Striker879

I suspect that merchants will only offer the barter menu when they are in a cell (or at a spot) that they 'own'. For example, if Melliwin (added by the Thieves Dens add-on) is standing anywhere except her 'designated' spot right beside her table she won't sell anything (no barter menu). I suppose you've already seen the CS Wiki My First Shop.

Hmm ... the one and only time I installed the GotY version it did. Try putting in disk two ... if it doesn't autorun then you'll need to browse for setup.exe using Windows Explorer. - Edit - Even more curiouser ... I just had a look at my backup (never been installed) copy of the GotY ... it's a three disk set, but I'm certain that the GotY that I gave to my daughter (and installed for her) was a two disk set. Disks two and three only have .cab files, so they would need to be installed via the setup.exe on disk one (i.e. insert disk when prompted). Now I'm not sure what to advise.

The absolute last thing I wanted to do was insult ... I'm horrified that I wasn't more clear in what I suggested. As Lanceor pointed out, what I meant was it would be helpful to others to have a nice step by step tutorial on how to do this, and I thought having the tutorial available as an Oblivion book would be kind of different (although I suppose a regular type resource would be more practical for everyday use).

There have been other issues reported with the Realtek chipset (but not the same as yours). The latest driver versions from Realtek aren't difficult to install, as they now will uninstall the old driver and then install the new one (older drivers required you to uninstall manually first). Here's the link to their download page if you decide to give updating the drivers a try: Realtek HD Audio Drivers Frames per second (fps) can be affected by many things, not just NPC dialogue. The fact that your original post was for no main menu music, along with this problem of fps drop with NPC dialogue points to a sound related issue. If you've successfully uninstalled all traces of K-Lite and any other codec paks, the only other thing I can think of is update your sound driver (and make sure you try turning off hardware acceleration in Oblivion.ini to see if it makes a difference). On the fps issue you could also test with all sounds disabled to see if you then don't lose fps when NPCs are talking.

Here's a quote from the UESP Wiki walkthrough for Molag Bal (emphasis added): Seems like another one of those 'many opportunities to screw up' situations. Make sure you don't walk and chew gum while doing this quest.

What is the sound card or on-board sound chip that you're using?

Sounds like one of those new books should be a 'tutorial'.

First I'm by no means an expert. I've done quite a bit of reading, in generally reputable sources, and have assembled something that has worked for me. Would things like Streamline make my game even more stable? Maybe, but to date I haven't run into anything that urged me in that direction. I recall a comment I read early on in Wyre's Musings ... he was commenting on how many things the game was doing when saving (obviously there must have been a little code disassembly going on there ... for research purposes of course). My theory/reasoning behind the quit to desktop thing is as follows (and here again, this is not an invention of mine but something I've picked up in my reading). If the game is accumulating unneeded gamestate garbage along with significant gamestate conditions in memory while you're playing, and if it flushes that insignificant stuff when you save and then exit, you are getting a 'clean slate' to accumulate the next bunch of gamestate changes on. Is that all smoke and hockum? Could very well be so. Does saving and quitting to the desktop every few hours create any additional problems ... I don't think so. Like I said, I've assembled a method that works for me ... your mileage may differ.

Are you using HDR lighting?

If you're just getting started with the game on Windows 7 we should maybe go right back to the start, to make sure you're getting off on the right foot. Oblivion was developed long before anyone at Microsoft dreamed of that wonderful security feature called User Account Control (UAC). Oblivion + UAC = Trouble (note the capital 'T'). If you install the game in the default location on Win 7 or Vista you're bound for conflicts with UAC (it protects C:\Program Files with an iron fist). The bright side is UAC doesn't give a rat's a$$ about any folder you create. If the game is installed in C:\Games\Oblivion it will completely ignore it, and therein lies the solution to the 'UAC problem'. If in fact you are currently installed in C:\Program Files (x86) follow the steps outlined in Bben46's wiki article Oblivion reinstall procedure. If you use the Steam version of the game don't miss the link near the top about moving your Steam install location, and don't skip the registry cleaning step ... it's important. Give that a try and see if it makes a difference.

With the K-Lite uninstalled try letting the game recreate your Oblivion.ini file (rediscover your hardware). Before you do that go into your sound control panel and turn off any effects you may have active (concert hall for example). After turning off any effects check in game for improvement (on the off chance that is the problem). To get the game to recreate your ini you'll need to rename your current Oblivion.ini to Oblivionini.old. The file you're looking for is located in the folder Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion for Vista and Win 7 or the folder Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion for Win XP, NOT the file Oblivion_default.ini that is found in the Oblivion folder of your game install. After renaming the file start the game as far as the menu and then exit. Restart the game and you'll probably need to reset your video settings (the game doesn't do a good job of discovering video hardware that hadn't even been dreamed of back when the game was developed). - Edit - While on the subject of the Oblivion.ini file, here's an excerpt from Koroush Ghazi's Oblivion Tweak Guide covering the tweaks for sound:

The game doesn't get along well with codec paks. Have you tried uninstalling K-Lite?

The only thing that comes to mind for me is whether or not your OBSE save is there for the matching Oblivion save that you are trying. Once you install OBSE it will create a save each time you save Oblivion. If you look in your saves folder (found in Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Saves for Vista and Win 7 or in Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Saves for WinXP) you should see paired saves for all the saves you've made since you installed OBSE. The save generated by the game will have an .ess extension and the OBSE save will have an .obse extension, the base name of the file will be the same. Other than that you'll need to figure out what changes were made to your machine during that 'quite some time' ... e.g Windows updates, DirectX updates, video or sound card updates, codec paks installed ...

When the GotY asks for the second disk it will install Shivering Isles and patch the game up to 1.2.0416. You can confirm the version number in the lower left of the menu screen. If you don't wish to play through the SI expansion you don't need to ... it will add one entry in your quest log about "A strange door ..." and that's all. Having SI installed will also give you the benefit of compatibility with any mods that require SI assets ... if you have it install it.

You definitely need to get Oblivion out from under UAC's clutches if you plan on modding the game. Here's a link to Bben46's wiki article Oblivion reinstall procedure. If you use the Steam version of the game 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 ... it's important. I have an old disk version of the game. The little booklet style manual that came with it doesn't go into much detail, but it did cover the basic stuff (I'm weird ... I read things like manuals and readmes). Here's a couple of specific UESP Wiki links that cover some basic stuff: Controls (take note of the part at the end of this about using game controllers) and First Time Players.

The unmodded game will be less crash prone than a heavily modded game, but yes, the PC version of Oblivion will crash from time to time. There are utilities you can use to mitigate the problem, but your own habits can also help alleviate the problem. First don't use quicksave. It is prone to leading to save game corruption and crashing. Don't overwrite saves ... always use a new slot in the saves menu. When your saves folder (found in Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Saves for Vista and Win 7 or Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Saves for Win XP) starts to get full either delete some older ones or archive them to a different folder (you'll know because the saves menu starts taking longer to open). Oblivion is an old game, and so it doesn't take advantage of new hardware. A fast single or dual core will run the game better than a slower quad core. The quad core will help with some of those background tasks that are often running on modern machines (maybe, because the game really doesn't do well with other tasks running in the background). It's also not set up to natively run a game pad. If you search here on these forums you'll find threads discussing that issue. A good source for gameplay information is the UESP Wiki. I find the wiki quests page an invaluable resource ... the unmodded game comes with plenty of 'issues' with the quests. The Oblivion Character Planner along with the UESP Leveling page will help get you up to speed on leveling in the vanilla game, and there are plenty of mods that have their own spin on 'fixing' that.

I don't have any experience with Streamline, so I don't know how effective it is at 'correcting' some of the vanilla game's saves shortcomings, but early on I was in the 'crash-a-lot' category. I stopped using quicksave, never overwrite a save and only use an autosave when I'd lose more progress than I care to lose. My original character has over 1300 hours, has been there, done that on all questlines except the Dark Brotherhood and the final quests for the arena (Grand Champion and Origin of the Gray Prince). Granted I don't run a bunch of mods, and the ones I do use are mostly houses, companions and armor (in other words no FCOM or the like). My point is, the game will work for long running characters but you need to pamper it a bit to get there. In addition to no quicksave or overwrites, I also never load a save without exiting the game to the desktop first, try to remember to save a least once an hour and after about three hours of play I save and exit to the desktop. Yes I still get the occasional CTD, but it's not frequent, and typically it occurs under certain circumstances (for instance when I cast the BBB Designer Body Spell on an NPC who has cast bound weapon on themselves ... the body spell ends their bound spell and CTD).

You can take screenshots with AA turned on with Fraps.

Is the game installed to the default location, C:\Program Files (x86)?

I think you might be best served by the BBB DeadlyReflex6UnnecessaryViolenceII CompatibilitySkeleton, but I would advise having a good long read through the more recent pages of the Unnecessary Violence II - Taking Action thread so you have a good understanding of the issues.

This is a total out of left field thing, but do you defrag your hard drive?

The disk uninstall is actually the best method, but there is a high likelyhood that your previous installs/uninstalls have left registry entries that are screwing up both the game and the uninstall utility (accessed from Control panel or your Start button). After the uninstall run CCleaner and remove all traces of your previous installs. Then get the game installed in C:\Games\Oblivion (or if you have another hard drive, separate from your boot drive that is also a good location ... e.g D:\Games\Oblivion), get it patched up to the current version (1.2.0416, found in the lower left of the menu screen) and then play through the tutorial dungeon right up to the point where you can see the sewer exit in the distance. Make a save right there, before you get the menus for making any final changes to your character. That save will make it so you don't need to redo the whole tutorial the next time you start a new character. Then exit the sewer and go to the Imperial City (the market District is a good place) to make sure your game is stable and running smoothly (or as smoothly as Oblivion runs anyway). Then start adding mods, one at a time and test in between. Before you add a mod read all the mod requirements and description from the download page. If you have any questions don't be afraid to ask ... we were all new to this once.

First let's cover off some of the basics. Did you install the game in the default location (C:\Program Files) and are you running either Windows 7 or Vista? If so then UAC could be interfering. It will leave an unmodded game install alone but then 'step in' to 'protect' your game from what it considers unauthorized changes. If that's the case then you'll want to re-install the game outside of Program Files. Bben46 has posted a wiki article, Oblivion reinstall procedure that will help get that job done properly. If you use the Steam version of the game 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 ... it's important. If that's not the issue (i.e. your game is already installed in for example C:\Games\Oblivion) then you may be having problems from not completely uninstalling the mod causing your problem. Even if the mod is disabled in 'Data Files' it's resources left in your Oblivion\Data folder can cause problems. Completely uninstall all of the mods, get the game running properly without any mods, and then install one mod at a time and test thoroughly between mods. Makes troubleshooting problems a rather trivial matter.

Laptops are often held back by their slower speed hard drives.

When you start the game it will show your current version number in the lower left of the screen. If it doesn't say 1.2.0416 then you don't have the most recent version. All mods these days need the 1.2.0416 version. If you have an older disk version of the game (i.e. not the latest Game of the Year two disk set) then you will need to download and install the appropriate patch from Bethesda's site ... here's the link. Note that you will need to get the patch that exactly matches your game ... language and whether or not you have the Shivering Isles installed. The latest GotY version will patch the game to version 1.2.0416 when you install SI from the second disk ... you need to do that even if you never intend to play SI. The Unofficial Patches are just mods that fix things not fixed by the official patches ... they do not replace the official patches.