10 replies to this topic

[ImOnlyHere]

Sorry for not having a really explanatory title, but i couldn't figure anything out.

Okay so i started playing oblivion and i have around 80 hours now, and have a question,  can mods corrupt your save games? and make them take up much space on your /hd/ssd/? Some people said that you should experience vanilla first but after 80 hours I'm used to the ui, but i would love to see more items, with smaller fonts or something so i don't have to scroll as much, i saw this thing called "Darnified UI" Which looked like it, But can it corrupt my save and/or will it ruin my experience with vanilla? I know that its just a UI mod nothing extremely game changing but I'm asking anyways. Any tips on mods that are good but still play vanilla, and will anything corrupt my save leaving 50MB files or doing so that i can't load them ore something?

[Striker879]

Read the mod's description, paying special attention to any install instructions. Do not use Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) to install any Oblivion mods unless the mod's install instructions explicitly say to use or it's OK to use NMM. If a mod causes problems you will usually find out by reading the mod comments (unless it's a brand new mod of course). Often the problems reported are installation problems or similar. If you aren't able to either understand the offered solutions or understand the problem if no solutions are offered give the mod a pass until such time as you are able to figure it out. Don't frustrate yourself over a "problem child" mod.

 

Best advice for avoiding save corruption is NEVER use quicksave (it is a known corrupter of save files). Use the save from the Esc menu or named saves using the console. Don't overwrite saves ... when your save folder starts getting full either delete some of the older saves or move them to another drive (USB stick for instance). Always exit to the desktop and restart Oblivion to load a save (reloading from inside the game leaves previous memory contents to help work toward corrupting your saves). It's a good habit to exit to the desktop every few hours if you are into long gaming sessions ... you are more likely to get CTD or corruption problems when Oblivion is reaching max memory usage (it's not good at purging memory by default).

[ImOnlyHere]

Read the mod's description, paying special attention to any install instructions. Do not use Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) to install any Oblivion mods unless the mod's install instructions explicitly say to use or it's OK to use NMM. If a mod causes problems you will usually find out by reading the mod comments (unless it's a brand new mod of course). Often the problems reported are installation problems or similar. If you aren't able to either understand the offered solutions or understand the problem if no solutions are offered give the mod a pass until such time as you are able to figure it out. Don't frustrate yourself over a "problem child" mod.

 

Best advice for avoiding save corruption is NEVER use quicksave (it is a known corrupter of save files). Use the save from the Esc menu or named saves using the console. Don't overwrite saves ... when your save folder starts getting full either delete some of the older saves or move them to another drive (USB stick for instance). Always exit to the desktop and restart Oblivion to load a save (reloading from inside the game leaves previous memory contents to help work toward corrupting your saves). It's a good habit to exit to the desktop every few hours if you are into long gaming sessions ... you are more likely to get CTD or corruption problems when Oblivion is reaching max memory usage (it's not good at purging memory by default).

Thanks! so you mean every time i die i have to exit to desktop and load again?

EDIT: not "have to", but i mean its safer?

Also i don't have to move them to another drive right? Can't i just move them away from my Saves folder?

Edited by ImOnlyHere, 02 April 2014 - 09:35 AM.

[bben46]

Are mods safe? Safer than riding in a car. Do cars get in accidents? - well... yes. And so do mods. But nobody really gets hurt when a game save gets corrupted - However they sure do scream like they were stabbed.

 

BACK UP your data folder - keep a backup from before you started adding mods, and another from a recent stable point with mods.

READ the documentation - reading other users comments can let you know if someone else thinks a mod caused a problem

SAVE OFTEN & DONT OVERWRITE SAVES - I have never had a problem with corrupted saves not even with auto saves - but I still don't use the quicksave. Oblivion allows lots of saves - I have had over 1500 on my system at once.

Removing a mod can cause problems - if that mod added some game changing feature, and you save in or near that feature, then remove the mod - you may have a problem - or maybe not. So be prepared to put the mod back.

 

Best practice for removing mods. - I do this when removing a mod caused a problem - I reinstall the mod - then make sure it runs

before removing the mod - in game go to a safe interior location that has never been modded - ( the game default is the Tiber Septum lobby)

Make a save there and exit the game - now remove the mod, but keep it on your drive just in case.

Start he game and load your safe save - make another save. Now - wait 3 game days to allow cells to reset.

Test to make sure removing didn't cause a problem go to the location you know the mod changed - and make sure the game works there.

 

Now, you can play - but saves made that had that mod active may still have problems.

[Striker879]

Sure you could load a save from within the game (meaning you don't exit to the desktop and then restart the game and load the save). Most of the time it will not cause any grief.

 

Your original post is concerning save corruption and best practices. If you want to do all that you can to prevent save corruption then always exit to the desktop, restart the game and then load your save. When you do that the game starts out with just the base game plus mods and the changes made by that save loaded in memory. This along with saving, exiting and restarting at least every few hours will be the best you can do on a prevention front against save corruption.

 

I didn't invent this method ... read about it in my own research into save corruption. I do use these tips myself, and since using them I have very little problem with saves. When I do run into anything the method bben46 outlined is all it takes to resolve the issue. I have one character with well over 1800 hours and another close to 1200 hours, and the original one with 1800 hours was started out with bad saving practices (quicksaved almost to death). By following the methods I found in my research that character is still going strong today. My new guy has never suffered the abuse of quicksave.

 

 - Edit - Yes you can just move the saves to a backup folder outside of your game's save folder (by default Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Saves for Win 8, Win 7 or Vista and Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Saves for WinXP). I like to archive on a separate drive myself, and actually have a backup of the backup (tells you something about my personality eh?).

Edited by Striker879, 02 April 2014 - 02:02 PM.

[ImOnlyHere]

Sure you could load a save from within the game (meaning you don't exit to the desktop and then restart the game and load the save). Most of the time it will not cause any grief.

 

Your original post is concerning save corruption and best practices. If you want to do all that you can to prevent save corruption then always exit to the desktop, restart the game and then load your save. When you do that the game starts out with just the base game plus mods and the changes made by that save loaded in memory. This along with saving, exiting and restarting at least every few hours will be the best you can do on a prevention front against save corruption.

 

I didn't invent this method ... read about it in my own research into save corruption. I do use these tips myself, and since using them I have very little problem with saves. When I do run into anything the method bben46 outlined is all it takes to resolve the issue. I have one character with well over 1800 hours and another close to 1200 hours, and the original one with 1800 hours was started out with bad saving practices (quicksaved almost to death). By following the methods I found in my research that character is still going strong today. My new guy has never suffered the abuse of quicksave.

 

 - Edit - Yes you can just move the saves to a backup folder outside of your game's save folder (by default Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Saves for Win 8, Win 7 or Vista and Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Saves for WinXP). I like to archive on a separate drive myself, and actually have a backup of the backup (tells you something about my personality eh?).

I have 3 4TB disks that i keep backing up all my stuff and also 2 cloud services, anyways why don't you keep them on your drive? Thanks for the tips.

[Striker879]

I've found that when I leave too many saves in the game's saves folder it slows down menu openings considerably. I've left the saves location at default (in my case Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion as I'm a WinXP dinosaur) and my C drive is a RAID 0 of two WD Raptors (older ones that are only 74 GB each). I have an internal 1 TB Data drive that is less than 25% filled, and it's backed up on my external eSATA RAID 1 (I like to keep my "cloud" close to home). Whenever I think of it, or when I notice the menus getting sluggish I move all but my last 25 or so saves onto the Data drive and then on the next backup it gets RAIDed.

[ImOnlyHere]

I already got a corrupted save, but it was when i went into a door and i crashed directly, so it was an autosave and i dont rely on autosaves so it deosnt matter that much, one question, Will unofficial oblivion patch do me more good or evil? Because you said mods can corrupt your save.

[Striker879]

The issue with having hundreds of saves in your save folder isn't a corruption issue as much as a menu loading time issue.

 

If you find that you are getting CTDs while autosaving then disable all autosaves. In Oblivion.ini change

bSaveOnTravel=1

bSaveOnWait=1

bSaveOnRest=1

 

to 

bSaveOnTravel=0

bSaveOnWait=0

bSaveOnRest=0

 

The UOP fixes a huge number of things that Bethesda couldn't be bothered to fix, even in the 1.2.0416 patch (floating rocks and trees, broken NPC AI, quests that had problems if not completed in just a certain manner etc). The key to keeping the UOP compatible with other mods is to make sure it's higher in your mod list than any other mod that may want to change any of the same things (lowest on the load order wins). The UOP doesn't increase risk to your saves any more than any other mod.

Edited by Striker879, 20 April 2014 - 10:35 PM.

[4chanraider]

 

The issue with having hundreds of saves in your save folder isn't a corruption issue as much as a menu loading time issue.

 

If you find that you are getting CTDs while autosaving then disable all autosaves. In Oblivion.ini change

bSaveOnTravel=1

bSaveOnWait=1

bSaveOnRest=1

 

to 

bSaveOnTravel=0

bSaveOnWait=0

bSaveOnRest=0

 

The UOP fixes a huge number of things that Bethesda couldn't be bothered to fix, even in the 1.2.0416 patch (floating rocks and trees, broken NPC AI, quests that had problems if not completed in just a certain manner etc). The key to keeping the UOP compatible with other mods is to make sure it's higher in your mod list than any other mod that may want to change any of the same things (lowest on the load order wins). The UOP doesn't increase risk to your saves any more than any other mod.

 

The question wasn't how much it is compared to other mods. Just unofficial patch or not, which will bring me most evil to the saves?