Striker879

Just curious, is your OS install one that's been on for quite a while (in other words has lived through lots of updates, program uninstalls, maybe some registry recoveries ... stuff like that)?

Unfortunately 32 bit operating systems can't use any RAM above 4 GB (without using advanced things like RAM drives that use excess system RAM as though it was a hard drive ... but there are lots of things you need to work around with systems like that). The operating system itself will need some of that 4 GB which generally leaves programs running in 2 GB or less, depending on how many things you have starting automatically at boot up and that you leave running in the background while gaming (virus scanners, browsers, instant messaging etc. all take RAM and system resources). If you have 4 GB RAM I'd suggest just minimizing background tasks as much as easily possible. If you have 2 GB like me and you want max performance create a separate Windows log-in for gaming and use guides like Korosh Ghazi's Tweaking Companion (pick the one for your OS), The Gamer's Graphics & Display Settings Guide (don't miss the links on page 2 specific for your brand of video card) and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Tweak Guide to optimize your system and game install as much as possible. That's not advice to go in and implement every single suggestion. It helps to understand as much as possible about each suggestion before implementing it. I've been building my own machines for years and use the first two guides whenever I set up a new machine, but even I don't follow suggestions I don't understand. I also have a bunch of those 'Everything you wanted to know about Windows' books (you know the ones that have 1200 pages and weigh about 3 pounds). Sure I haven't read every page on all of them, but when I run into something I don't understand I have a library at home to refer to for more info. Get the vanilla game up and running, use the Oblivion Tweak guide to work out how much of the 'pretty' your machine can deliver and still be playable for you. Don't be a slave to frames per second ... this isn't some on-line first person shooter where he who has the best FPS wins. Play the game, fight some bandits, visit some cities and then decide it you went too far with your tweaks and/or modding.

A request for the Advanced Search found on the <GamesNameHere> Nexus sites. Could we have a field to search for the mod by mod name. Often mods do not use their name in the mod description, making it difficult to use search to bring up the mod's page when you know the mod's name. Here's a classic example (but their are many others). On Oblivion Nexus Advanced Search put Oblivion Mod Manager in the Description Contains field. You will get 90 pages of hits. If you sort by Name, Ascending order Oblivion Mod Manager should appear on page 60, right above Oblivion Mod Manager Extended but it's not on the search results list at all. Now if you put Oblivion Mod Manager in the File Name Contains field it does come up on the single page of hits. While that alternative search method works for Oblivion Mod Manager I have found mods where this doesn't work (usually mods with a file name like 'Main File' etc.). Every mod needs to have a name entered when uploaded. Not all mods conform to a system that ties that mod name to description or file name fields. Searching using an Advanced Search field for Mod Name would find all mods that you know by name.

Having the game patched to 1.2.416 and started with OBSE is an excellent start. If you edited your Oblivion desktop shortcut so that it uses obse_loader.exe instead of Oblivion_launcher.exe something to keep in mind is you won't be presented with the vanilla game launcher that gives you 'Data Files' as a method to activate mods any more. All you see is the two small black windows and then the game's main menu screen ... the Steam version of OBSE works the same as before I believe, perhaps a Steam user could comment on that. Installing and activating mods using OBMM will work the same as before (OBMM recognizes that OBSE is installed). A trick I use to activate mods that I have installed manually (the 'copy and paste' method) is to use the Windows Start menu shortcut to bring up the vanilla game launcher menu (I haven't edited that shortcut to point to obse_loader.exe). Just remember, after you activate the mod that way using the launcher 'Data Files' close the selection dialogue and then exit the vanilla launcher. The mod will be activated, but if you try launching the game with the old launcher it will fail after OBSE is installed and you try to load a save that needs OBSE. Start with simple mods and then use Windows Explorer to get familiar with the folder structure the game needs. You'll see that mesh files have the '.nif' extension and are found in subfolders of 'Oblivion\Data\meshes', textures are .dds and go in 'Oblivion\Data\textures' etc. If/when you run into a problem we're here to help. We all were new to this a some point, and I know it can be a lot to swallow at first ... chew slowly, small bites.

What method did you use for the game itself for the move to C:\Games (i.e. uninstall, registry clean, re-install or copy/paste)?

I'm certainly no Win 7 expert ... my experience with it is limited to initial set up of some netbooks and a laptop for the grandkids. A complete OS re-install is a rather extreme step though, and if not properly executed may lead to other problems (having all needed drivers backed up on install compatible media beforehand for example). The steps I've seen you document in this thread should have been sufficient in my opinion. Only thing I'm not sure about would be around issues with UAC's 'virtual store' and things that are specific to later versions of Windows (I'm primarily still just a Win XP dinosaur). I don't disagree about Viverin providing a convenient spot for testing combat ... I just think that combat testing is more 'running' speed testing before you've completed 'walking' speed testing. When certain problems arise can be useful troubleshooting information as well as what the types of problems are (an example would be no CTDs while your character is running around Cyrodiil but problems as soon as you are riding a horse or a wolf or other multi-footed creatures are around ... a classic symptom of sound related issues from on-board sound, fixable with mods that quiet creature's footfall sounds).

My standard response is Noob up and running. The first post is updated with all of the conclusions and recommendations that are outlined through the thread's discussion. It's primarily focused on improving the graphical aspect of the game. Best advice of my own is to get the game installed and patched to version 1.2.0416. If you are using the disk version and own the Shivering Isles DLC as well make sure you install SI before applying any of the official patches. If you have the disk Game of the Year version installing SI will also get your game patched up to 1.2.0416. If you have an older disk version as well as SI then after installing SI be sure to download and install the correct patch (language version and SI version patch). Even if you have no intention of playing through the SI content you will find many mods that require SI to work (not that they take place in SI but use SI assets in their mod). Once you have the non-SI version patched to 1.2.0416 you need to uninstall before adding SI. With just the vanilla game (plus SI if you have it) play through the tutorial dungeon right up to the point where you can see the sewer exit in the distance. Make a save, using either 'manual' save from the Esc menu or a 'named' save using the console command 'save <YourSaveNameHere>' (without the quote marks and without the brackets). Get into the habit of always saving in a new slot or name (i.e. MySave1, MySave2 etc.). Never use quicksave (F5 by default) as it's a known corrupter of save files. After you get your before the sewer exit save (which will come in handy when you want to start a new character but don't want to redo the tutorial) go through the character finalization menu and exit the sewer. Make another save. Fine tune your graphics setting to get the best trade off between looks and performance. Just because your machine is fairly new and can run Skyrim doesn't mean you'll get outstanding performance in Oblivion. It's an old game and doesn't take advantage of many of the features of modern hardware. This save will be the one you can use once you get the game tuned to your liking. Go to the Market District of the Imperial City during the day and check your performance with lots of NPCs around. Make another save. This will be your mod testing save (plus many armor/clothing mods are plunked in the Market District). Now start adding mods one at a time (or in groups of 'required' mods when a mod requires others that aren't yet installed but remember that mod install order is as important as load order ... read the mod install instructions). On the subject of installing mods be sure to have utilities like Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) installed and working before installing mods that require it (and many more recent mods will require it). OBSE will not work with any version of the game except the disk versions or Steam. If you have the GameStop/Impulse or Direct2Drive versions of the game it just won't work ... period. Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) is an older more often supported method of installing mods. Many Oblivion mods will install just fine with Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) but there are also plenty that will not (without a lot of manually restructuring file and folder structure ... at which point you could just manually install with copy and paste). If you are interested in using NMM (perhaps because you are familiar with it) get in the habit of reading mod comments to get a feel for what mods will work with NMM and which will not (this will only work with mods that have been popular more recently, since NMM came out). You can use more than one method for installing mods (i.e. NMM for this mod, OBMM for another and manual install for yet others). Wrye Bash (WB) is required to get some mods working (read the mod description and install instructions) and may be required once you get a lot of mods installed. One of the utilities offered in WB is the 'bashed patch', which takes overlapping/conflicting records from multiple mods, decides which one to use and places all those records in the bashed patch (which is just a 'mod' you update every time your rebuild your bashed patch). WB uses BOSS to sort your load order and get tags it uses for building the bashed patch. WB and BOSS aren't something you need right from day one modding Oblivion, unless one of your early 'must have' mods requires it. Oblivion Graphics Extender (OBGE) is covered in more detail than I could give in the Noob up and running thread. I'm no good at bullet lists ... hope this helps.

The only other input I can think of right now is just around the order you're talking about doing things. I would get the game installed including SI (which should have you patched to version 1.2.0416 after installing SI from the GotY edition). Complete the tutorial dungeon as far as the last section where you can see the sewer exit in the distance (right before the character finalization menu). Make either a named save using the console or a save from the Esc menu. You'll be able to use that save in the future if you ever start a new character and don't want to redo the whole tutorial. Exit the sewer and make another save. That one will be your continue the game after troubleshooting save. Go to the Market District when it's busy during the day and confirm game stability. Make another save (never overwriting the previous saves). This will be your testing save. Add mods, change game settings etc. and confirm proper operation using the outside the sewer save (which has you out in the world ... lots of tress and grass etc.) and the Market District save (lots of NPCs and AI packages running). I'd leave things like Vilverin until after confirming more basic stuff like 'yes it runs'. Troubleshooting isn't about enjoying the game, it's steps needed to get to that point.

Don't have a whole lot of experience with Win 7 or 8 ... Bben46 has far more to offer for advice around that part of it than I. You didn't list your sound card in the OP. Providing you have the correct 64 bit drivers I doubt that your problem is sound card related in light of that. Disabling those settings and then reversing the change is trivial, so you may want to try it just for the sake of crossing one more possibility off the list. Onboard sound solutions like Realtek have been the culprit in those other cases, not discrete sound cards. You could check to ensure you aren't using any effects like concert hall etc. (they can cause problems).

We have seen cases where sound problems have been the root cause of CTDs, which is why I suggested the experiment. If disabling sound does in fact stop the CTDs then your sound card (or more likely your on-board sound and or sound drivers) are at the bottom of this. If it doesn't make any difference one of the possible causes is stricken from the list.

What happens if you turn off sound completely? To do that you'd edit Oblivion.ini (located in 'Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion' NOT Oblivion_default.ini located in your game's 'Oblivion' folder). Find 'bDSoundHWAcceleration' and change it to 'bDSoundHWAcceleration=0' (that's a zero after the equals) and then do the same with 'bMusicEnabled' and 'bSoundEnabled' (so they would then be 'bMusicEnabled=0' and 'bSoundEnabled=0').

Universal Skeleton Nif is the recommended skeleton these days (use the ControlableSkeleton version). That skeleton or another that is BBB enabled is required for Throne Armor but not for the KitRae version of Dynasty armor as far as I can tell. That said, the problem you are reporting with the screen going black doesn't sound like a skeleton problem to me though. Before you added these two mods was the game running properly?

Overhaul mods often add creatures etc. Have a look at Maskars Oblivion Overhaul. It's a new overhaul that allows you to turn off any features you don't like.

I don't use Steam myself but I believe you can re-download the games you own through Steam. You could try re-installing the game. If you decide to try that have a look through Bben46's wiki article Oblivion reinstall procedure for some pointers on doing it right. Don't miss the link near the top of the page about moving your Steam install location, and don't skip the registry cleaning step.

Have a look at Aves House of Earthly Delights, but be warned, it takes a fairly stout machine to run (I doubt you'd have much luck on a laptop for example).

I've never tried http://KitRae weapon Collection and Dynasty Armor Retextured V3 myself but the mod description for it doesn't mention any requirements. I have tried the Throne Armor mod using the Alt esp because I don't have SI installed. Using the regular esp it only requires SI and a BBB enabled skeleton.nif (my guess is the KitRae Dynasty armor isn't BBBed). How did you install these mods ... NMM perhaps? @ earagonself ... You should start your own thread for your problem. Trying to solve two different problems in one thread just gets confusing.

Are you using a shield on back mod? I also see problems reported in the mod comments concerning the 'do not touch' item in the inventory menu ... did you touch it?

Something you may want to check out Zella is Multiple Oblivion Manager - MOM ... makes keeping a separate profile for testing a snap.

LOL ... I may be a grumpy old man at times, but I'd never dream of that. To add weight to Bben46's advice that you won't really be able to rely on a single method for installing mods, my own journey into modding Oblivion was exactly that ... I used OBMM to add the version of HGEC that I use because I couldn't get any of the other versions to install and that version required OBMM. Then I slowly started to learn the basics of installing mods manually. In my case I was aided by my background in computers (I've been doing this since back in the DOS 3.0 days ... needed to create the boot disks for my first computer). Once I understood that the game simply requires certain types of files to be located in certain folders and only allowed a single version of certain resources it clicked in place for me fairly quickly. That said, none of this is rocket science. I'm not a particularly smart person. If you are determined to succeed you will, it just takes as long as it takes. Generally there are two schools of thought with interfaces I think. Some will prefer a clean minimalist look that you need to dig down into layers of menus to find what you're looking for ... others will prefer an interface cluttered with toolbars to almost every function the program can do. In cases where tools that use either school of thought can do the job you are free to pick the one you like using the most. There are some cases when modding Oblivion where you won't have a choice of which tool to use. Some mods require a certain tool and that's all there is to it (won't be long before you hear about Wrye Bash and the bashed patch ... that's a good example of either you use this or don't use the mod that requires it, no middle ground). Think of it as taking your car to the mechanic. If all he has in his tool box is one crescent wrench and a flat screw driver chances are there will be some repairs where you're forced to look elsewhere for help. Don't know about you, but my mechanic has more tools than I know the names of.

Thanks Lisnpuppy ... perhaps time for me to broaden my horizons.

Sorry I was a bit late seeing the question. Hickory would be my 'senior' in quite a few ways if we had seniority here (I think I'd probably only truly have seniority in the age category). If you frequent these forums long enough you'll see that Hickory sees the root of the problem more quickly than most. Though many may think I lurk around here to help others in actual fact I lurk to help myself. I only learn by making mistakes, and on here I don't have to be the one making the 'mistakes' ... you all let me 'borrow' your's. I have come to appreciate Hickory's keen eye on problems that leave me scratching my head (and sometimes I'm guilty of using a thread like your's to give him a nod ... kinda' like this ... the Andy Stewart link made my morning Hickory, thanks). Anyway, back on topic I really meant what I said about this being a team sport. Sometimes feathers may get ruffled, but I saw the same situation back when I worked and different guys had an idea about what the problem was (I worked operations in a petrochemical plant). Given enough time and the proper opportunity to feel their voice was heard most people can get back to focusing on the problem and finding a solution. Lisnpuppy has a lot of other duties as a site moderator but brings a wider perspective (for example the TesModManager that I hadn't even heard of until now ... probably because I'm only active on the Oblivion site). TheNiceNightmare has more recently become active 'working' here, but that doesn't make his/her contributions worth less. Many hands make lighter work, and the more eyes on the problem the better the chances of success ... at least in my book. If you decide to try the TesModManager method it would make a good learning opportunity for me, whether I 'ride-along' with you and Lisnpuppy or dive in myself and get my hands a bit dirty (the second option would come with the caveat that I would be learning at the same time I'm trying to help, so Lisnpuppy would probably still be in the mix).

Last time I checked we don't have 'seniority' here. I like to think we have a team (and I always find I learn more from a newcomer than an 'old-timer' ... but don't fret Hickory because I wouldn't toss you with the trash for a million of anything). I do not in any way want to depreciate Lisnpuppy's advice on using TesModManager ... I am just unfamiliar with it and so can't add any advice on installing or using it. I have some experience with Oblivion Mod Manager which TheNiceNightmare linked above. Here is a copy of some instructions I recently PMed another user that may help if you decide to give OBMM a try (also some step by steps you may not need for finding the downloads, included for completeness):

If you in fact mean Throne Armor do you have Shivering Isles installed? If you don't have SI then did you use the 'Alt esp' version? Not sure which of the many variations of Dynasty armor you may be having trouble with, so a link to that one would help.

NoMaaM doesn't require OBSE ... it's simple replacer. @ Domino44G ... I understand your pain. I remember what it was like when I was first starting. If you haven't given up completely we can help but it will take time. First step is always to get the game running properly without any mods installed. On that subject the first thing to take care of is making sure you haven't installed the game in the default location (don't install in either C:\Program Files (x86) or C:\Program Files unless you are using Windows XP ... C:\Games is the recommended location). I'm not familiar with the installer that Lisnpuppy linked for you but if you are having trouble with it there are other options.

Looking through the most recent half dozen or so pages of the mod comments nets pretty well zero troubleshooting info. The only bright spot I saw was that the mod author Xilver was last active on the sites on Feb 9 of this year. Perhaps you'll get an answer on the mod comments (I wondered whether OBSE was a requirement as well, which is the info I went looking for).