Striker879

As some background to what David is talking about, here's a link to the Construction Set Wiki De-Isolation Tutorial.

First off, if you just allowed the game to install to it's default location C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) you are bound to have trouble with mods. Here is a link to Bben46's wiki article Oblivion reinstall procedure. Of special note for you as a Steam user is the link near the beginning of the article on how to move your Steam folder. Also do not neglect the part about running a registry cleaner before your re-install.

Again straight from the UESP Wiki for your next quest ... Untaxing the Poor (emphasis added): All of the Thieves Guild quests work this way. You earn the right to more 'work' by showing you are worthy. Please read each quest wiki article ... I've read them all many times. Your next quest is always shown in the header summary at the top of the page, and is even hyperlinked for your convenience ... example from Untaxing the Poor (again, emphasis added):

I have fGrassWindMagnitudeMax=125.0000 and fGrassWindMagnitudeMin=5.0000 (and to the best of my recollection I've never changed those).

In the console (opened by hitting the tilde (~) key just below the Esc key on standard keyboards) type 'getstage tg01bestthief' (without the quote marks) and hit Enter. It will return the stage that the quest Best Thief is at. If the getstage returns 40 then type in 'setstage tg01bestthief 50' (again without the quotes). If it returns something else you can either figure out what the next stage should be by referring to the quest stages listed in the table at the bottom of the May the Best Thief Win UESP Wiki page or post your result here.

Drop your tree fade setting down (again courtesy of Koroush): In your Oblivion.ini (located in your Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion NOT the Oblivion_default.ini found in your game install Oblivion folder):

I don't have any first hand experience with that, but here's what Koroush has to say about it in his Oblivion Tweak Guide (emphasis added): If I am correct about your video card using TurboCache it makes the situation worse because not only does the initial data transfer and final video frame need to transfer over your 4x AGP bus but also any TurboCache transfers while the video card is calculating the frame. I'm sure there are plenty of GPU cycles wasted waiting for information as well as CPU cycles wasted waiting for video to be finished. Have a look through his Hardware Confusion and Hardware Confusion 2009 to get an appreciation of how the different pieces affect one another. Believe me, the hardest part of building a machine is deciding what parts to buy. If money was no object it would be far simpler ... just buy the fastest of each component. I don't live in that world myself.

Again from the UESP Wiki, this time from the quest walkthrough section: Did you go through Hal-Liurz to get it?

Are you running some mods that could affect the Thieves Guild?

I've never had Morrowind so I can't say much about it. When Oblivion was released it was a hardware hog and your machine isn't much over the minimum specs for the Oblivion GotY edition (and in my opinion marketing guys have way too much input into what those minimum specs are on any game). Those minimum specs are for the vanilla unmodded game. You can find plenty of threads here of people trying to get modded Oblivion running at good framerates on modern hardware. If Everest is saying your card only supports AGP 4x then it's likely a TurboCache model as well. What that means is the video card will use RAM for video processing, robbing it from the CPU for game processing. Your 1 GB will already be a limiting factor, without figuring in the TurboCache situation. I'd say either learn to enjoy the game for gameplay rather than looks (in other words turn down the graphics until the game plays at a good framerate and don't get bugged by how it looks) or enjoy Skyrim on the PS3.

If you have a look through the many and various threads here you'll find a number of missing eyes and hair threads ... might save a re-install. If you do go the re-install route have a look through Bben46's Oblivion reinstall procedure.

Oh I know all too well how time flies when you're modding Oblivion! My own machine doesn't have the oomph for many of the visual quality mods, and I'm not one for 'overhauls' myself so I can't be of much support there. From what I've seen, the usual advice is to get the vanilla game installed (and not in Program Files if you run either Vista or Win 7) and patched to version 1.2.0416, install OBSE and OBMM and then run through the sewers tutorial. Just before you exit the sewers make a save (this will come in handy if you want to start another character and don't want to go through the whole tutorial dungeon again). Make another save after exiting the sewers (your base save for that character). Travel to the Imperial City and have a stroll around there (the Market District is one of the most stressful spots). If everything is stable then add your visual tweak mods. Don't add a bunch and then test ... add one or two things and then test for both quality and stability. When you run into the inevitable problem you'll know exactly what you've added from your last stable point, which will make troubleshooting much easier. I believe the overhauls are next if you are going to use them (e.g. FCOM or OOO). If you're going to use landscape overhauls they'll need to figure into the order too ... not sure if before or after things like FCOM etc. Another thing to keep in mind ... the game is meant to be fun, don't forget to play as well as mod. Rome doesn't need to be built in one day.

When you picked up the diary did you get the quest update that said: If you didn't get that quest update you didn't grab the right book. If you have a book in your inventory called Amantius Allectius' Diary and he's still not recognizing it I'm not sure what the problem could be.

Check the Deadly Reflex thread, but I'm pretty sure you need nifSE 1.0 (sound to me like you're using a beta version of nifSE).

For Pluggy, using Windows Explorer make sure you have the following files in the folders indicated: Oblivion\Data\OBSE\Plugins\OBSE_Elys_Pluggy.dlx Oblivion\Data\OBSE\Plugins\OBSE_Elys_Pluggy.dll You will need to have Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) installed first. If you have the Steam version of the game make sure you've followed the Steam specific install instructions, and the disk versions install instruction if that's the game version you have (instructions all found in the file obse_readme.txt included with the linked download). The folders Oblivion\Data\OBSE\ and Oblivion\Data\OBSE\Plugins will not be present until you create them, unless you have previously installed some OBSE plugins. I imagine your CommandSounds.dll will have similar install instructions.

Have you seen Nitefox98's thread on the subject?

I wonder if a different tack may be easier. What if, rather than weighting the clipping body parts to the armor, you altered those body parts to not clip? Have a look at what Septfox did with the FLY Dark Brotherhood armor - Mesh tweaks and additions for an example of what I'm suggesting.

You may want to post this question in the Oblivion Mod Detectives thread ... that's what it's there for.

Imperial Furniture Renovated should do the trick.

You could use Roberts Male Body plus Roberts Female Body plus the Unofficial Oblivion Patch or you could use Roberts Male Body plus Roberts Female Body plus the Custom Race Fix and the Boethia Shrine Custom Race Fix. Just as a FYI ... the Unofficial Oblivion Patch fixes the custom race problem as well as a huge number of other problems.

Save yourself another load of problems by at least reading through the Bugs and Notes sections of the UESP Wiki Thieves Guild individual quests. Like all quests in the game there are many ways you can break them (either by not doing something they thought you would or by doing something they thought nobody would do). Here's an example of what I'm talking about (the Notes section of Finding the Thieves Guild is quoted ... and I've highlighted what is probably your problem): Arborwatch is in Chorrol.

Here's a link to How to post a load order for Oblivion off the Wiki.

Have a look at Nitefox98's thread. If you have a reasonably strong machine the suggestions found there sure do look nice. - Edit - I second Gremxula's vote for Companion Vlija. She's head and shoulders above any other companion out there.

Have a look at the UESP Wiki for all the Mages Guild quests. Take special note of the Bugs and Notes sections.