Striker879

When you look at the extracted download it should have a folder named Textures with subfolders inside (something like Textures\armor\sinblood\maybeotherstuff). Texture files have a file extension .DDS and the normal maps for those textures will end with _n.DDS. Sometimes mod author mash together meshes from different mods to make their mod. As long as they remember to include all the required texture files everything is fine. Sometimes they don't include all the required texture files and there's problems. The mod works fine on their own machine because all the files are there from when they first worked on it. Some user will also have no problem because they just happen to have those same mods that the author used to mash things together, and so they have the missing files already from the other mods. Users that don't happen to have those same other mods are out of luck until the mod author fixes things. Like I said, both downloads for this mod have "fixed" in their names. If you read through the mod comments starting from the oldest one you'll know why they have "fixed" in their names.

Is your texture size set to large in the game video options? Also be aware that often armor/clothing mods don't come with a menu icon assigned. No way of knowing without extracting the download and looking for a Textures\menus\icons folder ... if it's not there then the mod author didn't assign any icons. Your missing feet with the boots on is a case of missing textures and/or normal maps. Look through the extracted download for files with names like boot.dds and boots_n.dds (though the mod author could name the boots any name and it would work providing the textures are properly assigned). I always read through mod comments looking for whether other people have reported problems (and also note whether the mod author has any skill in helping resolve them). Not all mods are worth the download (judging by the fact that there two downloads, both mentioning fixed things I'd say that there were issues ... most commonly absolute paths to the textures but I haven't waded through the comments to investigate).

When you say clipping are you talking about the armor is visible but parts of it are going through your character's body/parts of your character's body are showing through the armor or are you talking about when you put the armor on part of your body disappears ... two completely different problems.

When you say "2 folders Oblivion (1 new and one old)" do you mean you had Oblivion from Steam installed before and now you have bought Oblivion GotY from Steam and have both installed? If you only have one copy of the game installed you should be able to find one Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data folder. That may be inside a Steam folder or Steam\Steamapps folder or Steam\Common folder ... I don't have Steam so I can't check that to tell you where your game is installed. When you say (Not needed the format.esp) I think you are talking about a replacer mod. Replacer mods don't generally have an esp but you must use archive invalidation for them to work, which brings us back to Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM). You can use OBMM to turn on BSA Redirection (the recommended method of archive invalidation) and at the same time reset your BSA Timestamps. After you install OBMM just click on the Utilities button and select Archive Invalidation from the menu. In the Archive Invalidation dialogue that opens select BSA Redirection and then click Reset BSA Timestamps. Click the Update Now button and then close the Archive Invalidation dialogue and then close OBMM (it doesn't commit it's changes until you close it).

I don't use Steam myself but what I'd suggest is right click on the shortcut you use to start the Steam GotY version and then select Properties from the right click menu. On the Shortcut tab of the properties dialogue look for the path shown in the Target field. It will probably be too long to read all of it at once. Single left click in the target field to take the highlight off and then use the arrow keys to move left and right so you can see the entire path. Once you've written it down click the Cancel button to close the Properties dialogue. I use the disk version of the game and installed onto my computers G drive (I have multiple hard drives). The full path to my game is G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\OblivionLauncher.exe (actually obse_launcher.exe but I use the other shortcut to access the vanilla game Data Files menu). Your Steam GotY will be different than mine but that same method will help you find where it's installed.

It takes time. I was just as overwhelmed as you when I first started, same as most people. There's a lot of information to take in and then try to make sense of how it all fits together. That's why the best advice is play the tutorial dungeon, make a save before exit so you can create different characters in the future without redoing the tutorial, make a save outside the sewers for mod testing and then start adding mods, one at a time preferable starting with simple to install ones. First you learn to roll over, then sit up. Soon you're standing and then next thing you know you're walking. You don't see many newborns running a marathon. I've no idea what Skyrim modding is like ... I'm an anti-Steam type myself (saves me a ton of money on games and new hardware to run them).

You could try compressing the file with something like WinZIP or 7Zip and split the archive (though I must admit I've never attempted something like that myself before). You would still need more storage capacity in the end though as I doubt that compressing would get the archive to less than 4Gb (so even splitting it would require more sticks). Here in Canada I see at my usual computer store I can get a 16Gb USB3.0 stick for $12.99, and it would leave you room for other stuff. If you split the archive you could burn them onto multiple DVD disks.

Did updating the game to version 1.2.0416 resolve the problem?

There won't be ... you need to create that folder yourself and then copy vipcxj_plugin_collection.dll into the newly created folder.

I wouldn't say forced to use Oblivion Mod Manager ... File Date Changer works as well and it's only six BSA files that need their dates fixed (just changing the year to 2006 would suffice). As far as installing mods (if that's what you mean by "how do I use mods") your same old method you used in the past should work (copy and paste manually installing if I understand you original post correctly). The Steam version of Oblivion is buried under a couple of more layers of folders if what I've read is correct (don't use Steam myself), but inside Steam\Steamapps you should still have an Oblivion\Data folder. I manually install mods myself ... it still works.

Sure you can ... I have backups of each of my MOM profiles on a separate hard drive.

The VipCxjs Plugin Collection that RHH requires is an Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) plugin. First you need to install OBSE, then you copy vipcxj_plugin_collection.dll from the extracted VipCxjs Plugin Collection download to the OBSE plugin folder. If it's the first plugin for OBSE you've installed you will need to create that folder ... the full path will be Oblivion\Data\OBSE\Plugins\vipcxj_plugin_collection.dll. - Edit - Your invisible armor problem sounds more like something messed up in the Sinblood installation, probably textures missing or in the wrong folder. Make sure you don't have a textures folder inside your textures folder (i.e. you don't want Oblivion\Data\Textures\Textures\armor\... it should be Oblivion\Data\Textures\armor\...).

Alternate start mods (that allow you to start the game without going through the tutorial dungeon) are completely different than mods that allow you to play custom races. The Unofficial Oblivion patch contains a fix for custom races and the vanilla game start in the jail cell. You can use the search function at the top of the Oblivion Nexus page to find alternate start mods but it seems to give incomplete results (even when using advanced search). One that I've researched but never actually tried is MOE Main Quest Delayer with Kvatch Alive. I'm not so sure it's new modder friendly though (for example you need to install other mods and then deactivate them at the proper time and things like that). Another option is Alternate Start Arrive by Ship (again I've never tried it myself). I can't tell you if either of them will work with a custom race (not something I've ever had any interest in doing).

We're back to the last couple of sentences from a couple of posts back ... there's no substitute for careful methodical modding. Deactivate or uninstall one or more at a time, check you have installed properly, read through mod comments looking for tips ... all of the above. There are no magic wands.

Are you asking about a custom race fix (that allows the main quest to start in the tutorial jail cell)?

I downloaded the Snake armor mod and don't see anything unusual about it. You're sure you have Snake Armor H-Cup BBB.esp ticked in your Data Files and that you're looking in the proper location? From the Market District enter the Arena District and it should be at the bottom of the statue that's to your right hand side halfway to the arena front doors (where you'd go in to place a bet).

The order you install these mods is also important, as often mod B will overwrite files from mod A (which is intended). If you install mod B first and then mod A the files will be overwritten by the wrong version. To start install Oblivion Mod Manager. Even if you only use it to install the body replacer and animation replacer it will get you up and running without learning the intricacies of installing mods manually on your first day here. I suggest the full installer version. Be sure to click on either the words obmm 1_1_12 fuller installer or download manually not the DOWNLOAD WITH MANAGER green button. Download to a folder and then extract the file to that same folder. You'll wind up with a file named obmm_setup.exe, which when you run it will set up OBMM. Next download your body replacer, again to a folder you create (I myself use HGEC Body with BBB v1dot12). If you download the second one down from the top (the one with Main file omod version as a description) the downloaded file will be named HGEC Body with BBB v1dot12-34442.omod. Open your game's Oblivion folder in Windows Explorer and you should see a subfolder named obmm (full path with a default folder structure will be Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\obmm). You may or may not see a subfolder of the obmm folder named mods (there will be one named UI for certain ... could be that the mods folder may not be there until you create it, it was a long time ago that I installed OBMM on my own machine and memory doesn't get better with age). If there's no mods folder create one so that now the folder structure is Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\obmm\mods. Copy the file HGEC Body with BBB v1dot12-34442.omod you downloaded and paste it into the obmm\mods folder (full path will now be Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\obmm\mods\HGEC Body with BBB v1dot12-34442.omod). Next open OBMM and in the OBMM window you'll see HGEC Body with BBB v1dot12-34442 listed in the right hand pane with a green box next to it. Single left click on HGEC Body with BBB v1dot12-34442 to highlight it and then click the Activate button at the bottom of the window. OBMM will start the HGEC Body with BBB v1dot12 omod installation script which will walk you through the various options (select the No Animations option ... not so important this time but important if you ever deactivate and reactivate the omod later after you've installed NoMaaM). Once you're done selecting your body choice click on the Utilities button on the right hand side. Select Archive Invalidation from the menu. In the Archive Invalidation dialogue that opens select BSA Redirection (leaving the other options unselected). If you use the Steam version of the game click on Resett BSA Timestamps down near the bottom of the dialogue window. Click Update Now and then close the Archive Invalidation dialgue. Close OBMM (I don't recommend starting the game via OBMM ... if you do make sure you completely close it and then restart it after you use it to do anything as it doesn't commit it's changes until you close the program). Start your game and go find a female bandit to bonk on the head. When you loot all her armor and clothes she should be the body you chose in OBMM. HGEC Body with BBB v1dot12 includes a BBBed skeleton.nif and right out of the box you should see BBB on naked women but there are more recent versions of that skeleton available. Download either Universal Skeleton Nif or my personal choice BBB Ragdoll Breast Physics Growlfs Skeleton (which is the same as Universal Skeleton but with the added ragdoll effect on dead bodies), again to a folder you create. When you extract the download you'll find two options, either ControlableSkeleton version or TotalControlableSkeleton version. Use the ControlableSkeleton version for now. Inside the ControlableSkeleton folder you'll find one named Data. Right click on it and select copy from the right click menu. Now open you game's Bethesda Softworks folder and right click on the Oblivion folder inside it. Select paste from the right click menu. You'll get a warning about there already being a folder named Data (if you don't you clicked the wrong folder). Select Yes to All and you have manually installed your first replacer mod. If you picked my personal favourite (the ragdoll version) go find another bandit and give her a good bonk. Once she's dead and naked drag her by the arm a bit while she's laying on her back. Tell me you're not glad you took my advice. Now we need to get live naked women bouncing. Download NoMaaM BBB Animation Replacer, again to a folder you create. Again select the second listed file to download (the one called NoMaaM BBB Animation Replacer V3_1 OMOD). Copy the downloaded file NoMaaM BBB Animation Replacer V3_1 OMOD-35551-3-1.omod to your Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\obmm\mods folder. Start up OBMM and activate NoMaaM BBB Animation Replacer V3_1 OMOD-35551-3-1. Again you will have an OMOD script walking you through the various options. When done close OBMM and start the game. Find another bandit and kill her. After you have looted her body open the console with the tilde key (~) found right below the Esc on standard keyboards. With you mouse click on the bandits body. You should see a reference ID (refID) at the top of the screen. Now type "resurect 1" without the quote marks and that's a number one at the end, and then hit enter. Close the console (hit tilde again) and she should stand up. She's not going to be happy with you ... enjoy the show, rinse and repeat as required. Sorry for the long explanation, but it should get you up and running with HGEC and BBB.

After installing the mod (copying the files and folders to your Oblivion\Data folder) did you activate the ESP either using the vanilla game Data Files or a mod manager? When you say "struggling with OM" are you referring to Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM)? If your goal is to make a hot girl character then yes you will ultimately need a body replacer like HGEC (Henetai Gentlemans Eye Candy). The snake armor mod you linked is actually a good spot to get the requirements for HGEC and BBB (Better Bouncing Boobs). In a nutshell you need: 1) Replacement body meshes (femalefoot.nif, femalehand.nif, femalelowerbody.nif and femaleupperbody.nif) all located in the folder Oblivion\Data\meshes\characters\_male. 2) Replacement body textures designed for the body meshes (for HGEC they will be footfemale.dds, footfemale_n.dds, handfemale.dds and handfemale_n.dds) all located in Oblivion\Data\Textures\characters with subfolders for each of the main races (some share textures) ... example for Imperials is Oblivion\Data\Textures\characters\Imperial\female and Dark Elf is Oblivion\Data\Textures\characters\DarkElf\female. 3) Replacement skeleton.nif that supports BBB (example Universal Skeleton Nif) installed in Oblivion\Data\meshes\characters\_male. 4) Replacement animations that are BBB enabled (example NoMaaM BBB Animation Replacer) installed in Oblivion\Data\meshes\characters\_male. 5) BBB enabled version of clothes and armor ... many older armors and clothes aren't BBBed but replacement meshes have since been made to replace the originals so it's a two step install process (first install the original and then install and overwrite with the replacement). There's a lot to learn. No need to rush. Get the body replacer working first (meshes and textures). OBMM is a good beginners choice for that, as all the body replacers are older mods that were last updated long before Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) was invented. Because of all the options for body sizes they are usually packaged with a folder structure that NMM can't understand but they were designed to be installed using OBMM. Some replacers come with just the body (e.g. HGEC Body with BBB v1dot12) and others come with replacement clothes and armor (e.g. EVE HGEC Eyecandy Variants Expansion). Either will require a bit more work to get all the clothes and armor BBBed (the first option requires you to replace all the vanilla clothes and armor with BBBed version ... the second can be upgraded to BBB using BBB for EVE HGEC stock replacer). You have entered the land of almost endless options ... enjoy!

A suggestion for future modding efforts. I use Multiple Oblivion Manager - MOM to manage multiple profiles of the game. Some are for different characters (with different mods) and some are just for testing. When testing I never need to worry about messing up my main character's games. If I want to test a mod on exactly their load list I make a clone of their current game and then test on that. If all is well I can delete the original and carry on from the profile clone ... if not it's a simple matter to switch back to the original and delete the clone.

Ya ... wall of text is a long time specialty of mine. Guilty as charged.

Well I'm out of ideas. I suggest you ask in the mod comments ... perhaps the mod author will have some idea of what the problem is.

OK that screenshot shows a much clearer picture of what you're facing, and no that doesn't appear to be a skeleton.nif issue. Do you have your texture size set to large in the game menu's Video menu?

When you first install Oblivion you won't find most of the folders referred to by mod descriptions. There will be Bethesda Sofworks\Oblivion\Data and that's about it. If you look in the unmodded game Oblivion\Data folder you will see a bunch of files with BSA as a file extension (e.g Oblivion - meshes.bsa and Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa). Most all of the assets the game needs are stored in compressed files (archives) similar to ZIP or 7z archives. When the game needs to display a steel cuirass for example it gets the mesh from inside Oblivion - meshes.bsa and wraps it with textures from Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa and you see the vanilla game steel cuirass on screen. Inside those BSA files the game assets are structured in folders using a particular structure set by the game engine. It will only load meshes from a path that's Oblivion\Data\meshes\... and only load textures from Oblivion\Data\Textures\... for example. You can create a mod that will display a cuirass that has assets stored in non-standard folder structure (though for simplicity that's generally not recommended) but that mod will need an ESP file to instruct the game of what assets to use to display the cuirass, and even if you call it a steel cuirass it won't replace the vanilla steel cuirass. To do that you need to place your replacement meshes and textures in exactly the same folder structure as the vanilla game assets within the BSA files. The mesh for the vanilla game steel cuirass will be in meshes\armor\steel\m\cuirass.nif and the texture in Textures\armor\steel\m\cuirass.dds. The problem with getting the game to display your new cuirass lies with the fact that the game will load the ones from the BSA and ignore your new ones even if they are in the correct folder structure. There have been various ways over the years to get around this situation (collectively called archive invalidation as you're trying to get the game to selectively ignore it's assets in the compressed archive BSA files and load ones that are newer from folders inside the game's Oblivion\Data folder). Confusing as heck ... took me a while and a lot of reading to get my head around it. In a nutshell all you need to know is that BSA Redirection is the method of choice today, and it became the method of choice by virtue of working without any of the downside side-effects of the older methods. With that out of the way I'm going to suggest to you that you play through the tutorial dungeon with a vanilla unmodded game that's patched to version 1.2.0416 and that's all. The reason is that while you're in the dungeon the game engine isn't really being stressed the same as once you exit the sewer and enter Tamriel. If you get a bunch of mods installed and think everything is working fine while you're in the sewers you may be in for a surprise at what happens when you exit the sewers and the game needs to start displaying trees, grass, distant landscapes, NPCs etc. Make a save just before you exit the sewer (when you can see it in the distance but before you get the character finalization menus). Then exit the sewers and make another save, not overwriting the first (never use quicksave, it's a known corrupter of save files). Now start adding mods one at a time, or in the case of mods that have requirements only those required for the next mod. After installing make sure to run around a bit. Pop over to Vilverin and bash some bandits and go to the Imperial City Market District and see what your performance is like with lots of NPCs around. If it's still good load the next mod and go back to the outside the sewers save and repeat the process. When you find a mod that brings your machine to it's knees or has you crashing constantly it will be easy to figure out which is the culprit. You add 50 mods and then exit the sewer and you'll be like the legion of users here, posting "I added a bunch of mods and now my game don't work", and then only advice you'll generally get is uninstall them and start again one at a time or spend the next few days trying to figure which is/are the culprit/s.

Back when my SLI was still alive I generally saw 40s to 50s in most areas dropping to mid 20s at times (generally associated with lots of NPCs and AI packages/scripts firing). I wasn't running maxed settings though. Trees, grass and draw distance were down about 1/4 from max and a few settings were at or near max. My 8800GTSs died one at a time and I was forced back to a single 9800GT I originally got to use as a dedicated PhysX card alongside the SLI (which was never implemented beyond testing as I haven't any games it really helps). With my 3.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo and the 9800GT I've toned back on settings a bit more and usually see high to mid 30s to mid 40s dropping to low 20s or high teens with NPCs etc. Some script heavy mods (e.g. Emma's excellent Maple Cottage) I'll drop to single digits for a few seconds while the assets load from the BSA and scripts fire and then it returns to normal. During normal game play most of my pauses and stutters are associated with hard drive access (OS and games are on two different RAID 0 Raptor setups, but hard disks remain the slowest part of PCs after DVD/BluRay drives). I know most of the areas it's likely to happen ... it's all just part of the experience for me now. I seldom turn FPS on in the console (though I recently started using SMAA Injector so I was running for a bit with FPS displayed). Perhaps I'm lucky that I've never been a real competitive gamer, constantly checking FPS (even in Quake Doom and games of that ilk). I knew before even starting up Oblivion for the first time that it was a hardware beast ... for years after it's release it was one of the toughest hardware benchmarks. It eventually fell out of use as a benchmark simply because the game was so old, not because hardware came along that ate the game for breakfast. Then trends in hardware made a sea change (from GHz is king to multi-cores rule) and things swung around again to the point where Oblivion could easily bring hardware to it's knees, but by then the reviewers and benchmarkers had moved on to other games and benchmarks. As you're finding today, Oblivion especially modded is a hardware hog.

Turn off "tdt" in the console and play. This is not an online FPS where he who has the best frame rate wins.