:54 GMT
I also discovered FRAPS today so I can take screenshots with antialiasing enabled instead of using that messy HDR (whatever HDR is). In theory, HDR is supposed to mean "high dynamic range" so that light areas and dark areas and handled better, somewhat mimicking how the human eye auto-adjusts to light levels far better than a camera. In Oblivion, however, HDR ended up as just a blurring effect, woop de doo, so I always turned it off.
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Post by ghastley on Jun 24, 2019 14:37:06 GMT
When I was your age, I was already ten years older! One issue I recall from the gates was when I wanted to adjust the gate at Bravil, to fit in some aspects of this mod where you recruit a Dremora woman. Part of it was that I needed some part - and I can't remember if it was the tunnels or the tower - to be non-random, so I could substitute a modified instance of my own. I ended up creating a duplicate instance of the entire Oblivion world, as the only place I could get the random selection to go away was the Oblivion Gate itself, and then only because that Gate is already non-random and always leads to the same world (which is mine if you install the mod).
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Post by ghastley on Jun 24, 2019 14:38:36 GMT
I've always thought that HDR stood for High-Density Randomization, as it just cause blur when I turn it on.
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Post by jgf on Jun 24, 2019 16:05:51 GMT
...In theory, HDR is supposed to mean "high dynamic range" so that light areas and dark areas and handled better, somewhat mimicking how the human eye auto-adjusts to light levels far better than a camera. In Oblivion, however, HDR ended up as just a blurring effect, woop de doo, so I always turned it off. Like most post processing filters in games the past few years, the effects are usually overdone with no way to "tone them down" and there is almost always a noticeable hit on frame rates; and the effects are quite often very system dependent so there is no "one size fits all" configuration. I recall trying such a filter for a racing sim, two dlls and a config file with a couple of dozen adjustable parameters; spend an entire afternoon tweaking the settings and you could make the sim look very nice indeed ...with a specific carset on a specific track, but use a different carset or a different track, or both, and the effect could be beautiful or horrible (and i wondered what my carefully crafted settings would look like with a different vid card). Throw in a 20% fps loss and it was just too much trouble.
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Post by jgf on Jun 24, 2019 16:25:01 GMT
... After removing the GameUX references in the registry my Steam install of Oblivion is running better than ever and now I'm wondering if I actually need to install my new discs that arrived today. That was my experience; some games that were taking several minutes just to get to the menu I was now playing in 60 seconds. (Personally I would still go with the disc version just to eliminate the Steam snoopware and "phone home" requirements.) In everyone of my games Eiolynn has always purchased a house (canal side shack) in Bravil. She actually likes Bravil and spends a lot of game time there. Long ago (or so the legends say) her people lived in this region which might have something to do with her affinity for the city.... Have you ever tried the "Dirtier Bravil" mod? It makes the town truly decrepit and nasty - mice and small crabs scurrying around, litter in the streets, the water is positively repulsive, a general air of neglect and decay. A humorous side effect - kill one of the mice and the rest of course become aggressive, the townspeople immediately go on a binge of extermination until the last mouse is dead, then they return to their schedules.
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Post by dogonporch on Jun 24, 2019 16:35:28 GMT
Dirtier Bravil while nice is a pathing nightmare.
Halfway through fixing it I decided to heck with it and built my own version.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 24, 2019 22:07:00 GMT
I've used the Falling Rubbish mod by Marco Arecibo in my previous games which helps the scruffy atmosphere along quite a bit. I did try out the Bravil Expanded mod which I don't think is available anymore, but the computer I had at the time got a bit faint trying to run it. I'm not keen on Bravil mods that try to make it nicer because they entirely miss the point of what Bravil is about. The same goes for mods that try to make the inside of the Bravil house nicer. Eiolynn has a tendency to like dirt and misery and she has no interest at all in attempting to make her surroundings look more pleasant. I have used the Bravil House Basement mod since Eiolynn can be a real packrat with bringing back home things that take her fancy, but again the mod maker tried to make the interior nicer. Perhaps I should 'de-nice' the mod a bit and make it more suitable for her. I've not tried 'Dirtier Bravil' and I note there's a lite version of the mod as well. I feel a bit hesitant to try it if it has pathing problems though.
One house mod I like, - if it can be called that, - is the Simple Portable Tent mod by khettienna and I regard it as essential equipment for any character that likes to go a-wandering all over the map.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 24, 2019 22:21:46 GMT
...In theory, HDR is supposed to mean "high dynamic range" so that light areas and dark areas and handled better, somewhat mimicking how the human eye auto-adjusts to light levels far better than a camera. In Oblivion, however, HDR ended up as just a blurring effect, woop de doo, so I always turned it off. Like most post processing filters in games the past few years, the effects are usually overdone with no way to "tone them down" and there is almost always a noticeable hit on frame rates; and the effects are quite often very system dependent so there is no "one size fits all" configuration. I recall trying such a filter for a racing sim, two dlls and a config file with a couple of dozen adjustable parameters; spend an entire afternoon tweaking the settings and you could make the sim look very nice indeed ...with a specific carset on a specific track, but use a different carset or a different track, or both, and the effect could be beautiful or horrible (and i wondered what my carefully crafted settings would look like with a different vid card). Throw in a 20% fps loss and it was just too much trouble. I was trying to adjust Eiolynn's textures and normal maps and HDR made it absolutely impossible to see if anything I'd done was an improvement. The game world just plain looked blurry and indistinct as well and whatever HDR was intended to do it wasn't working with my GTX 960 video card. Using the antialiasing options changed all that and suddenly the game world was transformed. For a ten year old game Oblivion still looks good and I think it can still manage to hold its own despite its age.
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Post by jgf on Jun 25, 2019 6:05:34 GMT
Dirtier Bravil while nice is a pathing nightmare. Halfway through fixing it I decided to heck with it and built my own version. I never experienced any such problems, and Vilja and I wandered all over the place. It is a resource hog though, due to all the extra items and animations; I would get about half the fps there as anywhere else in the game.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jun 25, 2019 6:41:21 GMT
Thanks for that. I'll give the mod a try then. The computer I've got now should cope Ok I think.
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