Striker879

You won't get a better mod author for support than Maskar. Ask on the BPN mod comments thread and he'll answer, trust me.

Quicksave ... the worst thing you could do to your favourite character. I know. I was a quicksave junkie (those damned wispstalks ... worst harvest in the whole game ... I'd save before each attempt and quickload if I failed). My game got to the point where I couldn't round a corner or enter a new cell without crashing. So I'd quicksave every time my character blinked. Then I did some research. Found out quicksave was seriously flawed. Started using manual save (my name for the save using the Esc menu). Saved in a new slot each time. Started out needing to save as often as I quicksaved, but I stayed true to my new course. Then one day I realized ... hey I haven't saved in like over an hour, hallelujah! That same character has well over 1300 hours playtime and only recently gave me trouble again (after loading a mod ... but I have since got another line of thought on the problem, not yet explored). My new guy is at 914 hours and never gives me any grief except when I get silly setting up marauder vs conjurer vs bandit wars using the console (and even then I need to get really silly). He's the poster child for console named saves ('save <YourSaveNameHere>' without the quotes or brackets, still never overwriting a save). I still have autosave enabled. On those rare occasions I have a crash before my usual manual or console save cycle (every hour or hour and a half I save in a new slot) I'll sometimes load the autosave. Usually not, depends on my mood at the time and whether I'm wanting to redo that last hour or so. It's a rare thing, and doesn't seem to have any adverse consequences at the frequency it happens for me anyway (most of the time I decide it's time to stop playing for a while and come lurk around here). So maybe I'm different, that one lone person on the planet who this works for ... or maybe I'm just like everyone else, only a little wiser from making a mistake. And the wispstalks? That's what they put 'player.additem 6251f 100' in the game for.

The only thing that pops out at me from your load list is Sigil Stone Fuser. From what I can gather from the mod description I don't see how it could possibly affect sigil stones and the Sigillum Sanguis but I have no idea what it's scripts look like. I tend to work from obvious downward when I'm troubleshooting. Can't see how there'd be a downside to trying disabling that esp (heck you should be able to stockpile a bunch of stones and then install that mod from the way the description reads) but I'd have a backup save from before disabling just in case. That gate just north of the Leyawiin Coast Guard Station is a random gate (meaning it links to one of the seven random Oblivion worlds). I wonder if this is affecting all random worlds or just a particular one. You can figure out which world a gate has linked to by using the direction you are facing when you first appear on the Oblivion side of the gate and then compare to the pictures on that page I linked that correspond to that direction. Example ... if you are facing east when you first step through the gate you will be in either random world 5 or 6 (my personal favourites). Both those worlds actually have two gates, and you'll see that facing east means you are either at world 5's northwest gate or world 6's northeast gate. Scroll down that page and you'll see the right hand pictures showing what you'll see as soon as you step into worlds 5 and 6. Using the picture it will be obvious whether you are in random world 5 or random world 6. On a side note, 6 is probably my absolute favourite just because it has the only available Blood Potion bottle available in the game ... a singularly useless piece of clutter, but all my homes get at least one. While on the subject of random worlds, you know that weird stuff will result from entering a two gate world from one gate and exiting back to Tamreil through the other gate (without grabbing the sigil stone to close the gate of course). If you've ever done that in the past and not gone back to grab the stone and close that random world (in other words left that gate open while you continued playing and going to other random worlds) I'm not sure what the result may be. I've exited to Tamreil through the wrong gate before, realized my mistake and gone back right away with no ill effects, but have never experimented with leaving that random world open with two gates active in Tamreil (note that the Tamreil side of that second gate didn't exist in Tamreil until you stepped through from Oblivion using that 'wrong' gate, but as far as I know it will exist in Tamreil until you close the gate by grabbing the sigil stone ... once closed I believe only the original gate will leave a closed gate scar in Tamreil). Your Storm Atronach problem is easily overcome. Think of it this way ... they're like rocks. Heat plus rocks usually doesn't go well for the rock if you heat it enough. - Edit - Something I've noticed since I downloaded Sigil Stone Fuser to check it out ... the extracted archive I just downloaded has three ESPs, 'Sigil Stone Fuser v2 - Easy.esp', 'Sigil Stone Fuser v2 - Medium.esp' and 'Sigil Stone Fuser v2 - Hard.esp'. Are you using version 1 or something?

Oh come on Bben .. you gotta do better than that ... LOL. You managed to slide that question past me while I was ranting about laptops tskasa1. To be honest I'm a non-Wrye Bash guy still. Either Hickory or Nephenee13 are good resources to tap for advice on WB. I'd suggest starting a new thread with that problem though, as they've probably tired of seeing my stuff on this thread, and may not check back and see that question. - Edit - On a side note, wait until you're the one coming up with the cash for the new gaming rig. Hmm ... Kraft Dinner for the next eight months or the new machine ... ah heck, KD's good for you!!

Oh oh ... we're in trouble now ... I see Bben46 is reading the thread. He'll have some good input to add.

Problem I've always found when looking for laptops (mine is old but last year I got a new one for my granddaughter) is that they are very seldom balanced machines. Either they'll have a fast CPU saddled with lame graphics (i.e. Intel integrated graphics) or they'll have a good graphics solution (discrete graphics card with it's own dedicated VRAM) coupled with a slow CPU. Marketing guys rule the roost in the laptop design world, and they know they can spin doctor anything to make it sound like the greatest thing since sliced bread. Price point is their main design criteria. I finally found a reasonably balanced laptop for her (not extreme gaming but capable enough) but you need to be prepared to pony up about $500 for components that cost the manufacturer about $75. The marketing guys know a proper design when they see one, and see it as an opportunity waiting to be exploited ... /end rant.

Your machine will run better in warm weather (just kidding) ... I have the opposite seasonal problem. In summer I only have my non-gaming laptop. So my summers are an Oblivion free zone and in winter I disappear into Oblivion (well, when I'm not lurking here).

I have no experience with Qarl's but I'd go with ziitch's suggestion ... perhaps try the Redimized version first and if that's too slow go down to the Redimized Reduced version. Finding the limits of what your particular machine can or can't run are questions you'll be able to answer after experimenting better than we could advise other than in general terms. I've seen many cases of someone being advised their machine wouldn't be able to handle something and then they come back and report how it worked fine (in addition to the fact that what is acceptable lag and FPS for me may well be unacceptable to you). Just keep in mind that Oblivion isn't a First Person Shooter and he who has the least lag and best FPS will win isn't true in Tamreil. What you are looking for is acceptable gameplay, which at times may involve lower frames per second.

I recall Hickory reporting that Better Cities is a demanding mod graphics wise (and if anyone is an authority around here, Hickory is near the top of that list).

Take it from one who learned the lesson the hard way, remove your battery while using the laptop plugged in. Sounds like you are in for a long test session determining what mods you can run and which ones bring your machine to it's knees. As a suggestion, I use Multiple Oblivion Manager - MOM to handle multiple characters with different mods in each. You could use MOM to create a testing profile and then use Bben46's Revert to vanilla data on your testing profile. Re-install mods you suspect might cause your slowdown on the testing profile. If individually you don't get a slowdown then you'll know you're looking for a combination of mods that your machine is having trouble with, otherwise you may find the one or two mods that are at fault. Then all you need to do is uninstall those mods in your primary profile.

Do you notice much hard drive activity associated with the slowdowns (usually that is more associated with stuttering, but I had to ask)? - Edit - A bit closer look at your specs and I see you're on a laptop. They tend to be optimized for battery life in their performance settings. If you are using it plugged into power then you should look at setting up a profile to go full bore performance while plugged in. Also note that running a laptop plugged in with the battery installed and leaving it plugged in for long periods will shorten the lifespan of Lithium Ion batteries greatly.

I see I'm falling behind on keeping up with edits ... hehe. The console command 'tlb' and the Oblivion.ini setting 'bFullBrightLighting' both do the same thing ... change a global lighting method to one that is less strenuous for underpowered graphics systems (such as those found in most laptops). A new game will eliminate the A-Bomb possibility. Keep in mind that until you exit the tutorial sewers the game isn't really taxing your system. The Market District during the busier parts of the day is a good spot for testing with plenty of NPCs around ... you'll need to decide on appropriately taxing places for some of the other mods (texture paks etc.).

I'm not familiar enough with newer hardware to say for sure (my most recent CPU is an E8600 @ 3.33 GHz for LGA775 motherboards). It will depend on how the Turbo Boost kicks in (in other words what triggers the increase in speed). If it's CPU load (which I would guess is likely) then your GPU could be sitting waiting on the CPU (I doubt that the GPU could pre-emptively force the CPU to a higher clock state). Did you notice my edit about the A-Bomb idea?

The CPU still plays a part in displaying stuff to the screen, and in your case it's below optimum before overclocking (and remember for the most part outside of some Havok tweaks Oblivion has no idea what to do with multiple cores or CPUs).

It'll only take one (or possible a few in combination). Do you have a 'most recently added' list? That's where I'd start. - Edit - Another thing that comes to mind ... is this a game with lots of hours? Could be the A-Bomb rearing it's ugly head.

A shot in the dark ... have you tried letting the game rebuild your Oblivion.ini?

May I inquire how you added these mods? By that I mean did you add almost all of them in one fell swoop or did you add them one at a time (except where required by mod dependencies) and then test thoroughly between installs. It's a trivial matter to ID problems with the one at a time method.

Well your 'slanted floor on the outside' comment made me think of those peripheral towers ... were you talking about the normal ramps that lead up the tower or the red ramps that lead up to the sigil level platform inside the Sigillum Sanguis? In any case nobody's going to be able to do much until you give us a complete load order of your mods (preferably from Wrye Bash). - Edit - Thery won't get at the cause of your current problem but there are console commands for closing gates ... look at the bottom section of this page.

You do know that not every tower in an Oblivion plane is the one with the Sigillum Sanguis at the top. There are peripheral towers that have a gate control up top, others with just a prisoner in a cage (or cage with no prisoner). The tower with the Sigillum Sanguis will have a small window glowing bright red at the top when viewed from outside ... one of those per Oblivion plane. Once you eneter that main tower you'll see the pillar of fire shooting up the center to the Sigillum Sanguis. The tower with the slanted floor sounds like Quake Ruin in Oblivion Random World 4 or possibly either Meat Harbor or Reapers Sprawl in Oblivion Random World 7.

That question would be best answered on the Oblivion XP mod comment thread (along with your original question). - Edit - Or better yet on Oblivion XP Update mod comment thread (if you followed Nephenee13's advice).

Turtle wins again (the rabbits of the world must just hate that).

That is correct, you need to completely uninstall the game first. Once Oblivion minus Shivering Isles is patched to version 1.2.0416 you cannot install Shivering Isles so the SI patch will not work. If on the other hand you have installed Oblivion and Shivering Isles you need to pay attention to what version the game displays after installing SI (for example the Game of the Year version will be patched to version 1.2.0416 immediately after installing SI). If after installing Oblivion plus SI your game version is less than 1.2.0416 you would install the SI version of the 1.2.0416 patch. - Edit - If you in fact have an uninstall in your future I suggest Bben46's wiki article Oblivion reinstall procedure as a good reference to use.

DrakeTheDragon or Hickory will know more about this than I, but I believe invisible is a sign of missing normal maps or something like that. Have you installed any replacer mods for those items? If so what form of archive invalidation are you using (the recommended is BSA Redirection)?

Just to confirm ... the drivers you have installed are the version 7.12.8.1794 from the Asus site? Looking over the install instructions in the online manual from the Asus site a couple of questions. Did you disable your onboard sound before installing the new sound card? Did you run the install CD first and then install the latest version drivers? Looking over the 7.12.8.1794 driver extracted download I don't see any specific install instructions ... if you ran the CD first did you just run the Setup.exe in the root PCI-DS-110512-7.12.8.1794(W7-FR) folder afterwards (which is what I would have done lacking any instructions otherwise ... older Realteks required you to manually uninstall the old version before installing the new, but you had to dig into the readme to find that out). Have you tried with GX2.5 off as well as 'effect free (HiFi)' mode off (DSP Mode buttons on the lower right corner of the Xonar DS Audio Center main page ... though looking through the FAQs at the bottom of page 45 I see that you may need GX2.5 for EAX to work with Win 7, unless that problem got addressed by Microsoft between Vista and Win 7). I'd also do my troubleshooting with all effects off and VocalFX options all off. As usual I'll edit if I think of anything else.

Where you able to get 64 bit drivers from the Asus site or are you just using whatever Win 7 picked when it discovered your new hardware? - Edit - Something else that comes to mind is letting the game rediscover your hardware. Rename Oblivion.ini to Oblivionini.old and start the game as far as the menu. Exit and start again. You may need to reset your video settings. If it works refer to your Oblivionini.old for any other ini edits you want to transfer over to the new Oblivion.ini ... if it doesn't work delete the new Oblivion.ini and rename Oblivionini.old back.