I was getting screenshots of oblivion at the max my system can support, (Running 3 FPS on highest). And I turn music off to try and save CPU power. And wow, the game feels so much more real without music. Go into a forest, any forest, make sure its daytime, and turn the music off. Its awesome. Make sure you have a decent tree distance, and tree canopy shadows make it a lot better looking too.

It makes the game feel real in its own way, even if you do have a cruddy computer. It even looks good on no distant LOD. (For about an hour, then the constant fog gets annoying)

Yeah, it sure does. But after a few hours of playing it starts to be a little bit too quiet.

So does turning the music off reduce the lag problem some people have? I have this problem with my Imperial who wears heavy armor. I wondered if this would help any on that front.

That depends greatly on the sound card. The newest cards from Creative (and others) take care of all the sound processing themselves, leaving almost no job for the CPU. Much like 3D graphics cards.

Older cards and most onboard sound cards can lag the system quite much if the sounds/music is complex. Gamers with onboard sound cards are generally advised to get a seperate sound card and disable the onboard sound in the BIOS.

Thanks for the prompt answer, Olav. My sound card is quite old. I am planning to get a new video card to run Oblivion better and have already gotten a new processor and memory stick, which enabled me to play at all

Music does cause some lag, like one of the solutions that gets rid of some battle lag is renaming battle music folder, so it never changes. And yes it does make a small difference. Just try without music and see if you get a performance boost

I've tried a game session without music too now, and indeed, the atmosphere got much better! At least when out in the wilderness and in caves (that music gives me the creeps ). You hear all sounds like birds, trees swaying, water running, anilmals etc. much better.

It also gets much more exciting, since you can't hear when enemies have spotted you. I was walking merrily along a path collecting plants when BAM! a bear jumped on me from behind. I almost wet my pants!

I still like to keep music on when in the cities though.

You can make it so only some areas songs plays. You can make it so only battle or city music plays. Go into oblivions directory (Usually C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion) then to data files, then music.

All the folder names are obvious. Just rename the files putting "1" or something after them.

Thanks for the tip!

i have oblivion on xbox 360. can i do any of the special music things on the console?

This is a somewhat regular topic over at Bethsoft
I have tried to turn the music off and yeah, in a way it does get more immersive. But I love Jeremy´s work and I cannot, I cannot play without it! I´m so used to it and it´s not the same if I turn it off.

I do try to lower the music volume though in favor of other sounds, like the sound of trees and waterfalls. But I just keep pushing the physical control up to hear the music better!

Like you, I keep the wonderful music on but at a low volume compared to the other sounds so we don't miss a thing!